Tag Archives: Life

Whoop De Doos in the California Desert

12 Wednesday Feb 2025

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photo credit: Colon Freld (Pexels.com)

Have you ever driven the two lane highways in the Southern California desert? Particularly, the 177 and the 95? If so, you’ve experienced the long, zig-zagging, roller coaster-like climbs and drops that follow the rise and fall of the desert itself.

I’ve driven these roads pretty frequently since my youngest moved to Bullhead City a few years ago. I’ve driven alone and I’ve been the passenger. I prefer the solo drive, the quiet drive. Three hours of processing thoughts, admiring the scenary. The wide span of sky, filled with whispy clouds on one trip and big, puffy rain clouds on the next. I usually start the drive in either direction around six o’clock in the morning, to avoid as much traffic as I can. Sunday mornings are the best. Driving with the rising sun offers colors I don’t see when I drive in the later part of the day. The reds and golds pop early in the morning, the view clearer, the drive spectacular.

I call those roads the Whoop De Doos due to the nature of the climbs, drops and swerves that are previlent for most of that stretch. Much of the time, I cannot see what’s coming from the other direction as I climb a hill, and I enjoy racing down the other side toward the next rise.

On the last couple of trips, I noticed an odd sensation as I began the approach to a rise. I felt anxiety, fear. Because I could not see what was coming. Hesitation crept in as I approached the top of the hill. What if… someone reckless was changing lanes on the other side of that hill? I began to tense up as I reached the top of each next hill.

I have never had the experience of encountering a vehicle coming at me in my lane on these highways. I couldn’t tell you why my mind decided to write that particular scenario. It happened all on its own.

I could have easily been freaked out enough to pull over and let fear win. Instead I reminded myself of a few things.

First, it was an unfounded fear. It had not happened to me and I hadn’t read about it happening to anyone else. Doesn’t mean it hadn’t in the past somewhere on this very road. I just had no experience with it.

Second, if it did happen, well – I could swerve into the desert if I reacted quickly enough, or I could get hit head-on. And even those choices had a few different outcomes.

Last, since I believe in a Universal Spirit I also prayed. I asked for the best possible outcome on my drive home. And I relaxed, continuing on my drive, making it home safely. As I always do.

Later on, while thinking about this drive, and the roller coaster-like climbs and drops, I realized that life offers many opportunities to experience the same anxiety producing experience. Starting or ending a job, or school, or a relationship offers those same ups and downs, the fear of the unknown outcome. Being where my feet are, fully present in this moment rather than “future-tripping” (is that still a phrase?), is a difficult task. However, I practice being present through meditation, prayer and yoga daily, so that when life throws me a curve-ball I’m less likely to succumb to any fear that might accompany that moment. I can review those same questions I mention above:

First, Is it real? Is it true? Am I drawing from a past personal experience or making stuff up? Second, do I have a plan to pivot if what I’m imagining actually happens? Finally, do I have a faith I can lean on when I feel afraid?

Life is full of whoop de doos. Plan for the worst, hope for the best, and enjoy the ride as best as you can.

Thanks for reading!

Every New Moment, First Time Ever

05 Wednesday Feb 2025

Posted by in Better Version of Me, Living Life on Life's Terms

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Voicemail to myself on December 15, 2024:

I’m listening to an audiobook by Rob Bell titled How To Be Here and what came to me was this: This moment that I’m in right now is the only time I’ve been in THIS moment, ever.

I’m driving on the 10 in Southern California, probably heading West. I do this often, driving from my desert home to my former stomping grounds. I just did this two hours ago, drove this stretch of highway, and I’m frustrated. It’s unfounded frustration, because there’s nothing I can do about it. I need to get to Orange County and this is the way. I can to accept that I am where I am, and just surrender to the fact that this is where I am right now. (Or I could stay home, pout, and throw a tantrum or stew silently.)

So, I’m driving on this freeway for the second time today in the same direction and I realize that even though I just did this two hours ago, I’m doing it NOW for the first time ever. The sun is in a different location in the sky. Now I’m the driver instead of the passenger, heading to the same destination, but it’s not the same.

Everything in my life that I do, even if it FEELS like something I’ve done before, I am doing right now for the first time. Laundry, phone calls to friends, gardening, walking in my neighborhood.

I was reflecting on Rob’s words, about taking risks and learning from the failures and taking different risks, seeking to find my place. I’ve been struggling with that concept: my place in the world.

I still don’t know, at fifty-nine years old, what I’m “supposed” to be doing. I’m not even clear on what I WANT to be doing, but I know that even if it’s something I’ve done before, this will be the first time I’m doing it as who I am right now. This is the first time that I do the thing I’ve done in the past, in this moment.

Everything that I do, even when it seems like I’ve already done it, I haven’t. Because this moment is a new moment. For example, right now I’m driving past the Cabazon Outlets, which I’ve driven past countless times over the past seven years, and this is the first time I’ve passed the shopping center in this moment. Holiday shoppers are clogging the streets on the frontage road, trying to find a place to park, and while I’ve witnessed this over several seasons, these are different shoppers, or the same shoppers parking in new spots.

So I’m also in the same spot, contemplating what I want to do next with my life, my time. I want the excitement, the butterflies that come from the feeling of fear of uncertainty and also the thrill of territory uncharted. I ruminate over the things I may need to do in order to find the first sentence of my next chapter in life. I realize that right now, in this moment, I am doing the thing, writing that first sentence, taking the next step, in the forward momentum of this vehicle.

I’m doing the next thing I need to do. Into uncertainty.

If You Want To Be A Writer . . .

09 Thursday Jan 2025

Posted by in Living Life on Life's Terms, Writing

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Stephen King’s advice whenever anyone asks him what it takes to be a writer is to JUST WRITE. Write consistently, write all the time. Write. Write. Write. Doesn’t mean you’ll reach the level Mr. King reached, but if you don’t write, you’ll never know.

I AM a writer. When I sit down and take a stab at putting words to the page, I’m a writer. (I’ve actually written a total of ONE book, published.) I love to edit. (I’ll admit here: I do edit spelling and punctuation. The ideas though, no planning and very little forethought this time around.) I also love to “dump.” (That’s writing whatever comes and leaving it be. See: this blog so far.)

This week’s writing brings my attempt at being consistent in writing weekly dumps to WEEK FOUR. As in, I’ve posted something four weeks IN A ROW. I aimed for Wednesday as my weekly writing day. Two of those Wednesdays landed on holidays. And yesterday I was driving home from a visit, and the thought didn’t occur to me until it was too late to write (my brain was mush). And, here we are.

There were ideas during the past week of what I might write about that never really stuck. I’d like to delve into fiction, make up a story. I used to be really prolific as a teenager, writing multi-character tales in spiral notebook after spiral notebook about a tough female police detective and the two men who vied for her affections while she solved complex crimes.

I also heard a really good line in someone else’s book about tree seeds and the need for fire to allow those seeds to sprout and make new seeds by breaking down the protective hulls, and how often humans have to go through the fire (breakdown) in order to grow stronger (heal), and I thought I could make that into something deep and meaningful (I still could).

In the end, I decided to just write about writing. By actually writing. I’ve written many poems, which were all written during painfully emotional periods of my life. I have tried to write poems during times of joy, but it never conveys my feelings in quite the same way as sorrow and despair do.

Here is a poem I wrote after my sister took her life:

My feelings of sorrow. Her life cut short.

That’s part of what it takes to be a writer, I think. Being able to dig in to the real feelings and emotions and being willing to share that honesty, even when it hurts. Want to write a love story? Remember all the truths of your feelings and emotions in the triumphs and challenges of being in a relationship. Want to write a novel about a tough female police detective? Watch a LOT of television crime dramas.

Oh, watching a show (movie, television, shorts on YouTube, whatever) and writing. Last night husband and I watched an episode of a show with an idea that a planet is hiding inside of a space storm. What a fantastic idea for a story!! Except that it’s been done, and I’d want it to be original and fresh. Which it can be if I wait a while and carve out a plot in which this idea has a great story. Why would a planet need to hide in a manufactured space storm?

Stuff like that, ideas for stories and poems, is all around us. In real life and in movies that were already produced.

I’m running out of steam and words and ideas. For now. Plus, I want to eat lunch. And since I’m not holding these and editing them, now seems as good a time as any to wrap it up.

Let me mention those “likes” pages from last week’s post before I go: Fox Reviews Rock, Dirty SciFi Buddha, Coach Esther, The Autodidact Professor, and Maia. Each of these pages is unique. Maia hasn’t posted anything new in a while, but they keep liking my stuff. Perhaps something will inspire new works.

Thanks for stopping by.

Living As A Fictional Character

01 Wednesday Jan 2025

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First day of 2025. It’s a Wednesday. Today is a Wednesday. The first Wednesday of the next 365 days on Earth.

Yesterday during a support meeting someone shared about writing a personal behavior inventory. That speaker talked about the loneliness and isolation they felt early on in their addiction recovery. That share reminded me of a couple of things: the loneliness I felt during most of my life and, how much I’ve changed over my lifetime. The thought that came while the speaker was sharing was this: What was the story I wrote about myself early on that led to that feeling of loneliness and isolation in my late thirties?

My life was fiction. I made it up as I went along and eventually I believed it. The marijuana and the beer helped a lot, as a coping mechanism, a social lubricant, and a way to believe the stories I told. I never wanted anyone to know the truth about the house I lived in, the fear we felt or the helplessness we experienced. I experienced. So I made up a new, powerful version of myself. All my stories, that truly ended in tragedy or heartache were transformed into epics where I was the hero. I said the things I was thinking to the people who needed to hear them. I kicked the asses. I fired the weapons. I had the best adventures. And it was all fiction. Well, most all of it.

I did steal a car when I was fifteen. In fact, I stole that car twice. (That’s not actually true, stealing the same car twice. I meant to steal it a second time – I still had the key from the first time – but we got picked up for breaking curfew before we could go get the car.)

I ran away a handful of times and put my trust in people who couldn’t be trusted.

I brawled once with my stepbrother in our garage on a day when we’d both had quite enough of what our parents were modeling as appropriate behavior. The fight came to a draw and we both felt a lot better. Afterward we went back into the house to play a board game.

The point to this post is this: I made up my life to impress you and to protect me. And when I experienced that loneliness, that isolation, that LACK of connection, I realized yesterday, sitting in that room, that I created that. How COULD you know me? Everything you thought you knew about me was a lie. I didn’t know who I really was. How could I expect to connect with anyone?

I spent that first year of my sobriety trying everything that I knew I’d once enjoyed. I tried cross stitch and crossword puzzles, and regular puzzles; painting and card making and photography. I read more. I discarded the things that no longer lit me up. And I did more of the things that I enjoyed.

I also learned how to make friends and discern real friends from folks who were still working an angle.

Over a decade I uncovered all the stories I’d told that I’d enhanced to shed me in a beautiful, badass light – like when I told people that in high school I kicked the asses of these two guys who spit on my friend’s sister because she was different, awkward, not outwardly attractive – factually, there WERE two guys, and they DID spit on my friend’s sister, but I did nothing, and I suppose I wish I had, so I told the story differently. So many little lies like that, so many tweaks, that I had to correct within myself, share with those who understood, so I wouldn’t have to carry that crap around anymore. I still run scenarios in my head about what I could have said to sound brave or courageous or cool, and sometimes when I tell people the first part of a story, the true part, I also tell them how I wish I’d responded, followed by, “but that was just what I thought. I didn’t actually say it.”

I’ve learned how to say what I need to say, to stand up for myself and others, without being mean or shaming or demeaning to others. I live a non-fiction life now. It not nearly as exciting sounding, but it is real.

When you talk to me today, you’re gonna get ME. You can take it or leave it, and I hope you’ll realize I’m a work in constant, never-ending progress. And if I do slip and tell a tale, I will correct it most likely before I even finish telling it.

That’s about it for today.

Oh, before I go: Last week SIX people “liked” my post “Depression, Grief and Holidays” which is more than the week before so I want to acknowledge them here: Storyshucker, Inner Peace, Object Relations, Tiny Hearts, Coach Esther, and Dirty Sci-Fi Buddha. Check them out and share the love!

Thanks for the read! See you when another idea strikes me.

Beyond Reasonable Doubt

27 Thursday Apr 2023

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Late in the afternoon in early November I was driving down the busy 10 freeway heading west toward my home in Orange County, the sun just then dipping below the sun visor as I cruised past Beaumont. For one brief moment the sun was blotted out by a billboard. 

Beyond Reasonable Doubt  JESUS IS ALIVE (855) FOR-TRUTH

At first, I laugh. Clever, I think. Then I contemplate that phone number. I wonder. I consider. I mean, what if?

My sense of humor gets the best of me. Curiosity wins. I instruct my car to dial the number. 

The electronic ringing echoes through the cabin of my Subaru Outback. One ring. Two rings. The middle of the third trilling ring is cut off as the call connects. 

A soft spoken woman answers. 

“Hello”

I pause. 

She repeats herself. “Hello?”

“Hello,” I reply. “I’m looking for Jesus.”

She pauses. I think to myself, like he’d actually be there. Like he’d want to talk to me. Ha. 

“Just one moment please,” she finally says, and places me on hold. Soft, gentle sitar music floats through the cabin. 

I’m skeptical. I mean, anyone could come on the line claiming to be Jesus, right? Still, I’m curious and I have a while to go before I arrive at home. 

After a short time the music cuts out and a voice says, “Hello. This is Jesus. What can I do for you?”

How do you answer a question like that, from Jesus? I started with, “Hello Jesus. Welcome back.”

The voice thanked me. Then the voice said, “You have doubts. Not just about me. About many things. Would you like to sit with me, talk?”

Compelling. Invited to sit and talk with Jesus. Still skeptical and now a bit cautious, I think, why not? Some public place, coffee shop or diner, that would be safe. I opened my mouth to speak and that neutral, comforting voice beats me to it: “I understand your disbelief in this moment. How about I meet you at that coffee shop just south of the next exit, Starbucks? My treat. It’s a public place, plenty of people. I want you to feel safe.”

I’m pretty sure my vehicle wobbled a little when Jesus said that. I steadied the car and quietly said, “Yes. See you in a few.” 

Belonging

30 Friday Sep 2022

Posted by in Slice of Life, Truth Mostly

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theater-ruca-souzaBelonging

“I just want to belong…” Have you ever thought that? Okay, maybe that wasn’t the specific thought. You’re at work, in the break room, sitting along, eating your lunch and a group comes in laughing and chatting and you feel a tug, inside. Like you want to be a part of that. Or maybe, you know that group and you want to be as far away as possible.

Wanting to be a part of a group probably began when I was young, around 4th or 5th grade, when life around me, in my household was slowly falling apart. I didn’t know that I needed to be with others who’s parents were in a divorce, or that had a step-mom, or didn’t know how to relate to the mom they didn’t live with anymore. I wanted to connect and I didn’t know how. I felt like an outsider all of the time.

In high school, I joined the local junior police cadets, a part of the boy scouts, because I wanted to be a police officer. I felt a part of, sometimes, and awkward and out of place at other times.

I also joined the theater classes. Stagecraft they called it, the back stage part of theater – lights, sounds, sets and costumes. That was the first time in a long time I felt like I’d found a group I wanted to be a part of – the police thing was fun, but it required a lot of work, and I was in the public eye. In theater, I was in the dark, in the back, unseen and important at the same time. Also, most of the students in theater, grades nine through twelve, were misfits, like I felt. There was Joey, a punk rock kid, and Desire, the gypsy. Rick, a red-headed actor, and the techies. I loved the techies. I loved creating illusion out of nothing on stage. We recreated the hospital ward from One Flew Over A Cuckoo’s Nest, and the farmhouse in Oklahoma. I had useful skills in that world and I felt valued and important.

The best part of that brief moment in time was the belonging. I could be me. I didn’t have to pretend with those people, and they liked me as I was. After the ninth grade, it was another long stretch before I belonged to a small group of people again.

Lego Life Lesson Reminders

09 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by in Best Life, Better Version of Me, Life Lessons, Personal Development, Transition, Truth Mostly

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Lego Life Lesson Reminders

Building Lego kits reminds me of life lessons… I thought I’d share that with you today.

2019-04-09 10.20.32My husband bought me a Lego Creator kit for a 1967 Mustang. This kit has over 1,400 bricks and pieces, and the completed model will be 13.5 inches long and 5.5 inches wide. The instruction manual has 195 pages for the basic design and about 20 more pages to the super charger engine. Challenging, right?

Have you ever put together Legos? Kits, I mean, although, there is something rather meditative about building something from your imagination using Lego bricks.

Lego kits come with instructions and all the bricks you need to build whatever is pictured on the box.

Here’s how it works. Each page  in the instruction booklet features:

  1. a diagram of the pieces you need to build the sequence on that page.
  2. step by step diagram of how to put those pieces together.
  3. diagram to show you where to put that bit you just built.

Legos provides step by step instructions, and building a Lego offers you an opportunity to be present. I cannot think of or focus on anything else while I am putting together Legos. I am required to stay in the present moment in order to build the kit properly.

Master Creators create Legos beginning with the end in mind. Actually, I think Legos may come up with the end result IDEA first (“Wouldn’t a Millenium Falcon be a cool Lego kit? I wonder how we could do that?”, said some Master Creator somewhere) and then deconstructs the idea (go backwards and creates a series of steps) so that they – the Master Builders – can create a kit with all the pieces to build something amazing.

I applied this deconstruction (start at the end and go backwards) technique on purpose just recently – even though I’ve been using it unconsciously for most of my life.

In the beginning of this post I mentioned that Legos provides an instruction manual (sometimes with over 200 pages). I also recall hearing again and again over the years about how LIFE does not come with an instruction manual. Nor does parenting (although there are hundreds of books on both subjects these days… but they are pretty general and each of us is pretty unique).

Except that maybe life DOES come with instruction manuals. You probably have a set of instructions you’ve developed for many of your daily activities, although you may not realize it. Everything we do during the day requires a series of steps. Let’s use taking a shower as an example – what goes into that? Well, the water has to be running, right? Shampoo, Conditioner, and soap are typically involved – what order you use those in is up to you. Wash cloth or no wash cloth (some folks use those plastic scrubbies). You’ll need a towel within reach to dry off. Do you take clothes into the bathroom with you to get into after you dry off? Think about your bathing process. That’s a series of steps.

Getting the kids ready for school? You probably repeatedly do the same thing each morning to get from waking up to getting out the door.

Brushing your teeth. Doing the dishes. Making a meal.

Step by step. A series of processes. You have created a bunch of mental instruction manuals.

When the goal or desire is bigger, or you want to achieve something on purpose, that process may seem overwhelming, or unclear. How then could you apply the instruction manual, or deconstruction technique, to the bigger things in life? The things you desire? Better job, bigger house, that European vacation (I assume everyone wants one of those).

I used the deconstruction for a dream of mine: the end result or desire – a bigger house. How do I get there? I broke it down, I started at the end and went backwards – probably just like the Lego Master Builders. To move into a bigger house, I need to move out of this littler house and I’d like to rent this one rather than sell it. This littler house is not ready to be rented as it is, so I need to improve a couple of things – kitchen, driveway. I also need to qualify for a loan for that bigger house, and be able to pay the mortgage. I’ll need money for both of those things – to fix little house, to pay for bigger house. I have a little income, but I’ll need more, so I need a side hustle. Going backwards, and WRITING IT DOWN, helps me to SEE the process to get where I want to go, and to help me stay on track as I head there – because life will present challenges and try to knock me off track. A written plan will keep me moving forward.

I wrote an instruction manual to get a house.

You can do the same thing to get a job, buy a car, improve a relationship, get into better shape, be a better parent, finish college, or what ever it is that you desire. Step by step, you build upon the foundation of your desire until you get to the end. And you can do this over and over again.

That’s what Legos reminded me about today. I can write my own instruction booklet for every desire I have, big and small. And if I follow the steps, I will reach my goals.

For now though, I’m going to go work on that Mustang!

The Nuances of Life

23 Saturday Mar 2019

Posted by in Transition, Truth Mostly

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The Nuances of Life

I was about to drift off to sleep and I was thinking – as I’m sure some of you do as you drift off to sleep – thinking about a live event I get to attend on Tuesday, and the person I get to learn from, and his language which is similar to my language. By that I mean, I drop ‘f’ bombs when appropriate (and sometimes when its not so appropriate), and so does he – and he is real, he is authentic. What you see is what you get. (Although I’ll find out Tuesday when I meet him in person.)

And that thought led to a conversation I had the other day with a friend, discussing that she didn’t know how to be – that different situations called for a different representation of herself (this is more cerebral and detailed than the actual conversation was). Something that prompted me to think, “Why can’t you just be YOU regardless of the company?”

And tonight, thinking about Tuesday as I drifted off to sleep, I realized that I am not the same me to everyone I meet. Some people wouldn’t respond to me the same as other people do. Which means – that while I am working toward being an authentic single version of me, I am still holding back, or masking certain aspects of my personality to appease others. I still give a shit what people will think of me long after we part ways. I behave the way I think they will best respond to instead of adhering to a personal set of values that do not waver, and not worrying about what other people think of me.

What other people think of me is out of my hands, out of my control. Spending time and energy attempting to control that subtracts from my mission to be authentic, to be me. The best version of me continues to evolve but ultimately the core values are just that – core.

When I thought about who I am most real with and why, it shed light on who I am not authentic with, and why not.

So as I drift off to sleep tonight, I will go to sleep knowing that tomorrow I will review my core values and I will stick to those when I interact with everyone. And those who align with my core values will seek a relationship with me and those who don’t won’t.

And either way, it’s none of my fucking business. I’ll treat each one with the same level of love, tolerance and respect I’d like to receive.

Maybe you have some thoughts on what authentic means to you, and what core values you live by on a day to day basis. I’d love to hear about them. Comment below, please. Let’s get to know each other a little better.

Until I hear from you, goodnight.

The Little Writer That Could

19 Tuesday Mar 2019

Posted by in That's Life, Transition, Truth Mostly, Writing

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The Little Writer That Could

Once upon a time there was this girl. She wanted to write, to share her stories, both real life and imagined.  She didn’t know how to tell a story really well, on purpose. But she had determination and a computer. She started a blog – an intermittent blog (that’s what I could rename this blog – The Intermittent Blog) – with stops and starts, great ideas put down in digital words, and some not so great ideas that folks stopped by to read anyway.

She got likes and comments, and she felt real good about it on the days she had thoughts to share. There were other days though, days when life got busy and no blog-type thoughts visited her mind. Those days were harder, because she wanted to be consistent, and share all kinds of interesting stuff and insight, get lots of followers and share experience and knowledge.

This is one of those times – it’s been days since I posted. And I felt bad – I said I’d post. I guess committing to a post every day is just too much for me to ask myself right now. I mean, even great writers had their off days.

I am taking a couple of online courses – focused education. I am learning more about real estate wholesaling and also about social media marketing. I have great teachers.

I also invest in real estate and that involves a lot of footwork, meeting with homeowners who want to sell their homes and do not want to do any work to the homes or deal with a real estate agent. My husband and I help with that – we find buyers who want to offer cash in exchange for a discount on the property. It’s not for everyone – there are folks out there though who are grateful for our service.

And life, in general, day to day stuff – the expected and the unexpected. (For example, there is a large adult skunk residing somewhere in our yard at the moment. Seriously. I would have taken a photo today, but I also did not want to upset the gentle creature. Made it difficult to leave the house until the sun broke through the clouds. The cat was not happy.)

Anyway, that’s my story and (as my husband loves to say) you’re stuck with it.

Tomorrow is the release of the photo prompt for Fictioneers Friday. Stay tuned.