Bags

A life into ashes
What remains?
The memories
The possessions
The clothing

Choices of a style
Representing character
Representing attitude
Representing rebellion
Representing adaptation
Representing character

A life into bags
Textiles of a life
Choices of a life
Stuffed into a bag
Today

What do we have left?
The memories!
A life into ashes
A life into bags
Memories

Complications of life

Life is a complication

Death is a complication

Many disasters could happen

Will happen

Have happened.

Death is a complication of life

The dead are extinguished

They accept or deny their death

The grander scheme takes it

No choice

Through pain or lack of knowledge

The end comes no matter what

Complication of bureaucracy

Complication of Moods

Complication of double duty

Complication of clothes

All a complication for the living

Not for the dead! Ha-ha!

The living, however,

Deal with the complication

Complication of choice

Have to choose

Hang on to memory

Pet and caress the abyss in their soul

Or

Realize that that’s the way of life

Ha- ah!

Realize that I’m still alive!

I can still breathe,

I can still smell,

I can still feel,

I can still taste,

I can still see

See that this is a beautiful world

Rejoice in the little desert weed flowers

Rejoice in the springtime bird song

Rejoice that I’m still here.

Because remember,

Sometimes what you do determines your death

In life, there are choices

In death, there is no choice

Who knew that death would be such a complication

Magical Leapness

Change in character

Change in personality

No restraints

No guidance

No governor

When do I stop?

When do I start?

Who am I?

If I was searching, discovering then

Imagine now!

Emotions charged.

Emergence of a new character

A new personality

A new me.

Ring feels heavy

Heavy with reminders

Heavy with death

Heavy with nothingness

Time to go

Time to take off

Leap-day with a friend

Thelma and Louise

Geocaching the geocachers

Then I need to geocache peace of mind

Peace of spirit

Need a ceremony

Comical ceremony of time-worn friction

Tears turn to laughter

Laughter turns to freedom

The ring finally yields to the tugs and pulls

Now there's freedom from this scab

I no longer want to pick

Trust my intuition

Intuition Chakra is wide open

Guiding me.

Intuition says do it with a friend first,

Someone I can be myself.

I climb with a friend

We laugh, we converse, we grieve

Then I find I'm peeved

“Charley, damn you! You caused me so much grief!”

Causes a laugh at the multiple meanings of the statement, the ambiguity.

Life is a ping-pong ball

Bounce around, don't get upset.

Sometimes we hit the ceiling, wall, or floor.

The trick is to keep bouncing.

Don't worry.

Don't worry.

Keep bouncing.

I bounce into the scheduled, long awaited task

To disperse most of the remaining corporeal cells to the earth, sky, water

To further not pick at the scab

Well-intentioned efforts turn anticlimactic

Expectations beyond product

Whatever,

It's done, it's over.

Keep bouncing

Don't worry.

All say how great it is that I don't vegetate

All say how wonderful I move

How wonderful I keep going

How wonderful I keep traveling

Traveling in this new world of mine

Traveling with my new mind

Traveling with new sight

Traveling with a new me

When do I say start?

When do I say stop?

Emotions run rampant

Bouncing in this new world

With this new sight.

Don't worry.

Don't worry.

Keep bouncing.

Magical leapness

Changing character

Changing me

Changing world

Changing perception

Trust my intuition

I know when to start

I know when to stop

Emotions run rampant

Don't worry

Don't worry

Keep bouncing

Magical leapness

Graceful anticipation

I believe

That Grace is what I want to achieve

Is there such a thing?

Graceful grieving?

Graceful movements

Graceful comments

Graceful sorrow?

The doctor ordered pills

In hopes it would distill

The emptiness spilling out from within

Sadness, is it a sin?

Down a spiraling medicated vortex

Seeing the reality in this mortal nonsense

Creates emotional chasms

I took charge of my life

To end this strife

I removed this cloud of chemical protection

Introspection without consultation

For the colors to be bright

To feel the light

I must first conquer the dark

“Life is good,” I say aloud

My senses now aroused

There was no need for fear

Strength within me was always here

On my own, I stand and grow

As I feel my energy flow

Music and travel is the remedy.

My voice rises over others as I sing

Life is good echoes off walls with a ring

New friends, new conversations

My character no longer on probation

Sight is now clear

Sunlight comes through the tear

As I sit here with a smile and giggle

My calendar fills with anticipation

My emotions laying down a strong foundation

Fills with dreams

To-do lists begin to burst at the seams

My life has always been giggles and smiles

As now I begin to count the miles

Music, Adventures, Travels, Graceful Anticipation

Daylight

Daylight gives way to night

And with this I let out a silent sigh

With things on lists completed

I still exist and am...undefeated

Physically there’s a shake

My mind still quakes

I am sane

And I am insane

My spirit bubbles about

On this mighty roller coaster ride I silently shout

As emotions play up and down

With the rise and falling sun

--Kamala

Charley goes to Burning Man produced by Jeryl Marcus

Reminiscent Dream

Today was a trouble-shooting day. I ordered a cell phone holder for the car. It arrived missing a little part. I couldn't reach the company, so I started looking through all the little parts we've collected over the years and found a little clamp that did just the trick. I'll still get in touch with the company, but it is usable in the meantime.

I took Microsoft up on their free Windows 10 upgrade in early August, but missed the 30-day roll-back 'window' if something didn't work right. We'll, as you know, other things happened. So I chatted with a MS tech, explained my situation and that I had to restart my laptop about 8 – 10 times before I would get the Start menu and even then some inherent apps would not work. He said they normally charge $99 (what a number, right?) for fixing it but he would do it for free. He also said that this was a common problem people are having with the upgrade. So it was actually relaxing relinquishing control of the computer and just sit back and watch what he was doing. I have been perusing the Windows forums and knew of the approach he was using. He actually had to create a whole new profile and copy everything from my profile over then delete mine. It took him about an hour and a half. It would have taken me a lot longer. My desktop has been running fine on the other hand. But I lost the ability of what Windows now calls the 'homegroup,' in other words, networking my computers. Back I went to sift through questions and solutions online today. Bingo! Found it. Turn off the computers. Set up the homegroup from the laptop, it then generates a password, start up the desktop, enter the password, and Viola! Done!

I still haven't been able to get a complete 8 hours sleep at night. Since I was a teenager, that always seemed to be the magic number for my ability to function properly. So after I fixed the homegroup problem and put some more stuff away left from moving all the furniture around the other day and I felt beat. Odin, Cassie and I laid down for an hour-long nap.

I fell right to sleep. I had the strangest dream though. It's the first time I can remember dreaming about Charley since he's left. It felt real also. Like all dreams, there's that surreal quality, but lately that has been the major theme even in my waking hours. So, I'm telling Charley that even though he was growing older I am not going to mourn him until he was gone. If I did so, it would waste time we had together now. We hugged and cuddled. Then the surreality oozed back into the dream and I did some odd stuff around the property that actually never has happened and really didn't understand what was happening. Then I woke up.

Charley has always been quite capable, but the last few years, his physical strength had declined (even though he was really quite strong) and he complained about the losses of what he physically could have done in the past. We all do that. As we age, the vessel which holds our minds begins to show cracks and weaken. We had a conversation one time about my responses to his complaints. Since I am a troubleshooter, I would come up with steps we could take to help the situation. He said that didn't make him feel better that instead it made him feel like I was denying his ailments by explaining them away. Which he was right; I admitted it at the time. It was my defense to not acknowledging that he was slowing walking away and would eventually leave me.

I tried not to dwell on this aspect of him disappearing. I knew, like in my nap-time dream today, that worrying about the inevitable would just waste the precious time we had left. So we were traveling, walking, hiking as much as we could while we could still do it together. If there is one thing, I am grateful for it's that he went so quick. This has been a tremendous shock and weight of the sadness is immense for me, but I'm happy for him. We watched four other people in our lives whose illness lingered and they just dwindled to nothingness over years before leaving this world. That type of death is even scarier. Charley left while packing for our adventure to Burning Man. We'd made at least 7 trips this year in the Casita, including the grand road-trip on the Alaskan highway for two-and-a-half months this summer.

Dreams, my mind working in the dark to make sense of my experiences.