BFF???

This can be deep or shallow depending on where you are when you wade in.
I have always thought that friendships eluded me. I felt that there was most likely something wrong with me for being unable to keep deep relationships with people, other than my husband.  I know that through our fifty years together he has been most forgiving of my deepest faults and accepting of my minor ones. 
I have learned through the years that I have always expected way too much of the people I have called my friends.  On the one hand I have always been attracted to charismatic personalities.  For a few of my BestFriendsNever or BFN,  beginning with Christa,( followed by Marissa, Margaret, and several others who shall not be named), it was admiration at first sight and a long time after to regret.  I really loved these women for their charm, wit, sense of style and I think, secretly , their apparent admiration for me and my qualities. Alas and alack, each of these friendships resulted in them betraying me and then moving along, out of touch forever.
I always did and still do,( and perversely so), miss their friendship.  They had me at go and when they went it left me with a huge emptiness I thought could not be filled.  I thought for a long time that everyone woman I loved and admired could not love me back and I felt a deep hole where there had been a best friend.  I felt there was something really lacking for me in the friendship department. 
Because of these failed relationships in my late teens and early twenty's I failed to be a good friend to others.  I had learned that friendships were expendable and if I was not very careful I would be hurt again. When you do not allow yourself to feel deeply you can shut yourself off from opportunities of more lasting friendships.  You can leave locations and companies and jobs with seldom a backward glance at relationships you have left behind.  I shut the door firmly on every job I ever left, to my regret now. 
My mom always told me you were blessed if when you were old you could count your good friends on one hand. I believed this. What I have now discovered is that if you hold to this and only seek a few good friends you are denying all the other good people and great qualities they have. I do not believe now that friendships should be limited.  Of course some people hold special places in our hearts, but we really need to be in relationship with as many people as we can.  I used to laugh at people with 800 face book friends.  I no longer laugh.  I see my sister-in-law and all the people who helped her plan and supported her through the marriage ceremonies of her daughter. I also see her daughter with 18 attendants at her wedding and am proud she values and honors so many of her friends.  We are a community to which we all contribute. 
Over subsequent years I have had many lovely friendships with many treasured and wonderful women, but I continued to search for a BFF who had the special haunting qualities of those who had abandoned me.  I ignored all the lovely roses and pansies, lilacs, hyacinths and irises around me and kept searching for the illusive exotic orchids which had escaped me.
Finally in my late 50's and 60's I learned to value the flowers of friendship which were offered to me and love the true beauty of these friendships which endured despite my stupidity.
I have finally learned to value the metals of gold and silver and even brass, copper, and iron. I have always been attracted to bling and glitter, flashing lights, and the exotic.  I still unfortunately have these attractions and denying them would mean denying a part of myself.  I am, however, more discerning about the value of what and to whom I am attracted.  Core values are very real to me now and I have thankfully lived long enough to re evaluate my life and friendships.  I have had wonderful experiences with old friends who have forgotten or forgiven my past mistakes and given me the renewed friendship and love, I was afraid I had lost. I also have new friends who mean the world to me and I am so thankful they have allowed me into their lives.
I am reminded of the hackneyed phrase" Make new friends but keep the old, some are silver and the others are gold."  And some who were lost were pure dross

I am back briefly to say I will return soon.

I am sick and tired of saying I will be back soon.  I should keep up my days of Monday and Friday to post.  My computer was out for a while and I have been busy with other issues.  Hopefully I will post again on Friday, the 29th, if I don't lose track of time.  See you soon........

I'm dying to know

I'm really interested, but I do not know how to solve this problem.  I frequently find from my stats that I have people following my blog from Germany, the Netherlands and Russia, among the countries I sort of expected.  I know it is hard to leave comments on the blog unless you are already signed up for Google +, but I would love to have your feedback. If you have Google + please leave me some comments.  Those who access me through face book can leave a comment or message on my timeline.  Those who have my email can of course email me. Since I am putting so much of myself out there I would just like to know who is listening(IE. reading). Thanks.

Why I have a love/hate relationship with FB

I am led to blog again by a Facebook incident which has forced me to review once again what I am doing and why I do it.  I got on Facebook a couple of years ago just to find out what it was.  I discovered to my surprise that I really was enjoying my FB experience.  I began to encourage my friends and family to get on it with me so we can keep in touch with what each other was thinking , enjoying, where we were traveling to and from, getting engaged or having babies....All sorts of exciting stuff I had not known about for many years. For me the benefits of FB have been mostly positive.  I find that while my family seldom if ever writes and rarely cal,l they will keep in touch somewhat on FB.  I am separated by a lot of miles by most of my family and friends.  From India, Korea, New York, Pennsylvania, to California and Michigan, among just a few places, my friends and family are scattered far and wide.  From FB I have met up again with my great nieces and nephews.  Josh, Nick, Sean, Angela, are all my friends now.  Their significant others Elizabeth and MerryDeath, and now little baby Natalie are on my radar, where normally I wouldn't have a clue from their parents and grandparents where they were or what was happening in their lives. I have connected with old friends Becky, Helene, Charlene, and have become much closer again, to Eileen and Jenny. I have become friends with Joretta and some of her kids and love keeping up with them. Debra is in touch much more often and I am so thrilled to be in contact with her again.  Amy is in touch through FB but I have not found Dylan, Zack or Brooke yet.  Blake and Kenny and Michael ignore me but perhaps it is an older  guy thing.  Srini  too, isn't officially on FB but he reads the posts from family and his friends in martial arts and really enjoys them.
There are so many other people I would like to find and be in touch with but I forget to look for them when I'm on FB.  If your out there and see me, send me a friend request.
I really enjoy posts about you and the family and the animals.  I like to know where you have been.  Its O.K. that you don't say where or when you are going, but I love the updates when you get back.  I love to know your daily details, like comments on funny kids, kitties, dogs, or other wild life.  I enjoy recipes you post, cute sayings or profound thoughts or just status updates.  I like to know about family reunions, frustrations with daily life, funny things that happen or pictures you take and post.
The whole experience is mostly good.
What I do not like, however, are political statements which bad mouth others, or which put others in a bad light or try to convince others to one's point of view.  I do not like religious statements for the same reason.  It is one thing to mention you are campaigning for the Tea Party, Republican, Libertarian, Democrat or Progressive party, or to mention that you went to a rally, etc. It is quite another to post political rants or smear campaigns or negative cartoons or racist comments. I also do not like statements of faith which imply if you don't think or feel the same way, you are wrong and worse than that, damned.  I love hymns and lovely religious music and interesting links to what my friends and relatives might also find interesting.  I hate rants right out there in my face, which I am forced to hide or skip over continuously.  I just do not believe FB is the forum for our deepest faith and political beliefs.  There are blogs and emails which are much more suited for this type of exchange, or even links and private messages through, FB.  Please just do not proselytize to me when I just want to know you better, share a few laughs and pictures, and relate to you all in a gentle way.  So much for this blog.  See you all again soon.

Taking time off

I am going to take a break from writing for a few days.  Check FB to see when I am back or I will send an email.  I have lots to do in the next few days and it doesn't include blogging.  I plan to stick my fingers in a light socket and recharge.  Just a little light humor.  Did you ever think about what it means to recharge your batteries?  As if one is some sort of a machine which constantly needs to be refueled, and occasionally needs to get recharged or get a whole new battery.  Wait, we are machines like that!  Who would have thought?  We add water and fuel everyday, we sleep to recharge, we crash and burn or sometimes just end up with damaged fenders or need an engine replacement.  We try alternative fuels like smoke, alcohol and drugs, but they seldom sustain us and do damage and rust out our parts and even throw off the electrical system and electronics on board.  We also sometimes add too much fuel and become twice the machine we used to be. Not good.
Did you ever think what kind of a vehicle you would be, if you could be any vehicle you wanted?  Much has been written about how and why people choose their means of transportation and it is a fascinating subject.  I would like however, to take it farther.  I would like to know what kind of person you would be if you could start all over with a brand new life.
I haven't really thought too much about this but if I were to be reincarnated into a brand new being I think I would again choose to be a woman. I would like to be a very strong and empathetic woman. I would like to have conquered my fears and insecurities and face life boldly regardless of the circumstances.  I would like to try on a variety of lifestyles but manage to live authentically regardless of the vagaries of the life I would be re given.  I want to love children, people and all animals and life forms, and to walk softly and gently through  God's creation.  I want to love beauty, art, nature, creativity and to contribute value to my fellow man.  Then to pass gently into the heavens.

New Technology!!

So I found a bunch of things I wrote in 1962 and 1968.  They were actually dated.  I decided to scan them to my computer and I did it in PDF format but with no security.  Once they were scanned I needed to move them around because they were on onion skin paper and I used the auto feed to scan them.  Thus, some stuck together.  I sorted them and scanned some again but had to use a different file.  Now I have ended up with 4 different PDF files but I am unable to copy and consolidate them into one file because I just don't know enough.  I have copied some pages from "help", concerning PDF files and right clicking to copy, etc, but once I copy I cannot paste.  Right now I am very frustrated.  I am telling you all about this because firstly, I know I will eventually figure it out, and secondly, so you realize how hard it is for someone who is almost 70 to do something new on the printer and computer when she has had no advance training.
It was also very difficult to set up a new Kindle fire and a new Nikon camera.  I spend 23 hours(I really did keep track) to figure out how to set up the Kindle Fire I received for Christmas.  The user manual is on line but you have to be able to turn the damn thing on and add security before you go online or you leave yourself vulnerable.  My Viper security came with few instructions as well. I cried with frustration several times and Srini was ready to send the damn thing back-then Eureka, I experienced success.  The Nikon only took 2 hours but it had a little manual.  I have not yet tried to put my pictures on the computer.  I fully expect more grief. 
It should not be this difficult.  These things are supposed to be intuitive, but I guess only to the young.  I was not taught to think technically and I spend more time learning these things than I do using them.  On the other hand it may help to delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease.  I just finished the book "Super Brain" by a Neurologist  Rudolph E. Tanzi,  and Deepak Chopra.  I have never liked Chopra but I love Tanzi and it is mostly him and his knowledge of the physical brain and the user.  It is all about the brain and its 3 parts and the self who uses the brain.  It is fascinating and I would highly recommend it.  The interesting thing is Tanzi has spend the majority of his career researching Alzheimer's.  Tanzi has also given a lecture on PBS which I watched and saved.
To make a long story short, as I want to continue to live and grow in this new century, I must continue to at least learn the rudiments of the technology.  After all in my hay day I could operate a hi fidelity turntable and a tape recorder and even a black and white TV with no remote control and only 3 channels.  This new stuff should be duck soup.  Or is this the wrong saying for a vegetarian.  I should say vegetable bullion.
So tomorrow I will try again but I need some Excedrin right now.

Work I didn't love-part one

Today has started very busy. In my head.  So many thoughts are circling of things I have to do and things I need to do, and things I want to do.  The urgent vs the important.  Even though I am not, as they say, gainfully employed I struggle with balance in my life.  Being retired isn't all it is cracked up to be.  I would really like to make money, like I used to. for all the things I do that I do not want to.  Did you know that I never really wanted to work in accounting/business, yet I did for more than 40 years.  I did a few other jobs in other years I worked, but nothing I really loved either.  All the things I loved to do I did outside of work. 
When I first went to work in NYC in June of 1963,( after flunking out of College at Geneseo), I had no idea of what to expect.  My first job I learned what the work world was really like by working in the mail room of a professional association of accountants.  I learned to operate all the mail room machines and to sort the mail for different depts. and executives.  I got to wheel around a mail cart and learn to put faces and jobs to all the names.  I also learned to operate a switchboard(the old fashioned kind with wires that you plugged into an actual extension board), talk about multitasking.  My first boss sent me to typing school and tried to mentor me but I was a reluctant student.  She sent me to a free clinic at Belview hospital when I had an excruciating toothache for several days.  The tooth was pulled to my later regret.  My boss also sent me to a fancy hair salon in NYC.  I will not mention the name but you would know it.  My ears stuck out of my new hairdo.  Too short.  I cried for days.  She told me how to dress, compose myself, live my outside life  and would scream at me when I came in hungover after 2 hours sleep.  I was the favorite victim of the "dragon Lady", but she really did teach me a lot and prepared me for my future jobs in the NYC business world. I absolutely hated her and when I went home at Christmas I told my mother I was going to resign when I went back.  She advised me to get another job before I left that one.  This is what I did which led me to my first airline job.
More about the job world in subsequent blogs.

I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date

I really am late.  I think I forgot to show up for parts of life and am just trying to catch up.  There are so many things I thought I would have more time to do.  I wanted to own a horse property with at least several horses.  I wanted to have more dogs and cats, though I have treasured each one I have known and loved.  I wanted to travel to more places and even while I cannot breathe well,  Paris and Ireland are still on my bucket list.  They might permanently put me in a bucket if I ever try to travel there now.
I wanted to write.  Although this little blog is inconsequential to most it may be the best I am ever able to do.  Once a long time ago I thought I would like to adopt a child. For many reasons I never did and now find it is most likely best that I didn't.  I wanted to have great friendships that would last forever.  Well, I had many that did not last, and those that did have changed considerably from what I had hoped they would become.  My husband Srini and my friend Eileen have not changed .  They are authentically who they are through all the minor and major vagaries of life.  For this I am profoundly grateful. Some things and people should never fundamentally change because they are just too good as they are.
I find I really do have a lot more to say about many subjects I have touched on here, but I really am late.  I must go to a meeting with destiny, or some such, right now.  More later.

Mis-understood communications-social media

One can cast aspersions or doubts with a few words or a simple sentence. It  can take a lifetime and hundreds of pages to only begin to dispel a false accusation. Why is that?  Are we so full of doubt (or doubtful) that any slight slander will permanently alter our opinions?   (IE.  where there is smoke there is fire?)
Phooey.  In social media, the one who casts the first stone, if only a pebble, is guilty of slander and gross negligence for his cowardly behavior, if he doesn't leave his name and credentials. Slander because without solid credentials the biting remarks are only that.  Gross negligence because one cannot tell the state of mind or circumstances surrounding the person or circumstance being commentated on, and the comments could cause  unintended harm.  Witness the one's who commit suicide after social media bullying. Witness those whose reputations are ruined by innuendos and half truths. 
More than for the person or situation being critiqued by the unknown detractor, I am concerned for the person who lacks the guts to make a statement in his or her own name, and who hides behind the authority of an open comments section.  (I, myself, welcome comments for they can point out errors and aid in growth.  Comments made to insult, belittle and degrade are not welcome.  They not only deny growth but also demean the party who has placed his heart and soul out there, under his own name, to provide a service or perhaps lend insight to others. This is harmful to the one commented on and might limit their ability to keep striving.)   My concern for the commentator is that he or she has most likely never taken any risks.  They do not even dare to say their name.  They do not claim their comments and they hide behind anonymity.  Thus, they are not sure at all that what they say has any merit.  They are afraid to confront directly or to carry on a dialogue which might be helpful to both parties. They are also afraid of repercussion's. In other words their comments have no worth or value even to themselves and are given in a spirit of spitefulness and lack of self worth.
I think I have said enough of this subject.  If you are led to comment on the work or way of another please do not hide,  Speak your name and ideas proudly and you might be surprised by the positive results you obtain.

nothing

Not much to say today.  Other things preoccupy me.  Does this ever happen to you?  One gets sidetracked by other projects and events and what is most important becomes the least urgent.  Well, see you soon.

Angie, the Chihuahua

I want a cat named Musette.  My friend had one who recently died.  It is a beautiful name but more than that, the little cat was a lovely little being.  She was gentle and loving.  Not like my Angie, who got her name before I got her.  If I were to name her it would be spoiled.  She is such a little JAP.  This stands for Just A Princess.  No, but seriously there is no one like my little Angie.
Angie always takes the high road.  She loves to sit on top of pillows or the backs of couches or chairs if they are wide enough.  She weighs between 6 and 7 lbs of lean mean doggie machine.  Not really mean but very willful.  She will not come when called.  She simply refuses.  She does everything strictly on her own terms.  She will come if she hears a bag of food opening, but of course this is her choice, not mine.  If I am napping on the sofa when it is time for her to be fed( like all animals she has a built in Rolex watch, which keeps time to the second), she will sit either on the top of the sofa or on my chest and woof at me.  She is very demanding in this and  the expression on her face and her body language is so funny I just giggle.  I have tried to catch these antics on the video portion of my camera but since dropping the camera on my face and causing a bruised mouth, I have given up.
She sleeps most of the day, after her morning walk, on her green velour pillow.  Getting her going for her walk is another fun filled time.  She will jump down from the couch when she sees we have her little leash and harness.  She will come and dance around our feet but when we bend to pick her up she runs away.  She will run 10-15 feet, stop and then wiggle and shake until one of us picks her up.  She has to have this little ritual of being forced to take a walk. 
Angie is a Chihuahua who was actually born in Chihuahua, Mexico.  I have her vaccination certificate in Spanish to prove it.  We are pretty sure she is an illegal alien because my friend bought her out of the back of a truck with Mexican license plates. We think she barks with a Spanish accent but it is a little hard to tell.  Her senses of hearing, sight and smell are all incredible.  We can't get away with hiding anything from her.  If I have a salted peanut in my hand she can tell from a room away.  She is a very good little watchdog and takes her duty very seriously.  She only barks if there is someone really there and very quickly calms down if it is a known friend. She will come to bed to sleep sometimes, but only at her fancy.  She will insist on burrowing under the covers with her tail facing to me and will rarely stay for the full night.  She likes to get petted and will turn on her back under the covers so I can gently pet her little belly.  Almost as soon as I fall asleep she leaves me for her pillow on the sofa. I like to think she is putting me to sleep.
Angie is a Service Dog and I have a prescription from my Dr. for her.  What service does she perform you ask?  Well  she really does help keep me calm and centered when I have breathing problems.  Holding her, or having her near me to worry about keeps the focus off me and on her.  She is a companion and a comfort and a dear little being who is my best animal friend.  Through her I can show my love for all the animal kingdom and she is a very good representative.  Independent and free, but loving and sweet.  She is our good companion and it is a privilege to share a home with her.

To Exclude or Not, that is the ?

Do you have someone who is mean or nasty to you, or who ignores you and puts down things you suggest or ideas you have?  In my life I have had several people like this.   It is my policy to keep your friends close and your enemies closer.  Butter will not melt in my mouth when facing an enemy.  I am soooo  nice.  Mama used to tell me the worst thing you can do to someone who does not like you, is to greet her warmly in public.  Thus you force her to cut you or be nasty in front of others.   When I follow this policy I elicit one of the following reactions.  Sometimes the person will say "Oh! hello", with a puzzled expression on her face.  Sometimes she will pretend she doesn't hear me and then I get in her face and say hi again.  This time she will say hello, sometimes with a bit of irritation.  The third and most usual reaction is she will say "Hello", back with some degree of warmth.  She will then follow up with a comment like "isn't it a lovely day", etc. and we will be in a conversation. 
By taking this kind of action with difficult persons I have found it has cost me nothing to be nice.  The other person is forced to show her colors, and she usually doesn't really dare to do so in public. Finally, I may find I have been wrong.  I have given the other person a chance to be nice and sometimes she just is nice.  I may have mistaken her previous behavior for my own insecurities. The criticisms she made or the attitudes I attributed to her may have revealed more about me than they did about her.
I have to constantly examine my assumptions.  They are so easy to make and can be so destructive to relationships.  They say people make up their minds about others in the first 20 seconds of meeting or seeing them.  I know I am very quick to judge.  I quickly pick up of superficial clues, but I try real hard to not be overly influenced by them.  I have learned how mistaken I have been in the past and I know people are often mistaken about me. 
I am often puzzled about why people just don't seem to like me.  I remember walking into the cafeteria as a kid and heading immediately to the safe zone of one or two of my friends.  I still did this at work and other areas of my life.  It always seems there are circles of people I am never invited into, and if I were to inadvertently crash one of these circles, I would be greeted with condescending looks or completely ignored.  I have gotten on elevators with groups of these people and deliberately pushed another floor so I wouldn't have to stay and be uncomfortable.  I have tried to avoid certain circles at business parties where I know I would feel inadequate or unwelcome.  I sometimes would walk into such a group anyway, to see if I had misjudged them.  Guess what?  I hadn't.  I was made to feel as unwelcome as a sardine in a shrimp cocktail. 
Even now, in Church, which should always feel like a safe place, I am forced to confront these same unwanted feelings.  It is even more subtle and insidious now as everyone is supposed to play nice.  I have formed many real friendships in Church, and I shouldn't complain, but this goes back so many years and still continues, and I know it is not just me.
So many people are left out or ignored because they are too loud, to meek, complain too much, don't dress right, dress too fancy,  talk too much, don't talk enough, etc. etc. etc.  I always have to examine my own complicity in this judgemental process.  One must constantly ask WWJD.  Rich or poor, saint or sinner, healthy or diseased, all were welcome with our Lord.  How can I stand myself if I continue to be so exclusive.  So I keep trying, and trying not to bother with those who exclude me.  It is really their problem, not mine.

Why PooBah?

As I was logging onto my blog to do a new post when Facebook informed me the site might be unsafe.  I had to choose between spam or ignore to move forward.  I began to wonder, why unsafe?  Is it my thoughts and ideas or my name Great PooBah? 
I chose the name PooBah because we put on the Mikado in highschool and I just loved Gilbert and Sullivan productions.  So therefore:
Grand Poobah is a term derived from the name of the haughty character Pooh-Bah in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado (1885).^[1] In this comic opera, Pooh-Bah holds numerous exalted offices, including "First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chief Justice, Commander-in-Chief, Lord High Admiral... Archbishop of Titipu, and Lord Mayor" and Lord High Everything Else. The name has come to be used as a mocking title for someone self-important or high-ranking and who either exhibits an inflated self-regard or who has limited authority while taking impressive titles.
I feel the meaning of this title fits my character and I do not plan on changing it.  So please proceed at your own risk as I am now deemed unsafe.  Who knew?

Curse or Blessing

I am here again wondering if what I am doing is worth anything.  I do not mean is $ but in real worth.  I used to say I wanted to be a writer.  When I was in fifth grade my teacher told me I would have to write but that no one would ever be able to read it because of my spelling.  Poor man had no fore knowledge of spellcheck.  I tried writing in my early twenties but quickly realized that that I simply didn't know enough to write.  Mama had told me you need to write about what you know.  I felt my experiences had been so mundane that I should wait until I was older and understood more.  This may have been a cop out but I could not develop any rhythm.
We had moved to our newly built little Ranch house on L.I., and my beloved Srini told me I didn't have to work anymore unless I wanted.  I settled down to try and get pregnant and to write.  I had my little Smith Corona portable typewriter my dad had gotten me when I was taking typing in high school.  I wrote at the kitchen table.  I had numerous instances of bad poetry and a number of small thoughts several paragraphs long, but nothing of significance would come to me.  I remembered what Mama had said about writing what you know and I just didn't know enough.  After a few weeks of non-productivity I abandoned the writing and started to look for a job to keep me busy. I found one and life shifted.  I never became pregnant either, do you think the two things might be related?
Eventually, I would go onto many other things(subjects for another day), but my writing was limited to papers for school, projects for work and letters to friends.  I have always journaled to some degree but never long informational narratives.  My journaling was most often limited to who, what and more often when.  When I went to live in India for three years I again thought I would write.  I had my father-in-laws little portable typewriter, which we had given to him 30 years before, and again I sat down daily to write.  I felt by now I had experienced so much that surely I had plenty to write about, NOT.
I found myself with the same writers block but this time with the caveat that everything important had already been written about.  Like Alexander, I wept because there were no new worlds to conquer.  By this time I had read and studied most of the great thinkers from Plato to Spinoza, from the Bible to the Upanishads, to the Bhagavad Gita, to the Koran, to the Buddha and beyond.  I had studied the great literature and the poets and even brought to India my business gurus like Napoleon Hill, Steven Covey, Brian Tracy, etc. etc. and self-help tapes from the likes of Anthony Robbins, and time management studies as well as memory tapes. I had sought knowledge in all the right as well as all the wrong places.  Guess what?  Everything I had to say had already been written and said better than I could ever aspire to write.  I was defeated before I ever began.  Fiction was not an option for all the same reasons.  All the good stories had been told and retold by the masters. How could I ever aspire???
So my India writings followed my earlier efforts.   Small paragraphs of hopelessness and despair and a few letters carefully typed to family.  I came back to the US, got a job and worked for another 10 years.  I again felt once I retired five years ago, I would begin to write but it happened, NOT.  The funny thing is over the last sixty years a body of work has been collecting.  I have never thrown away anything I have ever written.  I haven't kept it for my kids because I have none.  I think I have always secretly hoped that one day when I am long gone someone would stumble across my body of work in a storage locker some place and proclaim my genius.  I know realistically as soon as I depart my beloved husband will have my useless meanderings shredded but hope springs eternal in the human breast, or something like that.  This blog is most likely my only hope for my thoughts to live on.  Nothing ever completely disappears from the Internet, or so they say. Like all things this could be both curse as well as blessing. Well, enough meandering for today.

Can we become  kinder and gentler people?   

 

In my younger years I was a very angry person.  I may have gotten my temper from my dad but I think I already blame him for enough.  I really think my temper was innate, passed down in the genes from my earliest roots.  Wherever I got it I have it and have dealt with it in many different ways over the years.

When I was growing up I buried it.  It was mostly directed at my dad, my town, upstate NY, my fellow students in school, who never seemed to accept me, no matter how nice I was to them.  I learned early on to hide my rage because railing at my dad was never a good idea and with all the others I was trying so hard to be accepted that I could let no one know how I really felt.  I hid my anger under sarcasm, humor, and outright lies.  As a consequence I cried a lot.  All that pent up frustration had to come out somewhere so poor little Claire became a big crybaby.  I can remember getting off the school bus, going into the barn and sobbing my heart out against my horse's soft neck and wiping my tears with his mane.  My horse Pinocchio was the only one who really loved me. I must have been 9 or 10 at the time. Animals have always helped me through my deepest sorrow and I have counted my animal friends  among my deepest lifelong friends. 
Later I remember as a young 18 year old in NYC absolutely hating people on the NY subway.  We would all be crushed against one an other's bodies in the hot humid summers and I would visualize killing the men who took advantage of the situation with a ball  preen hammer to the temple.  I also visualized carving them up with a very sharp knife and skinning them the way my dad and uncle skinned dead deer when butchering them.
No one who knew me had any idea of the blood thirsty thoughts I had when my anger was raging. 
Eventually these thoughts were tempered with some sort of control, but I have always felt "there but for the Grace of God, go I"  I have never knowingly lied to myself and I am aware of how close the separation is between our thoughts and our actions.  Every action is first a thought in the mind and the follow through can be an excess of external chemicals in the body(alcohol or meth, etc.), or our own internally produced chemicals like adrenalin, hormones and all the triggers produced by disease, both mental and physical.
Any way, I hid my anger for the most part and while I would fight and argue for others in what I felt was injustice, I would not fight for myself. I would instead use my old tool box of sarcasm, humor and pithy statements to hold my enemies at bay and in worst cases resort to fantasies of mayhem and death for my antagonists.  This began to change in College when I took philosophy classes in Plato and Spinoza. I was 27 and for the first time I realized that the questions I had asked all of my life, had also been asked centuries before by persons who had the same thoughts and questions.  (O.K. I was a slow learner who had no idea what Philosophy was.  I knew about Christianity and Jesus but knew of no one who asked what does it mean to be whole, perfect and eternal and infinite?)
At Queens college I encountered the greatest teacher I have ever known. He was a friend to my husband and I for 10 years until circumstances intervened and we grew apart.  This great teacher is Harvey Burstein and he still teaches in the Philosophy Dept. at Queens college.
With Harvey and philosophy I became a better person inside and the fantasies of physically harming others became less, but I still didn't know how to handle my fear and the resulting anger it produced.
This was left until I began Martial Arts, Kaze Arashi Rhu,  aiki jujutsu, specifically.  There I met the second greatest teacher in my life, Henri-Robert Vilaire.  Sensei Vilaire was and is an enigma and I will only say that six months after I began learning at his little school in Jackson Heights, Queens, my deepest physical fears left me, almost entirely. 
I believe this happened because even though I knew I might not win a fight and that death was and is a possibility, I knew I could do something. I could fight for my life and fight for what I believe in.  Fear no longer was in control and along with the fear went a lot of the anger. I no longer felt I had to submit, hide my thoughts and feelings, and avoid frightening situations.  I am not saying I never fear but I have learned to channel it into defensive, and yes, even offensive action.
Through out this long and incredible journey my husband has always been at my side encouraging me and propping me up when I have weakened.
Sometime in Philosophy studies, late in the night, I found my personal God.  I had a metaphysical realization of how a part could partake of the whole and how the whole was always available, and in fact, saturated the part with Being.  Enough said, I am now a follower of Jesus Christ, and feel God's presence with me wherever I go.

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