Edited to add:  I just read this again and it sounds like I’m lying to myself.

I had a dream last night that I just remembered.  I was reading DenmarkGuy‘s post and he listed “making out” as his favorite activity.  In my dream I was walking down a hall with my new husband.  In mid-sentence he leaned in to kiss me and it took my breath away.  Right there, in front of people passing us in the hall, we were goin’ at it.  I miss kisses like that.

I saw Moon’s comment about it being like missing the rain or stars and I used to feel that way, too.  It has only been since I’ve given up thinking like that that I’ve found myself happy, not looking to a man for happiness.  It’s a huge relief to have learned how to live on my own and I really have no interest in finding a man anymore.  I miss kissing, but then I also miss weekends at my beach house.  There’s a time for everything.

Jim, jc@jc-law.com, is the lawyer who did my will, and I always call him when I need the name of someone I can trust to do a good job.  I call him because he knows good people.  He makes like he’s not but I get the distinct feeling he’s one of the finest men I’ve met, in terms of good moral standing.  He’s smart, too, and very conscientious.  And he’s straight up.  But you know what I like the best about him?  His voice –  it’s golden.  Anyway, he gave me some good advice today.

He said, “Don’t take on a fight with an alcoholic who has more money than you, if you don’t have to.”  And when I think about it that way, I am wishing I didn’t corner him last night. 

Tonight the youngest came over for dinner after school and we worked on her big paper.  I love helping kids write papers.  She did her laundry and played the drums and it was like it should be. 

brendaclews  posed a question in her post today that had me running for the first “spirituality books” my teacher (acupuncturist) had me read.  He had flown to Greece to meet “The Magus of Strovolos”, after reading the book I’m quoting.  I just read the paragraph that probably had him calling the airlines, for it is exactly the same theory he was teaching as a Taoist master.  The book I am typing from is called Homage to the Sun by Kyriacos C. Markides.  The author, a skeptic, went to Greece to study with and write about the Greek Mystic, Daskalos, and over the course of several years, produced three books.

Brenda brought up the subject of the power of thought, as did lionne today, and it made me think of the lesson I learned about what Daskalos calles an “elemental.”

‘Every thought and every desire, Daskalos replied, are psychonoetic (noetic= a 5th dimension, where both space and time are transcended)energy charges that are projected into the environment.  Once these “elementals” are thrusted outwards they have a shape and an existence of their own.  Elementals, therefore, can affect others who vibrate on the same frequency as the person or persons who projected them.  A Researcher of Truth must, through self-analysis and appropriate meditation exercises, project only benign elementals that can be of help to others.’

“Through self-analysis we must try to weaken the negative elementals that take possession of us.  A Researcher of Truth must constantly scrutinize and examine his thoughts and feelings.  Is this not a form of psychoanalysis?  It is a necessary work of fighting evil elementals.  We have to do that systematically so that they do not get settled in our subconscious.”

Daskalos went on to argue that one is always linked to and accountable for the elementals that one ceaselessly creates.  Whatever kind of thoughts and desires, or elementals, therefore, we project outwards will eventually return to us either in this or future incarnations.  It is the way the law of Karma works.

I have done a lot of work trying to rid myself of needless worry, crazy love fantasies, and dwelling on wrongs which made me angry.  Staying in the present and focusing on the positive is the way to go I have found.  I am even starting to be able to have positive expectations about the future.

Today I spent with the oldest.  We started out at the gynecologist since she was sure she was pregnant or had a cyst on her ovary.  It was the latter and birth control pills are supposed to make it go away.  Thank God she’s back on those.  I guess. 

My ex called while she was here and wanted to know what it was that I wanted to do.  He was a salesman, supposedly a “real closer” and I always remember him saying before I went to buy something I had to haggle over, “always start by asking them what they want, never give away anything first.”  So I said the youngest didn’t want to stay here anymore and that he should figure out what he wanted and put it in writing.  I thought that would imply lawyers which was a scare tactic.  He won’t want to go there I don’t think.  I just hope it doesn’t come back to bite me in the butt.  He won’t want anyone snooping into his financial affairs, not with the kind of money he’s been spending and no job. 

It’s been raining harder than I’ve ever heard it.  In this house, I mean. There are skylights in the room I showed you that time and the effect is penetrating.  My daughter taught the puppy to walk on the treadmill while I was gone.  One of my new readers referred to her as a “German Short-for-brains,” which I thought was hilarious.  I don’t think brains is her problem.  She chewed up my daughters really cool cowboy boots I got her, while we were gone; chewed right through the toe.

So far my new system that substitutes thinking about God instead of worrying has been working out great.  I’d been in the waiting room long enough to assume they must have taken her next door to the hospital, that it was the ectopic pregnancy they were worried about.  I started to wonder if they were just doing an ultrasound and decided to get in position and do a little energy work and then imagine her well.  I know you’re supposed to be thinking about God but I was hedging my bets.  I was just getting to the part where I was feeling the love when she walked by.  She and the nice lady were heading over to the lab for some blood work.  She’s deathly afraid of needles, especially intravenous ones.

Later she asked me why I had that weird look on my face.  I said I was praying.  You would be, too, if you had these girls.

Update:

The youngest (17) came — The oldest is sick and didn’t even go to Easter.  She came in ready to negotiate and after 30 minutes we had almost reached someplace we could both live with.  I said she could stay out as long as her friends but that I was going to call the mothers and take a poll about just what time that was.  That was when she freaked and that’s when I became pretty sure something was funny.  I was buying it at first that she didn’t want me calling the mother earlier in the evening like she was in middle school.   I had to micromanage the first one and the second one sort of fell into the same structure, even though we didn’t have any problems with her.  This last one has never done a thing wrong in her whole life.  Well, last summer she had a party at the beach house, but she told us about it.  She didn’t have a time out once as a little one and we never punished her, ever.  She was the perfect kid.  Still is so this is the first time she’s had less freedom than her friends. 

She would rather be at her dad’s on the weekend because that’s when she does all her socializing and I’m 40 minutes away from her friends which is why they don’t want to come over here, either.  She can’t or won’t stay here during the week because during rush hour it takes even longer and she doesn’t like to get up that early when her dad lives 5 minutes from the school.  She wants to come over after school and stay for dinner and then sleep there.  She called her dad, and he said they would talk about it but we are both clear that that’s what we want to do.  I will have to pay him, though.  But the good part is that I wont be waiting up all night, every weekend for her to figure out where she’ll be, feeling guilty that another mother is feeding her in the morning.  I’ll get to see her more this way, if she does what she says she will.  Her dad is not going to like this, though.  Because he won’t be able to live at the beach on the weekends  and it will impact his social life.  Too bad.  He thought he was threatening me with it; that I wouldn’t want to lose her but I thought about what Brenda said and it helped me let her go.

Growing up a Unitarian, my church experience short-lived as it left me cold, I embraced the Taoist teachings of my Chinese acupuncturist.  Being a bellydancer I was all about the body so spiritual practice which began with the breath and connected with stars and the earth was right up my alley.  My teacher, who as it turned out had also grown up in the Unitarian church ( he was adopted ), had learned, first-hand, that there was more up there than stars. 

I was resistant and he waited.  Somehow he got a book of Mother Theresa’s in my hands and, along with a bunch of other miracles, I came to know God.  At first I used “Father Sky,” then I used “Spirit,” and I’m not exactly sure who it is that keeps me from hitting the car I don’t see when I’m backing up or gives me messages when I need them but I’m saying, “Thank you, God.” 

Tomorrow, or maybe even tonight, I suspect there will be fallout.  The subject of my ex having full custody has been raised, by him and now me, to my youngest.  They have a lot of funny ideas about curfew and money and she doesn’t seem to want to drive over here at night on the weekends.  Her Grandmother seems to have instigated this so I feel like I’ve been set up but all we can do as parents is what we think is fair and rational.  Having to call that horrible lawyer again is terrifying me but I’ll do what I have to.  I’m just glad I can pray about it, and writing about it calms me down, too.  Thank you.

Tomorrow’s Easter and it will be the first year, since I was 21 and married, that I have not celebrated with family, food, and drink.  Right about now I’d be putting together the Easter baskets.  I didn’t even dye eggs this year.  I was going to yesterday but that was before I learned my ex had decided to take over doing the brunch.  I’ve been doing the brunch and he’s been doing the dinner but as soon as his girlfriend got into the picture things changed.  She is a fabulous party giver and last year he suddenly wanted to do brunch.  I had a fit and said the girls would be at my house from 10:00 to 1:00.  He said he’d do his from 1-4.

 Actually they were having such a good time I don’t think they got out of there until after 2:00.  When I was still up in the mountains the youngest told me he was doing his early this year and I thought, you know what I’m done with this bullshit.  I’ll start a new tradition.  He can have my brunch.  He can do the baskets.  Since I left, especially on Christmas, it’s been a pain in the neck waiting for the girls to come over.  They no sooner get here and open presents and then he’s picking them up to go to Dim Sum.  I fail to see how that is an appropriate Christmas Day tradition but whatever.

He can have all the holidays and I will make new traditions.  It’s not worth getting all upset about. 

I just wanted to add that by “I’m thinking all we need to know can be learned outside, not inside” I was thinking about the lessons we learn in the woods; that they might be more important than and every bit as thorough as the ones we got in class.

Tues

After all that massive timber at the lodge with it’s medieval looking stoneware and pictures of guys like my dad on the walls (who skied there after it was built in the late 30s) the temporariness of the condo was uncomfortable.  I lost myself in John Irving’s “A Widow for a Year” but three chapters later needed to walk.  I wanted to go back to the river.  Only this time I wanted to spend more time on the bridge.  You get more of the roar from up above.

This has to be the dumbest golf course I’ve ever seen, and to get to the bridge requires walking at least nine holes. There are the same boring houses on either side of this strip-of-a course, and as I walked the gravel path along side it I knew better than to enjoy these man-made surroundings.  Even the woods suck.  In between the houses they leave it natural.  That means the few stragglers that somehow manage to survive long enough to reach some light are surrounded by the decay of the less fortunate growth that is choked by debris in various stages of rot.

Happy to be off the path, I turned left and headed down a two-lane road to the bridge.  I could hear the river and see the moss.  It’s taken over these woods making it appear even darker and danker than it probably is.  Even after a solid month of sun it feels wet.  When I’d found this road in my car, I was glad to break away from the 20 shades of tan enforced by the neighborhood association.  Over the bridge and rounding the bend into free-thinker’s territory, I was struck by how oppressive these woods felt.  Today I stood on the bridge enjoying the open blue sky.  Through my window between the green grid of steel frame I could still see the white caps half a mile downstream. 

It’s too dangerous to raft this far up but I looked at the rocks to see if I could.  There’s no clear path and it’s then that I consider the kind of path I tend to choose in life.  Why do I always choose the hardest one?  It seems so obvious looking at the rocks.  Any fool knows you pick the path of least resistance. 

There’s no shame in doing what’s easiest, you can get a lot further a lot faster.  I’m thinking all we need to know can be learned outside, not inside.  It’s just a matter of paying attention.  I bet Wayne Bell knows that.

Wed

There is a slight chance I was on the Channel 6 news tonight.  I drove up to Government Camp.  It’s not even ten minutes from here, and on the way I wanted to stop at the Ranger Station and get a snow pass.  So much mumbo-jumbo later I left without one.  Depending on where you want to hike you night need several passes.  Maybe I misunderstood but it sounded like I would first have to determine whether the trail was on federal or county land and then find the grocery store that sold that particular pass.  When I got back to my car at Timberline I had a $30 ticket for no snow pass.

Fuck it.  I went to Government Camp for huckleberry pie.  My youngest daughter goes to a friend’s cabin up there and it’s cute.  The cabins are older and smaller.  I’d never been there when it was so dead.  That’s probably what the news is about:  what a ghost town it is this spring break.  But they got a good shot of me.  I was walking into what I thought was the entrance to a ski shop.  It was a bar and it was 2:30 in the afternoon.  They were all the way across the street so maybe I am unrecognizable.  I went into the Huckleberry Inn, instead, and sat with my book and pie a la mode.

Sunday morning

 I went to the coffee shop I’d seen when I’d turned off the main road, on my way to the resort.  It was done in an island motif with uncomfortable wicker chairs and after sipping the funny taste I left the odd place.  Then I took a walk down to the bridge I’d seen.  The river was raging and the one-lane bridge said it could only hold 24 tons.  I picked my way over the rocks, down to the water.  Hiding behind the graffiti-covered concrete I got in the stance to do some energy work.  That’s when I saw her face.  Running water makes me vibrate like crazy and I knew when I saw her I was supposed to think about sending her this strength that came bubbling up.  I believe I was able to do it for my daughter once, and I thought maybe I could do it for my friend’s.

Monday morning

It was snowing at Timberline, “first time in a long time,” said the workman I rode the elevator with.  This always happens to me when I go somewhere; the weather improves immediately.  I got to park right up front, because nobody came this year, and fought my way through the blizzard to the entrance of the lodge.  I’d worn a thin coat and tennis shoes, having no idea it was snowing.  There was a crackling fire blazing in the four-sided fireplace that filled the center of the ground floor.  They only light one side, that I’ve seen.  Maybe at night it’s all lit up.  There are chairs on each of the four sides and I sat down, closing my eyes to listen to the fire. In the corner sat an antique radio, the kind people would have sat around in the 40s, listening to their radio shows at night.  The music was from the 30s but I think it must have come from the speakers mounted up toward the ceiling. 

After a while I made my way up to the next floor.  I wish I’d taken my notebook because in one of the many nooks and crannies there was a writing desk tucked behind a wall.  The small window lit the corner study from the sun’s glare on the snow.  A skier sped by and I sat down to watch the action on the hill not 20 feet from my window.  The timber they used was massive, as was everything about this place.  It was a privilege to sit there and the contrast to the condo struck me:  the lodge was more real than the condo was fake.

The top floor is where the bar is and I decided to go up and get coffee.  It, too, has wonderful places to cozy up and watch the skiers; lots of couches under windows.  The woman across from me was doing embroidery and my youngest had recently asked me to teach her.  I went over and struck up a conversation so I could watch her.  She taught me all kinds of tricks and even cut off the square so I could show it to my daughter. 

I drove back carefully, it was still snowing hard, and I thought about something strange that’s been going on with me lately.  I am falling in love with myself.  There is really no other way to put it.  It seemed like such an odd thing but the more I thought about it the more it made sense.

I’ve spent an awful lot of time alone since I broke up with my last boyfriend.  In my whole adult life, actually from the time I could date, the only time I’ve been without a man was when I was going through the divorce.  I like myself better than any of the men I’ve been with, and the sex last night wasn’t too shabby either.  This morning at the lodge I almost felt like I was on a honeymoon, walking around with a big smile on my face.

Cedar is the only real thing in this condo.  The two attractive plants, one in the bathroom and a tree in the living room, are fake.  That’s it for the eye appeal.  Remembering the place I conjured up, the floor-to-ceiling windows and the fireplace that takes up most of the wall are the ony things that turned out to be the same.  Except that the fireplace is ugly brick and it’s a wood stove that you have to pay $5 to use.  But the windows look out at a golf course and beyond that are woods.  And that is why I’m happy; that and the fact that the dogs are with my oldest daughter.

The drive was nice, and I did it in the daylight.  But by the time I’d checked in it was dark so I didn’t know what my view was like.  That part was the same.  I walked in with wet shoes and almost fell on my ass.  The entry and kitchen are raised white tile set in copper- colored grout.  Other than the entry and all of the kitchen and bathroom, the floor is indoor-outdoor green carpet.  Well, that’s what it looks like, anyway.  I hate green.  The walls are all white and the couch and chair are the same awful green.  The dining room  table and chairs are plastic trying to look like beechwood.  Instead of “pottery with shades” casting a warm glow they are white on white, the base being a foreign substance I couldn’t place even after touching it.  I only put up with the white glare so that my attention is not drawn to the hideous chandelier which dominates the room.  It hangs low over the plastic, blonde dining table with its tiers of green glass; pane after pane on all four sides supported by busy fake brass from which protrude bulbs that should not be visible.  Beneath that is an arrangement so vile I cannot bring myself to the table.  I guess I could move it. 

Yes, that’s much better.  Without the hideous, fake flowers one can enjoy the two cedar beams running through this place.  Those of you familiar with Sun River will know what this place is like; the huge, vaulted ceiling upstairs with the daybed and deck.  It does have a wonderful kitchen with everything you need.  But being immersed in unnatural substance is doing something to me. 

I sound like a spoiled brat, huh.  I’ll tell you what I have been enjoying and that’s the bathtub.  It’s nothing like the one I imagined but it’s more than I have at home.  there is one more thing that’s like the dream.  I’ve had great sex with myself.