Precious Memories

Heavenly Light

50 Miles

Check this out!

Worship the Lord (If you worship like this it's a real celebration!)

Zachary Richard-The levee broke

Tracks of My Tears

DP sings FA

Sunny Side by the Blue Sky Boys

Doc Watson -- Daniel Prayed

My Dad and the Red Clay Rambers sing Parting Hand

Scared

I used to have stage fright, and lately I've had it again; but, I haven't been on stage.

Here's how it was: I was playing the role of telephone operator in America Hurrah the first time I really identified it as stage fright. I was terrified of what I wanted most: Being out there on stage alone with the spotlight on me. I forgot my lines and I had to ad-lib. I ended up repeating myself a few times. It didn't do the play justice, but most of the audience didn't know, or if they knew, they were kind to me.

The closest thing to it I can think of is coming down the front side of a ferris wheel when one cannot see the wheel supporting the riders. It is stomach wrenching fear. It happens when there are no visible means of support, and I am alone with people depending on me.

That is the fear I have been feeling these last few months. Until the other day when I met with a friend for coffee; when I remembered to start my day with prayer and meditiation; when I remembered it is not myself on whom I depend. I must depend on something much greater than myself.

No wonder I was afraid. Because I am mighty small and powerless by myself.

New To Do List

Cook pie, casserole for Thanksgiving
Christmas Shopping
Learn songs for choir
Interview Allpar guys
Write articles for Allpar
Write script for Christmas Video
*absurdist
*nod to Gilda Radner (Health Care Reform and the Depression)
*Celebrating St. Patrick's day with a green turkey and a rosy red pumpkin
*Chiding parents about not coming home for Thanksgiving (Irony)
*David's Joke
*Singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in harmony
*Seriously now, Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas
Write Statement of Purpose for Graduate Application; combining the following into a career/life goal
*Making a difference
*Teaching
*History as organizing priciple for making meaning
Talk to advisors about graduate school
*Master of Adult and Community College Education? or
*Masters in History with Licensure?
*English?

The Light of the World

Come Let Us Worship The Lord

Lead Me Lord

Giants

Diamond Studs

For me it was Diamond Studs that changed everything, although in retrospect it was The Merry Wives of Windsor that started the ball rolling. (And of course there was A Midsummer Night's Dream before that, and so forth ...)

But it was Diamond Studs that introduced dancing on the tables, throwing money (albeit fake) and glitter; drinking champagne like it was coca cola; outrageous fun and screamingly insane celebration busting loose like nothing less than an explosion of bliss. Nevertheless, that was just the beginning. That was still in Chapel Hill. Then the whole thing went to New York ... and that is where things really changed. There were dancing girls and lingerie, producers and choreographers, commercial artists and gay bartenders, studio apartments and cast parties, saunas and indoor pools for skinny dipping, and gin and tonics and wild abandon. There was Manhattan itself, with Times Square, Broadway, all kinds of restaurants that never closed, there was walking to and from the subway on 42Nd street past all those XXX rated theaters and shows ... and of course, there was my age and my innocence and some adults who thought I was a kid when I was 14 or 15 and some who thought or probably didn't think about how I was becoming a young woman.

And there was the apartment where I my brother and I slept on couch cushions on the living room floor.

And there was MS. Magazine, which published my letter about how I used to go to work with my mother. Was it 1976? My mother was gone, since the car accident in 1972. I had written the letter in the spring or fall of 1975. I had forgotten about it. And then I got the news that MS. Magazine would publish it.

I walked by myself up 43rd street to a newsstand on Broadway where I bought a copy of the magazine. I wore a red T-Shirt that read "DIAMOND STUDS" across the front, and as I walked past a construction site safely barricaded off by a chain link fence, someone yelled "Hey Diamond!" I studiously ignored the comment, looking down at the barren street and did the closest thing to praying that I dared to do.

Being on the Fringe of the Fringe

I want to write about being on the fringe of the fringe when my dad was in an off brodaway play in New York. It was a lot of fun. On one hand, I was exposed, at 14 through 18, to things that children are not to be exposed to in this day and age. On the other hand, I had experiences that most people do not have in their youth. Going on tour with the band, living in New York City for awhile as an actor's child, visiting London & France, not to mention a few underpants. I am almost 50 years old now, and perhaps I can see the innocence and humor in my youthful confusions and adventures. Of course, I shall sometimes have to change the names to protect the innocent and worse, to protect the guilty. The thing about it all was that my young life was quite an adventure.

The main thing seems to be: I remember finding out that girls weren't attractive to boys if they had had a lot of adventures. I remember finding out that my family secrets were not the kinds of things one shared with middle class people because they would judge one harshly. At a certain point I started to keep a lot of interesting stories to myself. Now that I am almost 50 and have been married to one person for 14 years, I don't really have to gaurd against revealing too much. What have I got to lose? My reputation?

Most people who meet me today think I am some kind of really strict religious freak. I am not. I am just someone who has learned through experience and been lucky; someone with some good stories and a few secrets.

Heaven

Heaven is camping in June in all the National Parks put together and being in good enough shape to climb all the mountains and descend into all of the canyons & swim in all the lakes. Heaven is getting up with the sunrise, making friends with turtles and starting every morning in an earth hut with a cedar smudge ceremony and a few of one's best friends.

Hindsight

An artist looks back
on her work
and says
I was there,
thank God I'm not
there now.
Moves on
on to the next thing
so she can
look back again
grateful for moving on
again
Sisyphus.

Living Will

My father suffered with Dementia for 8 years. He had a living will.

He was too young for Medicare, so he had to go on Medicaid.

In a nursing home he became aggressive, and had to be sent to a state hospital.

He lost the swallowing reflex. He got pneumonia.

The doctors would not support me to activate his living will at the hospital.

I could not afford to take him home.

They put a feeding tube in him.

He lived for another year before he got pneumonia again.

I insisted on activating his living will.

They cured his pneumonia in a nice palliative care unit

In a hospital in Wilson and then sent him

To a nursing home where he was to go on

Hospice. It took three days for Hospice to begin,

Because it was a holiday.

This whole experience left me wondering if I

Was a murderer and a torturer.

But it was his disease

That was the murder and the torturer.

Duke Park Idea

Soon, I need to write something here about Duke Park.

This is because I played and swam at Duke Park in 1968. In fact, I learned to swim in the Duke Park Pool. And I remember using the Bath House, with it's wire baskets and its safety-pin-keys that you would pin to your suit so it wouldn't get lost.

I remember how the lifeguards would call people out, and you had to sit on the side of the pool -- on the ampetheater seat -- for 5 or 10 minutes. I was afraid of those life guards and tried never to be seen by them. Interestingly, our parents trusted us and them with our lives -- once we learned to swim -- we got to go to the pool all by ourselves.

I remember the swings, the see saws, the merri-go-round ... and the moss on the ground at the base of some trees. Duke Park was a marvel and a marvelous place to go and play.

Walking this morning

This morning I went walking at the wall. I looked at the old brick tobacco warehouses across the tracks. They were as beautiful as ever, with the decorative brick designs built by brick masons like Mr. R. Kelly Bryant's grandfather, Mr. Robert Lee Poole. I looked at the old Coke building with its cement Coke advertisement in relief. It used to be the Goodwill store. I looked at the rusty iron bolts that hold the stadium lights into their pedestals. I looked at the iron loop embedded in the stone wall around Duke's east campus. I thought, it does not matter if I am a lousy proofreader.

the gift: for someone special

You came back from a place
where you'd gone
I'd not known
You were so far away
for so long
I forgot that I missed
what went with you

Times thought of you
a mythical creature
who I've seen in my dreams
I said you were real
had fine wings like a bat
the fire of a dragon
and you'd flown off to heaven
and were not of this world

But I knew that was wrong
and I thought
Where'd you go?
And what did I give you
And how would I know
And as I thought
my thoughts drifted like a
mist on a lake

been so long
I'd forgotten
or not really forgot,
I had forced it upon you
It wasn't for your sake
And not something you wanted
A burden to take

But you came back
and returned me my treasure
well aged
And the years you were gone
I found out you had raged
all over the country
burning holes
in your own flesh

I cried for your pain
and I laughed for my joy
And I thanked God for your life
that He spared
And I promised myself
that as long as you remained here
I would never ask more
than you gave.

Worry

Merriam Webster defines worry as:"mental distress or agitation resulting from concern usually for something impending or anticipated: ANXIETY ..."

I worry a lot these days about my home economy, and the economy in general. I worry so much that is exhausts me, and I have very little energy left for fighting to survive in this economy.

Which gets me thinking about worry. It is said that worry, if you are doing all you can to ward off the impending distaster, is a waste of time and energy. So why do I worry? Will worry prevent the disaster? There must be some little part of me that thinks it will, because I not only worry, but I am afraid that if I give up worrying I will quit fighting for survival.

Hmm.

I am writing this piece to try and figure out the whole psychological dynamic of worrying. It seems to me that if I understand it, I will be able to put it in some perspective, and let it go.

I think the whole financial crisis that continues to plague us is about worry -- or to put it another way, it is about a lack of trust. Investors feel a lack of trust, thanks to credit default swaps and Bernie Madoff, in companies. They do not trust that the companies will be able to deliver. So they do not invest. And since they do not invest, companies must cut everything to the bone or actually go bankrupt. Therefore, the companies are cutting jobs, and the fear of joblessness creates more worry, while actual joblessness creates more fear.

And as we know, fear leads to all sorts of evil.

So the trick is to engender love and not fear. The only problem with that is that it has to come from the bottom up, because those with a lot to lose are way more worried than those with little.

Juan Williams

Smart smart smart. I love to see him smiling with a look on his face like he just knows better than you, me, us. He does I do believe.

Humus

If I had time. I'd write a study on humus. But I am drawing today. with colored pencils! What fun!

Today I reaped another 5 cucumbers from my garden. One yellow squash is ready. The Okra is getting ready, the corn, tomatoes and zuccinis too. It's all thanks to our yard being ancient farmland, and the humus (our compost.) One more thing to note: We haven't got enough garbage for the early pick up this week, in part because of our recycling and composting. Hurray! We do not have to spend as much money on vegetables, and we are able to give away vegetables to our neighbors. Yay! Fertilzing with compost has worked for me. Next Summer, the garden will double in size!! Yay!!

Onward ... towards greater progress ... hee hee..

6-30-09