Bipolar

So today is my birthday and I have decided to share on this blog that I suffer from Bipolar I illness. This past year has been my most stable yet. I was a little manic this summer, just enough to get some real work done. By that I mean writing. I can't hold a real job because of my illness. I'd like to stay in that just "right" mania all the time but the body won't stand for it. You either go over the top into full fledged manic psychosis or crash into a deep depression. As it was I had a mini crash and have not been able to write since.

So I'm waiting on the muse which usually means a slight lift in my mood. Then the words jsut come together and I'm on cloud nine. This is unlikely to happen heading into the dark months of the year. I do better with the long days of summer.

Being stable means impoverishing your life. When I'm manic I'm a very social person. Staying calm means not getting too excited which means I have to stay home a lot. Socializing revs me up. Getting reved up means taking more meds. Taking more meds means getting dumber and not being able to read much less write. These are the rules of stability.

grateful

I'm just sitting here in the sunshine feeling grateful.  Tomorrow is my birthday and I get to think of how I want to spend the next year. The first thing is that I'm going to Seattle to visit my best friend from elementary school, Elyce. I really want to spend time getting to know her teenaged son, Noah. Next I want to take a camping trip with Richard out to the Smoke Creek desert. Sometimes the muse really speaks to me out there. And I love the desert light and the vast loneliness. Next I want to go to the Bay Area to visit my sister Amy and my Kids and Richard's long time friend.

By then the Holidays will be approaching. I always do well through those sparkling days. I love the sparkling lights, the gifts, the cards, the trees, the music, just everything about the holidays. But after that comes the production months. January through May. I have to figure out how to get some work done during that time.

My passion is my jewelry blog. But I don't know how to go any further with that than I have already. I think what I'll do is let myself off the hook for the future and just enjoy today. It's so beautiful. And I just feel so happy and grateful to have seen my family this weekend. We had a really nice family party. Amy was up for the weekend and everyone had such a good time. I've read that when people are on their death beds what they regret most is time not spent with loved ones. Work is a way distant second concern.

walk

This morning was a perfect day for a 3 mile walk with my two sisters and our three dogs. I used to walk this path almost every day and my doc told me if I kept doing that I'd live forever. The walk felt good today, and I really should take it up on a regular basis once again. I think it would help my creative life. I find that walking helps me to solve writing problems.

Virginia Woolf used to walk when she got stuck in her work as did numerous other writers. It's just easy not to exercise when it's too hot or too cold. But these fall days are perfect. So I will challenge myself just to walk while the weather is nice. I won't make any draconian vows that I can't keep. Usually I'm very black and white: I will walk everyday forever or I will not walk at all.

It was a wonderful morning for a walk. Cool with golden grasses, evergreens, and faint traces of the beginning of fall color. The dogs were smiling the whole way, running back and forth into the woods and up and down the embankments. They plunged happily into what was left of the creeks.

To live magnificently means doing what you enjoy. I enjoyed walking today in this pleasant weather so I will walk again when it feels nice.

TV

Well it's been this kind of day for me. I wrote a short poem in the morning then settled in for a day of binge TV watching. Now I think I deserve this because I NEVER watch TV ordinarily. I haven't since I was a child. We didn't have one growing up so I never got into the habbit of it. And we don't have TV now. I do have Amazon Prime but mainly for the free shipping and the Kindle library. Watching the Wire is the first time I've ever used the video sevice. My son recommended this show to me even though it's really old because he thinks it's one of the best things on television. I couldn't say if he's right. But I have enjoyed the show.

I like the season I'm in now (four) because it has a lot to do with education and I remember the days when I would have felt good enough about my teaching to enter a inner city school like that and face down a classroom of chaotic teens. Those days are long gone but it's fun to watch.

Later in the day when my internet stopped streaming like it always does in the later part of the day because of other internet users in Meadow Valley, I had dinner with Richard and we read the San Fran Chron. We read this horrible article about how plastic and fiber survives inside of fish and ends up in dinners served at Bay Area restaurants. And we cracked each other up by ordering such dishes as "the Corduroy of Sole" and the "Rayon Special." Plus a little caviar of blue mircro beads.

What a seriously sick situation. Is there ever any reason to eat fish? I know we used to like it back in the 80's. But now, I mean really. With radiation, plastics, clothing fibers, and the general decline of fisheries everywhere, can't we just say no to fish?

Anyway I just sort of curled up and stayed home today with no expectations of myself. I get to watch TV. Millions of Americans do everyday. Tonight I already read most of this week's New Yorker. And now I'm going to get back to my book on Obama's mother. So I don't think the TV has done any permanent damage. Has it?

The muse

Well I wrote a poem today. Not a good poem. Not even an OK poem. But still the muse was in the room. This meant I palyed hookie from my mindfulness class for which I feel guilty. I hate letting down a teacher. And it strikes me that in Quincy people just aren't very committed to anything and this includes me. Anything demanding of my attendance feels too much like church which I had way too much of growing up. Still I feel guilty for doing what I want to do. Like doing what I want is wasting my life. So there's the paradox I did what I thought I lived to do, but I feel guilty about it. I guess if the poem were really great I could justify not going to my class. But anything short of genius doesn't deserve my time and attention.

Still really? It feels good to have had the muse in the room. Maybe she'll come back and visit me again tomorrow. If in addition to this blog I leave an half hour for the muse I might make some progress in turtle steps. How will I know if I don't try? Living magnificently is living your life in enjoyment. My guilt is not adding to my enjoyment but my new poem is. Because I think I can do better tomorrow. I'm just warming up so to speak. Now I have to stay in the pool and do a few laps. I could even go for that Epic win and finish something!

more mindfulness

So I went to the free mindfulness class again yesterday. This morning I wasn't feeling too magnificent. Actually I was kind of anxious. My sister reminded me that I'm always like this in September as the days grow shorter. So I did two things. One: I used my breath as an anchor and tried to really feel who I was. Two: I reminded myself of the definition of magificence which is just living your life with enjoyment.

Then I watched three episodes of the Wire, my new show, which is a really old show that I've never seen. It's pretty good, and I like seeing all the old technology. Then I made some of my special not too sweet cookies, then I started a book about Obama's mother. Then I took a nap.

I could have really had a magnificent day had I gone to the happy hour I was invited to by my old life coach, Katie. But I was feeling too anxious to go out. I think it is a magnificent thing to tell myself that I will try to do it next time. In fact I'll write Katie and ask her to keep me on the guest list.

I have mindfulness class tomorrow and then I will visit my elderly friend, Barb. I have to remember that there will be these days that seem wasted. As I wait for inspiration to tickle my curiosity just enough to lead me into another project. But that's the creative process. In fact just typing this down made me realize that the phrase "Mental Health" has been going through my mind all day. And just now I realize that I had started a whole new project last year about this time, and I feel excitment going through my veins. I had totally forgotten about this project. It's a long poem about being in a psyche ward. I'll have to sneak up on this piece and see if it will let me back in. Turtle steps as Katie says.

Magificence

This is a really fun book to read! It's about a lady who inherits a huge old house in Pasadena. I'll try not to spoil it for you. But the house is full of wonderful but ill kept treasures. Buried in the basement is literally the key to our human history. When you read about houses your are of course really reading about selves. This we know from Jung who says that if you dream of a house with a secret room it is really a additional part of yourself you need to explore. But it's just so luscious to get to see a character do this detail by detail. And to think the lady thought she might move to a condo on the beach!
Anyway what I love about this story is that the main character doesn't have to do anything to get this house. She just inherits it from an uncle she never knew. And no one can take it away from her. And when she starts paying attention to the treasures inside herself they come back to life to the extent that any old memories can. And as she digs deeper inside herself/house she comes to find the mythic beginnings of the human story. Things she never thought existed or had believed became extinct long ago.
I think the treasures in the house are her memories of her experiences in life. The stories she once knew about herself but then ignored as she became estranged from her inner life. And I think this book is saying that we all have inherited such a house. We all can imagine learning about ourselves as inheriting a grandly beautiful old neglected house. But we can fix it up! Our house/self can come back to life. That's why I'm sitting here trying to work on this blog and on my own Magnificence.

old romances

At the Peeking House in Chico, where I went to eat lunch with my friend, I got a fortune cookie with the message: Prepare to receive something very nice. By the time I got home that evening I found a package waiting for me from my friend in Southern CA with two books in it for my birthday.

They were both about old romances coming back to haunt you. I read them both this weekend. The first and older was Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane. In this story a 17 year old Effi is married off to a middle aged aristocratic bureaucrat. He is a rather small minded man who doens't appreciate Effi's effervescence. And she is faithful to him in her fashion which is to say she had a brief affair with a charming Major which she then ends it only to start life anew in Berlin faithful to her husband and daughter.

Seven years later, by a series of misfortunes, her husband comes across her old correspondence  and discovers the affair while she is out of town. He goes back to their old village, demands a duel with the Major, shoots him dead, puts aside his wife and turns their child against her. Needless to say she pays the ultimate price by dying at age 25 back at the home of her parents who have given up society to welcome their disgraced daughter back to their home.

The second book was Out of the Dark by Patrick Modiano. Here the story is narrated by a man who is haunted by a brief four month love affair he had with  a young woman when they were both 20 years old. The story takes place in both Paris and London during the '60's. Although the narrator is haunted by the events of the relationship, the woman, Jacqueline seems to be unscathed by the past. She has even changed her name. The narrator sees her briefly after 15 years and then glimpes her another 15 years later and while he is profoundly affected she seems unmoved. She has reached her goal of living well and spending a good deal of time in Spain.

The narrator pays no great price for his lost love. He's a successful writer and seems to be well enough if somewhat lonely. You get the feeling he wouldn't have been much happier had he married Jacqueline. They would have divorced anyhow.

Concerning my old love affairs I can only say I am happy to be more Jacqueline than Effi. Effi is a child of the Romantic era. She feels too much. Why in the world did she not burn those letters? Jacqueline uses people to get what she wants. And she loves them in passing. I'm not that cold hearted. As I love love love my husband. But as for old romances, I really think that they should be things of the past. To be remembered for the good times but not moped over. Thank God society has caught up with this sentiment and no longer shuns women for their romantic escapades.

The whole romantic myth is based on the idea that you need someone else to make you whole and magnificent. When really true love is based on a partnership of two magnificent individuals hooking up and becoming more than the sum of their individual selves. I really see this now. But I had to go through a lot of romantic suffering to get to this place. And you have to live through it to get beyond it I guess. But being finished with romantic suffering is a benefit of being in your 50's. I turn 54 this month and that was the age that Rilke died!

Super-Better

So one thing that comes to me as I sit on my kitchen chair is the NewYorker Magazine. I was interested in an article this week that proposed the idea that we treat our lives as trumped up video games. This idea comes from a book called Super-Better by Jane McGonigal. And it goes something like this: having a hard day? Turn it into a challenge, collect and activate power-ups, identify bad guys and battle them, seek and complete quests, recruit allies, adopt a secret identity, go for an epic win.

In almost every way this is contrary to my mission of letting my magnificence flow through me. It reeks of trying too hard. Of constantly having to have your brain turned on. Got stood up on a date? Find the bad guy. Big Bad Insecurity Monster (not the guy that stood  you up, darn). Battle him (Insecurity Monster not the guy) with bubble bath and new date clothes. Gather you allies (friends) to gain support. Find another challenge (Date). Adopt a secret identity--that of a nice person? Go for the Epic win--Sex, Marriage?

The only thing I can endorse is adopting a secret identity. And not some stupid heroic Captain Chief of PowerPoint. I mean a real secret identity. Whenever things look like they're getting too hard, I pretend I'm Russian. Pre-Communist Tolstoy Russian. A Princess like Natasha in War and Peace. I go about my day doing whatever common chore I have to do but my mind is caught up in my Russian fantasy.

I go to Mrs. Carey's Candy store for a small box of chocolate. I buy a latte. I wear my clothes that are particularly romantic. I change up my rings to be very princessy. I imagine being in a Russian landscape. It's really fun and it doesn't require having to moniter how I'm doing all the time. I can slip easily out of the Russian world at any time to attend to facets of this world. But then I can slip right back into Tolstoy's world and keep looking for those shining moments, like the dancing country people, or the wolf hunt in War and Peace.

The world is full of such wondeful moments. You just have to be primed to witness them. Being Russian helps me be ready to see the beauty that is in that other world which is also in this one.

crafts

So I actually know quite a lot about hand embroidery. My mom wants me to help her make 25 Christmas presents all of which demands lots of hand embroidery. The project is a little felt prairie girl that doubles as a needle holder. These little items have been made for at least three generations by the women in my family. My mom wants to hold on to the tradition.

This means I will have to get out all my thread, clean up my house and prepare to feel cozy. Being in a cozy mood is the only way to reduce your world small enough to care about the perfection of the french knot. Right now the outdoors is still too alluring to really promote coziness. Rain and cold make coziness more accessible.

What is conziness really about? It has something to do with the private life. About turning inward. You get mindful when you focus on tying french knots. A hot cup of tea comes to mind. Working on a cozy enterprise does not take up your full attention though. The hand give the mind room to wander a bit. If you are so inclined you may ponder an old romance.

But I am not so inclined. I am trying to figure out if I have a self or am just an acumulation of experiences as Hume would suggest. Of course there has to be something to acquire experieces with in the first place. And that's what I'm looking for. A consciousness outside the body. That's what I will be wondering about as I embroider my little prairie girls.

Because that consciousness is the spiritual source of all our magnificence. We are spiritual beings having a Human experience not Humans having a spiritual experience. That's what the book said that got me started on this blog to begin with. The experience of being cozy is one which allows for getting in touch with the true self. I think that's why we like crafting so much.

mindful politics

So my mom calls Trump the Ugly American which is true on so many levels. I spent yesterday going to Chico with my friend and we both agreed on the way down that if we were forced by gun point to vote for one of those repub candidates, we would probably be for Jeb Bush. At least he doesn't want to deport 12 million people. It hurts me to say that he seemed like one of the saner people up on stage. And I despise all things Bush.

I'm planning to hold my nose and vote for Hillary. I don't think she'll dismantle Obamacare which affects me personally. And when it comes down to it, don't we all vote out of personal interest? I mean that's why what's left of the middle class votes repub. Tax cuts sound pretty good to people paying as much as they are. I get that.

So how does mindfulness work into thinking about politics? You gotta create a big space between stimulus and response. I got into some of the ugliest discussions with my baby sister talking politics. She's middle class. I mean she and her husband probably make 200K a year. They want to pay less in taxes. I agree that they should. But they also want to round up all the illegal Mexicans and deport them and they want to send their children to a public school where there is a special program set up for their children so that they are seperated from the possibly Hispanic riff raff. I can see wanting to pay fewer tax dollars but do you have to be mean too? Do the two things invariably go together?

So back to mindfulness. Big space between stimulus and response. Like hours. Like do not respond until you have left the building.

mindfulness

After the mindlessness of the GOP political debate, I spent 20 minutes at a mindfulness class the next day. The subjects taught at the class were identifying the space between the stimulus and response in our emotional lives and finding our breathing anchor. I think I'm pretty good at the first lesson. I don't usually fly off the handle. I've been practicing this for a very long time. But it was good to discover that by placing my hand over my belly (the place where I most experience my breath) and breathing, I can instantly center myself when I'm feeling frazzled. All in all the class was worth the gas  money and the 20 minutes of driving from Meadow Valley to Quincy.

Especially as I combined the trip with a visit to my 80-year-old friend with whom I have spiritual discussions. On Thursday, my friend described a dream she had of Jesus. In her dream, Jesus was leading her up the staircase to heaven and she was following him. Behind her, attached to her in some way, as if by a force field were all her cats,  past, present and future, following along on their way to heaven too. I thought this was a wonderful dream and we discussed Jesus visitations which it turns out is a thing.

My friend gave me a book about many peoples' different experiences, and I realized I had had two during my life. One I am willing to talk about. I was quite young, newly married for the first time and feeling stressed our about all of life's trials when I awoke from a dream to see a faint light glowing at the foot of my bed. In my head I heard a very distinct voice say, "Trust in my goodness." The light slowly faded, and I felt calm and went back to sleep. I have only told a couple of people about this but it has held true for me for the rest of my life since. I have found that I can trust in this goodness of this source of divine light which I now believe was Christ, having spoken with my friend about such visitations.

I am not willing to talk about the other visitation as the message I was given has not come true yet. And should it never come true I should not like to add doubt to an already doubting world.

Paul Rodgers

So last weekend we went to see Paul Rodgers in concert. We spent hundreds of dollars for the tickets, the hotel rooms, dining out, etc. We took Ash Marie and Steven (son and daughter-in-law whom I love, love, love) with us. It was a wonderful show. Rodgers is very gracious and charming and still sings great. It was a dreamlike experience in that it was rare and so quickly over. I knew all the music go that was great for me. Steven told me the show got much better for him when he knew the songs.

Isn't that true about life? It's so much better when you know the songs. And the fact of the matter is you can only learn so many new songs. I mean love so many new songs. And if you're anything like me and still love so many of the old songs, well you can imagine.

Still by investing in going to this concert something profound happend to me. I felt this feeling of being a teenager again. The excitment of youth. Its possiblity. And everyone there was about my age. And they were mostly over weight but they were singing. We all knew the words. It was strange to see my demographic exclusively. We haven't saved the world. Most of us looked pretty torn up actually. But we were trying. Mostly everyone had dressed nicely. People were invariably polite. There was none of the testosterone driven postering of the young bucks.

This crowd helped me to see myself better. A child of the depression era 70's. Still hanging in there but not part of the 1%. I wore a golden sequined top with a denim skirt and my red Escada hearts necklace. And looked pretty cute for someone who's let her hair go white and most of which has fallen out over the past eight months.

But my husband Richard was great. I have the cutest pic of him the next day waving his hat at the camera in victory. He will turn 76 in Oct. and he's still loving life.

Of course the universe is all about balance. You don't get to have such a beautiful time without something to balance the scales. We came back to a $500 vet bill and brake maintenance on my car.
But still for an evening we were golden. We were shooting stars, shining on forever, as Paul always adds in his live performances of that song.

GOP Debate

OK so I watched the Repub debate, at least right up to the point where my stepdad presented me with my favorite birthday dinner of porkchops and sauerkraut (it's not the exact day yet). And what can I say? I thought Trump was a mean buffoon last time and this time he seemed actually appealing. Yuk gag. I know, I know crazy huh? If something sounds too good to be true it probably is. So I asked myself what am I not hearing this time? Maybe I just zoned out over the whole exile of 12 million people thing upon the election of "the Donald."

Like I just couldn't get up the energy to care about what that will really mean for real people who have lived here for years who will have to be detained, processed, and deported, through some kind of government or even worse, contracted, bureaucracy?

And when Trump talked about all the good deals he was going to make on behalf of our great country did I just snooze through what the environmental impacts of these projects would be?

Face it, I  just want good things to happen for our country. California is burning up as we speak and I wonder should we be whole sale logging? It would be better than this. But the truth is subtle. And we are trained to think in extremes. What we need is really good forest management. Really good roads and bridges, really good schools that are affordable, really good healthcare, really good social security, really good environmental regulations, really good business practices, really good fair taxes, really good energy and food sources, etc., etc. And all this take hardass work in the trenches. It would have to inspire people like me to get their butts off their kitchen chairs. And everyone would have to be magnificent. Everyone. Not just Trump.

But like my stepdad says it wouldn't take much to tip us into a state of chaos. Just one more big economic crisis could do the trick. Riots would break out here and there. A strong man would take over some territory and start a gang, etc. etc. Mad Max. Trump talks like he can hold all the wolves at bay. But it's not true baby, not true.

life's a beach

So I'm sitting at my kitchen table wondering who am I? And that old fad phrase "Life's a beach," runs through my mind. I grew up in Honolulu so the beach seems like a good place to start. What kind of beach am I? Well I wish I were that kind of grand coastline in the picture of Big Sur at the top of this post. But I'm afraid I'm really just this kicky little watercolor of umbrellas.

Noble coastline-NO
Kicky Umbrella pic-YES

As Katy, my old life coach, would say, "What's so wrong about being a Kicky Umbrella pic?"
Nothing. There's nothing wrong with it. Except. Except it's light weight. You know. For instance I just found out that I did not win a poetry contest. Granted there were 15,000 entries so it was sort of like a lotto, but still if you don't play you don't win. Anyway I lost. My poems were about Angels and flowers. They were (are) pretty good poems. Really. But I can't get anyone to publish them except the Plumas County Calendar that my sister edits and begs me for filler. So what should I do? Eat? Pray? Love?

Anyway back to my kitchen table and to the premise that I will just allow the magnificence of myself to overcome and change me. I got two calls. The first was my friend, who gave me the job I just quit, asking me if I wanted to go to a class on mindfulness, I agreed being glad that she was still talking to me. And the second from my mon inviting me to eat dinner with her and my stepfather, Greg, before watching the 2nd Republican debate. I agreed to that invitation as well.

The woman who wrote the book I just read says that all you have to do is be yourself and allow the universe to give you everything. I know there must be some action involved somewhere in that formula but I have yet to glean what that would be. Other than eating lunch with said friend because I want to do something nice for her being that she took my quitting her job so gracefully (the mindfulness class is tomorrow) and watching the republican debate, I'm doing nothing. As I posted on my other blog, I've changed all my rings to my blue sapphires for my birthday month. As Katy says, "Take turtle steps."

I'm not learning very much about myself that I don't already know. To take stock. I'm light weight. I love jewelry. I love flowers, clothes and furniture too. I'm lazy. I don't keep a clean house, I don't cook regular meals. I love love love my son and my husband. I love my friends and large family too. And I'm trying to figure out what the rest of my life is supposed to be about. I think it's supposed to be about being magnificent. I think we all get to be magnificent. But I don't know how to get there from here. I'll let you know. I'm doing this experiment for us all.

Desert Pelican

I love the idea of Desert Pelicans. You don't usually think of giant sea birds in a desert and you don't usually think of giant inland seas in a desert either. But they both abound. Pelicans are also found at high mountain lakes. I've noticed that they tend to migrate on cloudy or rainy days in swerving lines to their Summer homes. I like to see the pelicans at Pyramid Lake near Reno and the pair that always mate in our own backyard Snake Lake. The picture above is of an Australian desert pelican.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning said, "Earth's crammed with heaven/ and every common bush afire with God." I think about this when I think about deserts and their pelicans and seas. There are creatures and flora everywhere and if  you read Facebook you get the sense that mankind is becoming closer and closer to these fine beings. You also see animals making strange friendships. Truly the peaceable kingdom is at hand.

But if you also read Facebook you see 800,000 refugees trying to swim to Europe from North Africa. And you certainly get the sense that they are not all welcome. And you think truly the end times are at hand. Because you also see all the plastic in the oceans, the mountains with their tops blown off, oil in the waters, droughts, and floods. Polar ice melting. Earthquakes.

It's all there. People are expanding their consciousness and opening their chakras and people are trying to defund Planned parenthood and fund more oil pipelines. And you don't know what to think. And if you're a writer you don't know what to write. Is there a cabal? Are there false flag events? Are we funding both sides of the war in Syria?

I couldn't tell you and sometimes I care and sometimes I don't give a fuck. See I just want to be me. I just want to know who this creature Lyn Walters really is. I don't want to hike the PCT to find out either. I just want to sit at my kitchen table and read and think about it all.

See this is a beginning for me. I quit probably the last job I'm ever going to get in this town. I thought I was too magnificent for it. That's the truth. And I know better. I know you're not supposed to tell the universe you don't do windows. But I just didn't want to start a basic education program for convicts. I imagined myself waiting at the library on a cold winter's night for people who don't show up. And with this demographic they don't show up. They say they will, they want to, but their lives are so chaotic that things don't work out. I get that because I have things that don't work out a lot too.