Category Archives: God

Today is September 11, 2017. I am alive and well.

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Please take a moment to think of those who died today and their survivors.

I hoard books. They are people who do not leave.    Anne Sexton

Yes! So true. My house is full of people and yet I still have room to move. And these people don’t need my attention until I flip open a book and there they are, caught in the pages. My time is selectively interrupted.

Not to say that I mind being interrupted by actual oxygen breathing people. Typically, I don’t. But there is something to be said about having quiet conversations from which I can leave to get a cup of coffee without being rude. All characters in books ask of me is that I follow them faithfully. They do not take me hostage. I can swiftly leave them to feed my cats and then return to them right where I left off.

I’m a book lover who works in a library. The combination can be problematic like a diabetic working in a pastry shop. I can check out 35 books at a time for three weeks. How in the world do I read 35 books in three weeks? The three weeks is long enough for them to gather dust. In these dust bound books are people whom I will never meet. I will leave the book like I would a rental property that is too far away from a gas station. My tank remains empty until the next set of 35 books attract me.

Walking away from an oxygen breathing person is not as easy as closing the cover of a book. There’s goodbyes to be said, hugs to be given, and promises to meet at some future date. I don’t have to plan in advance to read a book. I can reach for a character at midnight or 1 a.m. The character will not have done things without my knowing and she will be in the same red pajamas I left her in. These are people who never leave. As a result, I am never alone. There is comfort in this.

I must say, though, that oxygen breathing people are necessary, are absolutely desirable. I am alive because of those who love me and those I love. And because of a God who I can treat as a non-fictional character; a character who has no physical being in this world but who is always around. God is not a person. God is God, books are books, and oxygen breathing people are oxygen breathing people. I am blessed to know all three. I am blessed to have all three in my life.

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Today is August 28, 2017. I am alive and well.

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The words! I collected them in all shapes and sizes, and hung them like bangles in my mind.   Hortense Calisher

Words are like shoes on the hooves of a horse, created by a blacksmith, marking the earth as she gallops, the earth a ready piece of paper.

Sentences propel me forward. I walk a mile with the word love on the tip of my tongue. I love the way the sun circles my chin. I love the way light lets me see the little Shih Tzu ten yards in front of me. Love mixes with my saliva creating a wet kiss. I kiss the cheek of my friend than wipe at it with my index finger leaving only a bit of residue. When it dries I kiss my friend again!

The word God rests in my palm, relayed to the bark of a tree I touch. I imagine gnomes in the trunk tunneling beneath the roots mining for ore. I shake Christy’s hand. God rests between us. God rests inside us. God brushes my ankle like a lizard looking for shade beneath my pant cuff.

Words are bees. They can produce honey or sting.

They make names and reference points. My friend Pat lives with two cats, TIkka and Lily, in a one bedroom condo below a Spanish tile roof. The three of them watch the moon from the patio, steady in the sky, winking in response to their stare.

Even if wordless words will still attach to me. A person says of me, “she toppled to her left landing on the grass a foot away from the picnic table.” Words later will feed me potato salad and slices of cheese.

I am glad for the scratch marks produced by my pen and the Times New Roman that marches across my monitor as I punch the letters of my keyboard creating, yes, words, sixty six words a minute.

Today is August 21, 2017. I am alive and well.

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It takes far less courage to kill yourself than it takes to make yourself wake up one more time.   Judith Rossner

I have spent days finding life particularly hard for no good reason. I trip on the curb of a sidewalk in front of a beauty parlor. One of the manicurists sees this and comes to offer a hand. She picks up the magazines I have dropped and my keys, than reaches for me. I don’t take her hand for fear of pulling her over with me, both of us landing hard on the sidewalk.

An invisible hand offering to pull me up each morning is always there. Most of the time I actually take it. The grip is strong. I don’t fall back against my pillows but instead place my feet on the floor and stand. I turn on a light. My little area in this world brightens. My cats walk figure eights around me and between my feet. I am able to feed them kibbles for breakfast.

I use to wake but not wake, if that makes sense. My body would motor around the house heavy with depression. It hurt to move. It hurt to talk on the phone. It hurt to sit at the table with my grandmother with whom I lived. Magically, this changed.

I have attempted suicide many times in my life. My last attempt was 20 years ago. I remember it clearly. My grandmother found me unconscious in the living room after I overdosed on Ativan and called 911. I woke up in the ICU a day later to the stare of an East Indian doctor. She was young. I guess mid-thirties. Petite of stature. Probably, 5′ 4″ and a hundred pounds. She took my hand and told me I had much to do in this lifetime, that my life was important. I said nothing but let her face imprint itself on my heart.

I’m no longer the cactus who refuses to bend in storms, refuses to let go the thorns. Instead, I’m a bush who waves in the wind and allows herself to be pruned.

I can’t say that I wake up happy all the time, but I do wake. Eventually, it occurs to me that I’m living in love. That my life is charmed and blessed. I’m a 6′ tall woman with no weight on my shoulders. My stride is wide. My gaze no longer haunted. I roam around in my day a free spirit. The ball and chain that I use to be attached to sits quietly in a corner of my bedroom as a reminder that movement has not always come easy to me. But now I do wake. I do walk with my breath a steady in and out.

Today is August 7, 2017. I am alive and well.

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If a mind is just a few pounds of blood, dream, and electric, how does it manage to contemplate itself, worry about its soul, do time-and-motion studies, admire the shy hooves of a goat, know it will die, enjoy all the grand and lesser mayhems of the heart.

Diane Ackerman

I contemplate my mind frequently. It is an engine attached to the caboose of my heart. When mind and heart are in sync, beauty happens. For me to think my mind is special is amazing for I have schizophrenia. I am at peace with this. I wouldn’t change it as it has given me bursts of creativity. Yes I have rough patches, grass browns when needing water, but they pass and I’m left in wonderment.

I believe my soul wants to live in real time. My conscience floods my soul with magic. I believe in the power of soul to ignite hours each day. A candle not gathering dust. A wick waiting to be lit. I don’t worry that my soul will become polluted and I’ll end up in hell. I don’t know that I believe in judgment day.

I’m not certain what “do time-and-motion studies” means. Does it mean we follow a clock? Recently, the library I work at flooded. I was moved to a branch while repairs are being made. I let the boss at my new location know it was really important for me to get my same hours. Time matters. Fortunately, she accommodated me. You don’t get what you don’t ask for, yes?

I feel time move. Especially recently in respect to my age. There’s a gentleman I want to ask out but he’s twenty years my junior. He was an infant when I had my first real kiss!

The line “admire the shy hooves of a goat” is beautiful. I admire the swift feet of my cats, the way my friend sips coffee, the sun entering my windshield. Often, small things vibrate like the pigtails of a toddler.

Of course my mind knows it will die someday. My brain will shut off. My heart will stop beating. My feet and hands will be still. I use to want to speed this process up. I have attempted suicide at least nine times, three of them ending in my waking in ICU. Not wanting to die anymore is an act of God. I value my life and hope to give something back.

“Enjoy all the grand and lesser mayhems of the heart” of which there are many. I’ll leave you to meditate on this. Thanks for your readership.

Kristina

Today is July 31, 2017. I am alive and well.

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I found god in myself/and I loved her/I loved her fiercely.   Ntozake Shange

This quote jumped out at me. The passion of this statement is like a toddler commenting on the smell of flowers for the first time. The passion is as great as the passion a homeless woman experiences as she bathes for the first time in weeks.

I have found god in me. The god in me is a small light that blazes in the creases of clouds. The god in me pushes me into the world when I fear Harm is waiting for me around the next corner. Harm is alive, just waiting for me to trip over my shoe laces, landing in his outstretched arms before realizing there are no laces in my shoes. I will not trip, at least not today. God has my back.

I refer to god as he although I have no problem with others who think god is she. One of my best friends prays to mother goddess and is not shy about letting people  know that. At the close of AA meetings, we always say the lord’s prayer which begins “our father.” My friend passionately and with purpose loudly says “our mother.” Sometimes I want to cover her mouth because I don’t want people judging her. I’m certain she would say “judge on,” not allowing people to get under her skin.

“I loved her fiercely.” I do love god fiercely. I also love words fiercely. My cats, fiercely. My friends, fiercely. Fiercely is such a perfect word. It exudes strength and purposefulness. It fires me up not allowing me to wade in dark water but rather coast on a paddle board.

“Cosmic imagination.” That is what William Blake referred to as god. I join him in this. God is cosmic imagination that pierces me from within leaving me passionate about this life I have been blessed with.