Still Searching #Anniversary #Compassion #1000Speak

Four years ago, I joined in with many other bloggers and writers, all wanting to speak up on the need for more compassion in the world.

I was fresh off of a lot of rejection and I needed a reminder of something good:

1000 Voices Speak For Compassion

was that goodness.

I wrote my first post
“Planting the Seeds of Compassion”
along with I believe, more than 1000 other writers. We wrote about good deeds, selflessness, rejecting anger, and now we come to that one, four years later.

What have I learned about compassion in the four years since 1000Speak?

Since this blogging movement took place, #45 has come into the picture. Before he became leader of the US, I could ignore him, turn from his fake television show and to something worth my time. Now, being America’s neighbour, I can’t simply turn the channel. I wish I could.

I can look for compassion in myself, offer it to other people, but he is a good example of one time I cannot.

The creators of #1000Speak have stated:

“Due to current world events between Trump-era America and the Brexit Shambles, the theme for 2019 is how to get beyond complacency or apathy to find compassion in times of division, and how to be compassionate towards people we disagree with, without condoning cruelty.”

Anyone who can judge character could spot the lack of it in the current president. That is me, lacking compassion in not even trying to understand what someone (#45 voter/supporter) may be thinking, but there are times that I come to a brick wall and there’s nowhere else to go.

I can try to understand what brought the US to voting in such a man. I can do this. I can’t give compassion for the man himself. I could try to imagine him, as a child, to wonder at what made him into the man he is today. I can and have done this, but unlike with the same for his base, I know he is who he is and he won’t ever change. It’s nice to be able to believe in redemption, but reality smacks you in the face like walking (face-first) into that brick wall I just mentioned.

Ouch! Now my nose, your nose is broken and bloodied.

Of course, I condone no cruelty toward anyone, not even him, but the world took an ugly turn since we first wrote about compassion, and there’s no point in covering that fact up.

I still try to live the best life I can. I am not at all complacent or apathetic, though I feel so helpless most times. I have done several things since 2015’s 1000Speak, including making an effort to improve life, here in Canada specifically, for those who are blind like myself.

I discovered the benefits of yoga and I learned the basics of how to play the violin. I let the music sooth my jangled nerves. We need to take care of our own well-beings, if we even have a hope of showing compassion toward those we disagree with, fundamentally.

Those who are self-serving can and will do what they please. I can let myself live in disgust and anger, or I can focus on the better world I’d like to see.

I can see that there is more going on in the world than what’s happening in the US or in the UK, though those places are major players in the world.

I can worry about a new friend’s birthplace in the brewing nastiness between Pakistan and India that’s going on, has been for many years. The world is full of greedy, selfish men who run things, not to mention a few women who are making giant moves on the world stage, in charge of countries too. It’s all about power and it sickens me, but I can’t let that feeling of being so small in a big, big world get me down. If I do that, compassion for others or not, I would drown in the despair of it all.

I’m afraid of where the world is heading, that we’ve allowed the fascination with something so destructive as nuclear weapons even become an available option baffles me to no end. It is so easy to lose control of many things, of it all.

So I let other bloggers and writers I’ve been blessed to know since starting to blog myself speak to the beauty that still exists,
like here for example,
and I keep searching, determined to stand with those finding silver linings.

I owe a lot to the instigators of this compassion movement:

Lizzi and her Silver Linings
and
Yvonne Spence and her inspiring compassion stance.

Though it has fizzled out somewhat from the original explosive response to the idea of writing on compassion.

It won’t ever fade away completely. It is a necessary effort, but I am still fighting with my internal bewilderment at the choices of other people, not wanting to call them out on it, but being unsure how to find a way to better understand.

I guess I can’t claim any great victory over my emotions on many things going on in the world today and since 1000Speak. I wish I had come to some grand revelation on the path to seeing the other’s side. I am still searching for a way to that place of comprehension.

I still wanted to participate, on this four-year anniversary, though my wisdom is lacking in my contribution. I am showing up, anyway, and showing my willingness to keep trying. I will not give up on the search for more and greater compassion.

Thankful When Last Month Was Thanksgiving: (A Weekend of Thankfuls Part 2) #SoCS

The role gratitude plays in my life is not to be underestimated.

Without it, I would be less likely to focus on the good things in life.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday #SoCS

I love stream of consciousness writing and I choose to roll with it, whenever I can let myself care not for the things that might come pouring out from my brain and through my fingertips, onto this blog, and what that might end up sounding like to any perspective readers.

One of the other blogging exercises I take part in
(Finish the Sentence Friday)
had me writing
stream of consciousness
on the subject of thanks and giving thanks, but with a five minute time limit.

Tomorrow I will write out a list of what I’m
thankful for
and those things that make me grateful, the role each one of ten plays in my life.

It’s Thanksgiving in the States in a few days and they are extra focused in on the things they can be thankful for, despite all the troubles going on in that country.

I know the role certain people play in those troubles, but I try to roll with it, with life, because I am here in Canada and can only watch from a not too safe distance, as whatever happens happens.

I am trying to focus on the role I can play in my own life and how it goes from now on, while I choose to roll with it, whatever happens because I can’t control everything, or even most things.

I can control what I choose to do with the years left in my life. I can think of snow globes and of the fun it was, to be a child during the weeks that are coming up (of Christmas and winter and my birthday), as I imagine myself rolling down a snowy hill.

Walking the Ocean Floor and Not Quite Believing It, #BucketList #PhotoShareFriday #FTSF

Where to start? How to begin? Hmm. Expect more stories from my travels, in the weeks ahead.

I’ve been absent from this blogging stuff for a while, but I’ve had travel as my reason for said absence.

I was out east, here in Canada, throughout the Maritimes when I was two. Of course, no memories of the trip. So, I simply had to return.

This is me (thirty-two years later) and I’m waiting on old photos of my first trip to these parts, which my mom probably has tucked away somewhere.

This is me, using my white cane as a detection tool, to explore and reach out, further than my arm ever could. I feel the rocky ground underfoot and I can’t quite believe the tides of this bay bring in and then take out such a volume of sea water. Where I stand, rock having been cut into by the tides that have always and will continue to come and go.

No matter what crap goes on in the world, human caused crap, nature kicks ass and I’m reminded of that. I ponder, as I walk, about those who could visit such a spot of wonder and not be awed by its power. Sad.

I feel the structure of rock and the indents made and the seaweed clinging to it. I will be gone, long before the mighty tide returns here, but somehow I wish I could stay. It shapes these rocks, just like life has shaped me, from a two-year-old to the woman I am today.

This photo is at
Hopewell Rocks
and I’m loving walking along the ocean floor – Atlantic Ocean and my unforgettable visit to the
Bay of Fundy,
in stunning Atlantic Canada.

This is my contribution for
Photo Share Friday
with
Finish the Sentence Friday
and the gang.

And I wish all things travel to those (like myself) who seek it out.

While Wild Ones Wander, So Too Does My Mind #SoCS

Passive voice, in my writing or in my life.

I may sometimes label myself a passive person, but there are moments when aggressive stances are needed.

Animals in the animal kingdom instinctively sense it, know where it lies in another creature and how or if they can derive any sort of benefit from it.

Human beings are creatures too, of habit, while the wild ones wander.

Personalities are coloured and varied shades of what makes us human, alongside the animals in nature.

I could Google the passive writing voice and read for days and days, but when I go ahead and write, may not always recognize what it looks like.

The term
“passive agressive”
means one thing, when both words are put together, and another on their own. I guess this is the point, the neat thing about this phrase, if you want to call it that, about language in general as well.

Wow. I haven’t taken this Saturday blogging prompt quite so literally in a while.

I think of my fear (rational or not) of an angry swarm of bees. I think a swan, who appears docile, until you get too close.

The fight face of a country or government, put forth by a world war, by a civil one.

War and peace. Is Canada so well known for one instead of the other. Or warring tribes in Canada’s long lived past.

On another lazy Saturday, I ask myself: What is Russia really up to, with the latest election results?

I do wonder, not as much about their people, but about that government itself.

I need to take my suspicious eye off of the country next to my own and think about other places. People or entire nations, I stream of consciousness ramble my way along, all the while, hoping to avoid the inevitable, those who ooze what it means to be aggressive.

RESERVED! #TGIF #FTSF

There is a new coffee shop/bakery/cafe in my town. It reminds me of one I discovered and wanted to take home in my suitcase when I was in the Yukon six months back: Burnt Toast Cafe (Whitehorse) and Burnt Brick Cafe (Woodstock.

Both have similar names and beet salads. The similarities start and stop there.

Yes, while trying to envision the decor of this new cafe I have felt the brick wall next to my table. I called ahead and reserved a place. This means I was expected by the staff when I arrived, like I belonged there.

As I sit and eat my beet salad with goat cheese and candied pecans, I decide this will become my new out-of-the-home writing spot and I will be a local that will soon become a regular, maybe even with my own regularly reserved table where I will drink lattes and write all the things.

I would belong there.

When it comes to belonging, I know everyone says it, or at least feels it, at one time or another. We all struggle to belong somewhere. I am no exception.

I think of myself as a bit of a misfit and I have claimed the title with pride, though I live with feelings of not being enough or those of embarrassment a lot.

I want to blend in, to belong there, to belong anywhere. I want to be just another customer.

Customer. Decor. Furniture.

In the cafe today I was finding my way back to my table, after paying the bill, but before eating my dessert. I do hope to come often enough that soon enough I know my way around, but this was only my third time.

Friends either give me their arm, speak directions, or suddenly I am on my own, just me and my white cane.

It taps the metal of table legs and people stare.

Okay, so I don’t know if they do, or if they are nervous I might knock a table over or what, or maybe neither. Today, either way, one of the staff silently pushed me from behind in the name of guidance.

They didn’t do this violently or rudely, just in an attempt to show me how to find my table again.

And did I pull away, whirl around, and correct them, asking them not to put their hands on me without saying something?

Did I say politely that wasn’t the right way to go about that, to help the blind costumer who’d just spent $40 at their establishment?

No and no. I continued to use my cane to find my place and I sat down to enjoy my mini Oreo cheesecake.

I can’t just expect people to know the proper procedure, but it’s hard to explain, n the proper tone, in the moment.

I definitely don’t know how to blend in, to be just another customer, to feel like I fit in, when I feel like an object that must be moved. I say I feel like a misfit, or like a piece of miscellaneous furniture they move into its proper spot in their cafe so I am not in the way.

But do I even go with the rest of the place’s decor?

Hmm.

I should have explained why silently pushing me from behind was not the way to help someone, me, who can’t see. Somewhere inside I have the urge to whip around and tell them to take their hands off me. Or, that they should at least say something before doing it.

Anger and rudeness isn’t the answer. I want to soon be a regular there, to support the community, and to eat good food. Maybe I will even write great things there.

First, I must become comfortable there, with all them, and they must become comfortable with me too.

I want to belong somewhere, a community, even its businesses, such as interesting cafes like those you hear about in Paris, where people drink their lattes, observe people, and write.

Okay, so Woodstock is no Paris, but right now, I am the blind woman who clearly hasn’t figured out her way around quite yet. Friends don’t always know how to help and staff doesn’t yet know me either. If I wait, let time do its thing, I can hope to belong there, the woman who comes in with her laptop and her stick once a week, to her reserved people watching/writing/latte drinking table in the corner.

I can hope. I can dream.

I can do that. I can be. I can belong.

Finish the Sentence Friday:

Finding Ninee
and
Hillary Savoie
hosting.

I belong at this end-of-the-week blog exercise. I am back where I belong.

Precious Lellow #SongLyricSunday

I just love how little kids pronounce yellow.

Lellow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUFSB2plwzM

I love this song. It may not fit the theme exactly, but amber is a colour, a gold, metal, jewel. Whatever. I don’t know. All I know is that The song is super catchy.

***

Brainstorm
take me away from the norm
I got to tell you something
this phenomenon
I had to put it in a song
and it goes like Whoa,
amber is the color of your energy
whoa, shades of gold displayed naturally
you ought to know what brings me here
you glide through my head blind to fear
and I know why
whoa, amber is the color of your energy
whoa, shades of gold displayed naturally
Whoa, amber is the color of your energy
whoa, shades of gold displayed naturally
You live too far away
your voice rings like a bell anyway
don’t give up your independence unless it feels so right
nothing good comes easily
sometimes you gotta fight
Whoa, amber is the color of your energy
whoa, shades of gold displayed naturally
launched a thousand ships in my heart, so easy still it’s fine from afar, and you know that
whoa, brainstorm take me away from the norm
whoa, I got to tell you something

LYRICS

***

This week
Song Lyric Sunday
is a simple one. I won’t say much more than this.

I do want to congratulate the one in charge of this weekly musical and lyrical blogging exercise on her marriage.

Love is more precious than any jewel.

Stalemate, #1000Speak

The other night, on the news, a reporter did a story about how desperate of a situation it’s becoming in Syria.

She began to, not just lay out a few facts and statistics, but to compare the city of Aleppo to the city of Toronto, where her news broadcast was airing from. She went from one part of Toronto to another, explaining how it would look if what’s currently happening in Syria were to happen in a Canadian city

Okay, so maybe it’s a bad example or I’m just not describing it all that well. I have a cold and my right ear is plugged and I feel like I’m losing it a little, but I wondered why this reporter’s method was necessary in the first place.

She began her segment by saying something along the lines of:

?How does what’s happening in Syria relate to life here in Toronto anyway?”

I wondered if people really needed the story to be spoon fed to them like that, as if they couldn’t already put themselves in the shoes of a mother, losing hope for keeping her children healthy and alive. Hadn’t they all considered what it must be like to be stuck in a war zone? I guess, to a point, I use that distance between myself and such horrible events as a cushion too.

I may feel sad and disappointed in the Syrian government for being unable to keep its people safe. I may be frustrated that although my country of Canada has done more than many to help the Syrian people, our participation has dwindled. I may be sad and disappointed in myself for the fear that even the small gestures of compassion and gratitude I’ve made aren’t enough.

Lots of sadness and disappointment to go around. Excellent choice for the month. If I’m honest, to come right out and say it, I have been sad and disappointed that
1000 Voices Speak For Compassion
and
Ten Things of Thankful
seem to be losing steam.

It’s obvious by the number of entries in the linkup. The terrible events around the world that inspired a handful of bloggers to act in the only way they knew how, nearly two years ago, is a small sample of what it was once.

That first month there were hundreds of entries. Now, with the linkup being open, not just one day, but a whole week. And yet, my entry is found to be one of the last, if not the last, at five or six along on the list. Where did everybody go? It’s frustrating to see how willing people were, when the excitement and energy were new and when a small discussion on holding on to compassion in times of hardship suddenly and unexpectedly grew into something a lot larger than anyone could have ever anticipated.

Five or six people, including me, took the time to write and keep the movement going this month. This makes me sad. I feel disappointed, but I have compassion for all those who haven’t kept up with it, though some come and go, taking it for granted that it should always be there.

You have to feel it to write. I can be honest about how I feel, but I have a lot of compassion for everyone who didn’t show up. I have been one of them. I can’t say I won’t be one in the future. All the praise goes to those keeping it going this long.

Nothing goes on forever. Everything starts and stops somewhere.

Life gets busy. People forget. Times are hard. They’ve moved on.

This is a time where sadness and disappointment are commonly felt emotions. I am sad and disappointed.

I am sad that we have arrived in this place, where compassion feels strangled by suspicion and self interest.

Taxes. Rising bills to be paid. Mortgages and kids and stressful jobs and relationships and social media.

I am disappointed in America for giving up and giving in. Donald Trump is where he is. I am sad and I am disappointed.

In these times, I believe honesty is best, if we’re ever going to face the ills of our society, like racism and class, job, and economic uncertainties. We’re all fighting for our own, equal slice of the pie.

Where, then, does compassion come in? I am trying desperately to fit the pieces together.

I am trying, underneath a steady undercurrent of sadness, to listen to people and to respect different beliefs. It is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. This situation is unique in that most times, after a time, I can see where someone may be coming from. In some of these situations, where prejudice is at the core of it, I can’t understand.

Then I lose all compassion for myself, as I feel like it’s something on me, like I’m just not trying hard enough to understand.

It’s mostly based on fear. That much I’ve surmised. I can have empathy for that, to a point, as I know what fear looks like, feels like, smells like, sounds like.

I have compassion for everyone. It’s when some people’s true feelings come to light that I jump back in shock and the sadness and disappointment wash over me with no warning.

Is this the end? By which I mean, are we coming to the end of this experiment in writing for compassion here? Or will we keep going forward with the participants we still have? Couldn’t compassion sustain itself, even through blogging, just a little longer? Perhaps not.

Will I even be here next month, to write about compassion, or will I have moved on? I honestly can’t say for certain.

I don’t see any end to this stalemate, these feelings of intense sadness and disappointment at my fellow human beings.

I can’t look the other way when the progress with women’s rights or disability rights or any other rights are threatened. I wish I understood. I wish I could.

I just finished listening to
a podcast
about writing, about memoir, and about trying to put ourselves in another person’s shoes. This is my mission these days, but is it fruitless, when such serious issues are at stake?

I continue to see gestures and acts of compassion in many different places and that softens the blow. It isn’t all bad. This has been and continues to be a difficult time for a lot of people, but a lot are doing the best they know how in the moment.

I go ahead and focus on what makes me feel the opposite of sadness and disappointment. I hope things will continue, that very likely will not. I can’t blame anyone for that. I can only control my own actions and remain compassionate yet honest when the sadness or the disappointment threatens to drag me down next time, hoping what I’m left with is a little piece of compassion left over to spare and to share.

Seeing From All Sides, #HowISee #HowISeeIt #SoCS

October 1st is the start of Blindness Awareness Month.

Okay, so SoCS usually means Stream of Consciousness Saturday, but well Saturday, Sunday, either way.

Many visually impaired people, writers and bloggers specifically, are blogging every day and many are speaking about one particularly controversial hash tag and campaign making its way around Twitter and social media lately.

I re-blogged about this just a few days ago, and though I don’t mean to rehash or restate, I figured I would offer my own thoughts on the whole thing.

When I tried to think of what is AWKWARD,

I thought about these very topics. Blindness means I face many awkward situations, all the time in fact. I try to improve my social skills and interacting with a mostly sighted world, but I often struggle to fit in and feel like I am seen and yet that I don’t stick out, stand out, and get in the way.

I often feel as if I am in someone’s way, but I recognize this is often more in my own head. The thing about the world is I skip past a lot of the more awkward situations, simply because I don’t see that they are even taking place at all.

🙂

As for the idea of a sighted person putting on blindfold for a few minutes and attempting to walk or cook or whatever, I thought on it awhile, as I pondered the thoughts of others.

There is a lot of awkward nonsense going on in the world these days. Why should anyone with a visual impairment feel like they must always be cast as the awkward ones in this nonsensical world?

The Foundation Fighting Blindness Canada (FFB)

They state that their mission is “leading the fight against blindness” and they are doing that through social media campaigns like this one to raise money:

#HowISeeIt on Twitter

People who are blind share stories and videos of how they do certain, every day tasks, and then their friends or relatives who are sighted will put on a blindfold and try those same tasks.

I know people are curious. I’ve often been asked how I pick out my clothes or how I use the stove. I get that. Most of us don’t mind answering a genuine question when asked. It’s just a fine line when it crosses over to patronizing.

I know foundations who raise money and do research to fight blindness are needed and necessary. I get that also.

I am often told I over think things or am too sensitive, and perhaps I can be, but perhaps that’s an easy, bandaid response for a bigger issue. I often can’t tell the difference anymore, and not sure I ever could or ever will.

😦

On one hand I hate the statement put out there of fighting blindness, like it’s some enemy that needs to be destroyed. I should understand language and its uses better than anyone, but I feel icky when I hear that. I am fighting a constant battle with myself, never mind some war against blindness in a wider context.

However, I would take a cure, sure I would. If it were real and lasting, but blindness isn’t quite so simple. I want attention put on finding ways to stop progression of or slowing down of retinal eye disease. That’s what I have and I often wonder what my life would be like if a cure were suddenly found. Would it be the answer to all my prayers of life? Would it automatically make things easier?

Yes and no, I think the correct answer is, which isn’t really any answer at all to my satisfaction.

So I could rant on and on about this, such a giant thing that I cannot contain, to hope that someone somewhere will understand me, after all I don’t think some lousy blindfold is the answer.

Apologies if this post is long and rambling, with a few links thrown in for good measure. I feel like I am always apologizing for something, to someone. Stop it Kerry, stop it.

But going back to some of my “In The News and On My Mind” posts I’ve shared on this blog in the past, I’ve usually opened those with a line from a woman I know on Facebook who is also blind and living life well. So Here’s her take today, to start:

“The Foundation Fighting Blindness is doing a screwball campaign in which they have sighted people wear a blindfold for a few minutes and try to complete some everyday household task. Naturally, they’re lousy at it, because they don’t have any training. The FFB then has them share their horrifying experiences under the hashtag “how eye see it”, the idea being that blindness is terrible and scary and must be stopped. Well, obviously, we can’t have that rumor going around! For the next week, I’ll be stealing this hashtag to share cool stories about blind people’s actual everyday experiences. If you have a story I should share, send it to me in a message. Today, I’ll share my story. I’m 27 years old and live independently in a gorgeous little apartment in Austin. I’m happily married, work in the field of higher education, and have a wonderful close-knit family and group of friends. I love yoga, hiking, music, poetry, and have recently taken up martial arts. My life is abundantly rich, and has not been diminished by labels or other people’s preconceived notions. This is #howIseeit.”

I do feel it’s simplification for someone who does not live with blindness to put a blindfold across their eyes for a matter of minutes and try to tackle something they won’t feel they could handle without their sight. If they had it all their lives, a few bloody minutes trying without will only muddy things up even more, further blurring the lines between reality and something else entirely.

It feels pitying to me. It feels dumbed down. It feels wretched really.

You panic when suddenly all your world goes dark. Of course. Nothing is how it is compared to if you’ve had time to process and work out solutions we have worked hard to find for ourselves and our independence.

Debates began popping up on people’s social media and on FFB’s Facebook page, in the comments, from both sides. People have accused Foundation Fighting Blindness of blocking or deleting comments that oppose what they’re trying to do with #HowISeeIt and FFB replied that it must have been a misunderstanding, but they usually put the blame onto Facebook and their rules for commenting. Things are getting ugly. People don’t feel heard. It’s impossible for something like this to speak for all. I just want to share opposing views and keep the conversation going.

The point was made that the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge may have had similar responses. I don’t know how many ALS patients felt about it truthfully. Not sure you heard much about that amongst all the screams of shivering cold horror and shock captured in all those videos that went viral. Money was raised. A good thing. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth I suppose.

But that challenge did not have people living in wheelchairs, unable to move. See the difference?

I see all sorts of lives lived by those who are also blind. Some are doing life more successfully and happily than others. But that’s no different than the rest of the population.

I first heard about a Twitter campaign going around known as How I See, which I wrote my own post for here several weeks back:

Black Or White #HowISee

Life is neither, sometimes one, sometimes the other. No different for me.

When I heard #HowISee vs #HowISeeIt, I admit I was originally confused and wrote on FFB’s Facebook page, asking for clarification. I did not jump to participate or to get anyone sighted in my own life participating either once theirs was explained to me.

Some more well known visually impaired advocates are taking part in #HowISeeIt, by helping spread that message of FFB, such as a UK poet with RP (Retinitis Pigmentosa):

Stand By Me RP awareness page on Facebook

Of course, different people are going to have different opinions on which hash tag campaigns, websites, and organizations are doing good work and which are furthering myths, stereotypes, and negative views about what blindness is and what it’s like to live with.

Here one visually impaired young Canadian has her story told through FFB.

I have watched many of her awareness videos on her YouTube channel and she has been working with The Foundation Fighting Blindness Canada since she was young.

This may not seem like stream of consciousness writing exactly, with all these links inserted, but I knew it would be close enough, as I feared before I began that if I started to write about my own thoughts on this topic, I may never stop.

Here are a few places where I think we’re on the right track:

Blind New World, #BlindNewWorld

&

Bold Blind Beauty

Of course I mention all sides because I don’t necessarily think there is a total right or wrong here. People with all sorts of experiences deserve to feel how they feel about these things.

I just make it work with where I’m at today and keep as much positivity and hope alive inside as I know how.

Thanks for listening.

Collecting Furniture, Memories, and Emails #SoCS

I have been trying, unsuccessfully of late, to write an essay about home. This has given me plenty of time to think about what that means, which must include thoughts of all the things I’ve accumulated in my current home, coming up on ten years living here, this September.

What all can one person

accumulate

in ten years anyway?

I started with donations from several sources. By that I mean odd pieces of furniture from family and friends. There were groceries to fill my new and empty refrigerator, given by my Oma, who loved to shop and always wanted to make sure I had something to eat.

I guess I am struggling to write this essay, one which I feel is highly important for me to write at this time, because I am struggling with the idea of material things vs memories accumulated in this house.

When I saw that the word for this Stream of Consciousness Saturday was “accumulate” I knew I could find something to say for this stream of consciousness writing exercise of which I’ve found so helpful for more than a year now.

I thought maybe I could look deeper into this accumulating things vs memories and experiences. This home I’ve lived in for ten years, of which I’ve loved, which has brought me a place of comfort to come back to, even when so much of the world and life is so uncertain.

I’ve put all this pressure on myself to write this essay before the end of the year. In my head it must be written in the year of my tenth anniversary of moving in. Silly me and my little things which my brain tells me are important.

Secondly, I know I’ve accumulated emails. This is a sore spot for me lately and for my poor family who have seen how many messages flood my in-box on a daily basis, with seemingly no end in sight. They have tried to help me to get a handle on the problem, but I feel kind of like it’s a run away train kind of a thing.

I started out in blogging, wanting to show support for other blogs like I was getting. I wanted to give back and thank people, to show support to a new blogger, after I had been given so much of that support myself. This landed me in a perfect storm of sorts.

Then I had a few computer blow-ups and switches. The emails kept on coming. Unsubscribe you might say, to lessen the load. I feel so overwhelmed by the whole thing, the technology world one I hardly can get a hold on on the best of days.

I don’t read them all, not by a long shot. I simply can’t. Not possible, or as Ralph likes to say: “That’s unpossible”.

I feel trapped underneath the weight of it all. I know I know, how silly of me to let something like this get to me like I have.

Thinking about all the memories made in this house, for the writing of my essay-in-progress, I think back on someone who lived here for a short time, and I curse him for leaving.

🙂

The deeper parts, the fact that we were in a relationship and when it ended the recovery process for me was huge, I now look at my emails and I blame him.

Oh, not that I didn’t miss him when he left, but getting past the harshness of the statement, I now miss his knowledge of all things computer related. When I struggle with a problem such as this one with my emails, I wish he hadn’t left, taking his expertise with him.

Writing about the other effects involving him and a lot more in my essay of living in this house coming soon, I hope, but will I ever get my email problem under control? Only time will tell.

I hate that I’ve let the problem get this far out of control, as I accumulate even more emails as each day goes by. I feel like a hoarder, but my house is not full. It’s my in-box that’s overflowing.

IMO’s and Emotions, #FTSF

“Moments of clarity are so rare. I better document this.”

—Bjork, “Stonemilker”

Opinions and emotions can get us into trouble, but what would we do without them?

“In my opinion…”

And pretty soon emotions take over. We think of opinions as more planned and mapped out. I write and sometimes it comes across as more of an opinion piece, while the rest of the time my emotions have ushered me forward, no telling where it could lead.

When it comes to my emotions and my words, I can’t seem to fully control the outcomes. That’s why blogging can be a risky venture. I think I need to say something, get a feeling or thought out, and then I wonder if I should have kept it to myself.

***

We figure we’ll take the stairs down from the seventh floor, choosing a bit of exercise over convenience. We have the time to kill after all.

I grip the railing on the left side, so as to be able to follow all the many flights, down to the ground floor, even though all my life I’ve been taught to stay to the right, so as to avoid getting in people’s way.

This day in the hospital I learn to stay in the middle as I make my way down the halls of the ward. The walls are lined with objects. I risk bumping into a piece of expensive computer equipment or a cart full of medical supplies or a wheelchair waiting for a patient.

How to follow the path. Stay to the right? Go left? Or perhaps it’s better to remain in the middle, not too far to either side of opinion or letting emotions rule, of bumping into people and their opinions and emotions?

Well, now I am walking at as brisk a pace as I can manage, without the possible threat of getting too fast for my own good and stumbling over my feet or a step as I make my way down.

I hear the familiar sound of footsteps a flight or so of stairs behind. I know what this means.

“Sorry,” the man says, an impatient note to his voice. “I’ll just slip ahead of you so I can move faster.”

He clearly has somewhere to be. Perhaps it’s important, truly, or not. All I know is I want to speak up just then, to show my annoyance with him and all those who make me feel as if I am perpetually in the way, blocking people from getting to their destinations on time.

I feel it in a busy place, like a shopping mall or any crowd really. I’m buffered from behind and there are people in front. I can’t move, except physically, by those all around me. It’s a bit of a claustrophobic feeling, but it affects my emotions, making me want to lash out.

I don’t then and I don’t now either.

The man may indeed need to be somewhere, but I can’t possibly have been going that slow, could I have?

I want to tell the man how I feel, but he is a stranger in a hurry. How could I ever explain to him how his need for speed makes me feel like a useless, inconvenience of an object, not a human being at all? What purpose would that serve? Isn’t all this more about how I let my emotions affect my thoughts about myself, more of an internal struggle?

I don’t know at which moment he realizes I am blind, slow by connotation, or if that even really comes into play this time. It does in my own mind. I wish it wouldn’t.

When you’re blind, you’re often made to feel like you are in someone’s way, someone who can see and knows, with certainty, where they are going. I let this affect me more than I probably should.

So, I listen to Bjork sing about feelings and emotions.

She writes about emotional needs, emotional respect. I let her words wash over me and wonder if I write in the hopes of filling an emotional need or several, to demand some emotional respect. I guess that’s better than demanding it in other ways.

With all the politics of the US RNC and DNC from these last two weeks, with politics in general, emotions and words become emotional words. Of course, politics is emotional for most people. It’s certainly more about the emotions than the actual political, for me anyway.

Facts don’t matter. Reason rarely matters at all. Civilized conversation through words quickly dissolves into talking over one another and strong levels of disrespect.

Here I can use my words to convey my emotions. I guess it’s a bit one-sided, unless someone decides to leave a comment of emotion or opinion.

I often don’t say how I am feeling. After all, it isn’t appropriate to voice our every thought, though it sometimes feels like we do, in that moment.

What kind of a world would it be if we actually did?

Cristi of

Finding Ninee

is the host of this Finish the Sentence Friday prompt on emotions and words.