Today is August 1, 2015. I am alive and struggling.

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I’m sitting in the break room at work. It is a way station for people on break. Fifteen minute turn around, aside form myself who sits for two hours before my shift begins. Surrounded by refrigerators and microwaves, I settle in. The table is riddled with sixteen ounce plastic water containers. No names, no dates. They will be walked to the garbage can and dropped in like bad lettuce. Do not abandon your water; it will take flight. My four quart bottle wears my name and the date. I will gulp from it over the course of my five hour shift, despite the fact that I will use the restroom even thirty minutes.

If you’ve been with my blog for long, you know I have schizophrenia. I’ve been struggling. Struggling to stay in the common reality, the reality in which this blog is being written. I attempt to use my feet and hands like armor disbanding the electrical currents that run through my mind. Lately, my feet have felt like blocks of wood preventing me from walking away from my mind into the light. My mind is in shadow. My hands feel like tentacles grabbing the wrong things. I have no use for a stapler, yet my hands move me to search. “Please don’t staple my hand to a book I need to shelf,” I tell my mind. I work at the library as a page; putting books away is one of my duties.

So my feet and hands haven’t offered much in the way of protection, but my heart has. I love my job. I like my colleagues. They are frozen fruit bars working their way toward becoming popsicle sticks at the end of their shift. Clean and useful, they build houses.

My mind lives in the house of my body. My body is lean and strong like the stalk of a sunflower. I use it to get to they gym. I use it to do cardio on the treadmill. I use it to lift weights. I have been blessed with physical strength.

I also like to think I have been blessed with spiritual and mental strength. I know my soul trumps my mind. My soul is steady, consistent, kind and loving. My mind can take a rest in the dark, but then be catapulted into the light with the same force. I don’t give up on my mind. It is what I have to dream with, to imagine with. It is what thanks God at night for a well lived day.

I struggle, yes. But I have never been completely broken. There is much faith in me. I will step out. I will smile. I will say hello. I will live. This I know.

Today is July 24, 2015. I am alive and well.

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A room without books is like a body without soul.     Cicero

I have books everywhere, mostly because I ran out of shelf space. I also have no more room for knick knacks, Both curb my spending. The knick knacks I have were given to me by thoughtful friends. I remember being ten and having my nine-year-old sister give me something she made in ceramics class. I didn’t like what she had made, so I hid it behind a doll with wide skirts. She entered my room and couldn’t see her ceramic thing. She got so upset. I felt so bad that I elevated her thing to the best place to rest an item. I awoke every morning and would hold it in my hands, imagining it gave off heat. I haven’t described it yet because I never knew that it was. It simply looked like a lump of crimson, four inches in width and about six inches tall.

Is it possible to live without soul? It is possible to live without books. I have met people devoid of soul, or rather I should say that their soul was so deeply buried I couldn’t recognize it in their eyes. The soul is like white lined butted up against green cotton shirts in the laundry basket, freshly out of the dryer and still warm. The soul encapsulates the mind/heart connection. The mind’s eyes notices a woman trying to put groceries in the car while holding onto a toddler. One of the bags breaks and hotdogs, danish, milk and apples fall out of the bag onto the pavement. The heart acts in accordance to the mind and approaches the woman, offering to help. The soul glows when the woman accepts.

The soul is magic, the soul is cosmic imagination that appears real when associated with God’s grace. I wish I lived from my soul all the time. I have moments when I trip over bricks. The bricks remind me that I don’t always know which way to walk, which fence to climb, or whose trampoline to jump on. I continue to make the effort to live in love and compassion. My life is really rich because of this. Book in hand, I retire to my couch. It’s peaceful. I’m as content as a cat with a clean litter box.

Today is July 21, 2015. I am alive and well.

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I dreamt I was with Guy. He reached for me like he would a damp towel. He told me that he made a big mistake–I was the love of his life. In this dream, I wore an electric blue hat. One that had a wide rim which allowed me to bend it into fashion. The shade of the hat kept him from seeing my gaze. I told him I missed our hands locking together. Our hands were hungry for each other. We held hands everywhere, walking down the street, in movie theaters, at dinner, walking the dogs, and sitting sided by side on the couch. Countless places. He knew in this dream, I was not going to rush into his arms. My heart was heavy; I could feel it in my chest. I didn’t reach out to touch him. I didn’t want him to feel me, a brush of finger along his jaw. There will be no more of that.

The dream ends with me being picked up by an Amish man in a buggy. He is dressed the simple way the Amish dress. My electric blue hat brings color to the scene, although I know the Amish are not interested in such things. Before the buggy moves, Guy offers the horse carrots. Anything to keep me in sight awhile longer. The horse knows how to chew and saunter at the same time. Guy becomes a distant memory in the dream, like the memory of my loose tooth being knocked out by the elbow of the fourth grader standing in the line in front of me.

Today, Guy is not a distant memory. He is as visible a presence to me as the cloud puffed up, pregnant with rain outside my window. It has been a year and four months since he left me for Florida and another woman. I still continue to love him. 14 years is a pretty piece of time. It is sitting in a hot car in Arizona, flicking the air conditioner on. The air conditioner works well. We do not sweat it. In the 14 years, we sweat nothing other than finances.

I continue to wish him the best, and he me. There is no reason for us to ever see each other again. I will remain in the buggy with the Amish man. Things are simpler that way.

Today is July 18, 2015. I am alive and well.

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You know when you’re sitting on the toilet in a stall in the ladies room how you can see the feet of the person in the adjoining stall? Yesterday, I saw the feet and they were dangling. Adult size feet, in glittery sandals with frosted toes; an adult dangling.

I’ve been six feet tall ever since the age of thirteen. I don’t remember my feet ever dangling, although they must have when I was five. How does one feel grounded while using the restroom if their feet are swinging free? A restroom can be a very private place. Sacred even. The hand washing at the end seals the experience.

My daily life is filled with sacred moments. I simply need to pay attention. I need to have the desire to know the sacred. The air conditioning shuts off. It is silent in my home. This is sacred. My cats sleep butt up against me. Sacred. Water springs from the tap. Sacred. I have no wants today. Sacred.

Armed with a keyboard, I can say anything I want. There must be something sacred about this. Certainly, the keyboard can be used to abuse. I could be one to write hate. To write vile. To write evil. I am capable of presenting those things. I choose not too. My spirit trumps my shadow.

How do I go from dangling feet to spirit and shadow? I have no real idea. This is the magic of writing; seeing what pops up or doesn’t. And this fact has been stated over and over again. I am one of many. I like thinking of the company I keep. I appear isolated in my endeavor. This is false. Millions of people around the world are writing right now. I tap into that energy and soar. It has been good to sit in this chair of mine. I am kept from my chair because of procrastination and fear. What bad things can happen? I write something boring or over write my welcome. Small price to pay for effort.

Looking out the window, the bushes are still. No wind today. I am vulnerable because of no drapes. This I don’t mind. I am vulnerable in my writing. This I don’t mind either.

Today is July 9, 2015. I am alive and well.

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One of my male friends said I give too much information about myself on my blog. I want to be the dog that growls before he bites. I want to be the dog, tail wagging, tongue out, asking to be petted. My blog is a place that I can totally create my honest self. My authentic self. I want to be translucent.

I use the word create not to mean I’m making things up, but instead to signal that I don’t know all about myself that there is to know. I am learning through writing, thus creating with one truth after another.

It fascinates me to sit down to write and not immediately know where I’m going. If I write about traveling in a car, I know I’m on the street, address in hand. If I dive into a pool, there are steps leading out. If I’m climbing a mountain, there’s always a peak. What if I start to walk in the desert, off trail, no destination in mind? First, I have to pay great attention to my surroundings so I know how I’ll get back. It’s like reaching for my unconscious mind in a blacked out room, nothing to focus on, hoping my conscious mind will let go, allowing for magic, allowing for truth, allowing for God.

Letting go of my conscious mind sends warmth through my body. I imagine my blood circulating. I imagine little people in my body working in sync to keep my six foot frame in good health. I have imagined these little people ever since I was six-years-old. It’s fun to think of these people taking up residence. Not only is my outward appearance alive–things move, hands, legs, eyes, etc.–but my inside glows with their little lantern.

I am awake. I move with grace. I try to make my connection with people meaningful. A smile carries a lot of pull. Being able to have real conversation amazes me. I was not always able to do this. Life continues and I with it. I will continue to put all of me out there. What is sacred in regard to personhood? I will learn this as I go.

Today is July 4, 2015. I am alive and well.

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I look out the window and see wind. The green bushes shake with it. I believe it sounds like a young boy trying to whistle.

My twin bed, upon which I recline, is settled across from my bedroom window. The foot of my bed is three feet away from this window. The window blind retired months ago when it broke loose from its socket. It rests unused on the floor. The cats occasionally jump on it causing it to emit a crinkling sound.

My room is no longer private. Anyone can look in and see me or my furniture. Outside my window are many windows of many residents–six stories of windows. I am on the first floor. There is a sidewalk twenty feet away. At night is when I’m most vulnerable. Light on, my bedroom glows like the sunset radiating in the split y of two branches. People can see in and I can barely see out.

I can’t change in my bedroom into anything but socks and shoes. I carry a T-shirt, jeans with sparkles on the back pockets, indigo blue underwear, and a padded bra into the bathroom. My breasts are tiny as those of a sixth grader. The padded bra is deceitful. I like it anyway.

Eventually, I want to get plantation shutters. I am waiting to collect money like my grandfather did pennies dated before 1920.

It is peaceful this morning. My hair is tied in a pony tail on top of my head. Grams climbs my pillow, then bats at my pony tail with her paw. I wonder if cats know when a person smiles. I smile.

Writing from bed is better than trying on new blouses, better then buying caramel apples. My bed is no longer my prison. I’m no longer driven by depression and psychosis, unable to put my feet on the floor, wishing for death.

I have a lunch date. My friend likes to talk about books, writing, and recovery. I am able to have conversations on all these subjects. I dine with grace. The red velvet cheesecake is amazing.

Today is June 23, 2015. I am alive and well.

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So I need to respond to my own blog from the 22nd. When I said Grams pesters me I also needed to say that I love that she does. I love giving her my full attention and how it feels when she lays on  me. Pester away, I think!

I am including a poem. My poetry hardly ever goes over big, but I keep trying.

The Mercedes Parked at the Curb

Write a line with today in it–today I woke late. Still, the morning didn’t run away in leopard slippers. I was able to bend my body in prayer and ask God to relieve me from self. Self keeps my mind  tethered. In order to truly know God, I have to be out of my mind.

Outside, the leaves catch cool air after they sneeze, then land on the ground leaving me to carry them inside.

Bottom of my shoe, bottom of my soul, a messy expanse of leaves laden with dirty veins. They travel into 900 square feet of wood and tile, couches that lounge lazily, lights that have yet to wake, a kitchen counter read for slaughter—I lost the cutting board months ago.

I take the ready to go broom. I see another fall through.

God has been with me since day one. Infants cry, infants smile, their first shoes are bronzed to live eternally.

How many people have I embraced since Fall? How many have I left above the rug to point North, to sit with cornflakes and 2% milk.

God understands me. Sometimes, words are really not what they’re hyped up to be. To be.

Today I wrote of yesterday. Mother died some yesteryear.

Today is June 22, 2015. I am alive and well.

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I am an alcoholic. My natural state is one of drunkenness, yet I’m sober 21 years. I have schizophrenia. My natural state is one of psychosis, yet I’ve been hospital free for eight years. How do these miracles happen? I allow a spiritual God in my life and take right action.

God is everywhere outside and in our personhood. I can know myself deeply and get beyond self. Self is connected to all. Self is connected to God. The more aware I am, the stronger my source of instinct and intuition. Think of the notes of a symphony. Think of trees and leaves.

God will not do for me what I can do for myself, but God will do for me what I can’t. God lifted me from my natural states of being. Today I live a joyous life.

I’ve heard it said that I need not apologize for my God. I hope that you who follow my blog aren’t put off by my faith and belief in divine intervention. The artist William Blake called what he believed in as cosmic imagination. I like this. I am free to contemplate a life filled with cosmic imagination. With this contemplation comes a belief that I call shall not want. Eventually, I get to this point.

I want a house with a fenced in yard and doggie door complete with dogs. I wish I could follow my ex and spend time with his grandchildren. They call me Auntie Kristina. I hope they don’t forget me.

My desire for things may not pass, but I will acknowledge today that I want for nothing. I have everything I need today to have a joyous life filled with purpose and meaning.

Grams and Annie, my cats, sleep on me as I write this from my bed. When I brought them home from the Humane Society, I thought they were feral. I thought they would have nothing to do with me. How wrong I was. Grams, the neediest, often pesters me for pets and needs my full attention. She bats at my hand when I hold the phone, a book, or a pen.

Cats are of God. I actually believe they are psychic. They know when dead family members and friends enter the room. I take comfort in this like I do while eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked ice cream.

Today is June 15, 2015. I am alive and well.

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So, yesterday I came across a book at the library for children titled Combat Handbook. Although it is a gaming book, I was appalled by the title. How did I come across this book? I work at the library as a page and it was mine to check in.

Where do we draw the line at what we give children to read? Is it a kind of censorship if we restrict topics we find inappropriate  for children? These aren’t new questions. But are they ever answered? Some writers’ priority is to sell books. The title Combat Handbook will sell books.

Something else I find disturbing at the library is that we now subscribe to The National Enquirer. Why? Because there is an audience for it. Man has double heads, Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson’s ghosts haunt Hollywood stages, the martian will be landing soon, or is alien the new word for martian. These things are not even close to the most outrageous of things found in The National Enquirer. Maybe The National Enquirer fills a hole in people that need to feed on imaginative tales.

Other media that appalled me was the show on television called 100 Ways to Die. What is that? For a person such as myself, who has attempted suicide at least eleven times in my 51-year-old life, this is not a show for me to watch. When darkness drops over me, I don’t need to know ways to die that are fool proof. Today, I know I am terrible at dying. Today, I am far from wanting to die. This is amazing to me; I haven’t felt haunted for a good seven years.

I don’t have children. I don’t play electronic games. Maybe if I had children and did play electronic games, I would feel much different about a book called Combat Handbook for children. It seems to me that the generation of children now will have very different experiences to draw from once they reach adulthood. I am all for change. I believe it is the responsibility of adults to impart as much knowledge as possible to young people and encourage them to surpass what we do in this life of ours. May the next generation be smarter, kinder, and healthier than we are.

Today is June 13, 2015. I am alive and well.

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Excerpt from my second book—–

I want to have a party with fake alcohol and see how many people act like they’re wasted; rum, not rum, roars through the thin man who pinches the breasts of the host. She giggles, then slaps him after coming to her senses–the slap smells of beef, a fingerprint left on his cheek.

I want to repay all the kindnesses my friends have shown me all their lives. A sunflower bends at the neck in welcome. I hand out handkerchiefs, love wrapped in knots of stripes and polka dots–it is simple.

I want to travel the world bagging people’s groceries. A stick of butter rubs skin with a potato in London. The jolly man in Brazil grins with green jello the color of palm leaves. Canned beets are slippery in Seattle, a banana rots at the foot of an onion in Germany. Radishes remain the dirty spice that they are everywhere I go.

I want to say meow durning a speech. All the dogs will riot when they learn the bill won’t pass the Senate; it’s a matter of people fighting while wearing helmets in the ring. The blood loss would be cut in half with the ear out of the way.

I want to believe in God. God has come to me in the form of a twisted branch in a tree three stories high. Leaves rejoice!

I want to have a story worth telling. I wake to the woman mowing the grass outside my open bedroom window, smell the grass, chamomile with a touch of honey. Paint a purple mustache on my niece’s doll. Ask her where Ken’s head is.

I want to take a cute girl to the moon. She smiles as I strap her into the card board box. The stereo explodes with the sound of flame. I tell her “close your eyes and imagine cheese.” In no time, we hear mail being dropped through the door’s slot and know we are still grounded. The moon was another dream, like cows pirouetting to Greenday’s Awesome as Fuck.

I want to go to a city where nobody knows me and act like a completely different person. My name will be Charlie, an easy name, one I will recognize on a stranger’s tongue. I will wear boots and smoke cigarettes and smile only in the grocery store from where I buy slices of cake. My downfall is butter cream, I like it on toast in  this new life of mine.