Interesting read told from the perspective of a precocious chemistry obsessed mystery-solving girl in 1950's England. Held my interest, althought there were a number of somewhat improbable scenes.

The Soaring Heights of Low Expectations

The Soaring Heights of Low Expectations

Bad Poets' Society

There is a reason why I assiduously avoid housework.  That reason is  I AWAYS GET DISTRACTED! Let's face it, I find virtually anything more satisfying than housework.  After 45 years of keeping my own home, the thrill of dusting, scrubbing, and re-arranging is gone.  Take today for example.  I decided to dust the bookshelves in the family room--and we don't even have any company coming!  But before I managed to set out the feather duster, cleaning cloth, and spray, I came upon my Passages Journal, the repository of some poetry that I had written, mostly around the time I realized that I had been suffering from depression since about the age of sixteen.  Needless to say, I was a bit of a mess, but, having identified the source of my discomfort, I was making a lot of introspective leaps of faith that I would figure things out and become a happier person to be, and to be around.  I guess a good sub-title for this post could be

"Better Living Through Chemistry"

And any number of the pieces could be better titled as  

"Prozac Moment."

As I thumbed through the journal, I even found references to chenille and hiding under beds, so perhaps it is fitting to share a bit from this journal on my blog. After all, it is who I am, or who I was some twenty-five years ago.  I have often found myself awakened by a poem in my head, or a beginning of one. Sometimes they are nearly fully formed by the time I regain consciousness enough to write them down.  And most likely, they can be judged as uniformly bad, but what the hell...

***************************************************

In 1990, I discovered that the bizarre obsession I had with pulling out my eyelashes and eyebrows had a name, Trichotillomania.  I had suffered with it since the age of eleven, and had passed the years from eleven to forty-one convinced that the only cause for this strange behavior was that I must have been certifiably crazy.  What other reason could there be to explain why  a perfectly and ordinarily vain young female would consciously deface her own face?  Lo and behold, it turned out I had a serotonin-related chemical imbalance in the brain, a medical condition whose treatment included certain anti-depressants. Over the next ten years or so, with a number of different kinds of therapies and medications, my Trichotillomania symptoms did not abate, but I learned how to deal with them, and became an expert at applying just the right kind of false eyelashes.  I also discovered that depression had been a far more debilitating problem than my peculiar follicular disorder.  Early on in my treatment with anti-depressants, I was awash in revelations and poems.  

***********************************************************

Recovery Discovery

1990

The beast no longer lives in my house;

He's taken to visiting elsewhere.

The beast no longer lives in my house;

He's unwelcome and doesn't belong there.

He sometimes returns to find doors locked tight,

The windows closed and shuttered.

But sometimes they're open to let in the light,

So he creeps in and hides in the clutter.

******************************************************************

Forgiveness

1990

Unbidden thoughts

wash over me,

Sweet waters of absolution.

Forgiveness lies so deep within,

Swim the waters of sweet absolution.

Swim the waters of sweet absolution.

*******************************************************************

Ascension

1990

I'm floating up through

pearl-pink clouds,

Into shimmers of gold

and shadows of amethyst,

Passing on to a blue so pure,

a blue so divine,

It must be the gateway to Heaven.

*******************************************************************

Life in Absentia

1990

I almost forgot to enjoy my life!

So rapt in spirals of despair, 

Plunging ever downward, 

Barely making it back to fresh air. 

~

I almost forgot to enjoy my life!

How bizarre, how can that be?

Losing sight of all that matters,

Losing touch with me.

~

I almost for got to enjoy my life!

I'm rescued now--I'm free!

Rediscovering daily joys, 

Finding my way back to me.

~

I mustn't forget to enjoy my life!

It's the only one that I've got.

I'd hate to come to the end of my trail,

And find it had all been for naught...

but a sigh. 

*******************************************************************

Sail On

for my mother

1990

Sail on, little star,

through infinite space.

Your pin-point of light 

beams infinite grace.

Sail on, little star,

astral pilgrim ship,

each life-time a port

on an endless trip.

Sail on, little star,

may you always find peace,

As you drift ever onward,

May love never cease.

Sail on, little star

to wherever time leads,

And scatter your stardust

as heavenly seeds.

 

*******************************************************************

Well now, wasn't that all  delightful?  I don't know about you, dear reader, but I think I might actually go dust something!

*Stardust stamp  from Ephie at 

http://www.mycandylove.com/forum/t55012,1-format-favors.htm

                                                    

Winnah, Winnah, Chicken Dinnah!

I was always something of a messy child.  Not a total piglet, mind you, but a stacker and a piler.  I think, in hindsight, this was a good thing, for it prepared me for a life that did not proceed in a neat-as-a-pin, orderly fashion.  I think it's why  I can usually handle a little chaos.  To wit, when one of life's myriad bumps in the road brought my daughter Melanie, and her two kids, Jaiden, and Briar, to our home to live with Jim and me.

The time together actually passed quite smoothly and quickly during the six months they were with us.  The house was once again filled with the bustles of a young family, their comings and goings, and the inevitable helping with homework.  Remembering one of my favorite of those occasions:

It had been a  busy week at our house, and the kids had been going to bed later than usual, with homework piling up, packing, attending their first funeral, and other such things.  Melanie was very busy preparing to move out into a house of their own, so I had been charged with helping the grandkids do their homework after we returned from dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant.  I was also charged with having them both in bed no later than 8:30, which was still later than their usual bedtime

Fortunately, Briar had had a short day at school and finished his homework early.  He had earned some Club Penguin time on the computer, which left me free to help Jaiden.  Good thing, for she had assignments in math, science, language arts, and history.  Jaiden and I retired to the bedroom to get started on what looked like a full evening  of work. I was thanking my lucky stars that I still remembered how to find circumference, diameter, and radius in case she needed help with her geometry.  Midway through the assignment though, her fortitude seemed to flag--and we still had much more work to complete.

I noticed that she still kept on her bed a pair of Melanie's red satin pajama shorts that Jaiden has used as her special "wubbie" since birth.  I commented that compared with supervising homework,  I had much more fun playing peek-a-boo with her when she was five months old, covering her face in the red satin, and taking much delight in her chortles and wildly flailing arms and legs.  So, we decided that she needed to put the shorts on her head, and, working independently of each other, if we came up with the same answer to a math problem, she'd  thrash her arms and legs and I would scream, "Winnah, winnah, chicken dinnah!"  No doubt about it, Grama and Jaiden are certified lame-os.  But thirty plus years in the classroom taught me nothing if not, that when instructional interest wanes, insert something bizarre and otherwise pointless.  Always my go-to lesson plan!

 Having finished the math, we moved on to a summary of plate tectonics, which I had taught about many for years, and which Jaiden understood quite well without my help.  Then a compare and contrast assignment from very interesting story about a newspaper boy in the Great Depression.  While Jaiden continued to work, I put Briar to bed and armed him with his trusty flashlight so he could read from Harry Potter for a few more minutes.

Needing a bit of movement and a change of scene, Jaiden and I headed out to the couch in the living room to tackle key points about ancient Egypt during the Middle and New Kingdoms. (Have I mentioned that none of the assignments that night were remotely like anything I learned about in sixth grade?)  Jaiden was quite impressed with my knowledge of this era. I didn't tell her it was mostly from having watched so many Charleston Heston and Debra Paget pot-boilers in the fifties.  Some of Granny's secrets, are better kept, mummy-like, under wraps! She'd have no idea who those helpful old movie stars were, so I just told her to just keep watching PBS, like her grandparents.

By 9:30, Jaiden staggered off to bed, homework completed, and ready for night-night.  After tucking her in with her satin and kissing her goodnight, I wandered over to the computer to check out Facebook.  All I can say is that after two and a half hours of school work, "Winnah, winnah, chicken dinnah!" had lost some of its luster.  The "baby" Jaiden Raine still looked  smashing in her red satin, and Grama Marilyn looked like she should be permanently placed UNDER a peek-a-boo blankie!