VirusHead

I give up. I’ve been totally inundated by requests from my Facebook friends to post this meme. I’ve done “random things about me” posts before, but as Darrell points out, they were posted too long ago now to use as an avoidance mechanism. So, here are 25 new ones:

1. I am fascinated by faces. The mindful, authentic, observant face-to-face encounter might be the essential ingredient in most relationships – and certainly the test of most ethics and “values.” The very definition of pathology for me is someone who can look you in the eye, see your soul, and then still hurt or kill you.
2. I’m not adjusting to getting older very well. When I look at my face in the mirror, it doesn’t look like me and I feel a bit alienated and depressed. But at the same time, I love to see the changes in the faces of people I love. This last year, it was an amazing experience to go to my high school reunion and to see the faces of people that I’ve known since I was a child. The recognition-within-difference really touched me very deeply.
3. I do miss some aspects of other times and places in my life, but overall there is more kindness and caring and love and meaning in my life now than ever before. Sometimes that kind of stuns me.
4. Sometimes the only thing that will motivate me to attack my list of things to do is the prospect of being rewarded with some time alone in which I’m not required to do anything in particular. I’m a fierce guardian of that dreamtime – no obligation, rich imagination. My thoughts travel on their own -and mix up and ferment and rearrange and become resonant and meaningful. Not only is this ultimately the source of every major insight I’ve ever had, but without it, I wouldn’t be me to myself. My secret world is the heart of who I am.
5. I love to socialize, but it totally exhausts me. This is partially because I tend to overcompensate in various ways for my introversion. Later, I usually feel that I’ve not listened enough to others. I curse this recurring and almost irresistible urge to try to be amusing and likable and clever. It takes a lot of energy, I’m not very good at it, and I know that I should just zip it a lot more often than I’m able to do.
6. I’m still looking for my ideal pair of shoes – the shoes that don’t hurt my feet, that look gorgeous but have a heel of less than an inch, that are strapped or tied over my incredibly high arch and don’t let my tiny heel slip out, but that are wide enough at the front not to smoosh my toes or put pressure at the widest part. These mythical shoes would be perfect for any occasion and any outfit. I could wear them with jeans or a cocktail dress. Let me know if you find them. I suspect they have to be black.
7. I can’t let go of my books. I have too many, but I can’t let go of them. Even the Karl Barth.
8. My spiritual beliefs and practices are at once so eclectic and yet oddly inflexible that I doubt I’ll ever be a member of a religious community. I have the strangest things on my alter.
9. I’m almost absurdly grateful when I feel like someone I like “gets” me.
10. I miss the kind of cheerful feminism represented by such songs as Helen Reddy’s “I am Woman” and the tv theme song for Wonder Woman. Although I love the angry music and the whiny music, too, I wonder what happened to that soaring sense of confidence.
11. My energy level is never very predictable. I never know how productive I’m going to be. I work in very efficient spurts, but then I’m overwhelmingly fatigued. This can be measured in hours or in days. When I feel exhausted, I tend to become a bit reclusive. I still think of the couple of weeks that I had to be on corticosteroids (for systemic poison ivy) with a lot of fondness, because it gave me just enough of that little extra adrenaline boost to let me feel like I imagine many people do most of the time.
12. I like to take a walkabout from time to time. I love to travel alone. I used to disappear into the woods for a week, but that’s neither possible nor even really desirable anymore.
13. It’s kind of predicable – and I don’t blame anyone for rolling their eyes – but our son Ben really is the most beautiful sweet smart amazing kid ever. I hope he continues on his own path – just the way he is already doing.
14. The greater percentage of what I write is still never read by anyone but me.
15. I would prefer to die in a manner and a moment of my own choosing. Skydiving would be the ideal, and although I don’t have to ride down on a missile like in Dr. Strangelove, I can understand the appeal.
16. I love the moon, and I love to sing to the moon and to the night sky, especially if the songs are actually about the moon and sky and stars. Some favorites: Sister Moon, Sting; Fingernail Moon, Annie Lennox; Sisters of the Moon, Fleetwood Mac; Goodnight Moon, Shivaree; Stars, The Weepies; Galaxy Song, Monty Python; In the Deep, Bird York; Small Blue Thing, Suzanne Vega – and for some reason, Strawberry Fields.
17. I’ve finally come to terms with the reality that I’m never going to be a Jungian analyst, a comparative mythologist, a well-known poet, a best-selling novelist, or an accomplished singer. I doubt I’ll ever play the piano like Tori Amos.
18. I love paranormal romance novels – especially those involving vampires or fae. John (the hubby) is amused by this and often teases me about my “porn collection.”
19. I don’t often wear perfume, but when I do it’s usually either a vanilla-musky Must de Cartier or a combination of lavender, mandarin, lemongrass, and bergamot. One drop of either is enough to alter my experience of the world for hours. I hope other people like it too, but that’s not really as important.
20. I have twice had the opportunity – and twice refused – to swim in the Mediterranean.
21. I deal with melancholy much better than I deal with anger. You can try to make me depressed if you must, but don’t piss me off. I’m not easily angered at all, but hell hath no fury like a Heidi-grr.
22. The thing that most infuriates me is the sense of powerlessness I feel when I want to somehow make everything all better for someone who is suffering. I can be very empathetic, but at a certain point I feel like a minor prophet waving my fist at the sky. That’s when I most need a little alone time to breathe and reorient myself.
23. When I was younger, I used to be petrified – really petrified – that the people I love would be killed. I had nightmares about my brothers (most of all my brothers) and other relatives, and my son and husband, and some of my dearest friends, and even a couple of my teachers. The worst part of the dream was always that they might have been saved if only I had done one little thing differently. After my Dad died, these nightmares went away. I don’t know why that happened, but I’m grateful.
24. I do often dream about my Dad. He’s different in my dreams than he was in reality, but it still helps – or maybe that’s why it helps.
25. I don’t know whether or not I can still pet a fuzzy honeybee until it goes to sleep in the palm of my hand. I haven’t seen one of those bees in years. I miss the lilacs too.

And here are the old ones:

• 8 Random Facts about VirusHead – December 2007
• VirusHead Random 8 – June 2007
• 5 Weird Things about Me – July 2006
• Meme Me Me – November 2005

Nestled front and center against a huge cumulus cloud, the moon looks like a hole in the sky tonight. My camera can’t capture the mood, but there is a fiery/faerie halo around the whole moon. It’s beautiful. It rained last night, so the full moon was hidden, but tonight’s moon still looks pretty full to me.

Moon over Atlanta

“Then came old January wrapped well
In many weeds to keep the cold away;
Yet did he quake and quiver, like to quell,
And blow his nails to warm them if he may.”
- Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queen

I’m cold. I can’t get warm tonight.

I’m sending out hope and care and love and light to so many people I know, people I care about who have lost jobs and lost houses. There’s one smashed up car and one damaged car, a fire, and several scary medical emergencies. I’m hearing about a fair bit of smallness and meanness and drama of one kind or another, and also about how people are having a hard time making ends meet, and who are trying to navigate very difficult terrain. It seems like this should be a time when we all pull together and be more helpful and supportive of one another. Even among those who are doing relatively fine, there seems to be a widespread tendency to depression and fatigue. Perhaps it’s normal for the post-holiday January blahs, especially considering the snow and ice and flooding and who knows what else.

I’m thinking about one friend in particular tonight, a woman who not only had to go through what had to be a very frightening experience when her lovepartner had a brain aneurysm, but then had to deal with a family member who blamed the incident on the fact that her religious beliefs weren’t identical to his own. As if God would punish her – and through someone she loved – for her non-compliance to some spiritual midget’s unthinking person’s standards. Now she’s being threatened with disassociation from the rest of the family because she had the courage to point out that such a statement wasn’t very caring or supportive of family in a medical crisis. This young woman has already been through so much. She is a very compassionate and caring person. She is blunt when confronting unfairness, but she is also just learning how to really articulate a lot of things that have been painful and destructive to her – as well as things that she has learned through her own experience and insight. She is courageous and curious and she loves her boyfriend and the animals she rescues and the friends in her life. She will be ok, I know – but I can also palpably feel her sense of betrayal and pain. It must be awfully hard to deal with that on top of navigating the medical system and trying to make sure that her boyfriend is taken care of properly. He’s a stellar guy – intelligent and creative – and I know they’ll support one another through all this. He’s already doing much better. I hope that she can focus on being with him, and bracket out the rest – at least for a little while until the whole situation has a time-out.

Sometimes, though, when I hear about these things, I’m struck by the anti-agapic qualities of so many people who think they are religious, and I feel a little sick. I know that it means a lot to offer caring and support, but I also feel helpless. I have empathy, and a tendency to try to heal hurts – even just imaginatively. You never know what might help. But what do you say to someone when you can’t make anything better or easier for them? I’m thrashing around half the time myself.

I tried to watch the news tonight, and I actually couldn’t bear it. I had to walk away. I’m freezing and I can’t seem to reset my thermostat. I can’t get warm. I’m tired.

I’m thinking about all kinds of changes – how life moves on, whether or not you’re ready. I know that I have to keep starting again, and that a more hopeful-trusting-positive attitude would be vastly preferable for me. It works… then it doesn’t work. I’m full of confidence and creative ideas, then everything deflates and I find myself looking at some small small rock on the ground for ten minutes – or I realize that I’ve daydreamed several contradictory scenarios trying to work something out when I haven’t even identified what I’m practicing for – why am I creating conversations in my head? They have nothing to do with the dialogue that I’ve been trying to write – it would be great if they were. I’ve dreamed people that don’t exist, and places I’ve never been, and situations that will never exist. And I revise them – for nothing, really. It doesn’t help to know that my internal scenes are passing, and what seems so emotionally fraught will seem somewhat inconsequential and silly at some later time. It’s like when you’re a kid and you attach yourself to a song and it seems so meaningful, and then years later you have to laugh, just remembering how important and serious it seemed at the time.

I’ve been fine, then not fine, then depressed, then creative, then hopeful, then tired, then depressed again… and I’m really losing interest in my own thoughts and feelings. I just want to curl up with a book. Everything I have on hand that I haven’t already read is spiritually uplifting and hopeful and again – another wave of nausea at the thought.

I know it’s all very silly. I know that I am loved – despite how difficult I can make that – and that the wheel will turn. As scary as it can sometimes be, change is something that can be counted on. Things will change, and then they’ll change some more – everything is always in process. Trying to hang on to a static reality is deadly, anyway. It’s best to pay attention, adjust, ride it through – or surf it if you can – and be open to the bl(i)ssings as they arrive over the top of the other side.

There was a big beautiful viewable almost-full moon last night. Ahhh… that’s better.

In which the author of this blog indulges in an freewheeling rant over a fairly trivial irritation:

Clouds!!!! Gotta get those clouds, man! They are SO DOOMED.

I KNEW IT!!!! I knew that something would interfere!

All I wanted was to see the MOON! Is there something WRONG with that?

I mean, how often do I get to see the gorgeous beautiful full moon, and during a partial eclipse too!

I had it all built up. No detachment for me. I had EXPECTATIONS. And I got Ben all excited about it too.

We all went out to see “Journey to the Center of the Earth” in 3D and it was fun. Then we went to the little airport near here and watched planes take off and ate calamari and chicken fingers and all that kind of thing. And we didn’t even mind when it started to rain, because it was muggy and the water was refreshing at first. We did eventually have to come inside… Of course, when the under-trained manager wanted to tell us where we could and couldn’t sit (the place was half-empty) I had to explain that our waiter was a bright boy and I had every confidence in the world that he could find us again. She actually persisted! So we all just sat down and I had to say in a sweet – really! – but firm tone, “we’re sitting right here.” But things were still good. They WERE.

As we drove home, I observed that the heat was steaming the recent rain right up into the air. Ben and I laughed about driving through a baby cloud. And then the sweet little bits of wispy evaporation had the NERVE to turn into cloud cover and deprive me of my moon tonight!

John crashed early, but Ben and I were determined to see that moon. Oh, we walked. Finally, we even drove. We climbed up to “top field” at his school, we went over to the grocery store area, where there were no trees. Not ONE BIT OF HINT OF THE MOON IN ANY DIRECTION!

We drove all around and I finally had to give up. We came back. Ben was mopey from the hopeless search. Where is the MOON? Where IS it?

I looked up moonrise, moonset, the direction.

Yes! Just as I thought. From our back deck, straight back into the horrible horrible woods full of huge menacing oak trees. Those trees, dropping huge limbs every time there’s a breeze, covered with purple meat-like fungus clusters, and all kinds of other unidentifiable sporey creatures.. Those TREES – always threatening to fall down and kill us, leaning toward the house with their rotten cavities gaping…. oh, they don’t like me. And I don’t like them right back. No wonder my boys can’t breathe right.

The trees often block my view of the moon, but once in a while they filter the moonlight in a charming blue-silver pattern so I try to forgive them. But it doesn’t matter WHAT I do, does it?!?! Nothing is ever good enough! I try and I try and it’s never enough to matter for anything! If I’m so damn smart why can’t I EVER EVER EVER…..

Those CLOUDS!!!!! They aren’t even pretty clouds. No individual formations are visible… it’s just a high diffuse COVER dense enough that all you can see is the pink-orange reflection of the city lights. Not a star. Not a moonbeam, not even a GLOW. Nada. Nothing. Zilch.

Ahhhh….. why is it that the universe conspires against me like this? Once in a while, can’t you choose somebody else??? I just want to be invisible. I don’t ask for much. Once in a while, can’t you be a little more F’ing BENEVOLENT? What do you WANT from me anyway? Don’t you have some peers for your reindeer games?

Bam! Bam! BAM-BAMMMM!

Blasted clouds. Stupid city where you can’t see any stars. Ridiculous pink-orange night sky. I hate it.

I hate it all. I hate this city. I hate this place. And it’s all the clouds’ fault.

WHY DID I EVER COME TO THIS PLACE?

ATLANTA? WAS I OUT OF MY MIND?

I thought I’d be here for a couple-few years, get my Ph.D., get a job at Berkeley maybe or in New England, and LEAVE. I never intended to put myself in this position forever.

And then it took forever. really. forever.

And my advisor… and then I … and I met… and I couldn’t even.. and it…. and it was suddenly too late… everything was too late… AND THESE CLOUDS ARE REALLY PISSING ME OFF!

ARGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! I can deal with people hating me for being an educated white female liberal from Massachusetts (or Massa-TWOSHITS), I can deal with every insincere “bless your heart,” and every attempt to indoctrinate my son, I can even forgive idiotic and self-righteous conformity to profoundly destructive viewpoints, but really, NOW I CAN’T EVEN SEE A FULL MOON WHEN I WANT TO?

The CLOUDS ARE OUT TO GET ME! IT’s NOT FAIR!!!!!!!! And I’m SICK of IT. Sick of it. Sick of it. And I don’t CARE that I’m being unreasonable!

I’m sick of being forgiving. I’m sick of being an adult. I want to have a gigantic tantrum, and shake the earth! Thunder! Lightning! Wind! I want to SHAKE things and scream “What is WRONG with you?” And then, “JUST DO WHAT I SAY! DON’T THINK, JUST DO IT!” ARGGGGGGG!

EVERYTHING! I Fu…

Deep breath.

Loop it. Reality check – completely missing of course, but in kind of a cute way. Liking the clouds anger. Good scapegoat target for pent-up frustration. Kind of a Peanuts “curse the darkness” thing going.

I’m gonna SMACK those clouds, man. SMACK! Right in the face. SMACK. Hee hee.

Whew. That felt great.

Gotta let it out every once in a while. I think the clouds can take it. They’re stronger than they’re given credit for.

But those clouds – and water in general – owe me one.

Let’s review, class: I can’t even get up a full rant. It didn’t even generalize completely. Still, I think we’ve covered Projection, Paranoia, Anthropomorphism, Infantile Regression, Displacement, Scapegoating, Power – Command/Control, Catharsis, Humor, Cultural Intertextuality and therefore Intellectualization, ending with light touching of Magical Thinking. Oh, right, and Self-Pity, Self-Centeredness – an overall Temper Tantrum.

Because I was denied an archetypal experience of cool serenity, the antidote to my lonely bit of nothingless in the cosmos… and yet, I am detached from it, too.

Actually, things have gotten a lot better in the last year or so. Most of this anger is just old echoing stuff that I’m actually done with now. Atlanta’s not so bad, and it’s not as if I ever really belong anywhere anyway.

I do feel better. I just hate being disappointed.

If I can’t soak up the cool moon, a homeopathic dose of fire will suffice.

Enjoy this glorious full moon wherever you are!

Full Moon!

NASA – Partial Lunar Eclipse