We all have to be someplace...

Evaporate 2Jun / Condensate 3Jun

I have been in Ireland for 10 solid days. I have been meaning to write here the entire time, but I realize that isn't the same as actually sitting down to write. I started this post at 9:01am and I am still sort of sleep. I've been waking up in the middle of the night, going back to sleep until 12pm, I'm not entirely sure if it's jet lag or if it's just me sleeping it out, which is something I rarely do at home because there is always something tugging at me: me having to be someplace, a niece or nephew (by the way, a far superior way to wake up is having a small child climbing up on your bed and requesting "goofydonald" on your tv), the dog barking in my face wanting a walk, mom with a necessary task, my sister flinging open the door: "y'wan'go t'breffix?" (I could murder a plate of hash and eggs btw) and then there is me waking up because I feel like I should be doing something for someone, so I will get up and wander the house for a little before someone wakes up to keep me company.
Anyway, I am not going to complain or whine, instead I am going to look forward and be grateful that I have had the opportunity to do this: to go away for 2 months. People my age do what I am doing only after they have had and raised children and all of those kids are grown and off to college or raising their own families, or worked and worked for everyone else but themselves and then it's "FINALLY, I can ... "
I'm not a "Finally" kind of person. Never have been, don't think I really ever will be. I love experiences, great and small. They are all a part of the journey, they are the things that build up that store of memories to look back on when I am at the end in that nursing home, stroked-out, hands curled and useless, eyes blind and staring. I know I will be reliving the things that I have done because I decided to take the chance, or grabbed the opportunity, to do them.

Black Woman in Ireland - 10 June 2016

...And so here I am, a woman of a certain age, in Ireland, staying in a castle that is over 200 years old and it is an Art Historian's absolute dream. It is utterly romantic in the sense that it is a castle that is over 200 years old. The rooms are cold, and beat up but there are traces of what it once was. There are 4 or 5 rooms on the floor where everyone lives that have been made liveable, and they are lovely. The room I am in is he Earl's room, apparently no one has slept in here for over a hundred years until me, with my laptop, my music and camera-phones.
The view is astounding. I am on the 3rd floor, which is probably the 4th floor in everyday floors, I am almost higher than the tops of very large yew trees. Beyond them is a field where you can hear sheep or cows (I can't tell the difference because...well...animals sounds is not in my wheel-house), then there is a wall and then traffic. It's amazing.

From my window at 8:46pm - 7 June 2016

As time goes on, I will have done more research on the place I am staying and there will photos and pics of the place and the surrounding country.

Happy Saturday

Valentine’s Day is not my favorite time of the year. Let’s face it, everyone at some time or another has dreaded the arrival of February 14th. I used to think that Valentine’s Day was made up by the big, consumerist, greeting card companies and candy manufacturers who took it upon themselves to personally remind me that I am single, that I have always been single, and I will always BE single. That was then, though. I do have friends who still find the day extremely difficult to face if they don’t have someone to “boo love” with, who will get them waxy candy and wilting flowers.

Me? I have a standing date with my Best Boy Buddy, Andrew. We get really good food and watch everyone else be in love for the night.

The real history behind St. Valentine’s Day is slightly disturbing. The day has its roots in a pagan holiday that took place in February called Lupercalia, which was a purification festival in honor of Lupercus, the wolf-god that reared Romulus and Remus. It also could quite possibly have been a fertility festival in honor of the god Faunus (that half man half goat god that always wanted people to be horny). The festival would kick off with the sacrificing of an animal, and the men would beat young women with bloody strips of the animal’s skin to bestow fertility. No. Just...no.

The most likely history of the day is that it is named for Valentine, a Christian Martyr who was decapitated sometime around the 14th of February, back when the centuries were in the single digits and Christianity was still kind of new. The story goes that the Roman Emperor Claudius believed that if young soldiers were married, they would not want to fight because they did not want to leave their families. So, he banned marriages between young men and women. However, Valentine, a priest, would marry young people in secret, against the emperor’s wishes. Eventually, Claudius found out what he was doing, had him arrested and sentenced to death.

During Valentine’s time in prison, the story goes, the young couples he married would pass notes of love and support to him through the barred windows. Another legend is that Father Valentine fell in love with his jailer’s daughter and on the day of his execution he passed  her a note that was signed “From Your Valentine” which is probably the spark that set off the romantic notions that would follow centuries later.

When the practice of pagan rituals was banned, Pope Gelasius I declared February 14 to be St. Valentine's Day, a day of love in all of its Christian morality and chasteness. Centuries later, romantic authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer and Shakespeare helped seal the deal with references to the day in their works.

Whatever you believe of St. Valentine’s Day, the point is that most people do it because they want the fairy tale. All you have to do is look around and see that the bigger the gesture the greater the desperation.  Real couples do it for each other because they once felt that way and now appreciate the special-ness, albeit rarely idyllic circumstance. 

I don’t mind it because we all know that the real holiday is February 15^th when all the Valentine’s Day candy goes on sale for 75% off!

I'm Lying in Bed

I - am lying in bed.

I - am lying in bed.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

In through the nose and

out through the mouth.

Or was it the other way 'round?

I supposed it doesn't matter as long as I am breathing, right?

I have to do that

Remind myself that I am in bed.

Walking down the street.

Driving.

Washing dishes.

Shopping at Walmart.

I have to remind myself to be in the moment

So I don't fly off the surface of the earth.

If I force myself to feel every moment in a shitty day

Maybe I would find a few moments that weren't so shitty.

Maybe I could bear being in a life that is 

Too small and ill fitting
Maybe I would finally know it is OK to be here,

For now.

If I focus on NOW 

And Right NOW

And Right NOW

And Right NOW

Maybe I'll be able to see the future more clearly.

Wednesday after 4

It is Wednesday, sometime after 4pm. I am sitting in my favorite coffee shop, Rabbitfoot Records (which I will talk about in another post, on another day). There is a couple next to me playing chess. I have seen them in here before and they speak to each other as if they are newly dating. I like that. It gives me no hope for myself, mind you, but I am glad 2 people have sort of found themselves and are taking the time to get to know each other...I actually don't know their story, but...
ANYway.
It is pouring out and I am inside with a cup full of unsweetened iced tea, struggling with a paper that's due tomorrow at 8am, along with a presentation and a speech.
The paper, as you may have guessed from the title of the post is not actually on the Fibonacci Sequence, but the Golden Ratio.
It is NOT easy, but I picked the topic, because I thought it would be easy, which was my first mistake. I should have picked something completely foreign to me and that might have been easier.
This post isn't anything but a pressure valve release. nothing much to it.