Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Monday, May 26, 2014
Ask for blessings
Here's something I do when I go to beaches. It doesn't really matter which beach, and there's no difference between when I live near a beach and when I don't, I do it the same way:
More often than not, something washes up onto my feet or against my leg. When it's a shell or a bit of wood or whatever, I pick it up, tank the sea, and keep it. I have a rock collection and a shell collection anyway, what's a few more meaningful bits of stuff? I'm like a bower-bird, I naturally sort of build shrines, just piles of stuff that catches my eye.
I decide what it means, based on where I am, what I'm doing, how I feel, what I need to hear, the whole context of my life.
Once in a while, the sea steals a toe ring or an earring, and that's a message, too.
And sometimes nothing happens except that I stand in the sea, breathing the air that hasn't come across cityscapes and thousands of other people, and that's a gift or a message, too.
It's strange, asking for blessings, but it's also sort of wild and free, so long as you don't have any preconceived notions about what counts as a message, a gift, a blessing. It makes me pause and notice the world and those old rhythms that don't care about when shops close and when people want to hit the road. It makes me feel special--and also puts me in my place. It reminds me that I actually can ask for things, if I can remember how, because usually, I'm so self-contained that it doesn't occur to me to ask for something outside myself or from something not-me.
I think any sort of ritual like this is a connecting with the higher organizations of the universe that we sometimes forget are there. Whether you see that as a spiritual detail or not--sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, you're allowed to be changeable--there are patterns we don't need to look at in the day-to-day, but that put things into perspective when you take a minute.
That's something I need to remember when I'm not at the beach, too.
Look out to the water with your feet in the waves
Open your arms and your heart
As the ocean to send you a blessing, or a message
Wait until something washes up--or washes out
More often than not, something washes up onto my feet or against my leg. When it's a shell or a bit of wood or whatever, I pick it up, tank the sea, and keep it. I have a rock collection and a shell collection anyway, what's a few more meaningful bits of stuff? I'm like a bower-bird, I naturally sort of build shrines, just piles of stuff that catches my eye.
I decide what it means, based on where I am, what I'm doing, how I feel, what I need to hear, the whole context of my life.
Once in a while, the sea steals a toe ring or an earring, and that's a message, too.
And sometimes nothing happens except that I stand in the sea, breathing the air that hasn't come across cityscapes and thousands of other people, and that's a gift or a message, too.
It's strange, asking for blessings, but it's also sort of wild and free, so long as you don't have any preconceived notions about what counts as a message, a gift, a blessing. It makes me pause and notice the world and those old rhythms that don't care about when shops close and when people want to hit the road. It makes me feel special--and also puts me in my place. It reminds me that I actually can ask for things, if I can remember how, because usually, I'm so self-contained that it doesn't occur to me to ask for something outside myself or from something not-me.
I think any sort of ritual like this is a connecting with the higher organizations of the universe that we sometimes forget are there. Whether you see that as a spiritual detail or not--sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, you're allowed to be changeable--there are patterns we don't need to look at in the day-to-day, but that put things into perspective when you take a minute.
That's something I need to remember when I'm not at the beach, too.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
I hate frustration, but sometimes...
Sometimes coming out the other end without having smashed your phone to bits against a hard rock is such a great feeling.
I went to my best friend's wedding, and somewhere on the first day I was there, I lost my phone. It wasn't insured because a) I couldn't afford any extra costs, and b) I've had phones for 11 years and never lost or broke one. I spent the rest of the trip feeling like I was missing some third arm I didn't really think about ever having until it was gone.
A few days after I got home, I got the announcement that someone had found my phone--Yay Find My Phone! I gave them my mom's number, and they were cagey about whether they'd get a reward, but they said they'd send it back, and we agreed to repay whatever it cost them to send it. I told said bestie that someone had found my phone, and he called my number and told them that he would be back in town in a few days and he could just pick it up for them, saving them any shipping costs at all.
And that's when that person, whoever he was, decided to be a jerk about it. He wanted $500 to turn over the phone.
I'm like, Dude, if I had $500 I could just get a new phone. For that, in fact, I could get the highest-capacity, newest version of the phone I lost. Do you think I'd have one three editions out-dated, with the lowest capacity HDD if I could just throw around half a thousand dollars like that?
And now my phone is dead, so I can't track it, and I don't know if he mailed it or not. But I also can't be without a phone while I wait to see, what with the caregiving of children who like to get into dangerous situations, and the modern world entirely lacking payphones and landlines, but not yet having any sort of Star Trek ubiquitous computing.
I went to the Sprint kiosk where my mom originally set up the plan we're all on, because they said she had an upgrade, and she wanted to talk to the person who called her. Nope, not an upgrade, one of those new things where they call it an upgrade, but really they're just not making you pay for the whole thing right now. Except, the downpayment was five times the tiny bit I had to spend, and we can't afford to add more to the cost of the already annoyingly expensive* plan. They sent me to the stand-alone store to see if they had temp phones I could get.
The stand-alone store did not sell temp, refurbished, or otherwise cheap phones. The guy there spent half and hour or forty-five minutes crunching numbers and trying every trick he knew, and could not find a way to get me a new phone without changing our whole four-person plan, and probably also making it more expensive.
So my brother says I can use his old phone, which he replaced because it doesn't hold a charge very well. I said, okay, because at least it's a phone, and it's not a flip-phone, so maybe I can use it for Etsy and Instagram and all the other non-phone stuff that is most of what I use my phone for.
So we called the number the guy at the second store gave us, and they said they don't do phone activation live anymore. A) dumb, what if we didn't have a computer? and B) maybe they should tell that to their dudes in the stores so they won't tell customers to call.
Can you feel the frustration mounting?
So I go online. I have to make an online account, because my mom has never had a computer and never set up an online account. I finally get in, and it won't load the list of lines to let me pick my own and get to the part where I actually activate the phone. Three times. Until I find a link somewhere else and go that way. Auto-activation doesn't work. Manual activation doesn't work, twice.
Finally, I get someone on the chat help-line. They give me new numbers to go through, and talked me out of throwing everything down a well and moving to the antarctic.
And it works.
And the frustration evaporates, leaving me feeling annoyed, but also a little silly, like I've been overreacting.
I'm still not pleased with how little the shop-guys could actually do, or now the system is set up, or how slow and useless the website is, but I'm so happy to just have a phone again, to not have to worry about it while I'm supposed to be a responsible adult, that, for now, I can let that go.
I can just be happy about the relief.
And that feels really good.
NOTES:
*I'm researching where I can get a much cheaper plan when my two years are up, because this family plan is stupid-expensive and goes against my ideals, my finances, and my willingness to hand over money for things I can get cheaper elsewhere.
I went to my best friend's wedding, and somewhere on the first day I was there, I lost my phone. It wasn't insured because a) I couldn't afford any extra costs, and b) I've had phones for 11 years and never lost or broke one. I spent the rest of the trip feeling like I was missing some third arm I didn't really think about ever having until it was gone.
A few days after I got home, I got the announcement that someone had found my phone--Yay Find My Phone! I gave them my mom's number, and they were cagey about whether they'd get a reward, but they said they'd send it back, and we agreed to repay whatever it cost them to send it. I told said bestie that someone had found my phone, and he called my number and told them that he would be back in town in a few days and he could just pick it up for them, saving them any shipping costs at all.
And that's when that person, whoever he was, decided to be a jerk about it. He wanted $500 to turn over the phone.
I'm like, Dude, if I had $500 I could just get a new phone. For that, in fact, I could get the highest-capacity, newest version of the phone I lost. Do you think I'd have one three editions out-dated, with the lowest capacity HDD if I could just throw around half a thousand dollars like that?
And now my phone is dead, so I can't track it, and I don't know if he mailed it or not. But I also can't be without a phone while I wait to see, what with the caregiving of children who like to get into dangerous situations, and the modern world entirely lacking payphones and landlines, but not yet having any sort of Star Trek ubiquitous computing.
I went to the Sprint kiosk where my mom originally set up the plan we're all on, because they said she had an upgrade, and she wanted to talk to the person who called her. Nope, not an upgrade, one of those new things where they call it an upgrade, but really they're just not making you pay for the whole thing right now. Except, the downpayment was five times the tiny bit I had to spend, and we can't afford to add more to the cost of the already annoyingly expensive* plan. They sent me to the stand-alone store to see if they had temp phones I could get.
The stand-alone store did not sell temp, refurbished, or otherwise cheap phones. The guy there spent half and hour or forty-five minutes crunching numbers and trying every trick he knew, and could not find a way to get me a new phone without changing our whole four-person plan, and probably also making it more expensive.
So my brother says I can use his old phone, which he replaced because it doesn't hold a charge very well. I said, okay, because at least it's a phone, and it's not a flip-phone, so maybe I can use it for Etsy and Instagram and all the other non-phone stuff that is most of what I use my phone for.
So we called the number the guy at the second store gave us, and they said they don't do phone activation live anymore. A) dumb, what if we didn't have a computer? and B) maybe they should tell that to their dudes in the stores so they won't tell customers to call.
Can you feel the frustration mounting?
So I go online. I have to make an online account, because my mom has never had a computer and never set up an online account. I finally get in, and it won't load the list of lines to let me pick my own and get to the part where I actually activate the phone. Three times. Until I find a link somewhere else and go that way. Auto-activation doesn't work. Manual activation doesn't work, twice.
Finally, I get someone on the chat help-line. They give me new numbers to go through, and talked me out of throwing everything down a well and moving to the antarctic.
And it works.
And the frustration evaporates, leaving me feeling annoyed, but also a little silly, like I've been overreacting.
I'm still not pleased with how little the shop-guys could actually do, or now the system is set up, or how slow and useless the website is, but I'm so happy to just have a phone again, to not have to worry about it while I'm supposed to be a responsible adult, that, for now, I can let that go.
I can just be happy about the relief.
And that feels really good.
NOTES:
*I'm researching where I can get a much cheaper plan when my two years are up, because this family plan is stupid-expensive and goes against my ideals, my finances, and my willingness to hand over money for things I can get cheaper elsewhere.
Saturday, May 24, 2014
The Baby says he doesn't need me...
"I don't need you! And you don't need me! I fine!"
Here's the weird place I am, emotionally right now. A while ago, The Baby said the above words to me, and I sort of got broadsided by this wave of Things:
- He really isn't a baby anymore, he's three and a half, his curls aren't so soft, he can put on his own shoes and brush his own teeth, he knows that I drink tea for breakfast and eat soup for lunch, and that the mac and cheese I eat is not the same as the mac and cheese he eats.
- He says "I not a teeny tiny baby, I a bigger little boy" when babies show up on commercials, but he says it while still wearing diapers and drinking from his ba-ba and holding onto my skirt while standing between my knees.
- He has the same need to roam all over the place that his mom and uncle and I all had, but he lives in a world that is not nearly so nice to little kids out wandering alone as the world we lived in at the time.
- He's not my kid, but he might be the closest I get to one if I don't find someone I feel like breeding with or adopting with in the next few years, and he's getting big.
And then, I thought:
- He probably really is fine. He knows he can't go in the road, and he isn't overly willing to do what strangers tell him to do, and maybe that bird really does need to be chased, and that hill really does need to be rolled down.
I've spent a lot of time lately trying to sort through the pile of emotions and wants and needs that I haven't really dealt with for the last three years because I've just been Going With The Flow in that totally passive way that means you eventually wash up somewhere where you didn't want to be and now you have to deal with it. It's less that I don't want to be here physically, though there are other cities that better fit my idea of a city and life therein, and more that I don't want to be here mentally, emotionally and spiritually. It's led to a lot of thoughts that end with me not watching the kids anymore, and that's not something I want to do--I like watching them, I like seeing how they're growing up, and, revelation here, if I don't get my own kids, they're the ones I get to do this for.
I worry a lot about being a good other-mother (and not a bad other-mother like Coraline had) for these beasties, and I worry about being selfish in a way that will harm them even if it helps me--because if I'm improving my life by ditching one of the few things I like about how it is currently, that's against some pretty core values I have, and it's not really an improvement. I worry also about being sucked into someone else's life and then being bereft YEARS from now, when I surface again and I haven't done anything to make what I have for myself better. And when they're messed up because of not being allowed to be themselves any more than I allowed myself to be myself.
So it hurt when he said he didn't need me. But he didn't stop there, and to me it sounded like the Universe telling me something I needed to hear-- he doesn't need me the way I think he does, but I don't need him the way I think I do, either, because it's all fine. We're adaptable. We know who we are. We know we can do things for ourselves and stand on our own two feet and keep moving forward. He knows he's not a baby, no matter that we all call him Baby, and I know I'm not his mom even if I worry like I am, and we're fine. Because that's the Truth. And there's freedom in the Truth, even when it hurts to hear it.
He has to keep growing up, and so do I.
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Good ideas for a better world - Embrace - The documentary that will create global change by Taryn Brumfitt — Kickstarter
Embrace - The documentary that will create global change by Taryn Brumfitt — Kickstarter:
You guys? This is so amazing and it hasn't even been made yet. It's so amazing just talking about making it got me all choked up. Lets do this.
'via Blog this'
You guys? This is so amazing and it hasn't even been made yet. It's so amazing just talking about making it got me all choked up. Lets do this.
'via Blog this'
Good ideas for a better world - Kickstarting the Way We Look at Women - The Daily Beast
Kickstarting the Way We Look at Women - The Daily Beast:
"It may be too soon to tell if the public would truly buy a more democratic, realistic representation of girls and women, but this certainly gives us ammunition to start raising the question. "
'via Blog this'
"It may be too soon to tell if the public would truly buy a more democratic, realistic representation of girls and women, but this certainly gives us ammunition to start raising the question. "
'via Blog this'
Monday, May 19, 2014
A Hipstamatic a day 4
This is something I'm doing because when I get bored, I mess with my photo apps! Every week until I don't want to do it anymore, I'm making a post where I post seven versions of the same picture, taken with seven different randomized combos of lens and film in Hipstamatic!
Loftus + Kodot XGrizzled
Akira + BkaclKeys SuperGrain
(I love the inky blacks in this one; makes my windowsill look way cooler than it probably actually is.)
Susie + Alfred Infrared
(I sort of love combos with Susie in them)
Libatique 73 + Ina's 1935
(My camera really likes Ina)
Hornbecker + Rock BW-11
James M + RTV
Jimmy + Kodama
(which I also love; it's so dreamy.)
What's your favorite Hipstamatic combo? If you use any of these, link to them in the comments so we can see what they look like with different light / flash / subjects / whatever!
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