It's a Mystery

These last years, I thought I’d be sipping iced drinks with friends or lounging on a porch; my life’s been interesting, challenging, and fun, but never much of a mystery, so why now?
        Google is gone from my computer; the only way to get back on is through MSN, which won’t let me enter my email account unless I allow them to organize my life. Why do I feel as if someone were trying to control me?
          For a person who took things at face value, I’m suddenly seeing conspiracies and alternate motives. Did I awake from a dream where life was hard but fair into a world where no one can be trusted?

Do I sound paranoid; I feel a tad paranoid today. Yesterday, on the way home from the gym a tree blocked the road forcing me to detour on a new road with colorful flowers gracing the yards of lovely homes, so I was enjoying myself without a worry.

Between the mogotes (steep hills) roads twist and turn so frequently I’m not sure of which way to go with lesser roads seldom marked it’s a crap shoot because signals don’t enter steep ravines, so you’re on your own. Suddenly I’ve gone from la-la-la-la to oh, hell, where am I?  Rock walls so steep I can no longer see the light of day depress me; I don’t want to be here. The road I came in on is blocked by a tree and now I haven’t a clue of where I’ll end up.

Some of the houses on this road are jaw dropping beautiful, so I calm down a bit to look. Flower beds and landscaping I admire so I’m starting to think of this as a happy little island adventure and I’m confident I’ll work my way home before long. A house with a pool and cabana in the yard of my dreams gets a full stop and gawk; I couldn’t help myself, but I see movement in the house and don’t wish to be rude, so I move along.

The setting sun darkens the chasm; I notice to my right a ten-foot chain link fence with razor wire on the top on a road that suddenly feels like it's going nowhere. Times like this I don’t do myself any favors; this fence with razor wire has me thinking about the book set on an island where scientists splice humans and animals together.

Calm down you’re freaking yourself out; take some deep breaths. This f’ing fence seems like it’s going on forever just like the ravine. I know I’m letting my imagination run wild and laugh at myself. I see nothing but vegetation behind the fence; why are my palms sweaty? I poke around for something to eat; maybe, my blood sugar is low.

There’s a clearing on the right; oh, wow, I’ll get to see why the expensive fence in the middle of the last place on earth. I catch a glimpse of a road going through a clearing and then I’m blinded by an unforgiving light. Holy shit, I shield my eyes with my hand and speed up; the intense light disorients me. I almost drive into a ditch, but manage to continue. I can’t wait to get the hell out of here; walls of green on either side of the narrow road turn to black. Good heaven how much farther can it be; I should be getting to the road going out the other side, where I can GPS and route my way home. What in hell was that place with those blinding lights; that’s crazy?

Calle sin salida read the sign at the end of the road. A road without exit  with the sign at the end of the road; no one needed to tell me that now, the wall at the end of the road gave me a clue. My head felt as if it would explode; this long ass road had a no exit sign at the end. F’ing great! The urge to cry quickly overcome by get the hell out of here now spurred my U-turn; how would I get past the entrance to the hidden installation I’d stumbled on to?

Headlights shining on limbs reaching over the road reminded me of a dozen horror movies I’d seen growing up. I prayed not see anyone pop out of the dark. I had to pee as it was. As I approached the entrance to the camp now on my left I covered the window with a clipboard and kept trucking.

My rapid pulse slowed when the fence ended and nice houses appeared again. Extremely nice houses on a dead end road hidden near a fresh water lake on a tropical island, I pondered that when I saw head lights behind me. I had a quarter tank of gas left, so I decided to drive as fast as I could to the most public place I could find and get gas when I ended up where the tree had been across the road. I was on my road home; the saints be praised!

The lights pulled into the gas station behind me. Calm down; it’s nothing until it’s something, I told myself. I grabbed a candy bar while in line to pay for my gas. In walked a fit, attractive older man. His face barely registered any reaction when he took his place in line behind me and I burst into laughter. The scene reminded me of some many stories I had to laugh, the nervous guffaw of one realizing this might not be a romantic comedy, but the terminator.

Quickly, I sped into the night taking the long way around the lake home until I no longer saw a light in my rear view mirror. This morning I greeted the dawn glad to be alive.

Do you see what I mean?

 

An Ordinary Man

Stories are told about beautiful people with photographic memories who can sing. One of the first things we learn about our heroine is that she has flawless skin and great legs. Our hero excelled in the military before retiring to become rich.

Invariably they come from the lower ranks, so they came up the hard way. Ninety-eight percent of us love the tale of hard work and success. It gives us hope of being special.

Our identity, what’s more personal, what do we hold more sacred? I mean have you ever met a lawyer without finding out they were a lawyer in the first ten minutes?

Everybody wants to be special, to excel at something, or to be someone who matters. I met a man poolside at a resort in the Dominican Republic, who without even being introduced told me he was wearing a five hundred dollar tee shirt, named the artists and pieces hanging on his walls, and what type of car he drives. I left before he could brag about his other investments.

Image building beginning immediately alternately bores and frightens me. Image builders seldom want to hear anything about you; have you noticed that? I remember a man, a grand champion of image building say about people he had just met, “They were very impressed with me.” It’s easy to see where this could become a toxic pre-occupation.

What’s the matter with being ordinary? I know a man who upon mentioning someone of his acquaintance fastidiously lists all of the person’s special qualities. When I heard my credentials recited, I laughed; must we be so special?

Nobody wants to be thought of as a dumb ass, but this competition to be the special one annoys me, since I’m alone so often; who wants to spend precious time listening to someone brag? Or worse yet they brag until it drags your inner bragger and you catch yourself bragging back.  

My husband was an ordinary man, who identified himself as a teamster, the last of the American cowboys. He taught young visitors to our small farm how to track animals in the woods. He talked about nature. Men referred to him as a man’s man, a manly man; he was respected. I appreciated the uncommon qualities in an ordinary man; he was special to me.

 

When Good Things Happen

Have you noticed the weird ways we react to things? When something extraordinarily good would happen to my mom, like the time I gave her a new car, she got a headache. The headache seemed to come regularly with good news.
My brother appeared to blow it off as nothing or just another day that could go sour at any moment. I get so excited you’d think cotton candy was just rated as a low calorie health food.
Reacting strangely to good news surprises me more than how we react to bad news. Bad news or a negative encounter feels like a heavy hand on my head; I can’t wait to shake it off. Learning some techniques on how to shake it off more effectively would help. My ritual of mentally saying, WTF and rolling my eyes to heaven works until something really gets me, and then, I could use a better plan.
I hated to find myself in full blown pissed mode because I could say some hurtful things without a thought. I hate hurting people even when in y opinion they deserve it. I hate how mean that makes me feel.
Now I hate letting myself get pissed because it raises my blood pressure; it’s not good for me.
How long will this last? How can I escape this negativity? Can we make this okay?
Have you ever had a ton of fun friend, who said demeaning things to you? Or made you feel inadequate?
I had a friend who would call me a bitch for the slightest provocation; for example, if I didn’t want to see the movie she wanted, she’d call me bitch.  At first, I ignored it thinking she was taking her frustrations out on me and would get over it. I told her I didn’t like and asked her to stop, but she didn’t.
People’s temper triggers should be respected unless the provoker really wants war because that’s what happens or the provoked wimps out. I don’t like who I can become when angry, so my answer to fun, but abusive people is always, “Goodbye.”
Some people love bickering, saying snippy things and crying to high heaven when war words are returned. Maybe all the evil that gets tossed around in sport soaks into our souls so we act all goofy when truly good things happen; what do you think?

Strange Vibrations

We’re living at an exciting time; yes, I said exciting, not stressful, although that’s true also. We talk about energy vibrations and how things resonate and recently I’ve read a number of articles about how even miles away separated cells vibrate the same. This lends credence to intuitive health modalities I’ve studied and I find that truly exciting.

Holistic healers speak about intention, to focus in your mind the desired outcome. I never bought into that part, preferring to focus on the mechanics of what I was doing. As happens from time to time, I was wrong.

Intention energy created the universe and I was too stupid to pick up on its importance. They say we co-create our world with God through our intentions; yet, at this old age, I’m only now acquiring the habit of asking what outcome I want with things I’m doing. So often I simply find myself doing, proving once again that it’s never too late for a duh moment.

It shocks me how often an old lady can feel like a little girl, but when I contemplate what it means to be an energetic being, I get so excited and vibrate so rapidly I can’t stand it; I have to give myself a time out to calm down.

Perhaps this is why I’m able to see these anomalous energy shifts happening on the planet. I think its aliens, but honestly, I don’t know. Other than the shimmering, we have men and dogs behaving differently.

Other women have reported men behaving strangely, but most of the time that’s just men for you or women’s perception.

Dogs either like you or don’t; they’re not the type to love you one day and bark wildly at you the next.

At first I found these reality blips scary, and then annoying, but I began to notice, well, like I said, men and dogs behaving differently.

One woman said the cow would no longer let her husband milk it and her husband seemed subdued. I couldn’t get her to elaborate. She had the same apprehensive vibe I’ve had for a while now.

Part of the trouble is that if you ask women if they’ve noticed men acting strangely, they want to tell you about what he’s done in the relationship. I could be wrong, but I tend to discount that.

The guys at my gym seem the same, except for one. For months he ignored me, looked right through me. At the gym I stay focused on my workout, so ignoring him was easy, but if you make eye contact with me, I’m going to smile, at least; that’s who I am.

The other day he walked up to me with the bearing of someone who had something to tell. “Did you hear what happened to our friend?” “What friend?” I asked incredulously to this seeming opening to a confidence.

“You know,” he motioned to the counter by the door; his actions indicated pain or difficulty in getting it out.

“She was in a horrible car accident.”  He seemed to be having a terrible time.

“Is she alive?”

I like this woman, so became concerned.

“Oh, no, she’s alive,” he said with relief washing his face.

“Is she alright; how badly was she hurt?” I wanted to know.

“She broke her nose, has two black eyes and bruised her right arm,” he reported before adding, “There was a horse in the accident, too, and he pissed all over her.”

Huh? I couldn’t wrap my head around this new information; how could a woman in her SUV be pissed on by a horse?

Before I could formulate a sensible question the woman in question walked through the door beautifully coiffed and made up wearing a brand new exercise outfit, not what you’d expect from a woman just in an accident.

Could this be an example of this aberrant behavior observed in men? Who knows? Men saying weird shit seems normal actually.

 

Men And

Much of what I’ve read lately involves sexism, objectifying women, referring to them as a pussy to be grabbed, and other rotten garbage. At the horrible end of the spectrum, I saw a video of two men whipping a woman with sticks and a story about a nine-year-old girl be married to an old man. Do you imagine she dreamt about him for years before being allowed to wed?
There is a hierarchy, a pecking order that begins because this is mine; it’s the best food or place to sleep for the alpha male. We find this in nature so the handiwork of creation absolves men due to intrinsic ignorance. At the core, God has to have the nature of both sexes, but reproduction, women must have been an afterthought; how else can you explain cramps and monthly menstruation? Surely childbirth could have been better engineered. 
In the beginning, nature favored men with bigger and stronger; with few exceptions, men lead and women follow. Male privilege, ingrained throughout evolution is part of all of our exchanges. We are only women and as evangelical preachers extol, “Women should do as their husbands say!”
Pride and power lead to greed where women contribute a fair share. We’re reaching a point on the planet where bigger and stronger is controlled by smarter; I pray that wiser comes along for the ride.
With the current pecking order, the old crones have less value than ever. The knowledge of a lifetime no longer includes remedies or midwifery; what value does society place on older women?
Bigger and stronger have better is the basis of the male pecking order, but we all know females have a different hierarchy, and only at the top do females have any power. Scientists write papers about this in other species.
A man respects a woman as much as his ego allows him to respect anyone. Some men are so comfortable in their skin that being in their presence enhances a woman’s self-esteem; my husband was one of those guys. I’ve been blessed.
Men hit women because they’re scared that bigger and stronger doesn’t always beat cut throat and women have learned to excel or they’re just assholes.
The recent presidential election demonstrated a powerful man behaving badly, as if he answered to no one, acting out before men yearning for the power to at least be disrespectful to those they believe to be less than themselves. The chant, “Lock her up,” chilled me to my core.    
 I rode on the shoulders of suffragettes who marched and died for women's’ right to vote in America. We marched for equality and parity of pay; later young women called us feminists as if that were a bad thing and said they wouldn’t join us. Young women may think that because their pussy is being grabbed they have power.
An average sixty-eight-year-old woman is likely to have a stream of men push in front of her at the airport; I’ve been knocked down by a man hardly aware I was there. Most men when you point out their trespass become gracious however reluctantly.
As an older woman I’m venerable and vulnerable, it took a long time to make me with the best part being I have time to focus on discoveries to bring joy to my life. My value is in having been created by God.
Why some men are miserable to women is a problem for wiser minds; I pray God to keep me safe from them. 
Women seem to be the ones noticing the anomalies; maybe we’re better observers or we’re not perceived as a threat. I haven’t been able to get a man to admit noticing anything. Are you surprised?
As long as my Google is being jammed, I need to be careful. Be watchful, look for a shimmering and enjoy your day.

Becoming the Old Girl

We made each other laugh and shared stories; wherever we were, we were home as long as we were together. I loved my life with him, loved being with him.
Adjusting to being single, that’s an adjustment! Without your other half life loses that cheery glow of sharing. At a time in your life when you’ve lost the people close to you, who cared about what you said or thought, you can end up depressed because nobody gives a damn. People who you can connect with remain on the planet, but you don’t know them.
Want to hear something funny? Recently people have asked if I’ve re-married, yet. It hasn’t quite been four years and casually people have said, “You married again?” The first time someone asked, I felt my eyes pop out of my head. What!!!
I suppose what amuses me the most about that question is that to other people finding a mate, someone to meld with just happens.
If the truth be told, I would enjoy a flirtation, maybe even a kiss, but by our senior years men and women have been so beat up by each other that damaged in transit is stamped on foreheads.
My journey without my husband has become about self-discovery. To do something until I say that I don’t want to do it anymore, put it down and try something else to see if it pleases will surprise you with the number of things quickly discarded.
Contrary to what I was taught as a child, you don’t have to stick with something if you don’t want to; knowing that gives me freedom.
Losing my inner circle within a few years has painfully given me the freedom to explore more life choices if I have the courage and will. As the years march, I no longer feel required to have either courage or will, but life is more interesting with I find.
Transitioning to retirement, old age feels like from toddler to child or teenager to adult; I’ve skinned my knees. Hated it, but here I am no longer a wife, a business woman, and on and on; I’m the not so little old lady wondering what I want to do. Who’s scared?
We are what we do, so I’m not too much at this stage. In the almost four years of widowhood, I’ve exercised at the gym the most. A sadness overcomes me when I think about all the wonderful food I no longer eat; utter desperation, all those poor baby things and I know I’ll break all the rules when I hit New Orleans, so hush.
Live music coaxes me out of the house and I’ve planned trips around music I wanted to hear, so I’m a live music fan, willing to travel. This is new!
Travel to me encompasses more than the new and wonderful sites; peeking at people’s lives in different places fascinates me. Sometimes I have to get a grip on my energy; I get excited like a puppy wagging its tail. It’s embarrassing to be the just too happy to be here senior lady.
I have some old friends and some new friends, so I am social, but I don’t feel needy for companionship. That’s huge for me.
Sometimes this self-discovery journey makes me feel like a kid. I’m the old girl.

Home

I’m just a lonely widow past my productive prime living on an island where I don’t speak the language and have no family ties to the community. Why do I stay here?
It’s warm and beautiful; that’s enough for me. I can’t sell my house; three out of four houses up the road sit vacant and decaying. Maybe when they institute a real estate tax, people barely hanging on will leave. Sad because Puerto Rico grew a warm, loving culture that isn’t the same when Puerto Ricans come back from the states after generations they’re American just like the rest of us, which isn’t bad; it’s different.
What’s the value of living in a melting pot, if you don’t understand your ingredients? It’s like cooking; when I have a sniffing relationship with my vegetables and so forth, I appreciate the flavor when I’m done so much more. Too bad I’m not a good cook, I love to eat and travel.
Where ever I’ve been, I found people to be rather nice; even thieves and murders have charming moments. Mostly, I try to leave it up to God and the courts to decide what’s wrong.
One thing I’ve learned over and over is the value of not judging; being as it’s so difficult not to, I’ll call it a work in progress.
I value my belief that a higher power, a first cause, an intention evolved ahead of everything else; we came from the pleasure of that, which we call God. To my way of thinking to devalue another being in my mind devalues my thoughts of God; I found that profoundly disrespectful.
Looking at whomever I meet as God’s creation, a manifestation of God, that’s become a preoccupation because I love what I find so much of the time I pity the souls who are unable to connect. I adore nodding, smiling, and saying, “Hello.” To me, that connects with a lovely bit of God energy.
People talk about the power of positivity; a smile, a nod, and a greeting do we get a more basic positive exchange than that? We don’t because there’s a dark energy crossing the planet, but I don’t want to discuss that today.
I’m going back to New Orleans, home to the happiest years of my childhood, where I’ve returned throughout my life. New Orleans does weird really well and I’m a fan of weird. The local vibe being a familiar song feels comfortable like a big leather chair.
The loss of my husband depleted my positive energy. I can only handle so much of other peoples’ negative vibes before I need to rush to my corner, where I can see miles of green and blue beauty that God placed before us for our enjoyment.
That’s why Puerto Rico is my home.

Who Would Notice

Google disappeared from my screen; Facebook, blogger, my maps were just gone. One of those strange anomalies I’ve been witnessing happened to me; now, I’m worried.  In Puerto Rico we lose the internet from time to time, but Google?

We’re on the edge of the Bermuda Triangle so we make jokes about the unusual things that happen here. A modest size Caribbean island with people fleeing like rats from a sinking ship doesn’t get a second glance when it comes to small shifts. New dogs appear on my doorstep and others disappear. At this moment all of the dogs in this entire valley are howling; in twelve years I’ve never heard the whole valley howl at once. A small dog appeared in the middle of the road and my neighbor boy walked out to get it like he was in a trance.

Lucky my pit bull buddy began barking with the sound of fear in his voice, so I had to go to see. To my surprise, Lucky is barking at my neighbor boy or I should say young man of eighteen. Maybe five years ago of I found Lucky under a van in front of this boy’s house, so they know each other; something’s not right, but what.

We get tremors here, if you see ripples in your tea, we’re having a tremor. Most of the time, we’re completely unaware, but that’s the point; isn’t it?

Facts, factoids, alternate facts, as well as fun facts bombard us; so how do we really know when something’s important or not worthy?

So how do you know when an old lady is slipping some not so fun facts into her morning blog?

 

 

People Or

Breezy and partly cloudy, that’s one of my favorite days. Do you find yourself looking out the window to be refreshed by nature? Remember staring out the window in grammar school, thinking about nothing? Any place we are, we can connect with love and peace by looking out the window. I remember in Chicago staring at a gangway between two brick buildings like something would suddenly appear.  Sometimes I’ve found myself needing it so badly I’d trance out.

Human angst, the state we seem to live in is a contaminating energy. I love people; we are wonderful, wise, and witty, willingly or not. All the silly-serious things we do amuse me, for the most part. Haughty people who raise their noses in the air when we happen to make eye contact sometimes make me laugh out loud. I don’t mean to be rude.

Most people are wonderful to meet, a smile and a nod as a brief eye contact is made in passing brightens my day. Is that really weird? I’m going to New Orleans for a people fix. It’s one of those places where you won’t encounter the mundane average woman who looks through you as if you weren’t even there when your eyes meet for a second. I haven’t phased your consciousness, really? In those women, I always feel much pain. I find that can be a contaminating energy; do you feel it that way or do you have better self-protection skills?

Almost four years after Kirt’s death, I am starting to feel the rhythm in my new life. Time at my home in a beautiful valley has been terribly lonely, but with time nature heals.

On a one-to-one basis, we need to start finding the good in each other. We are all one, the same human race.

Crazy energy in January opened a path for aliens, no, not Muslims or Mexicans, aliens from who knows where! Trump supporters ran the streets insane because a tough-talking guy like them would take charge, while liberals went apoplectic about the bomb in his hands, the environment, and a whole bunch of other stuff. America radiated crazy after the blast, so who would notice a few time space shifts?

I can’t say too much, they frighten me. They’re not like us at all. Hopefully, I can sneak a bit into my story and they won’t notice. If you don’t hear from me, you’ll know why. Be watchful for the unusual. It’s all there for you to see for yourself.