Book

I'm in the process of writing a book.  It will be a short biography/memoir.  I need to find a publisher and have no idea how to go about the process.  I also need to find a publisher who will protect my privacy, so I will be using a pen-name.

I have something to say that I think might help people.

If anyone can give me some tips on getting a book published, finding a publisher, or other related things, please contact me.  I could use all the help I can get right now.

Here It Is

I have too many posts already... but they are old.... this one is new.  Here you will find mostly a stream-of-consciousness.  Hopefully you will like most of my thoughts; some you won't.

Hello familiar friends and strange friends.  Would it sound too new-agey if I said there are no strangers?

I am bored, with a lot on my mind.  I can't promise an orderly arrangement on this blog, just thoughts being thrown out into the Internet Wild, hoping they will be caught by a reader or two.  Or maybe I just need to say things for the sake of saying them.

On with the show.

One thing I've noticed we learn as adults is that we're not important as we once thought we were in youth.  It's because the world grows as we age.  At 35 years old I miss the beaming smiles of teachers as they put gold stars on my homework.  Yep, teachers gave wonderful pats-on-the-back.  Something I have learned is that there aren't many out there giving me the metaphorical "gold star" anymore.  Well, some do, but the numbers have dwindled.  This is something I miss.  I enjoyed being made to feel special.  Life teaches some hard lessons.

I don't like not being rich.  I want to come across a large amount of money so I can pay my bills and buy things like the camera I've been drooling over.  I hate being poor and wish a millionaire would tell me that today is my lucky day, that I can move out of the government subsidized apartment complex where the cops are frequently seen because who-knows-what goes on here.  The odds of winning the lottery are nearly microscopic, so I'm not even going to play.

I used to have a job with a good income until I got sick.  I went from being middle-class to lower-class.  Sisyphus' rock tumbled down but it doesn't seem to be going back up.  Yet, the Damoclean sword probably hangs over all our heads, for even I am certainly more fortunate than many in this world.

Even though I got sick, my life has more meaning than it did in the past.  I finally got over a bump that was holding me back in life.  Now I am freer than I was, and hopefully someday I'll be freer than I am now.  Life is a growth process.  Some days it seems like my seed is dormant, and others I grow like a weed.

In the Blink of an Eye

So many things disappear without notice.  Not just the small things, but things as big as spring.  One day I look out my window and the sky is grey; the trees are bare.  Spring could nearly come and go without my notice.  About a week ago I looked out the window and noticed there were small tufts of leaves growing on the trees.  When did that happen?  One day it's grey, some days after it's not.  What happened to the days in between?

After 34 years spring must be something I take for granted.  Been there, done that.  I should make it a point to notice the details of spring's entrance.  I may have lived 34 years but it doesn't mean I'll live 34 more, or even 1 year.

It's like.... just noticing that I can only taste the food in my mouth when I'm exhaling.  Something silly, perhaps, but of large importance to me to learn something about my body that I didn't know all the years of my life, something to do with eating which is one of my favorite things to do!

So, I smile and welcome the daffodil that grows in full bloom beneath my second story window.

Hello daffodil.

Hello spring.

Feline's View from a Window

My cat fascinates me.

I opened a window for her today.  She gets excited when I call her name to come to the window; she will come barreling through the apartment to jump into it.

What fascinated me today were all the small details I noticed about her when I spent about 10 minutes just staring at her and watching her behavior.  She sniffs at the fresh air and I wonder what she smells.  Something tells me she is taking in the scents of all the homeless cats that live outside, but maybe she is noticing everything, the scents of the grass, blossoming trees, people walking around outside, the children.  Her whiskers flutter around.  She is staring toward the sky; her head whips from left to right as a bird flies by.  Her ears twitch at sounds and apparently even at sounds that I cannot detect.  She stares at the ice-cream truck as it passes.  The sun on her fur makes me want to plant my face down into it to feel its warmth, to smell the sweet aroma.  It is comforting to do that.  ...And then there is the reflection of the sun in her clear eyes.  She is my golden-eyed girl.

She loves her window.

I love her.

Out of Winter's Grave Still Covered in Dirt

It is April 5th, 2013 and although spring has been here for a short while today seems to be the first real day of spring. I have been too depressed for so many years that I have forgotten how to get excited over the beginning of spring. Even now I am relying on a caffeine pill to give me enough feel-good energy to smile at the sun.

There are people outside; they are listening to their music and the children are playing. For the most part I liked winter when the children were still inside. It was much quieter and people did not feel the need to drive by with music blaring out their car windows. I guess it's safe to say that spring should excite me but does not because it does not fit my mood. Winter is more like me. I guess in a way spring depresses me because I don't feel like bathing in the sun or laughing with friends. I prefer to be alone and how can spring and summer accommodate someone who stays indoors? My loneliness is self-imposed - I turn down most social invitations - yet seeing people frolic together seems to amplify it.  Winter is mine; I am indoors with everyone else. Nothing is expected of me.

After more than ten years the doctors have found a good medication cocktail for me and I seem to feel a twinge of hope that spring and summer will bring great things. Just feeling hope is a great improvement for me.  I just have to ease my way into it.  Today it's 64 degrees and one of my windows is open with my cat sitting in it. This is the first step to saying "hello" to spring.

Just a Trilobyte

My father briefly dated an archaeologist when I was a kid.  She gave me a near-perfect - if not perfect - trilobyte fossil.  I don't think I was responsible enough to have that specimen because it ended up lost.  Now I am 34 and I'm responsible enough for a trilobyte.

Trilobytes, here I come!

Is the Grass Really Greener on the Other Side?

"There is a very little word that we often use. It has only two letters, but it is full of power for good or evil. It is the word 'if'. Do not be always fancying that if your circumstances were different you would be different; if only other people would be agreeable, you would; if only you were somebody else and had their chances you would do differently; if this, that and the other might be, all would be well with you."  ~Hermes
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I tend to say "if" a lot - If only I had more money.  If only I lived in better home.  If only this person treated me with more kindness.  If only I had this or that or did this or that I would be happy.  But the fact is, IF I were to get this or that or achieve this or that, I'd only be wanting something more, something bigger, something else.  Life can turn into a cycle of wants if I'm not careful, instead of a cycle of thanks for what I have which has the power to bring a sense of contentedness.  I sometimes think the grass is greener on the other side, but I must remember that to someone else my grass is green and healthy and lush.  I have a beautiful field and if I tend to it with love and gratitude it will allow me to feel satisfied with things the way they are, which will allow me to be satisfied with myself, which will allow me to be in harmony with my Higher Self.

Thanks, Universe, for the lovely pasture I have and for the rain and sunshine you provide to keep it green and in production of some of the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen.

Negative Thoughts, Negative Energy

"It is your belief in vulnerability that causes things to get bigger. It is the absence of your awareness of well-being. There is nothing creeping after you. There is no bad stuff coming after you...it is only you holding yourself in a place where you are disallowing the well-being, that would be there otherwise. There is no bad stuff out there. Everything is a by-product of how you flow your energy." ~Abraham Hicks
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Negative thoughts create more negative energy.  The snowball effect definitely applies to my thoughts, and before I know it the negative energy I have created is monstrous.  Luckily I have Ray around to remind me of the good I have in my life.  When I start thinking I don't have enough money, or our apartment is too small, or the neighbor's music is too loud, or about the people in my life who have hurt me, he reminds me that I have a roof over my head when the homeless are trying to stay warm by sleeping on the sewer grates.  He reminds me of the comfortable bed I have to sleep on when some people are sleeping on benches.  He reminds me of the women in the world who go to bed lonely without a man that loves them.  He reminds me that I have lots to be thankful for.  Yesterday he asked that I write a list of things I have in my life to be thankful for.  (Of course he was first on the list!)  When he puts things in perspective for me it lifts me up and makes me feel that I am lucky to have what I have and there are some people in this world who would give anything to be in my position.

Ray takes all my gloomy clouds and paints silver linings on them.

Ray reminds me that even on cloudy days the sun is still shining above and beyond them.  The sun is always shining.

The Soulmate Holds the Key

A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we’re safe in our own paradise.
~Richard Bach

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That is how I feel about my soulmate.

Like Children With a Game

"You are like children with a game, and you think that the game is played by everyone. Physical life is not the rule. Identity and consciousness existed long before your earth was formed. You suppose that any personality must appear in physical terms. Consciousness is the force behind matter, and it forms many other realities besides the physical one. It is, again, your own viewpoint that is presently so limited that it seems to you that physical reality is the rule and mode of existence." -- Future Seth