Out of Control Dream/Dreamwork

Out of Control

Today, my mother is scheduled to die.
She will swallow a lethal dose of poison.
Her begging for death, her plans and schemes,
have finally paid off. She will join my father at last.
Before she goes, I want to race to the nursing home
to say goodbye, to say "I love you." But the roads are snowy
and slick. A good foot of snow, packed to ice in spots.
As I turn to the left, up a long hill, the car slides
backwards, faster and faster, slipping into the left lane.
I panic, stab wildly around with my foot, can't find the brakes.
Cars fly past on both sides. I slide out of control,
can't even steer into my own lane. Finally,
I find the brake, pump it enough to slow the car, and start
back up the long hill toward my mother's death.
I am afraid I'll be late. She'll already be gone
and all my love and goodbyes will stay unspoken,
sticking in the throat of my heart like tears.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
081107-1225-1b; 081107-1st

This is a dream I had this morning. To honor the dream and request further dreams, I have made it into a poem.

When I write my dreams down, I do it in the first person present. By doing so, I discover things about myself and my current situation. For example:

I want to say goodbye to my mother. I am afraid I won't get to say goodbye. My mother died in January 2007. I was not with her when she died. I feel sad about this. I cried about it a little this morning. I think every time I revisit it, and cry a little, I am healed a little.

I am out of control. I can't find the brakes. My life often, if not always feels out of control. I think this is my addictions speaking through me. My ADHD makes me always behind on everything, all the time. I feel overwhelmed on the best of days.

I am afraid I will be late: I try really hard not to be late, and sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don't. ADHD again.

I am sliding backwards. Backsliding. I am gaining weight again and the holidays are approaching. I need to get my eating under control before the holidays get here!!!

I am going the wrong way. I am in the wrong place. This is certainly true because I am gaining weight, I also need to look at other ways where I am in the wrong place at the wrong time. I want to get myself headed int he right direction.

I believe dream messages mean more than one thing--it's the subconscious's way of communicating with the conscious mind. I believe we can heal and grow by paying attention to our dreams. And I want to heal and grow. Writing a poem from my dream is one way of dealing with it. Doing art is another.

Mom, I love you and miss you! Goodbye, beloved Mom, Godspeed on your soul journey. Say hi to Pa! I love you, Miss you! Goodbye!

OK, what is the right place? Where do I want to be? I want to turn it over, and listen for instructions. Meanwhile, here is where I think I want to be:

1. lean and healthy and addiction free (one day at a time)
2. happy and cheerful, enthusiastic, loving, engaged
3. in the bosom of my nuclear family and with friends
4. be creative
5. working on my writing and art projects in an organized way so that I can bring them to fruition: Geraldine, Sissy, The woman who loved weeds etc.
6. Moving toward being organized and tidy (reasonably so)
7. continue on my healing journey toward radiant good heal inside and out. LOL!
8. find a balance that pleases me. Release being such a taskmaster to myself!
   

What steps to I need to take to get there? One day at a time, easy does it.

1. get back on track with my eating
2. get enough sleep (order a blue light, stop staying up late!)
3. make a friend locally. Nurture love and family, friends.
4. continue working on my creative projects, but don't overdo it on any one day.
5. avoid switching projects until one is complete, if possible! (Also hard for me)
   
6. Work out an organizational plan that will work for me. (This has proved very hard.)
7. work on Twelve &, wings challenges etc. (get into schedule/routine.)
8. Try to relax a little about all this. Work at it EASY DOES IT, ONE DAY AT A TIME!

I'm feeling guilty writing all this because I have so much else to DO!!! DANG! OK, enough for now!

Celebrate Small Successes (Spring at Shangri-La)

Celebrate Small Successes I am a hard task -master to myself (and sometimes to others, though I don't mean to be.) I have high expectations, at least about certain things. But Sonja Lyubomirsky says, "Celebrate small successes. Celebrate steps along the way." She says, "Make a goal, and then make subgoals, and then, if necessary, subgoals of those. Celebrate each success, small, medium and large."

So, here is one of my goals: to complete and publish the Geraldine manuscripts. This is a cycle of poems about a retarded (brain damaged) girl/woman who I once knew. In order to complete the manuscript, I first have to finish writing all the poems as first drafts, and revise them.

The poems I am attempting to write are about pivotal points in Geraldine's life, as well as some representative daily poems. So, I am celebrating a small success by sharing this early (essentially first) draft of my new poem I just wrote this morning with you.

It is odd to start in the middle of the book, especially at such a pivotal point. So, before you read this poem, which remember, is not done yet, let me know if you would like to read the earlier poems FIRST so as not to spoil the surprise. LOL!

Anyways, I choose to be happy because this one tiny milestone in a vast huge larger project is completed--the first draft of a new poem.

I choose NOT to be discouraged by the fact that there are many more steps to go, but to take ONE DAY AT A TIME and do what needs to be done. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and I have already taken many steps (though many remain to be taken.)

Spring at Shangri-La (How Geraldine Returns to her Lifework, May 1990)

Aunt Geraldine places a ball of warm fluff in my cupped hand.
Tiny. Cheeping. She beams. In the box, eleven more. Ricky
stands proud at her side. Beaming too. Their faces shine like twin
headlamps in the dim coop. And Ricky, so oddly familiar.
I study him, puzzled. Geraldine adjusts the light
over the box, adds fresh water. Scoops out some messy shavings
and adds new. Slow, deliberate, careful. Chickens again,
her lifework, perhaps. Future eggs for the Home and neighbors.
Future dinners, too. Hard to imagine this mite as dinner.

I follow them out to the garden. Ricky's plot and Geraldine's
lie side by side in the patchwork of resident gardens.
Here is Grandma Ethel's plot, beside Geraldine's, on the other side.
Their three are the neatest. Their three have the most plants.
Tomatoes, squash, peas, beans, carrots. Potatoes. And more.
Lacy leaves, round leaves, hairy leaves. All small and newly
sprouted or planted and watered, from the look of them.
Some of the other plots have nothing but weeds.
Or a few straggly, wilted plants.

I wonder how Grandma Ethel works from her wheelchair
until Ricky confides that Geraldine does all three. He helps.
Sometimes, Grandma Ethel gets pushed out to supervise.
Today, she is inside playing bridge with Marjorie, Ellie,
and other residents. Her memory for card games has survived
her dementia so far. Strange workings of the mind.

Now we head out beyond the gardens. I follow Geraldine
and Ricky follows me. We walk single file down the narrow
path between the long rows of baby corn plants. This row
is well-trodden. They've been here before. Geraldine walks
with amazing grace and spryness for her size. She seems
to be getting younger. The house, barns, coops and woodshed
recede, grow evermore distant, lost in vast flat fields.
The hugeness of space here no longer feels as barren as it did
in snow. We walk and walk. Now through a wheat field. Now
through oats. A field of alfalfa. Another of corn. Woods loom ahead.

Ashes oaks and cherries are bare, maples have tiny leaves.
The forest floor is a sea of trilliums and other wildflowers.
We sit on a glacial erratic to admire them. Aunt Geraldine
and Ricky smile and smile. Sun streams through the tiny leaves
overhead in rays though a faint mist in the trees. I think I hear
the angels again, but perhaps it is only the birds. Geraldine
and Ricky hold hands and look at me shyly. "Al, we want
to get married," Ricky says. "Marjorie says we can, if you let us."

Mary Stebbins Taitt

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-------this line and everything below this line is not part of the poem------ 080604-0929-1b (Keith, earlier drafts, in "current work" looseleaf.)

First things FIRST! I need to EAT breakfast. I started this first today.

First things First

One of the Slogans of the Twelve Step programs is, FIRST THINGS FIRST!

While this is a pretty basic concept, it turns out to be quite difficult for some people, myself included.

I tend to procrastinate doing the important things and waste a lot of time on unimportant things.

For example, I was up until after 1 Am the other night walking because I am required to walk every day and I hadn't done it yet. I hadn't done it becasue I'd been blogging. Which is more important. Walking or blogging. In this case, WALKING was what I should have been doing.

Trying to decide what the first things are or should be is not easy either.

The absolute first things are what I call LIFELINE: breathing, drinking (water), eating (and appropriate food preparation), sleeping (oh-oh!), working (to get money to buy food and shelter), and so on, and then, caring for family, pets, animals, garden--things that will die or become sick etc if not cared for.

After that, there are some somewhat less "necessary" but still very important things: family and friends (balanced social time), creativity, giving back, spiritual times, rest, meditation.

Later, entertainment.

I need to look at the things I do and see where they fit. I waste a lot of time on blogging and playing on the computer and facebook and internet junk that could be put to better use.

But--right NOW--the FIRST thing I need to do is go to bed. And sleep.

4th step items:

1. I tend to procrastinate.
2. I waste time on meaningless activities.
3. I forget the importance of "First things first."
4. I have trouble sorting out first things. and prioritizing.
5. I am often easily distracted from my work.
   

OK, four good things:

1. I have good powers of concentration once I get going.
2. I mean well and care.
3. I have good intentions.
4. I am creative.
5. I try.

OK Bed! Sleep! First things! NOW!