A few words about hope.

Don't panic, happiness is just around the corner! Unfortunately, no one knows what corner, where or when.

Chances are the sun will come up tomorrow and things will be pretty much same as they are today. Chances are you will have another chance to do things differently.

Maybe that sickness that you were sure you have is nothing. Maybe if it is something, medical science will come up with a cure or, a miracle will happen. Maybe, just maybe. Nothing is certain.

I once had a health scare that did turn out to be something.  I had so much to live for that there was never any question that I would recover, relatively unscathed, and continue along life's path. Now, 28 years (and lots of tears) later, I am still here going strong. And still growing stronger.
 
We are not guaranteed anything, but if only the law of averages is your higher power, chances are there will be a tomorrow.

Time for grieving?

Maybe I am an old coot-ess but I have been around the block a few times and have seen quite a few disappointing election outcomes.  I have noticed, as far as day to day life goes, not much changes.  Then, as the pictures of the mostly young people went through my mind, I realized that I was getting caught up in their contagious anger.

Since the events of  November 8 came (2016) to pass, the media keep bombarding me with videos showing such chaos in the streets that I want to yell  "calm down people and just accept the outcome as the democratic process!"

Suddenly, I remembered what I have read about acceptance.  It is the final stage of grief. "Hey", I thought, "these people are grieving!"  Grieving is usually associated with the death of a loved one.  But I have been told that grief can come with any loss.


I recalled the 5 stages of grief.  They are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. In  my opinion, this trouble is a classic case of grieving.  The denial came the day after the election when some crowds carried signs and cried "not MY president".  Next I saw anger the when I saw the image of someone image beating the heck out of some sign or something.  The bargaining stage could seen as the call by some to oust the electoral college.  I saw depression when I saw some US flags at half mast. Yes, I am seeing acceptance too. Its only a matter of time before people see that this is NOT Armageddon, neither is it the end of America as we know it.


Before one accepts, one must grieve. This process comes and goes quickly for some, more slowly for others, but it will pass. Life will soon get back to the sometimes boring, sometimes painful, sometimes joyful, normality of life.  And in four years, if the real Armageddon doesn't come, we will have another chance to get what we want.

The Call of Isolation

Isolation is constantly calling to me. Like a black hole in space, it tries to suck me in.  Events in my childhood taught me that isolating myself was safe, being around people was not. Not unlike alcohol to the alcoholic, isolation was the solution to all my problems
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Isolation  is a hard demon to beat because it can be  very empowering. I lived happily lived in isolation for decades. It is a luxury that not everyone can afford. I could come and go where I wanted, when the mood struck me. I could be my own boss and work (or not) from home, choosing my own hours, nobody complained when I took rest breaks. My house was always relatively clean and I got very skillful at crafts. If I made a mistake, I could easily forgive myself.  Me and my cats got along splendidly. But I was basically alone in my fortress.

I always had access to a car, but I didn't drive unless I had to.  On the rare occasions when I had go out, the thought of driving terrified me.  My heart would race and I'd grip the steering wheel til my   knuckles turned white.  

I'm much better now. I drive without as much fear, I even quietly cuss out cars and trucks that get in my way, just like a normal person!

I have not gotten completely away from the pull of isolation.  My motto is progress not perfection. For now I'll take cussing traffic as a good thing.

With the help of new found friends, I realized that I was actually imprisoning myself. I  "lived my life in chains, and I never even knew I had the key"*

                                           *this is a line from an old Eagles song, titled Already Gone (I think).

The legend of the friendly ghost--true story

THE LEGEND OF THE FRIENDLY GHOST 

It was the family’s first night in their newly purchased, 100 year old house. The young boy couldn’t sleep, so he sat up in bed to gaze out the window of his new room.   To his amazement, he saw a shadowy figure holding on to the gutter and peaking up over the porch roof.

This happened some fifty years ago in the house my husband and I now live in.  We purchased our home from my husband’s father.  They moved here with their four young boys in 1967. That young boy, the oldest of the four and first to see the ghost, was my husband.

Shortly after my father-in-law bought the place the former owner asked if anything strange ever happened the house but would not say what was meant by that.  The word haunted was never used to describe the house, the word implies fear, and no one was ever afraid when the strange happenings were noticed.

After the first night in the house, my mother-in-law had to get up very early for work. While she was getting ready to leave, she heard sounds coming from the boys’ room.  She was puzzled, this was out of character for them.  She peeked into their room and saw that they were all still sleeping. The noise was coming from the closet. Since it was time to leave anyway, she just grabbed her sweater and left, trying to convince herself that it was just her imagination.

When she got home later that day she told her husband about it.  He listened and admitted that he had often heard sounds coming from upstairs while he worked in the basement before the family moved in.  He said that several times he went upstairs to see who was there. No one was.

The family got so used to hearing unexplained sounds that they didn’t even bother wondering about them. If no one was supposed to be home at that time, the probably weren’t.

After they lived here for a while she had the opportunity to visit a women from out of town who claimed to be a seer.  The woman said a little boy had died in the house years before, and it was that child’s spirit that still inhabited the house.

Once, my mother-in-law said, that she and her husband came back from visiting next door and found all the boys huddled in the oldest boy’s room with the door locked. The boys said that soon after their parents left, they had heard what sounded like someone walking up the stairs.  They said that they could hear each step creak on, one at a time. 

At other times, they would hear drawers being opened or closed or a stool being scooted across the room. Once a snare drum belonging to one of the boys was knocked over. It was sitting in an empty room with no one around.

My favorite story is one my husband still tells.  When he was about thirteen.  He was in the basement, working on an art project, listening to the radio.  All of a sudden the radio started blasting nothing but static, he turned around just in time to see a red figure disappearing from the floor up. He said it looked like it was a four year old boy.  He says he grabbed his coat and got out of there fast.

When we married in the late 1980’s, my husband’s family moved to the country and I thought that the little ghost tried to follow his friends and got lost in the wind.

 My family moved in this house in 1990 when our daughter was 3 years old.  It had been a good 10 years since anyone had heard a peep that  couldn’t explain away by sounds made by one of our four cats. But when our girl was about 12, she complained often that while she was sitting at her desk doing homework she would get the feeling that someone would come up from behind her and just touch her shoulder, of course no one was there.

I believe that an individual can allow themselves to be afraid of ghosts or not. Spirits don’t intend to scare anyone and are just doing things they would normally do in life and therefore are not always noticed.  One of my husband’s brothers and his 3 boys lived here for a few years and I have heard no ghost stories from any of them. I pretty much dismissed these stories.

But the stories continued.

 Recently, I met a woman at a club meeting I attend.  When I found out her maiden name it rang a bell. Her family rented this house from my husband’s father right before we moved in here.

  

Before she even heard my stories, my friend asked me if a child once died in this house. She was married and not living here with her family of origin, but she did spend some time here. Her family often told of feeling the presents of a ghost in the house, but were not fearful of it. 

In one story her family said a distinct the sound of something falling down the stairs, when someone got up to look they saw that a small shoe had come tumbling down the stairs.  The shoe was of an old-fashioned style, and did not belong to any of them.  My new friend’s mother still has that shoe.

Her little brother played and laughed with an invisible friend, that to this day he swears was real. The little brother says he and his “friend” were going out in the field to play.  His mother called her son back because he was going too far out.  The brother motioned back to someone and called out.  “Come back, it’s too far”

I think now that since that family rented the house right before we moved in the ghost got lost when they moved out, or maybe, the ghostie didn’t like it here anymore because there were no little boys to play with.

                                                                              By Charla Dugle Schleter

Catisms from the Wise Cat

Be independent always.

If you get locked in a closet, take a nap, some human will let  you out eventually and give you a treat.

In case a hasty retreat deems necessary, find the shortest way off the bed and out of the room. I have found that the very best way to exit is at a high rate of speed, over the sleeping human's face and across the bedside table.  Take care not to slip on the human's belongings such as eyeglasses, keys and books on the table. This is unpleasant.



If you find your bowl empty at  4 AM, moew loudly and fain starvation.

Play a thundering game of tag or hockey with your feline friends at 4 AM.


Avoid allowing affection and hugs from your humans, its undignified. Unless its 4 AM, then demand it loudly.

Sleep where ever you want, and don't move for anything.

Nap on the stairway, stretching out as much as possible.

Try your best to trip your human in the dark by circling his feet.  This works best if your fur is black and so is the floor.

If your fur is white, right before your human leaves for work, looking good in his nice black trousers, be sure to rub against his leg to deposit as much hair as possible on him.


Leave hairballs on the carpet daily.  Be sure to place them where your human won't step on them till they are cold and your human is barefoot.

Downward Spirels

Many, many years ago when I was in grade school, I attended a Parochial school.  Rumor had it that from this elementary school came the "smartest" kids of the 3 elementary schools that made up our High School.  I don't think that this was anything statistically proven, but being I attended this school, I always heard this.  The method of teaching in this school worked well for most kids.

I started out one of 52(!) first graders.  I remember very little  about the first few years there, but it was likely easy for a little girl to remain anonymous, so things were OK for awhile. I think I was hard-wired  a shy introvert, but on top of that, I operated best then and now at slow speed. I also grew up in an alcoholic home where, I have learned, that feeling invisible is not uncommon.  I probably felt secure being anonymous since that is what I was used to.  My problems came when the class dwindled down to a tolerable number of students and I was noticed.

In my school, when anyone was instructed to read aloud in any subject, they had to stand up at their desk.  I don't suppose this bothered anyone else, but it made me feel conspicuous.  This simple case of stage fright made made me stumble over the words, which made the stage fright escalate into something akin to panic.  This, of course, made stumble even more. 

Then someone decided that our school needed to adapt a self-paced, reading program called SRA.  At a certain time each day we all picking up our color coded folders for each level of ability.  I don't remember what the highest color level was, but the lowest level was bright orange.  The color on the folder with my reading material in it seemed like a neon light!  I felt like everyone could see that I was on the lowest level, and I felt stupid.  The folders contained cards with stories written on them, and after the stories were questions about the story testing your comprehension and speed of your reading.  I don't remember how  we were timed, but I always ran out of it.  Sometimes I didn't even have time to finish the story.  Consequently, I didn't answer any of the questions, and technically got them all wrong.  When I was able to finish I did answer some questions, they were always correct, but I couldn't move on until met all the requirements. I was on the orange level for a long time.

Thinking back on all this now, I believe my low self esteem came from my grade school reading experience.  I came to believe that slowness equaled stupidity.  We live in a fast-paced world.  My slowness caused fear that others were always judging me poorly.  That fear caused me to fail and that failure caused me to feel so uncomfortable that I didn't want to be around people.  All of this probably added to my poor employment record, which brought on shame that I felt like I could not take care of myself financially-like a "normal" person.

My life suddenly makes sense! I have uncovered where the shame I have been carrying with me for years came from.  I think this may be a major breakthrough for me as much as realizing that my Higher Power was there by my side through it all.

And the Dream Means...

I have always paid attention to my dreams, sometimes for deeper meanings, or, if for nothing deep comes to mind, they make for interesting story ideas.   Dreams are by nature irrational and scattered.  Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, so to speak.

Not long ago I dreamed that I was on a long airline flight with people I knew well enough to be comfortable with but I didn't know who they  were.  I also couldn't tell you where I was going.  I saw a vision in the dream of what seemed to be a picture that represented my life.  Everyone on the plane had a picture of their lives too.  Each one of us on the plane, including myself. Had to take a portion of that picture,  like a piece from a jigsaw puzzle,  with them.  That's about all I remember of it, now.    I awoke thinking "hmmm, that was interesting"  and dismissed it.

But then I had that same dream again last night, I woke up and took notice.  This one was a little different.  The flight legnth was the same but the since the plane was smaller,  the trip was longer.  This time I remember being more annoyed with the whole thing more than I was in the previous dream.  There were people bowling in the aisle, for some reason and  I was trying to get a smart-phone to work. But the same nondescript people were there, and we all had to take that puzzle piece of our lives with us.  I saw a thumb and for finger peal a piece of the puzzle out.

I have absolutely no training in dream interpretation, but, hey its my dream, I can interpenetrate it how I like. Right?

This is how I see it.  Having  the second dream means that I didn't pay attention to whatever the message was before and now it has become more urgent.   I  think that both planes represent a confined space that means stress of some sort, and the "trip" is not endless.   I need to be patient, whatever the stressful situation is it will not last forever. When I saw the jigsaw puzzle of  life,  I simply knew it was a little piece of hell in our lives we must take with us wherever we go.  The thumb and forefinger means we have a choice of what little piece of hell we take with us.

Be patient, this too shall pass.  And, by the way, you can't run away from yourself.  Life will never be perfectly blissful. OK, Higher Power, I get it now.