UNLOCK THE MIND

I ran across the Wordpress challenge the other day about committing  to write for 20 days and the first dive into it is just free style and unleash the beast.

For 20 minutes.

Someone very close to me is going through a hard time and is totally into her sorrow and grief. I have offered some suggestions narrowing in on do what you love, rekindle your hobbies, find some new ones etc. etc. etc. The usual babble from someone who is outside the horror of a broken heart.

Yet, it made me wonder about my own hobbies and how it seems I have abandoned all of them except reading! And sometimes I feel like I am reading my life away. That the events of today are marching by as I immerse myself into escapism!

I suppose I abandoned this blog for various reasons. It was not so much fun anymore with the advent of Facebook and the easier access to an audience of friends. But it is not writing!

And maybe I just thought a blog is too self absorbed and narcissistic. But the truth being I felt I had just become boring and spent. I no longer have a job, my husband retired and subsequently so did I. No more Bucket stories nor Elvis World anecdotes.  No longer had much out side stimulation.

Yet, I have so much happening to me right now. I have abandoned the mid-west (almost) and the northern south for the boredom of endless sunshine in Florida not to mention the monotony of an endless vacation, for the winter.

I am officially a snow bird and trailer trash at the same time! And to make matters worse, since my husband was able to retire from the railroad at a (very) relatively early age, we are the youngest by at least 10 years of everyone in the Retirement park!! Yikes.

And my mother has passed away making me officially an orphan. At least that is how it feels most the time. It is amazing what happens when the glue that holds an extended family together is gone! I shudder to think that I will only see my cousins at funerals - which in time, probably shortly, will be our funerals.

I have a dog more or less. He is staying in the house while we are frolicking in Florida with my daughter while she house sits. After all it is her dog,   But I have many Jax stories!

I have realized that my feelings and emotions and my understanding of things have changed a lot since entering the hallowed halls of retirement - old school - the new "old fogies" -  the new assortment of scoffers who say "Back in the day...." or ... "when I was your age.....". Oh lord, its rich though. I wonder what will not only pop out of my newly unfiltered mouth, I like to borrow my Aunts saying "I just tell it like it is"....and see where it might take me if I stick with this 20 day rejuvenating my writing.

Just tap post.....  Oh hell, it won't post. WTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

How silly it is for me to say I miss this little blog? I don't really understand why I stopped pouring out my life on these pages. After all it was a white washed version of my life. Not the nitty gritty. It was the kind of life how I wanted to live,  not exactly how I really am.

I have stopped examining my life and the situations and experiences that define me. It is as if I have laid myself out on a swift moving river and am allowing it to take me where ever it pleases. At times I am astounded at where I have landed. But that is what happens with the unexamined existence.

I have bounced around from Clarksville, TN to Memphis - the largest city in Mississippi -  back to Kentucky and now have landed (softly) in Indiana and, hang on to your hat, am getting ready to become a Trailer Trash Snow Bird in Florida for the winter.

My mother has passed away several months ago and I feel like an orphan, a motherless child. I think of her still as if she were still with us. I suppose in time I will stop this. It is disconcerting and slightly sad to follow up a thought about her with the reality of her death.

My husband has retired and life is very different! I will say no more but this ..... I never thought too much about what this would be like. Day after day of vacation. Endless vacation. I am not certain it is a good thing. But it has been interesting.

And so ......I guess I am back.

MAGIC IN A MAGICAL LAND

It happened several years ago. A memory stirred by a song on the radio.

"What is that?" I asked myself and turned my entire attention to the music.

"Why that is Bob Dylan!"

I closed my eyes and struggled to remember when. I labored to remember where. And then the memory slowly washed over me. 

College. Summer at the Ghetto. A smoky room, a toothy grin, legs stretched out taking up the entire room, beers in hand, joints passed around, cigarettes smoldering in overflowing ashtrays,  record player blasting, hanging out with a gang known as the "Bolio's", trying to be cool among the cool.

The music overwhelming me with its beauty. Realizing I liked it. I, who had never bought a Dylan album in the past, was baptized  into the fold.

Recently, on a television program, the power of music on the brain was reveled....again. How Alzheimer patients will become engaged when presented with music from their past. Memories stirred. The soundtracks of their lives. 

Recalling the experience of hearing Mozambique, the way it was like a time machine,  taking me back to a place, a time, a memory of a young 20 year old in among a crowd that probably had a line on corrupting her. 

 I loved it then and cherishes the memory now.

When I am too old to remember anymore I would like a map of songs to take me back, if not to the memories, then to the feeling of being young and swinging the world by the tail .

I met Ringo Starr ..... Again

I was a dreaming beast last night. The images in my head transformed into incredibly interesting scenarios were brought on by several instigators. The best dream was meeting Ringo...again. That was the telephone call I made to Joe as Ringo sat in a lawn chair in a semi-circle with a group of people I was hanging out with at a party of some sort. "Guess what? I am with Ringo...again!"

I was also trying to solve a mystery murder while hobnobbing with the ex-Beatle. That was the contribution from the television show Justified and the book I am reading, The Dean in Their Vaulted Arches. All in all it was nice to meet Ringo again. He is charming.

My life and situation is so totally different than a year ago that it bears reflection. My husband is retired and I quit my job at Cracker Barrel last July. My husband is home all the time! I have altered and adjusted.

My Mother is very ill and dying. I am helping to care for her at home and make her final months as comfortable as possible. I am apparently not a very good nurse. I have an highly refined gag reflex and I am angry with her for getting sick. I wanted her to live forever, or at least until I could wring all her wisdom into a spray jar that I could take out and spray at the appropriate times. 

I am writing like crazy in my journal and it is lame. I feel that if I challenge myself to once again take up the keyboard maybe I can force myself to make sense out of this new stage in my life and not just rant and rave with an occasional whine.

I am off to spend the night at Mom's after coming off a week of a semi-flu attack. I have been cooking up a feast to take with me wearing surgical gloves and face mask.

WTH

Monday I ventured into downtown Frankfort, a place I have rarely been. Funny, because it is only 10 miles from my hometown. I never went to the west, always to the east, to Lexington, the Big City, the city of my high school, the city of where we shopped, the city of dreams. So Frankfort was a very pleasant surprise in many ways.

More to come...maybe.

What's up Pussycat?

I begin the new year saying I am going to write more and then the computer goes kaput!

Right now I am dressed as a rag woman, in my 1974 Irish Fisherman sweater my Mom brought back from her trip to the old country that year and handed to me. I shunned it for a long long time as it is wool and very scratchy and I am "allergic" to wool. Can not wear it without constantly pulling the neck away from my skin and squirming in agony. But, I wear it all the time now. My skin still responds the same but I have learned to protect it. My sister took one look at me over Christmas and asked me to please throw it away, she would give me three Irish Sweaters she has and never uses.

Are hers over 35 years old? Did Mom give it to her knowing she is allergic to wool? Does hers have a spot right on the front that is slightly coming apart? Does hers have a stain where the spaghetti sauce exploded?

So, I wear it when I get up in the morning in lieu of a bathrobe. I almost like the scratchy neck line. I love it because it is old and from Mom. I wear it out in public today because I am sick and it comforts me.

I also have a red running cap on my head. I am styling. 

New Years Resolutions

Write More.

Take More Photo's.

Find New Job.

Lose 20 Pounds.

See as many Music Festivals as Possible.

Go to New Orleans.