soaking it in.....and spilling some drops

Hello out there.......am I tuning in? I may be tuning in, but am rambling on tonight. Please bear with me on this post. :)

The rainclouds seem to be pulling in the bluesy notes and i find myself covered in tarred feather reflections normally saved up for February blizzards when the whole world comes to a halt. But, we are onto the fourth week of mostly rain and as much as i'm trying to dance with the tides, I keep slipping into the churning undertow. Where are my trusty feet? They don't seem to be under me. They don't seem to be listening to my request to change direction, to skip over to YET another path. I try to move them, my body swaying left, my feet demanding to remain stuck in the muck, What gives??


I hear the traffic down on the old highway.............cars heading into and out of town.........some from far away pulling campers on their way to a vacation spot. Poor buggers! Everything feels like a croaking frog swamp. What i like about the sound is that it is the sound of movement. Not that I want to run away or anything. Well, actually if I'm honest, I do want to run away. I want to escape. I want to try something new in someplace where they don't say things to me like: "Get over it. Get used to it," when I try to express my displeasure of feeling lost in a new building with rules I find unworkable.................rules like not allowing anyone outside of the department into my office even if it's a meeting. No counselling there. No consoling. No planning. Except with colleagues. Except on my own. It's my space but not really. I want to escape its reins.

"There's nothing we can do about this.....get used to it..."

How about listen and not dismiss? How about respectfully show some empathy. Anyone know what empathy is? Maybe empathy hooked onto the back of a camper and headed out of town.


Life seems like its always a chore to reinvent oneself. I can be as flexible as the best, but when it comes to who I am down in my core being? Youse gets whats youse see. And I kind of like who I am, what my values are, what I look like inside. It works for me and it seems to work with the ones I am there to help. It doesn't work for the ones who carry the big sticks. A friend told me today that YES I am a difficult person.........this lovely label was coming from another difficult person so he was allowed to call me that.

I think I'd prefer the label complicated. I'm complicated and proud of it! My brain ticks overtime, my feelings are on my sleeve. I question, wonder, ponder, ask out loud. I am assertive and will show my true colours, and there are many shades. I have strong opinions, but love to hear others thoughts and opinions too. If someone needs me, I'm there....................I am there. I am here too and I don't want to reinvent myself. Change is good, but reinventing the important stuff isn't whatsoever.

I remember the first time a guy I was dating called me complicated because for some reason I was dumbfounding him with whatever it was I was talking about at the time. My response while laughing at the comment? I thanked him. I did! I thanked the guy, and then told him he was a lucky bugger to be attracted to someone complicated. Life doesn't get boring. We had a great summer together! Then, he married an uncomplicated trophy wife. They lasted 10 years. He enrolled at university after that and found his own cerebral complicated contemplations. Good on 'im.


However, somedays I just wish it was boring............just for a breather. Calm, cool and nothing to complicatively contemplate. It just always seems like there's a dilemma. Its not like I go looking for them damn dilemmas. They find me. Even when I'm holed up in my "do not enter" office that I AM TRYING TO GET USED TO, dilemma the ugly debutante wiggles her ass at me. Then, things get complicated.


You know.................I know what I want. I want to do what I do best. Counsel. Teach. I want to consult with others............I want to interact with people who seek out interacting. I want to be the best counsellor I can be in order to help others and to grow personally. That doesnt seem complicated to me. It seems rather rational. What is complicated are all the damn impasses and roadblocks and permutative alien rules which seem to get in the way. But then a moment stirs up the bluesy clouds and lets through a ray of sunshine.......like this one..........



In the middle of the day today, I found myself in the kitchen of a woman who suffers deeply from a life threatening depression. She had been out of the hospital for about a week, and was doing quite well considering. It was good to see her again and to be sitting with her. Her kitchen was lovely................decorated with apple motifs and everything spic and span clean and neat. She had lacey tableclothes layed on her kitchen table......to look at the scene you would have a clue how complicated her life is. This is where we were sitting.

I was in a bit of a foul mood when I arrived there. Tired too..............tired of trying to "get over it" and looking at reinventing myself. She was also in a foul mood. Her new medications were keeping her away from a deep sleep, and the rain was getting to her emotionally. I could tell she was sick up to her eyeballs in trying to "get over it"..........to find her merry sunshine spirit. Our impromptu meeting seemed like good karma on a day of dilemma dipping.



My being there hadn't been planned. I just ended up there instead of next door where I was supposed to be. But, it was meant to be because she and I hadn't had a chance to talk alone for a long time, and when we do it's always deep and meaningful. Today was no different. She was telling me about a situation she found herself in.........a whistleblower kind of scenario and was feeling guilty and unsure that her actions would be perceived the wrong way. Her intent was to get help for another who was in dire need. Her whistleblowing was done out of compassion. She described how she was feeling..................and said..........


"I feel like a bad person for doing what I did. Am I a bad person?"



I looked right at her and said with complete conviction.......



"No, you are a wonderful compassionate human being whose trying really hard to deal with life's complications. What you did for that person was from the love in your heart.......they may not get over it. Who knows how they will see what you've had to do on their behalf, but you know and I know that you did it to ensure another human being gets help. You may have saved their life."



I made her smile.

She made me smile.



Smiling is never complicated. They may hide behind the stormy clouds on some days when reinventing and trying to figure out impasses seem to be on the menu, but when they are around.....it's a simple thing to do.


How do I finish this piece? Let me describe what I'm hearing through my bedroom window......The cars going by on the old highway are fewer...........there is silence now in between the whooshing sound of the tires on wet pavement, along with the mooing sound of the cows summering on the island in the middle of the river. I love that sound. Silly old cows with nothing better to do but contemplate life in their own way. The day is calming down to a slumbering pace, and the blues seem to have caught a ride out of town again. Think I'll lie on my bed and listen to the sounds of home.

I think I found me feet again. (My God I love the flow of writing) Let them dance with the tides and kick up some muck. Let them take humbled me along this crazy journey up into the fields of thought provoking complications.