I haven't written all week because I was trying to concentrate on a couple of other projects. HA! Seems like everything is hard.

Writing this is not hard. It sometimes feels like heaven. At lots of other places in the world I just feel out of place. I do, lots of times, feel like I walk in my own time zone with the world buzzing around me in another stratosphere. I never feel like I really fit in well. I do not really feel like a mere mortal in another's heaven, in fact, I usually feel like the mortals are invading my heaven. I am extremely independent and I wonder what other animal is like that and then I am afraid of the answer. Of course, with my family I feel like myself, I feel safe and cozy and I feel like I belong. Then, if I really think about the kids I start to feel like a spy or a peeping mom who is trying to find out things they are so easily hiding from me. I still feel like we belong together, though. THEN when I realize this is just my perspective I feel like I need another respite. When I am not writing or working I am eating and cooking. I am walking every day 4-6 miles. I gave up the running. Without writing I gain a few pounds because food becomes a magnified necessity to keep the voices quiet. And then it builds up and I feel starving in a different way and the urge to fill up a cart with all the nonsense I can find gets overwhelming.

Writing to me is exactly like cooking. I love to cook especially when hungry. When full I feel like maybe I'll cut down on cooking and then I use up the calories for energy I need to get writing and cooking again. I just can't eat cereal all day. It isn't in me. I can't drive thru and satisfy my food obsession...NOOOOO...I have to mess up the whole kitchen in order to get something that I see in my head and won't be happy unless it turns out like I dreamily see it. It is the same exact way with writing...it is in that little television in my head. I can see it and hear it and when "hungry" I just need to create it. Getting it on the paper is like eating the meal. Satisfaction is very tricky.

When those voices in my head quite down a bit I am in a writing respite. I do not feel like it is a dry spell or writer's block. I feel quite. Sometimes, I am too cynical about the world and almost everyone in it and that makes me want to be quiet because I can't even stand to hear myself let alone think anyone else feels like hearing it. Who cares anyway? Does it make any difference to express such dissatisfaction with the world? I am such a student of Life that I like to find something to learn, I like for someone to tell me something important, feed me for a change. I find I can argue with most anyone. There are times I like losing that fight. I like being shown. I guess that is why I love my husband. He is one of the few that does that to me. And it makes me mad plenty of times because I don't like giving him the satisfaction of needing him. There is that independent witch hiding here and she loves to pop out and be scary.

At times, only my patients can enlighten me with that full life wisdom that young people just do not have and have no desire to get. THAT drives me nuts too...that no one seems to care about things..few people care beyond their own sorry selves. I get sick of the news. The news is self centered too.

I do get happy when my kids sit with us and have long talks and discussions and then when they bounce out of the room my heart skips a beat and I feel that intuition. Still smiling I wonder how I've been dooped. SOOOOOOO...not writing makes all this grumpiness worse.

The weather has been cold and cloudy. Rain threatens every week and then downpours. The days are much shorter and tomorrow we lose one whole hour for daylight savings time. Do I have an hour to spare? No one cares about me and my time anyway. I'll just accept it and give up that time freely and happily and say O.K. for once this week. I actually love the winter. I love the long darker hours and the dampness. I love when the trees lose their leaves and still stand tall and wide and strong despite how cold and exposed they must feel. It is truly hopeful. I love the rippling water at the lakes after a cold breeze that makes my neck hurt if I do not have a scarf. Feels like fortitude. Mr. wind stings as if to say "I'll show you to complain about hot flashes". I actually laugh out loud at these thoughts and think passersby must wonder who I am talking to and laughing with..I just try to ignore the world while closely observing every little thing. I am so glad to get rid of those flashes...cold damp days and birth control pills have new meaning.
I cannot wait for snow. I love how it piles high and reflects the sun and makes the outside feel warm from it's cradling, the shadows and the crunching sound it makes under my boots and the way it piles us all into the house together and my kids become mommy prisoners and I feel like my father and love it.

It's funny how we really are the same our whole lives but at different times are really different. That doesn't make sense but you know what I mean. I used to love to BAKE in the sun like a frying hot dog. Greasy and brownish red, turning and turning until crispy on all sides, my skinny body not afraid of showing itself. NOW...forget it...the sun makes me feel faint and I can't even find that skinny body. I would not say I am AFRAID of showing it, I just lost the desire. Now I feel more like the bun then the dog.
And that is O.K. because I will grow old gracefully. Hot dogs make you sick anyways. When your old you can say words like anyways and you don't care who thinks what about it. You can think about your teeth all day and write long passages in a theme tablet that no one will ever read and you'll be O.K. with that because everything is O.K. to old people. Everything but the frivolous and the young and the dirty world. Everything you do but nothing anybody else does.

There you have it....my need to write. And forget other such silly projects.

I have been trying to write fiction too. I do writing exercises and I curse the air. I get a couple of really good paragraphs and even a few pages and then my trash can begins to fill and my delete button starts to stick. And I think about the blog.

I think about getting older and how different I am from my younger self. A younger self that would spare no words. Now, I wonder what is good enough to say. I cringe at what I hear. It is all too much sometimes.

Then I think about Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf and I feel sorry for them. I know how thinking deeply and feeling so keenly can probably drive you nuts. But it is all about acceptance and respites and then it calms ...and then it's current starts to churn again and the need to write relieves the need to kill yourself. If they only knew. If they only waited and accepted more.

I take my walk and at the start I sometimes feel anxious to get done or it feels monotonous. And then I see my friends, the trees. The small ones with few leaves and the great big tall ones with their lushness stubbornly waving at the shorter days and the cloudy skies. I look way across the acres of freshly cut grass and breath in deeply the smell of just cut sweet onions. It makes me smile. Then I see the bright orange tree brilliantly strutting it's uniqueness. I realize I may know these trees better than I know my own kids. They would never try to deceive me. I realize accepting the specialness of each and every other person will help douse my cynicism and calm my racing thoughts, my complaints and my loathing of a crumbling world. I decide to stop thinking about my teeth and stop looking for that too skinny body and know that life goes on all the better when accepting and knowing I am where I am for a real reason; for a bigger reason. I try to stop wondering how the world is going to fit in the handbasket going to hell.

I vow to accept and even see the wonder of each and every person. Most people, including me, especially me, cannot help themselves and that makes them all kind of cute. I realize we are all needed for some obscure reason. I realize hot water from the tap and drinks made cold with crushed ice are lovely and real reasons to feel joy. I feel grateful to have this need to write and analyze and cook and eat and talk to my kids with or without suspicion. It makes life grand.

Then I think how we all are manic depressive! Not just me!!!! How can I feel so so so low about most of the universe and then equally as high about the world? I realize it is all perfectly normal and then know if I was a scientist I'd form a hypothesis. I will not take pills or potions (alcohol being the exception) or put big rocks in my pockets and walk into the river. I will write and eat and hug my kids and my dog. I will smile at the passersby. I will ACCEPT. And so will you...it is the only way.

How many people can say they've been friends for 30-35 years? And how many can say they still like each other?

Tonight I was to dinner (and drinks) with a couple of friends that I've known from high school and before...and one friend's sister who has become a friend herself.

We all have the same persona as years ago, we are the same people deep down inside...we may have different clothes and different bank accounts and kids but we are all the very same. They say, we are all born with the character we will carry with us through life. That is very hard to change. The four of us can deal with that because for all our "issues"...we are just fine the way we are; just fine.

And then it becomes more. It becomes mixed with history and even love and care. We know we can't leave each other behind. We ARE each other in one way or another even as we are different.

I just want to say thanks. Thanks for making me feel young again. And making me realize I'll get through whatever comes my way just like I did these past 45 years. We need to have fun and keep up with each other...because no one will know us better.

No one.

"What is to give light must endure burning".

WE live in a city, Philadelphia, where the homicide rate is very high. And we live very close to one of the most dangerous cities in America: Camden. We love OUR city, even with all of the crime. It does feel like OURS; we've lived here our whole lives and have been loyal to it and proud. We want to keep it. Of course, we do not like the crime. We are the type of community that know our neighbors, we know the other neighborhoods, we see everything. We stay and cope and try to make it better. We are not the type to run away or to pretend it doesn't exist. We do not think it happens somewhere else. It happens to us. Every day. There have always been thefts and attacks but now they are escalating. There are young kids running around with guns.

Crime and murder makes everything hard. It makes us change how we think about other people. It makes us unwilling to help or feel empathy.

Many kids, in our wonderful neighborhood, have been attacked. My son was jumped last week while walking home from school with friends. He was not hurt. He and his friends fought back. The other kids ran away. I do not want to move. I do not want to live in fear. I do not want to NOT go out at night. I do not want my elderly neighbor to be afraid of opening the front door. I do not want to be afraid of black people (most of these incidents are blacks on whites) or grungy teenagers or strangers.

I sent out an email alerting some of my friends and neighbors. We are planning a meeting with the local police station and will try to form a larger town watch. We are planning to write to the mayor who, I am sure, has stacks of letters about this horror already. Even worse horrors. Too bad. It is his job to stop this nonsense. The poor thing can't seem to get a handle on it. He is easily distracted. I am sick of it. SO are many, many others...I had a huge response to my email...since everyone forwarded it on to others. I am sure we will be able to do something. There is power in numbers. There is power in concern and care. We live in a neighborhood where we all know each other, we know all the kids, we are helpful to each other and keep the community clubs and associations running well. WE are a community where we would do anything for any one of us. It is just the way we are. WE are nice and hardworking and traditional. WE are the teachers, the nurses, the attorneys and the painters and the plumbers
and the stay at home moms. WE are the volunteers and the coaches and the PTA. WE've lived here for many, many, many years; growing up here, our parents growing up here. We are concerned.

First we have to analyze the problem.

Some of them think at a very, very basic level. From a place that knows no goodness and security and love and safety. They survive each day until another one presents itself. Therefore, they do not think about consequences because most of the time the consequences are not much worse than the lives they lead. Can you imagine this? There are thousands of young people in this situation. Hundreds of thousands.

I can see how hard it is to raise 4 boys in a traditional family with a father and a mother (with educations) and dinner on the table every night. With care and love and fortitude, it is still hard to steer them in the right direction. SO imagine...none of that, not even a memory of it or a notion. There is no reason to be good. There is no benefit or reward for it besides goodness itself.

So many people...all they care about is the next dollar...and I mean one dollar (literally) and they assault, attack and sabatoge each other. Imagine, they think we have abundance..so, it is no big deal for them to take some of it...even no big deal to use a gun to get it.

Imagine, you thinking you need a few dollars...desperately. Enough to steal or buy an illegal gun to hold someone up (and therefore change their life forever) for a few dollars and maybe a cell phone and a piece of jewelry....where does this get you? Then, imagine, you have no remorse or feelings or guilt or parent that has any control over you (or any parent at all).....it gives you the incentive to do it again...lots of times... in order to live from day to day. And then one day you shoot someone and then running and hiding just becomes a bit more difficult.

Imagine.

Hold on to your cowboy hats kids! We're going to the MALL!

As I found out MOST of AMERICA (Philadelphia anyway)is in the cotton pickin' mall. You may be saying..."what is the big deal?"...but I never, ever, go to the mall...in fact, I went to the King of Prussia Mall for the first time in my life (I am 45), Saturday...Di told me it is one of the biggest malls in the WORLD (I believe her). And it was packed....I tell you packed with people...all sorts...shopping and walking like they had a show to catch. Unbelievable. My kids kind of liked it. We went out to dinner. We had sushi. I saw a glorious Betsy Johnson coat with large beautiful flowers on it and a sash about the waist. A size 4 was right there waiting for me. I just couldn't justify the 695.00 price. Maybe for cashmere or sherling ...I do love Betsy though. Beautiful dresses too. I'd have to start going to fancy places. I mean fancier than the ballet or the orchestra or the theatre...what exactly is fancier than that? I guess I'd have to go to NYC...then, it'd be fancy all right. Thank the GOOD LORD I never found Prada...I love Prada. Kate Spade was pretty nifty too..but the kids dragged me out of there..

I was happy to have added to my daily walk...about 200 miles. One of my sons didn't know what all the fuss was about...so many stores, but only one or two for him. The oldest one was having fun shopping. The little one along with my 10 year old cousin liked it.

Clearly...if the world ain't gone to hell in a hand basket, America IS going to the mall.

I think it will be a while before I go back there. I just do not know where I would find that kind of time to wander around that gigantic structure in bright lights and different fragrances everywhere...my husband should be relieved. My South Philly Milly friends should be proud or at least glad I can relate to them a bit better. See, I DO work on my friendships! lol

Today we did a flea market in New Jersey...quite the opposite to the mall experience...but we loved it. A sunny and an all at once warm and cool day..it is a place where you drive your car in back of the ready tables and set up your wares to sell (this is also a huge outdoor and a huge indoor market that would probably take a month to walk the whole thing) ...outdoors is my thing...my two youngest and my cousin had fun selling ...and so I paid them our profits, plus we did some shopping...yesterday I looked at a $700.00 coat and today I was trying to get $5.00 items for $2.00....and did! Such lovely, and, of course, old things...so...just goes to show...can't teach a dog new tricks. And the people you meet are so nice and real and interesting. Everyone talks and eats hot dogs and coffee and tuna sandwiches and the guy comes around with the water ice cart with bells that ring like Rudolph's. Charming. Looked like good water ice too...Then we all pack up our cars, go home to unpack the leftover items and try to figure out the next available time to do another flea market!

Sorry Millies! I TRIED!