Mr. Cloudy's Shelter

Fajita - a Guinea Pig remembered

mrcloudy@prodigy.net — Tue, 24 Jun 08 18:29:00 UT

One of our two Guinea Pigs, Fajita, died today. My daughter found him, while she was home alone. He is survived by his brother, Jelly Bean. They shared five years together with us.

No one will accuse me of being a man's man. I cried at my work cubicle when I heard the news, I cried when I finally left to drive home, and I cried again tonight when I saw him, and when I cleaned their cage.

I didn't want him to die. Sounds like the most obvious thing to say. Who would want a seemingly happy animal to die? And yet I need to say it, so there it is. Why should a Guinea Pig move a grown man to tears? It isn't like he met me at the door or played fetch, or knew when I was sad. He moved me because I loved him. And what else needs to be said. Should I have loved him? Am I really substituting grief at his death for greater griefs I cannot face square on?

Who can know. What I do know is that one we cared for is gone, and there is a tear in the fabric of the heart.

Hey There

mrcloudy@prodigy.net — Tue, 8 Jan 08 02:30:00 UT

Been tied up and not made hardly any posts or visits lately. I hope to stop by and "see" you soon.

I found time to post this, do some tax research and charge my portable mp3 player because of insomnia. A silver lining behind the cloud.

I hope maybe today any clouds you may have are crimson and silver tinged, creating a stirring sunrise, a dawning of a new day in some way.

Regards.
Mr. C.

New Moment's Resolution

mrcloudy@prodigy.net — Sun, 30 Dec 07 11:27:00 UT

I'm weary of wondering whether the new year will be "different" "better" etc. I'm tired of wondering the same about tomorrow or even tonight as opposed to today.

In this very moment, life sucks. This moment that I'm in, that is holidng me, that I'm holding(?), whatever it is - I want all of the yucky stuff to just go the hell away and leave me alone.

Oh I can think of reasons for optimism, new possibilities, etc. I could make a resolution for the next moment.

But then I contemplate how reactive it all is, even what seems proactive - setting goals, etc. I'm not against them, but so much of the time they are just polite ways of saying like will be ok if things are better or I'm better, and consequently of trying to live in the never never land of the past and future.

So, paradoxically, I hereby resolve that I will, for just this moment, as I write, sit with all the things I don't want, making no plans, no oaths to the future, no clinging to projected hopes.

Now as soon as I finish this sentence the moment's up. And something is telling me a cookie will make that next moment much more better.

I wish you all the best in your next moment.

What are sugar plums and figgy pudding?

mrcloudy@prodigy.net — Sat, 22 Dec 07 06:07:00 UT

Neither sounds very tantalizing to me, but I wonder what they look like, smell like, what the texture is like, what it takes to make them.

I don't want to actually taste them, I just want to know them at arms length, and second hand report.

I'd hate to try something and gag, spit it out. Not very mannerly.

Here's to an unmannerly 2008. If you stand in line with me, maybe I'll get on the biggest roller coaster of them all and actually ride it, even if makes me puke.

2nd guessing

mrcloudy@prodigy.net — Tue, 18 Dec 07 17:11:00 UT

I have long appreciated the Greek adage that the unexamined life is not worth living. And I ought to be writing more about the wisdom I have found through examination, but today I'm wondering if the over-examined life is also not worth living.

We have contrasting proverbs in our every day life that I've mentioned before - Look before you Leap vs. The one who hesitates is lost. Which one applies? It takes wisdom and fortune to get it right it seems.

It was always a rather dour (sp?) moment at church growing up when the preacher would read before communion: "let a man examine himself lest he partake unworthily." I mean who's worthy? To quote CCR: "It ain't me, It ain't me ..."

I've realized of late that over-examination for me in one aspect is my willingness to find such flaws in myself that I feel would prevent others from enjoying who I am and wanting to spend time with me. I imagine everyone walking away from me in the end, and always for good reason. But I realize more and more that what I'm really doing is trying to protect myself from rejection. It really isn't an examined life at all to project such rejection on other people.

Of course, it is perhaps ironic that it is perhaps through examination that I've reached this conclusion.

I think what I'm really concluding is that most of my 2nd guessing is simply about control and protection. And perhaps the greatest wisdom for me, at least at this time, is to simply be open to pain and rejection, and consequently to love and friendship as well.

Impromptu Holiday Sermon

mrcloudy@prodigy.net — Sun, 16 Dec 07 05:59:00 UT

Well, it's Sunday morning with Christmas nigh upon us. I'l be home cleaning the house, caring for my fish, hopefully connecting with my family better than I did this past week. But I can't resist the nudge to get behind a would be pulpit for a minute and speak to those who will be attending, with a couple fingers pointing back at me:

Joy to the World, the Lord has Come.
Fear not I bring you good tidings of great joy.
Peace on Earth, Good Will toward All

How in the hell, good pew sitting people, how in the hell, can we sit in a pew this morning if these things are true -really true, not just nice comforts?

Go out, go home, go to a friend, go to a stranger, and help them feel these for one passing moment. In the words of Saint Jean-Luc Picard: "Make it so." If you have the time, wealth, peace of mind, energy that this message suggests, then sit there with those who do not.

And if you are here desperate, barely hanging on to some semblance of sanity. Here looking for some small shred to hold on to. Know this: Holy Days are bullshit. Name the date and it doesn't matter, because you are the holy ones, the blessed ones, and there is never a moment that the possibility of love is not near you, surrounding you, begging the world to agree with it and celebrate you. The world ought to bow down and reverence you, the light that is in you almost gone out. They ought to build shelters to protect your flame, bring oxygen and kindling to grow it brighter, until that which is in you drives out any darkness, and Peace on Earth becomes not a comfort to the comfortable but an experience of the outcast.

I say not to the Christ child, but to you: sleep in heavenly peace.

SLEEP

mrcloudy@prodigy.net — Sat, 15 Dec 07 12:58:00 UT

The older I get, the more I become convinced that sleep is my #1 nemesis. Now it may be that reflux is the demon that is the major cause of sleep troubles over time - I don't know. But give me three bad nights of sleep in a row and I'll be depressed as all get out, surly, and think stupid thoughts.

Give me three relatively good nights in a row and I'm almost sociable.

Last night was decent, so I'll wish you well today as you wander by and see me cleaning or sitting on my backside, depending on which shoulder-dwelling being wins out today.

Crying at work

mrcloudy@prodigy.net — Wed, 12 Dec 07 20:12:00 UT

Crying at work blows - maybe I've said that before, but I'm old and forgetful, so I say it again.

The weird thing about today is that on the way to work I was filled with emotion listening to music. And in that wonder, I almost felt that it could be possible to freely give myself away to people.

But when I walked in to work and sat down, I started to cry and I felt like I didn't belong because of the very feelings I had driving in to work.

Ironic. It could just be fear that I'd be rejected if I truly offered everything that I am, that I'd make people uncomfortable, etc. We've talked about this some before. But with a lot of thought about vision the last few days, I know upon reflection that that is my vision in life - to give myself away, and to create space where others can do the same and be reverenced for doing so.

I suppose that's really why I started to blog and why my blog is titled as it is. If you knew someone was really listening and really ready to hear, what would you most want to tell them, show them, be heard about? That's what I want to be in life, one of those people you would tell your story to. I'm glad to feel like I have so many good companions here - story tellers, trying to integrate lives events into some kind of narrative, a narrative that holds the bad stuff and the good stuff, and the mundane stuff and the dreams. To me, these are the best kinds of stories there are - even when the teller and the hearer know not where the stories are going.

Lonesome Dove

mrcloudy@prodigy.net — Wed, 12 Dec 07 19:55:00 UT

Any of you Lonesome Dove fans (the old tv miniseries [from a Larry McMurtry novel) from the late 80's with Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall, Danny Glover, Anjelica Huston, etc.)?

Watched it again this week. Amazingly vivid characters: Gus (Duvall) and Call (Jones). Sort of a wild west odd couple.

At the end of the movie, a reporter, with obvious wonder and admiration, tries to interview Call. Call doesn't answer, except when the reporter says how he was a man of great vision. Call says mostly to himself: Hell of a Vision.

He looks back in his mind's eye and sees how his "vision" cost him the lives of almost anyone he held dear, even if he couldn't admit that he held them dear until they were taken.

I won't speak for the ladies, but it seems very "manly" to have a compelling vision that makes you rise above life somehow, master it, make it suit your purposes. And it's certainly very American to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and "make something happen."

But in the end, the very manly Call seems to see that there was too great a cost to this rising above, and that in fact it may have been a sinking below. I think there's a larger commentary here than one man thinking about his life - it's probably, in part, about all of us romanticizing the old west and the one who stands tall, our concept of manifest destiny, etc., and suggests our own need to see what our vision cost us.

But this all set me thinking that maybe the best life is one in which there is some distance between our dreams/ambitions and our accomplishments. If we too easily get our dreams, we may give up too much to get them. Perhaps in the middle, in the struggle, is where we find our humanity. Perhaps disillusionment is an odd sort of friend if it's just a companion on the journey and not the judge of it.

Wednesday Morning Coming Down

mrcloudy@prodigy.net — Wed, 12 Dec 07 04:58:00 UT

Well, I haven't had a beer for breakfast or one more for dessert, but I may be picking out my cleanest dirty shirt, as I head for work.

Even with a decent job there are days you just want to walk in at least knowing you could quit anytime without affecting everyone in the rest of your life - just have some sense of freedom. But I suppose it's never been any better. In the old days you either hunted animals or died, raised crops or died, etc.

But in middle age, I find it increasingly hard to just plow away and increasingly hard to imagine dreaming of something else would be anything other than folly and selfishness.

At age 20 I was a follow your bliss kind of guy, now it seems more like selfish, arrogant ambition to have tried to do so.

And I'm not particularly depressed - it's more ambivalence than anything. Now rather than follow my dreams I'd rather just sit on my backside for a while - could that be my bliss for at least a few months? ;^)

discursive thought

mrcloudy@prodigy.net — Sat, 8 Dec 07 05:46:00 UT

Well, perhaps it's just the new medicine cocktail, but on the whole, I'd say life has been easier the past month than in many years.

I haven't done a lot of formal sitting meditation, but with what I've done and an attempt to live mindfully, staying in the present as much as possible, I was able to see some mind monsters coming and invite them to tea. And they were actually quite peaceable once they sat down. Somehow by seeing them well enough to call them by name, they seemed to calm down on their own without a willpower fight.

And willpower fights against these guys have never been won. And somehow mindfulness of my mind's flights of fancy has been a key part of being able to keep my mind sitting instead of running IN A FEW CASES. And that has been nice.

No great claims being made that I've permanently changed my life, etc. But all the same, perhaps these are small signs that there is some other way of living possible that isn't based on fear and flight.

Parental Pressure

mrcloudy@prodigy.net — Sat, 1 Dec 07 06:11:00 UT

It's amazingly hard to be a parent in so many subtle ways. All of your shit becomes your kid's shit one way or the other, somehow - they either carry it, sit in it or at least have to shovel it up and throw it somewhere else. You shame without realizing it. All of your failings that adults may take in stride, they interpret as meaning something about them instead of something about you.

And when you level with them, sometimes they seem more sad to know of your own demons than to just have you let them out.

Perhaps I make too much of such things because I was so sensitive (was? yeah right, ok, AM, damn it). What's really crazy is that teachers who made me feel special always got a lot more out of me as a student, and yet I'm continually getting into a conflictual, shaming blaming relationship with my son even when I see it hurts him.

Part of the truth of the matter is that I worry he's not tough enough to be a man, because I don't feel tough enough. Catch 22. It's hard to trust your kids to find their own way, especially when tv and video games offer them every incentive to maintain a status quo affirmation that it is either boring to have nothing exciting at hand to do, or it is easy to make progress on significant things in life without painful self-sacrifice.

Somehow, I've got to find a way to sometimes become the positive voice he hears in his head rather than the one who is always correcting, forcing, pushing - even when all of those are geared toward "helping" him attain something he says he wants to attain.

I don't know why but I find it easier to say positive things to people in writing than face-to-face. And perhaps that is my best way to reclaim a positive foothold right now.

average

mrcloudy@prodigy.net — Wed, 28 Nov 07 04:25:00 UT

A toast to the amazing average.
To those who receive no accolades,
who do not rise above,
who make no posters,
write no oprah-worthy books,
who know not whether they are taking life by the horns,
or having the horns of life take them.

But who neither succumb to cold indifference,
nor inflated self-importance.
Neither scheme for an advantage,
nor overlook a kindness.

Blessings to you whose hopes do not entangle you,
and whose fears do not define you.

allergies suck

mrcloudy@prodigy.net — Sun, 25 Nov 07 05:23:00 UT

That's about it. They suck.

Junk and Cleaning

mrcloudy@prodigy.net — Fri, 23 Nov 07 11:47:00 UT

Well, it's Friday. The good side - off work. The bad side - cleaning. Somedays I think I should just live in a car. Once it's full of junk I either have to empty it or junk it and buy another portable storage device.