Category: Smashed Potatoes

It’s been… odd. I’ve been editing Willow for a couple of months now.

1) I can’t believe it’s taking me this long.
2) I can’t believe how bad my writing got while I was “Away From Writing As an Author” and why the hell I thought it was good enough to publish last October.

I’ve reread parts of Beth and Ash. Laughed my butt silly, especially with what’s been going on. Then… Willow. I wanted to turn the Novo series a little more serious, but damn. And long. Twice as long as Beth. I still need to trim 200 pages out. It’s been very slow going. I keep getting sucked into the book, which is good. But not. Very boring in parts. And I know I shouldn’t say that, being you know, the author and having a need to promote, not demote, my books.

Yesterday, I trimmed out 11 pages. Two or three words from sentences at a time. Brain dead by the time I was done.

I’m liking the changes, slow as they’ve been. Much more graphic about life in Taliville. Willow’s life. Coming up with more phrases used in the city. Tying in to both the first four books and the next four. I don’t want to slap Willow silly anymore. Not like I did when I went to publish in November.

I’m liking the change in direction for Ridge Lake. The war zone’s taking shape. I’m setting up for Hawthorne, next book, which is more than half written and very, very graphic. Tightening this novel up, I am rediscovering my sense of humor. Getting back in touch with actively defining. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s basically being scrupulously honest with the self. More than “hey, I want chocolate for dinner.”

I love my mother. Period. She and I didn’t agree on many aspects of life. It’s part of my story with Willow. There was a point, before Mom passed, that she began to understand. It did, unfortunately, come too late. I am grateful for the little bit she was able to come, to meet me halfway. That there was a glimmer of understanding that allowed her to accept massive differences in our personalities for the first time. Through all our difficulties, I never stopped loving her. Hated her, at times. But I always understood there were things about me that she could never understand because she hadn’t lived my life. I never walked away from her, not even when I had every reason in the world to do so. Because I love my mother. Period. And that was worth the hurt, anger, disappointment, and grief. By being honest with myself, understanding those decisions I made, it left the door open. When that day finally came, I remember standing in our kitchen, both of us bawling our eyes out, and I finally, finally felt like I had my mother back. It was one of the greatest gifts she ever gave me. It had nothing to do with her cancer. It had nothing to do with her dying, because we both knew her chance of survival was small. It had every thing to do with her love for me and my love for her. Period.

While many of you are having a hard time with what is going on right now, and this is not a snub, many have had to deal with these issues for years. There comes a point where you decide: this is not how I want to live. This is.

Kinda like how you don’t really want to piss off a 60 year old waitress from a 24-7 truck stop. She’s seen it all and has little tolerance for bs, but she’s still, somewhere deep inside, got a heart of gold.

It’s the same message I say every day. Live. Love. Breathe. Decide. Because living your life like you’re waiting to die isn’t living. Going balls out in the last week, sure, you’ve hit your bucket list. Because you know it’s the bucket list. Why not live life that way, before the bucket even has a chance to be seen? Love like you’ve got every dream still left in your heart. Dream as though you are fourteen, not eighty-seven. Tell the people you love that you love. Not from a disease or an ending. As a daily gift of pure energy. Connect. Wear the clothes you want. Go after the knowledge and education and profession you want. Because living like you’re waiting to die isn’t living.

So, today, among all the craziness going on, I had something very, very odd happen today. Someone I met online, not on FB, I had enough in common with, funny wise, to prefer the chat system in FB instead of where we were. This was months ago. I told him what I was about, what I was looking for in meeting/chatting with people, and that my FB page was for my writing/business. I wanted someone to share puns with. He wound up dumping about his life and ex. He did not appreciate the insight I gave, even though he asked for advice.

Today, after MONTHS of not hearing from this person, I get basically, a crank and run message about how we are different people and he didn’t like what I said when he dumped his issues basically in my lap, and wouldn’t buy his game, when I never asked him to do the same and then unfriended.

K. Whatever. I’d like to say just whatever, but that really irritated me.

So confused and I have enough other stuff to worry about. I think we all do. It scares me that this came out of nowhere. I mean, literally, NO WHERE. Weeks of silence and then… WTF?

Tonight, I spent a lovely evening in deep meditation. While that may seem boring to some, my heart is lifted.

I don’t share what I meditate about very often. The details have meaning for me. I know they wouldn’t necessarily make sense to someone else.

I feel a genuine need to help what is going on in our world today. Not to go out and combat the virus, like I have a shield and sword. I’m not a doctor, either.

What I can do is hope that this will change lives for the betterment of all mankind, worldkind, actually. It probably won’t. I write apocalyptic, so… yeah. Probably not. And this isn’t a plug for my books or games. I do know that it will change the lives for some.

It will make some people more selfish. It will make some people more aware of their surroundings. It will make some people connect in more loving ways to those oh so important connections.  It will make some people get divorced.  Others, married.

One of the questions I always ask with these things, whether its disease for many or cancer for one, check please, is: Is this the life you want to end your days with? How you’ve been living?

I don’t mean money or riches.

I mean everything else.

Is it that crucial that you put pressure on your co-workers or employees to perform above threshhold? Are you doing the same tasks, repeatedly, and getting no where? Are all the metrix running and compiling really that important to actually managing your business, or is it simply habit reinforcing reaction, instead of keeping an eye out for day-to-day as well as new opportunity? Do you even know how much time and effort you are wasting doing all that extra? If you throttle back, just a scooch, would your employees be happier and in return, give your customers a better experience? Would you keep employees longer? Is there more room for personalities to find an evening point, instead of a breaking point?

That may sound preachy. Shrugs. In some ways, it is. In others, not. I don’t mean lower expectations. I actually mean change and raise them.

Here’s another one.

Do you love someone but really can’t stand them? Are you spending your days biting your tongue? Is it better for you both to get distance? To allow each party to be who they are, because neither is going to change, and stop fighting and bickering? Is it more disloyal, if you do love that person, actually love them and want the best for them, to stay and beat each other’s brains with words of hurt and humiliation?

Is it that important that people remain silent? (Don’t get ahead of me here.) I found there are some personality types I don’t get along well with. Mostly those who are arrogant instead of self-confident. The other main: those who are full of denial of others. The two in combination are enough to make my head fly off. One of my current co-workers is body-loud. He drives me insane. Constant movement, mouth-clicking, sighing, tapping pencils and feet, and generally getting underfoot because I have to use his workstation to complete my work for the day due to the software on it. It doesn’t mean I am there to train him. I can deal with this personality type on a short term basis. Not long term. I find myself wanting to shout. He has been rather rude to me on more than one occasion. Patience and politeness count a lot with me. Some wouldn’t see that or agree with that statement. It’s the kind of patience and the kind of politeness I am talking about. There’s more than one of each.

If I had to work with this person long term, I would have to have a frank conversation with him, and our boss, and find some sort of solution. Because I can’t work in that environment and I am just as important. It’s not that I want to hurt anyone. For now, I deliberately wear headphones and listen to music that basically drowns him out. I changed my focus onto something more pleasant.  A simple conversation would, hopefully, make his life easier, as well as my own.  Because he is bored and doesn’t have enough to hold his attention.  It isn’t really my place to find him something to do.  I may have to start that, soon, even with the short term.  He doesn’t realize how rude he is being, by distracting me from being able to do the very things that buy him time for retraining, or the comments he makes that his wife is a very naggy person.  Is it really important to focus on that?  No.  Not for “end of days.”  But it is for day-to-day.  Because I am making mistakes at work because of it and I need to improve.

I’m reminded that there were days I was forced to sit in silence, smile benignly, bored out of my skull, just to be “polite” and respectful. It’s the wrong kind of polite. How is that respectful? It certainly isn’t to me. And, in a lot of ways, rather rude to the other person.

Do you scream at your teenager to get him to do chores for you? Or force him or her to come to the living area because your friend happen to drop by and dance attendance on you both?  Why is it so important that he or she is dragged out of their day, other than a quick hi, for your sake.  And, if he did that, instead of getting homework done, you’d probably be pissed.

If your spouse did that to you, when you had an afternoon of plans, maybe not fully set in stone, or your boss forced you to cancel dinner, how would you feel? Respected? Cherished? Cared about?

Is that really how you want to be living?

I had a conversation recently, one I’ve mentioned in this blog, that I finally do have a comfort zone. I was told to get out of it. Because of how I choose to live my life and how that person, while important to me, is struggling with trying to fit what he’s been told to want in with who he is. Those two things don’t fit nicely together.  I don’t see what’s wrong with having a comfort zone if it makes life better?  I don’t mean hiding out somewhere in fear or being stubborn about not leaving the house, ever.  I mean, being happy and comfortable, where you are.  I’m not robbing a liquor store.  I’m not playing beat ’em up with a street full of mailboxes.  It may be boring, but the stuff surrounding this virus?  Shrugs.  That’s part of what I study.  Herbalism.  How to take care of myself.  How to do some pretty neat things with basic chemistry, and I don’t mean making meth or extacy in my basement.

That if I wasn’t allergic to wool, wearing a wool sweater would help keep me healthier because it’s got natural antimicrobials.  How cool is that?  It may be boring to some, but hey, I have been looking into other yarns for my sweaters just on that fact alone.  And if you think that doesn’t mean much, you go ask a fashion-ficionado their opinion on Merino wool versus angora or cashmere.  I may not be a girly-girl or a shop-a-holic but I can get into some sweater factoids that might just change my mind on which skein of yarn I pick up next.  And that may make some of the local businesses around here happy.  Economy, chemistry, health.  All from a sweater.  You may not find that all that and a bag of chips, but I’m of the mind that’s pretty damn cool.  Or, er, warm.  So to speak.  All from taking control of my life.  And I get a funky, personal sweater out of that, too.  How many of you out there are some sort of yarn-crafter?  Oh, just maybe one or two.

With all the fear going on right now, the best thing I can say is to take control and re-create your comfort zone. Find out what makes you happy. If you can’t be happy, what makes you happier? You can’t control the chaos. Nor should you try. You can only control yourself, and sometimes, not even then.

We live in a world where Paris was bombed and set on fire. NYC and 9/11. A war in the middle east that seems to go on forever. H1N1.  All the shootings in our schools and churches and mosques and synagogues.  Economic depression like the 29 stock market crash and the 1930’s afterwards.

For those of us old enough to remember the 60’s or stories about the 60’s, we don’t have folk music like that anymore. We have music about 9/11. I see there is a generation out there, now, no longer willing to tolerate bullying behavior.

Our world is changing.

Don’t you think it’s worth learning the lesson we in the U.S. learned on 9/11, about the phone calls from the people on the planes, to give voice to love? To choose to call the people closest to us? To educate ourselves on how we affect others? To know what it’s like to be isolated and how to continue to reach out? We still have our phones, our email, skype, and if we are very careful, we can go back to writing hard letters.

It’s enough to control our own fears, not let them get the better of us, and just reach out and say to the person next to us: you are not alone. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.

To take this time where we need to be more conscious of all, possibly be alone for a while, and get to know ourselves again? To appreciate what is around us, people, laughter, stories, our pets and gardens. To know there was history before us that survived these things. Not everyone did. We, as a people, have learned from that history. We can tap into that knowledge, from handwashing to taking probiotics to improve our immune systems to how we treat others.

I take comfort that I can still meditate. That I am growing and healing beyond yesterday. That, even with such a pandemic going on, I am still on course with my own heart and the journey I need to be on.  That I am aware of current day and it is neither more or less important than the other aspects of my life. That I can feel peace. That I am not willing to be hurt and forced into the life I used to live, not by anyone, no matter what they mean to me. That I can look up into the sky and find beauty. That I can use the pain of my youth to get me through this current health concern we all share, and leave supplies I can live without to those who can’t. That I am listening to the same songs that lift my heart into joy.

Bless you all.  May you find peace and a quiet space to launch into a better tomorrow.

I have to laugh right now.

I’ve been home from work for… oh, about an hour. I’m working on a new game called Survival: Geese. Yes, you read that correctly.

This is day 5 of design.  The rules are done, except for final play testing.  It’s the board and packaging I am… well… you’ll see.

If you’ve seen Survival: Heaps or Survival: Chili, then you know my drawing skills aren’t, say, even the worms under Jana’s sneakers. That’s okay. When you are putting together survivalist games, I don’t think neatness counts. Or, perhaps, straight lines or perspectives.

This game came to me one morning as I was waking. It hits me like that, sometimes. Okay, most times. I know. The whole fireworks goin’ off sort of thing.

I have the movie Aristocats going through my head. The part where the geese, and kittens, are walking down a dirt trail. If you have no idea what I am talking about, here’s the clip. It’s the music that goes with the high step that is on auto-loop. In my mind. And it’s not making it any easier to draw. I’m laughing too much.

I don’t have too many more images to complete. About six. But I’ve had to redo the geese several times. When I first had a concept for the game package, it was to have three geese sort of in a Charlie’s Angels pose. And now, I have the Goose Butt High Step Swing added to it.

Oh, my.

I really worry about myself sometimes…

Ok.  That peace of mind didn’t last, but it was a wonderful vaca.

My sister laughed at me because I couldn’t write about murder, death, and mayhem. She suggested that I use the peace to think like a serial killer.

I laughed my butt off, but she was sort of right. They really don’t think like normal people. And, surprisingly, I did get some work done over the past three days.

Not enough, however. Drama hit. I don’t know which I dislike more: people who use their titles like clubs, people who don’t listen to years of experience, people who change half-laid plans when they aren’t being clear themselves and then wonder why there’s an issue, or politics. I’m just glad there wasn’t any name dropping to go with all that unnecessary fluff.

Why, oh why, do I stop listening to my instincts? I’ve had negative experiences with ___ in the past. Quite rude, in fact, and I gave up completely. A person from ___ reached out to me last year, was friendly, and I thought, why not give it another chance? At the moment, I regret not listening to my gut. And I’m stuck. Well, not really, but it feels that way. I’ve put out politics myself and more than once. But damn. I regret.

What was cool, this week, though, when I did have an issue, with a different ___, someone did reach out and gave me very clear info that allowed me to fix a massive problem. It may have seemed like a nothing thing to the other person at the time, but it meant the world to me.

I am using the one to cool the burn of the other and I dislike that even more. I’ve often said that using a positive to fill the hole of a negative is no where near as good as using a positive to boost a positive.

I’m finding that I love to knit. I do miss quilting and will maybe go back to it long enough to finish up some projects. Right now, I am looking at my murder boards, planning out the crimes, changing details based on evidence research, watching cop shows, and working on the sleeve to my sweater.

The comment about the calmness of serial killers keeps coming back to me. Some memories. Unpleasant, when my detachment slips a bit, but hey, I’d be more worried if they weren’t.

When I started writing the Novo series, Eli was “the bad guy.”  He still is. Now that I am about to publish book 5, I think simply viewing him from Ridge Lake eyes isn’t quite enough. I have spent some time in his head, how he sees the world at large.  How he thinks.  What motivates the character.  It isn’t fame.  It isn’t money, even though he has a lot of it.  It is simply his joy of power.

The point of Novo, was, believe it or not, that in any horrific situation, people can still find love. It may seem cheesecakey.  It was written that way on purpose. But with all the horrific things I’ve lived through, and see the scars on my own skin, the ghosts of broken bones and black eyes, I still love. I still have a sense of humor. It’s those “what if’s” that mean so much to me. Even if it does come across as silly.

To be honest, right now, after the unpleasant taste in my mouth from dealing with ____ (and I feel like telling the entire lot that I am backing out due to their snobbery and rudeness), I think it’s important that I continue to hang on to those “what if’s.” You haven’t fully met the characters in Hawthorne yet. And you haven’t fully seen what I do to poor Duncan LaBrelle. But what if you met the love of your life after he has been shot multiple times, or has the issues Neal does, or feel like Myles does and he’s just waiting around to die because the love of a daughter is great but feels like there’s nothing else left?

I love kids. Don’t get me wrong. But where is it written, anywhere, that says that we give up or have to give up being ourselves simply for offspring?  That we stop being simply because there is a birth.  My mom gave up things most people wouldn’t. Believe me, I am grateful in ways for that, that isn’t even funny. It would make your hair stand on end, just from my earliest memory alone of watching someone put a gun to her head.

I also remember getting angry at her on more than one occasion. She stopped trying. She stopped seeing herself as a human being. She made everything into her kids. Her clothes, food, her very existence.  Everything. And in some very bad ways, conveyed to everyone around her that she was unimportant.  I had to clean up that mess, time after time after time.  And before anyone comes at me about “not being a parent,” my kids have passed and I have taken care of more than a hundred people, including two teenagers with jackasses for biological parents.

After Mom passed, one of her former coworkers found out there wasn’t a funeral. “Typical,” he had snorted. “She remained aloof, right until the end.” Fortunately, Mom’s best friend was there to put a stop to it and explained that Mom didn’t want my father finding out and causing problems. Shut the co-worker’s mouth pretty fast. It was that every thing became about us, my sisters and I. We weren’t allowed to love Mom, in a lot of ways. She wanted us to survive without her. It will forever hurt.

There’s people I know, right now, facing the empty nest problem and are replacing their children with other children, just so they don’t have to feel alone and empty. It sickens me. I can even hear the words now: “No, I am expanding my family.” When I see the oldest, the one about to leave the nest, being repeatedly ignored and dismissed.

Hurts to see it.  Being blown off by your parents, for any reason, sucks.  Especially when they stop listening.  I don’t care how old or young those involved are.  It sucks.

It’s not my drama but I got sucked into it as an unwitting participant. Just like I got sucked into business politics by not listening to my instincts. I feel helpless by both.  I have to snort, too, because dealing with that stuff or getting dragged into it shouldn’t be anyone’s “comfort zone,” and it was mine for years.  Now that I’ve stepped back, I find it vomitous.

So I am sitting at my murder boards, and knitting. Just one more form of meditation. In the end, I will have 2 new stories and an awesome sweater.

I think, if I were to die tomorrow, is this really what I would have wanted my last week on earth to be like?  I have asked myself that question numerous times.  Because I’ve nearly died numerous times.  Enough that I am comfortable with that thought.  The answer is: no.  I can’t help but feel sorry for people who have to live by a title or what their child is doing.  Because they don’t see what they can be.  And I don’t mean those Eli’s of the world.

I want more out of life than a sweater.  At the same time, I don’t.  ‘Cause I think it’s cool for anyone to make a sweater.  I don’t want it to be a refuge.  It’s occasionally turned into one.  As sick as this may sound, taken out of context, I don’t want my murder boards to turn into a refuge, either.  I want to be able to write and knit and quilt for the joy of doing so.  Not for a title.  I don’t want to be used to settle someone else’s political internal issues.  Not to keep a sick relationship in check and not in someone else’s work-business.  That’s not why I’m here and I certainly don’t find it fun.  I want to be able to turn around and say, WTF?  How did I get that sweater made, or be completely overwhelmed by having five books in hard copy, or see the awesome new cover Jana’s made, or watch my jealous cat blink twice that I’ve actually handed him my cell phone with a brand new app moving a fish that he can paw at, or sit with my sister giggling over children’s books.  THAT is life.  My life.

It’s not fancy or glamorous.  It’s sweet and fulfilling, even if I am surrounded by evidence boards and crimes and plot points.  It’s my sweater, my sister, my cats, my books…

Ok. I am not sure I have ever run into this particular problem before.

I am too at peace to write about murder.

Scratches head.

At the end of the most violent time in my life, I used to sit on the edge of my best friend’s torn up, twin sized bed, with his sheet half off the mattress, just listening to him play guitar.

There was peace, joy, harmony, and intimacy in those moments. It was there that I first found that there are others like me- those who speak without talking. Believe it or not, with being a writer.

He knew what I had been through. Not the particulars. He knew some, because he had been through similar. Not all. And he made sure to tell me that. That there were experiences that he would never understand. He couldn’t.

In those moments, something deep inside me was touched. A light that I have carried and sheltered, no matter where I have been, no matter what has been happening, no matter how depressed or bitter I have become. That nameless place has always been and I feel resonance when that light comes to join me in the world.

The love of my life has been gone for a long time. He is another that touched that light.  Aidrian brought that light to my surface and set my world on fire. Since his passing, there have been brief moments of this feeling, but none have lasted longer than a day. Until about four years ago.

It has been a very painful re-awakening. That is what I learned from Aidrian, all those years ago. That love is painful. To be aware of the world. To feel.  It is not, however, anything to be afraid of.  It is to be embraced and cherished.

Very recently, due to encountering someone so similar to my ex, I decided to spend the majority of my time in deep meditation. No, not medication. Meditation.

In doing so, I have found a sort of acceptance and comfort. This has outted  different from other times when I have delved deep. I thought, at first, it would be the same: a simple refuge from pain and misery that would be waiting for when I was strong enough to pick it up again.

Instead, this time, I have found answers. The capacity to let go. A step beyond forgiveness or resignedness or closure. I know this feeling will fade. It should. Very few people can feel this all the time. A part, though, a part will always remain with me now, like those moments perched on my friend’s bed or listening to Aidrian sing me to sleep.

There is a point in meditation where you feel connected to all and feel healthy, green, glowing energy rushing through every pore, skin and soul. Some call this kundalini. It can come from a variety of sources. It has happened for me a time or two, over the years, and I have been drained by its flash of appearance and exhalation.

When it happened this time… again, I was not expecting it. It was not what I was searching for. In its wake, however, I feel the same peace I did when sitting on my friend’s bed. Not tired, like a well-used balloon. Peace. I have answers to doubts and questions that have sat inside me for nearly two decades. Not complete. Complete enough. Complete enough that my ex’s vicious words about my lacks are a distant memory and will stay that way. I have some of my old confidence back and not as ego. As that shelf over the black pit; as that silent voice that says “this is me.”  This is me.  This is me.  This IS ME.  I have no need to shrink or second guess.  I have no need to make myself into a mouse when I know myself to be a lion, simply because another feels the need to tame, cut, slay, and defeat another in order to feel superior.  I have no need to even voice those phrases.  It is simply: This is ME.

I have been listening to Chris Klafford’s rendition of John Lennon’s Imagine, over and over, with other riffs of music that echo that light further into my current awareness, the ones that make my hair stand on end.

How can I possibly write about murder, death, mayhem, assault, starvation, and greed, when faced with the awesome power of peace and connectiveness?

I will enjoy this, for however long it lasts, not grateful because even that would destroy this delicious sense of harmony, but standing inside the fifth note of soul…

I started Smashed Potatoes as a book, actually. It was originally called Living with Terminal Cancer. My surviving my mother and her disease. It got me thinking about a lot. This blog, for one.

If you research on how to deal with grief, loneliness, and sadness online, you will find generic self-help. The same tips that just about everyone gives. I know, because, even with my psychology-driven family and years of intensive therapy, I was looking for something “different.”

My faith is, well, mine. It belongs to me. I add to it as I see what makes sense. I can’t say to anyone: Go find God. Pray to an Angel. Take peyote and go on a spirit quest. Read the Koran. It’s up to the person to start that journey, or restart it, and that isn’t for me to make that first step for someone else. It won’t mean the same.

My immediate family is spiritual, of a sort. But not what I would call “religious.” Philosophy, yes. I have had an extensive exposure to it. I can’t say that is any more pleasant or palatable than dealing with my Roman Catholic, Vatican I, Grandmother who was raised in a time and culture to which very few could relate.

She had her own maid as a child. Her Gods, to be blunt, were her faith (which I don’t deny anyone, actually, as long as it isn’t shoved down my throat), Society, and Fashion. And she sacrificed a lot to those gods. Well, the second two more than the first. Acceptance of others was not her wheelhouse and thought that critiquing someone with diabetes on their weight by saying “you would be such a pretty girl if you just lost a hundred pounds” was being charitable.

A lot of people have asked me over the years how I survived what I have.

The answer is: I just did. And it was a lot worse than I will ever describe to anyone. Because the little bit that I did made my own therapist, who had extensive background in my sorts of issues, puke. Literally puke.

There are choices in life that I should never have been put in the position to make, but I am not grieved by making them. Learning how to make those decisions is probably the most important thing I’ve ever accomplished because it’s helped me deal with more grief and loss than I realize. If you see that as a negative, well, it isn’t meant as one. It certainly sounds like a negative.

What I find frustrating is that, when I meet people who have been in a similar situation as myself, the anger expressed is so broad, so vicious, its actually shocking to me. Women who have been raped by men “hate all men.” Men who have been beaten or emotionally emasculated by women “hate all women.”

I can’t live that way. Because hate wins and the disease wins. I can hate specific people. Hate specific actions. But not as a broad category. To me, that’s like saying: I hate all brunettes or I hate all people who eat bagels.

When you look into that abyss in someone else, that yuck that makes a sicko do deplorable things to another, at least when I did, I saw a difference. Between me and the disease. Right as it was happening. Most people can’t and the horror assumes them. I’m not saying I wasn’t horrified. I was. A part, though, as those awful things were happening, stayed silent and observant. That *I* am not those awful things.

I lost a lot of friends when I refused to buy into their hatred of another gender. I can’t. I don’t believe in gangbangs. Sexual or emotional. I don’t believe in humiliation. I don’t have a sense or need to control the world anymore.

I believe in being direct. Good or bad. If I love someone, that love goes directly TO that person. If I have a problem with someone, that discussion goes directly TO that person. I do believe in leveling the playing field, and I haven’t been so kind to myself on that matter. I also have no need to dissect the ways and means of why I like pancakes.

There is no magic pill. I got where I am because of determination and a spine. And telling my psychology-driven family to basically stick it. You can buy into theory, you can read all the self-help books you want. Spend a lifetime in therapy. I’m not actually knocking those things. Those are part of seeking a better place in life. It’s that people forget that the very “thing” that helped you survive “awful” in the first place is the same thing that will keep your disease going or will, eventually, help you become human again.

There will always be things from my past that I see now. There is no pill that will stop that. There is no refuge from when that internal nightmare comes back and bites me.

That’s the point of Smashed Potatoes. There is no “normal.”

I am a very private person. Very.  I am an introvert, and these days, that is tantamount to saying “I am a serial killer.” And while I do get the joke that I write murder mysteries and pretend I am a serial killer, I know, from therapy, that I am not.

I decided to put Smashed Potatoes out there so that people who have social anxiety or have been through the horrid things I have can see that someone is willing to break that silence.

Show, on a day-to-day basis, even tho I don’t put out a daily, that there is NO NORMAL. There will be what others call “set backs.” There will be days where getting out of bed is a gigantic effort and days where seeing what’s been accomplished all to the good will send you back to bed. There will be days where the world awes you and days where you feel like you can take on a task list that would knock other people to the ground.

It’s what you choose. I could choose to live my entire life based around the abuse. Some reading these blogs would say I do, and I would, in some cases, agree with that. I don’t hate men or women. What my day to day consists of is remaining human. Not a machine. Not “logic” math. Not placid. Human. I decided that there were aspects of personality I didn’t care for and to steer clear of those. Because we make driving rules for the squirrels in the road. We make driving rules for the deer in the road. But we shouldn’t make driving rules for the elephants in the road, just because they are huge and seemingly unmovable. We shouldn’t make squirrels and deer into elephants.

This is how I cope.  How I choose to live.  I am seeking the same thing I did years ago.  Laughter.  Love.  A few things I won’t put out in public.

My ex has his own horror stories about me.  We wouldn’t be “Ex’s” to each other, otherwise.  He did admit, at the end, that he had deliberately chased away my friends, had done some of the things he had because they didn’t reflect well on him, damaged many of my things on purpose for the same reason, and that he had blamed me for many things I had nothing to do with.  Including his hatred of women, which was, not surprisingly, generated by his sisters and mother.  While I had understood those things throughout our relationship, again, I should never have been put in the place to fix them for him, as though he deserved the magic wand and I, for some reason, didn’t.

My own family, who lived with my ex and I, rarely ever saw what he was doing.  I was blamed by my family for most of it.  That I should be grateful that someone at least loved me, with all my faults and flaws.  It was nearly 11 years before the eyes opened.  And when that happened, the understanding that came forth  was … almost a slap in the face.  A quiet “I see.”  Not even an “I’m sorry for treating you so badly when you were trying to talk to me about how to get help or get out.”  The rest was slow in coming, but there was support for a while.

Spine.  Decision.  Acceptance.  Acceptance of my Self and hanging on, tooth and nail, to knowing the emotional bruises were, in fact, quite real.  And letting go of those, as I can, when I can.  To not deny that I have that knowledge.  To not judge everyone by that same stick, but not to excuse those who are, either. 

Today, I chose to write this out.  And to take the grey out of my hair.  Just because.  For no other reason that I used to put a skunk stripe on one side, years ago, and wore a dog collar and high heels and comfy jeans and leotards.  I think I’ll have pancakes for breakfast.

Whirlwind. All I can say.

A lot of my pagan friends of a particular branch would tell me that Mercury is in retrograde and to just sort of smooth my way through it. I am wondering how much of my life is actually this, and I ain’t certain no more which is “real” life and which is “the retrograde.”

I walked out of a kind of hell at the end of last November and wow, it’s been a ride ever since. A ride. Not good. Not bad. Definitely dramatic in every sense of the word. Panic attacks left and right. From both annoying or very wonderful occurrences.

I was attracted to a piece of property I was considering for purchase. When I viewed it in person, all I could feel was that the house was desperate, lonely, and needed a hug. And I wasn’t the only one that felt that way. I felt bad that my internal answer was “no” because I could just about tell that the life would be sucked right out of me, trying to get the place to what I would need it to be.  I have businesses to run, books to write, product to develop.  I don’t expect to have a fully packaged gift handed to me.  But I can’t go back on my dreams, either, now that some have actually come to fruition.

I saw a position on line that was oh! How fun! After meeting the owners, wow, I was glad enough to be passed over for the position; so much that I nearly wept in relief.

I met someone that I was considering dating. ME. Dating. Possibly. I realized quickly enough that there would be too much push-me, pull-you.  It was nice, though, to recognize I am actually considering dating again. Another guy that I had a great time talking with, and we both agreed, that had we been able to be in each other’s proximity, we would have had a blast. He wound up being overly sensitive for my tastes. While I am sad about this, as I feel we could have become amazing, very close friends, I am also surprised that anyone would expect, in less than a week, me to sell my house and move 2 hours from where I am now, because he wouldn’t leave his area for anyone.  After a week of just… chatting.

In the middle of all that, a close friend said that it was good to “see that I was getting out of my comfort zone.” I nearly lost it at this point. I had to carefully and fully explain that, after living with the people that I had, my “comfort zone” for the majority of my life was to not have any privacy, to expect to be humiliated and exposed frequently, have my creativity stifled or outright destroyed, and to be forced into a personality that really isn’t my own, because while I do love and care, I am not Happy Susie Housewife. That I had, finally, finally actually HAD a comfort zone. And that I would think that if you live in a place, it SHOULD be your comfort zone.

I’ve hit a milestone with my business. One that I’ve been working for, for 12 years. I was so happy about this, I wound up panicking about it and then it took 5 hours to calm down.

The position I did wind up taking is temporary. I was told it would be “flex,” and that I could set my own hours. Not only was the description of the job not anywhere near accurate, but the two days during the week I had planned to get stuff done went poof. I now work every day in the afternoons, and part of two mornings a week, and have to scramble to get all the other stuff done. I am grateful, mind, for the pay. Always grateful for that. But it is dramatic and politics everywhere.

While this may seem like I am playing “splat” with the mouth at the moment, it does have a point.

Some how, in some way, massive doors are slamming shut on the past. Hard and fast.

That job that I thought was so cool? I would have driven past the cottage I had wanted to buy 12 years ago. The one I am still bitter about not following my own gut and going for, that would have afforded me a completely different life that I have now.

On my way, quite literally, to the interview, I knew it was coming up. How could I not? All I could think was: here we go again. I am right back to where I was in 2013. 7 years ago. And I am. With one notable exception. My ex wasn’t my ex at that point. He is now.

What is even scarier? I met someone, quite recently, that reminded me of my ex so completely, I was shaking hard for three days afterward. So sweet and smooth on the top. So not under that thin veneer. I saw it. So mirrored to my ex and his narcissism. All that neglectful, denial-filled abusiveness, wrapped under a pretty, seemingly innocent and supportive smile. I couldn’t get out of the room fast enough.

Sometimes, I wonder. How I was so oblivious to it. And the answer was: I wasn’t. I loved my ex for all the wonderful things he was. Half of him is truly an amazing person. The other half? No. I will have to live with that the rest of my life, because I feel wasted inside. I wonder how I stepped away. At times, I had to fight tooth and nail, screaming, because I had to. HAD to.

I am saying this, in part, because of the posts I see from a friend online. No. You aren’t crazy. I can tell you that that sort of abuse DOES exist.  You and I are not close.  We barely know each other.  I fully support every step you have taken on your journey, MT, and find I am blessed to see your posts, positive or desperate.  You are not alone.  And I am terrified for another friend who is about to go right into the hell it took me years to get out of and I am still unraveling the doubts that were seeded inside my heart and mind. It’s not my life. I can say nothing to stop it. If I try, and I did, I am already getting denials about what I’ve already witnessed.

I will state this clearly. I have been raped. Beaten. Stabbed. Lost my children. Broken bones. Set on fire. Nearly drowned. The worst, the absolute worst I had to deal with was the words. Because those don’t leave marks. There is no reminder. No scar. No rough patch, redness, swelling or bruise on the skin so you can’t deny it happened. The passive-aggressive damaging or destruction of my things- my clothes, my writing, my family heirlooms, and replaced with what someone else thought was more appropriate. The loss of the sense of self. It doesn’t come with a slap. It came with an “oops.” “Didn’t mean that.” Or getting snapped at by co-workers when I was upset with getting flowers, because “at least your man thinks to give you some.” He wasn’t doing it for me. It was so he would get praise from my co-workers.  It came in small cuts.  “Reasonable,” logical, toes-just-up-against-the-line snarks that I knew damned well were wrong but “logically” couldn’t prove because it was “just the once,” and I “was blowing things out of proportion.”  It happened so much I stopped objecting.  Because most of it was meant “to be helpful” or “was an accident.”

To see that, again, so up close, even though it is not my life we’re talking about here, poof. My mind just went out the window.

I am reminded of what I did then. When I was stepping out of that neglect and careful cut down of my Self. I find myself doing those same things, now. The meditations. Listening to the same audio book that I did then, that helped me let go as much as I have been able to.  Watching murder mystery movies.  Getting in touch with not being a block of stone.  Breathing exercises.  Not eating every piece of chocolate I can get my hands on, and instead, munching on yummy broccoli salad.  Realizing that I am in my forties.  I don’t have a sitting-duck mom to worry about and protect anymore.  Realizing that life isn’t a redo at this point.  It’s just a “do.”  Feeling blessed that, even though I miss the hell out of my dead family- parent, sibling, and children- I haven’t been stupid enough to even attempt to replace them with another family, just to prevent the empty-nest syndrome or from having to face the fear of being alone or be forced to deal with the emptiness.  That I am more than just being a mom or caretaker.  While that might insult some, I find it just as rude to have to deal with the constant snobbery when I have to say, “nope, don’t have kids” as though that is the sum total of who I am.

I’m spending time with my living sister.  The way she said she would, years ago.  We are having a blast.  Binging on TV shows.  Popcorn, like when we were kids.  She brings me children’s books that she loves and I don’t know what I think, but I wind up laughing, in a weird kind of way.  She gave me one of the best christmas presents.  Cut up soda bottles.  I had plans, several summers ago, to make the bottoms of soda bottles into flower garlands for the porch and the flat middles into plastic slats for makeshift greenhouses.  She cut dozens of these for me.  I have already used some of the bottoms as little seed planters for my hydroponics lab.  I’m making a sweater for the first time in my life, when I could crochet just about anything, but my knitting was absolute crap.  It’s completely free-form.  I have no idea what I am doing, but having fun with what is coming off the looms.

I have gone back to writing.  Full writing.  My white boards.  Plotting out story arcs. I’ve been saying it for weeks. I could feel it coming on. I know I promised Willow to come out by now. But as I am going through this whirlwind, doing the final edit, I find that, while I was amused with her last October, Willow has become a pragmatic ass and I want to choke my own heroine. Since editing Beth and Ash for hard copy, I am seeing how poor my writing became, trying to eek out a storyline while I had been in that secondary, all-consuming hell I finally left in November.  I should have had the smarts to do after a month, not over 18, considering what I had been through with my ex.  Even though it wasn’t a “romantic relationship” being referred to, there.  I made every excuse in the book, felt just as helpless, for a variety of reasons, and had become just as angry as I had in a 17 year loveless relationship.

Jana, I love the cover you have done. And it will still fully be the cover graphic. My dear, you were so right to kick my ass when I wanted to give up writing. All of it. Willow desperately needs a kick in the pages and I have decided to give that my all. Not just to knock the willies out of my head. Because that book IS a turning point in the series and I let it slide into blah muckiness.

If I have to deal with the memories of all that crap, all over again, I may as well put all that feeling into prose. You don’t know what’s coming in Hawthorne. You didn’t when you read Willow. I am going to let that anger and sorrow out. So, while I am sickened for what is about to happen to someone I love and watch them deny it and try to “prove to me otherwise,” that whirlwind is also giving me a chance to finally put more of that yuck in its rightful place.

Bless you all. May you find a silver lining in every dark corner of your mind, if that is where you wind up going.

I have to say that yesterday’s dancing has led to an interesting… series of events.

First, it’s been awhile since I have gone bananas like that.

I can say that if you want an experience in torture, start a Plank workout. I did this last week. Well before the dancing. I thought, 3 minutes a day? Cool. I can do this. There’s no jumping so I won’t put any vertebrae out like when I started Tae-Bo. It’s not quite yoga, which I needed a break from. It’s not belly-dancing. Which I do find fun. No. I was looking for something I could just do for a few minutes, like jumping on the stationary bike, but would be for the whole body.

I read through the reviews. I read that half the time, you wind up resting. I thought- how hard can this be?

Ha.

I have decided that I will at least attempt 1 plank workout a day. The rest will be the remainder of a routine I had started a long time ago and wound up having to leave behind for work because it took too long.

In the middle of the first workout, I was shaking. Hard. Breathing. Hard. Actually panting as though I had been on a treadmill for several minutes.

You would think that, after this being so fresh in my mind, as I went, in three days, from 2 completed and 1 attempted, to one attempted Plank a day, that I would have remembered that level of pain. I did not.

I woke in the middle of the night, with my feet crying out- WHAT DID YOU DO? And that was the least of it.

I was still exhausted when I woke this morning. I won’t explain to what, as any pet owner would understand. But it became *perfectly* clear that I needed to wash every ounce of bedding I have.

This would be an all day project. Which will be a topic on another Smashed Potatoes.

I did feel good, though. Inside. I decided to play with the cookbooks I got out of the library in between shoving things out of the washer and dryer.

I’ve talked and told stories about this for years. That Mom, when I was little, would pick a country out of the atlas and we would make a recipe from that country. I have attempted to do this on my own over the course of my adult life.

(Feel free to roll your eyes here.)

I wound up having to give that up, for the most part, because my ex could eat chicken and green beans three times a day for a month. He did not like “alternate foods.” Just as our relationship ended, after 17 years, he decided to start getting into exploring. I can’t tell you how bitter I am with the comments he made, after all the fighting and feeling oppressed I went through.

It’s been five years since then. I have tried, many, many times, to get back to that happiness I used to feel. “Just start,” I used to tell myself. Each time, I would have a day of happiness and then… blah.

Today, it took. I decided to make something. Just… make… something. Even though my body was basically giving me the finger.

Oh, what a disaster! LOL. I have been laughing all afternoon. I decided to make rye pasta. My first attempt at making pasta. Without a pasta maker. And something that isn’t even the “norm.” But this is me. In with both feet. No clue. No safety net.

What came out was not pasta. It cooked. But I can’t call that pasta. Nor a dumpling. I had the best time. I didn’t have the right flour, so I substituted buckwheat instead of all-purpose, on top of the rye. My rolling pin has disappeared completely. I think I had to throw it out and forgot that I did and needed a new one. I wound up using a thick glass jar. The dough was too dry. But that’s okay.

My sister had come over. She was so happy to hear the enthusiasm in my voice, that I finally felt the urge to DO, not just weep about what I had lost and given up. We chewed through what she said looked like dried out strips of liver (which she would never eat) covered in pesto and hamburger crumbles. She would eat it again. Maybe not in her top 100 to repeat, but she’d eat it again. If the pasta was rolled thinner.

In the process of this, we played a word game. She could not remember the word “badminton,” and was thwapping her hand around in the air, as though hitting a shuttlecock.

We wound up giggling very hard. All because of the fake pasta.

I love this. This is the gift my Mom gave me. Us. My sister and I. A sense of adventure and fun.

My feet hurt and my gut feels like it’s full of rocks. But it’s a sparkly day, after all.

Today is Imbolc. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a major holiday. One of eight on the Wheel. I got out of practicing these holidays a long time ago.

This year, I started at Samhain- New Year’s. Leaving the door open to forgiveness. To letting my heart be open to change.

Yule, I went on a massive emotional roller coaster and decided, again, to leave the door open to forgiveness. It was not the easiest decision I have made, because usually, when I actually decide to give up on something, I don’t ever open that door again, because it has ripped so much out of me that I can’t go on.

This morning, I woke to someone I love very much getting in touch. A goof. It was nice. The chat, over a while, turned to absolute crap, and I wound up back in bed, because I had just so many regrets sneak up and smack the willies out of my head, like a drunk playing knock ’em down with mailboxes and a 2×4.  So many things I couldn’t say.  Today or in the past.

It’s taken me all day to remember that it’s Imbolc.

I decided to let go. I have made this decision many times. I was so upset, remembering that I don’t have to take someone’s crap because they’ve had it bad. As bad as I have.

I wound up, in bed, reading a book.

It was a better use of my time and my day.

At the end of the book, it came to me, as it has before. Because I need these little lessons to cut and dig through me owning shit that really isn’t mine.

People do stupid things, all sorts of stupid, hurtful, selfish things in order to prevent from being alone. And that isn’t mine to take on.

People convince themselves that they are in love when they just want someone to take care of them or their kids or parents, that they have to win the approval of someone that will never give it, that they have to be “good” and perfect,” destroy friendships to prove they are a badass and don’t need anyone, do their damnedest to look at only the good from someone who goes out of their way to be destructive, or judge others so harshly there is no possible way of being human afterwards.

There isn’t anything I can say to any of that. Well, there is, but… I have to stop feeling guilty about what I didn’t say. Because living in guilt or living in fear or living in anger isn’t healthy for me or anyone around me, and all it will do is destroy any chance of happiness I could have. And because there were things I needed to hear that no one bothered to say, using excuses not to.

I have been that candle in the darkness, for others. I have to remember that, too. I have to remember that I don’t have to be a fruit loop- overly sweet and pointless- in order to “prove” to someone else that I care and “am worthy” and that, yes, I do love a lot of people. I am just not willing to be a doormat, as I have said, quite frequently. That it’s okay for me to be passionate.

It’s up to me to feed happiness. Mine. Others, if that person is important enough to me.

So, tonight, to celebrate Imbolc, the restarting of the spark of life, my life, celebrating the halfway point through the darkness, I am dancing. Giving voice. Breaking the silence. Howling out my heart. Lighting my candles. Looking at the five books I have in hard copy waiting for me on a table. Listening to Yuma Yuma Guy and Hamster Dance on YouTube. Down with the Sickness. Demons. Radioactive. Loves me like Jesus Does. Dirt on my Boots. YouTube’s Fallout 4 Soundtrack. Watching Yuma Yuma Guy again, because he’s just having a grand old time and nothin’ else matters.

Tonight, I dance. And accept the reset of the sparks in my heart.  Tonight, I celebrate that I am strong enough to speak plainly.  Without ceremony, practiced elegance, agenda, or hidden messages.  That love is love and I will love without fear.  That I will love without the cage of fear dragging me back into blackness.  That I will stand and be.  That I will dance.