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I Think I’m Alone Now

January 28, 2016 by rurugby Leave a Comment

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My wife Lanna is off in Rochester, NY helping to make and promote a 3 story balloon creation in a huge atrium in a former department store.

She left on Sunday, and we have only one car. She is coming to get me tomorrow and take us to Feast of Lights in Amherst, MA but I have been alone this week in the winter without a car.

It’s not so bad, but I will be very, very happy to be out of the house tomorrow.

I was thinking I just wanted to go straight to Amherst, but maybe I will want to go ahead and hit Eddy’s Bakery for delicious pastries, or maybe the UMass student center has them somewhere.

Looking forward this year to be in the middle of the UMass-Amherst campus rather than a hotel on the outskirts of Northampton.

I have had a lot of kitty time including both in the bed, but it’s weird not having the wife around.

And odd not to be able to have the car to do fun things like getting my cavity filled, which I had scheduled for Wednesday and going to the library.

It would be nice to have two cars, but we can survive with one, especially since we both currently work at home now.

And it will be very nice to be out of the house tomorrow and have a chance to see a lot of people in the Earthspirit community I mainly only see around Memorial Day.

And because it’s a good song… and partially with concerts in malls in front of Cutlery World and Great Expectations. I guess people really did think malls were cooler in the 1980s.

Filed Under: acceptance, Lanna, love, The Blog

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

January 24, 2016 by rurugby Leave a Comment

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Lanna, my wife is off to Rochester, NY for Balloon Manor. It’s a super balloon sculpture in a 3 story mall atrium. It’s seriously amazing, I went last year. The pictures in the link are great.

Lanna and I are both working at home and we are often under the same roof, although not necessarily seeing each other more. I wonder if I should get an HDTV in my room. Because she should use the big tv too.

So it’s just me and the dudes, i.e. my cats Lenny and Squiggy until she comes to get me on Friday for Feast of Lights in Amherst, MA this weekend, aka Pagan Hotel Weekend. And I don’t have a car, we only have one, so I am mostly stuck here.

I’m glad I get the time to spend with her this weekend and got off work.

It will be nice to have the house empty. I used to have that on Tuesdays and Wednesday but I don’t right now. My guess is the amplifier will be turned on and I will play with some feedback and distortion. Hard to do that when Lanna is working a few feet away. And making loud, obnoxious noise with a guitar is more fun without headphones.

My guess is I will play with the kitties, listen to music, play the guitar and watch some TV.

Today I listened to the amazing album “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye, one of my favorites of all time. Here is the Marvin Gaye – “What’s Going On” — Spotify
I also saw “Rubble Kings” on Netflix. Things got really, really bad with gang culture in the 70s in New York City. We need to help everyone succeed in our society. *** I think more documentaries are in my future this week.

Along with take out Chinese at one point, you can get a lot of meals out of lo mein, donuts and Chinese lunch.

I may go out to listen to music on Monday, but I think it will be annoying to take the 10 block or so walk to downtown with the wind and the ice.

It will be nice to be in the house by myself, except for the neighbors upstairs, they say they can’t hear the amplifier in the basement. I am not going to 11.

And I think I will go up to Allentown, PA myself in a week and a half to help my mom to move into her apartment. It will be her first place by herself ever. Crazy. I am not sure I have ever lived by myself except in a dorm room sophomore year at the University of Chicago. That wasn’t the best thing for me, ended up spending the entire winter quarter in 1994 depressed in one of Chicago’s worst winters.

I have done this a few times now and it’s really not that bad.

Would you do well on your own for a week without a car?

Filed Under: acceptance, Lanna, love, partnership, The Blog

2014: A Year of Grounding – Deep and Simple

January 6, 2014 by rurugby 3 Comments

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We live in shallow and complex times.

Worried about e-mails, about texts, Twitter, Facebook.

Often interacting more with people even that we know in shallow ways. Always feeling like we need to check into our media and devices. A society full of advertising of buy, buy, buy of you need this, you need that.

You don’t. No really, you don’t.

You really don’t need a smartphone although it is very shiny. You don’t need an iPad, again very shiny. You don’t need those new clothes, you don’t need to see every movie, you probably don’t need more stuff.

You need to connect. To people, to the earth, to yourself.

I am dedicating 2014 to be the Year of Grounding for me. I need it.

The last two years have been very ungrounding. Losing my father in law Walter Maheux in March 2012, losing my beloved father Henry Edmunds Davis on April 1, 2013. I am still grieving. I still do not have all of my psychic and spiritual energy and might not for some time. I am trying to ground again and get back into myself. I need it.

I find writing helpful. I love conversations especially one on one although they can be hard to do. Why did it become weird to call someone? Seriously. I love to connect with people. In 2012 I started having lunches with one person and just talking. It was cool. It’s good to spend an hour with just one person and not be in the cacophony of noise and information of the internet and smartphones. I want to get back to it again and having lunch with someone tomorrow.

I am really happy to be in therapy. I had an unbelivably tough year that included a major manic episode in April, 2013. It was one heck of a month. Although I did write some good poems and posts including a memorial for my dad. I also ended up in jail for 36-48 hours of Patriot’s Day last year while fully manic and became extraordinarily manic. Basically doing a 24 hour performance in a cell to the NSA who I was sure was watching. Then was held down and drugged after getting loud at the Maine Medical Center ER and forgot 24 hours completely. April was unbelievably ungrounding. Losing the rock of my life, as I said in a poem at my dad’s memorial service. Losing my sanity.

Recovering slowly. Spring Harbor helped. Lithium helped a lot, dulling my mind when I needed it, found it dulling after my crisis as well and slowly going off of it. My wife helped, my mom helped, my therapist really helped. I am very thankful for therapy. More of us need to be in it. Seeing her tomorrow and happy to go over goals and talk about the last 3 weeks that includes that big holiday of Christmas and all the energy you put in an use for it.

————————-

I feel the need to ground. To slow myself down. In the words that Fred Rogers used from the documentary “Mister Rogers and Me ***” Make your life deep and simple not shallow and complex.

Take a walk. Look up. See the stars. See the clouds. Feel the wind. Hear the water. Rest your mind. Listen. Breathe. Breathe. Slow down. Touch the Earth if you need do, do some Earthing. Literally ground yourself.

Make it a practice. Meditate. Prayer with your heart. Bring the worries of the brain down to the heart. Practice the mediations I learn from Whispering Deer. Your heart can take a lot in, the brain wants to analyze everything. Breathe. Breathe.

One thing I do to ground that make me feel joy is walking with my headphones at work. There is great landscaping there. Statues, trees, birds, a creek, a marsh. Listening to something like Bob Dylan’s “Blowin in the Wind” yesterday, watching the trees in the twilight in a sea of clouds. Transported. Just looking. Appreciating.

Your technology can wait. Texts can wait. You can turn your cellphone off. Sometimes it’s good to not be available. People do not need you all the time. You can not answer a text. You can leave your phone in your pocket while driving. Pay attention.

Right now, I am looking out my window. Seeing rain on the panes. Seeing a gray sky with some blue just after sunset with plenty of dark gray clouds after a rainy, and warm day that reached the upper 40s and had plenty of snowmelt. Can see some red of the sunset in the distance. Lights over the parking lot for the Dancing Elephant and the Frog and Turtle. Light in the parking lot by me. A wet American flag. Trees in fornt of the sunset. A wide Presumpsoct River that is harder to notice through the raindrops. The Disability RMS sign hiding through the trees. A car driving through. Listening, looking.

Billy Collins said all a poet needs is a window, paper and a pencil. Simple. Beautiful. Calming. Noticing. Not overthinking. Which we all do too mcuh. Looking up seeing the day change, watching the birds. Seeing the scampering of creatures. Hoping the insects don’t bite.

Think when you were happiest. Was it a tweet? A Facebook message?

Was it time with a friend, with a loved one, a lover and partner? With family? Eating, drinking. Maybe on vacation in the woods, in the desert? Listening, content at peace. Breathe.

We all need more peace. Less worry.

A life deep and simple where you appreciate things. My cats Lenny and Squiggy. My wife Lanna. The simple sound of the cat fountain. The silence. Sleep, dreams. My family. My sister Mindy, brother in law, Robert. Brother in law Bill, mother in law Dottie. And the ones who have passed, my dad Henry, father in law Walter. Grandparents Avis Neal, Charles Neal, Mary Davis and Donald Davis. My Aunt Louise. My mother’s best friend Dottie Mithee, Cousin Benny.

And heroes who have passed and enriched my life like Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain, Carl Sandburg, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Miles Davis. And of course teachers past, present and futures. Those who listen. Those who let us listen.

The water. The sky. The birds. The animals. Our pets. Cats, dogs. The mice we can’t see. The bees who pollenate. The pollen that makes us sneeze.

Breathe. Ground. Let life be easy. Let life be quiet. Read. Turn the screen off. Just listen to music. Drift. Dream.

Work to live a deep and simple life in complex and shallow times. Love one another. Hug. Kiss. Be thankful. Breathe. Mediate. Be Present. Appreciate the silence. Learn to love the noise and watch. See the sky change and darken, as the blue almost disappears and the red of sunset is almost gone.

Rest. Breathe. Ground and be Peaceful.

Blessed be.

Filed Under: acceptance, acceptance, books, breathing, cats, Edmund Charles Davis-Quinn, Embracing the Geek: A Writer's Journey, facebook, family, food, games, geek, grieving, Henry, kisses, kitties, Lanna, Lenny, love, meditations, My books, partnership, reading, seasons, sickness, spirit, Spirit of Sunday, Spirit of Sunday, Squiggy, westbrook, Whispering Deer, woods

Lenny Cat, Lenny Cat/ Cat Suite

December 31, 2013 by rurugby Leave a Comment

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My cat Lenny found out that his brother Squiggy had a song “The House of the Squiggy Squig”, and decided he needed one too.

(To the tune of Spider-Man, Spider-Man, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man)

Lenny Cat
Lenny Cat
Friendly, nudgey Lenny Cat

He’s so big
He’s so cute
Watch out he’s got your foot

Plays with string any time
Sits on sink
Up so high

Can’t you see
He’s so fly
Look there, whenever you will lay down
There goes the Lenny Cat!
Here comes the Lennny Cattt!

—–

Another one to the tune of Batman, this is dedicated to Ryk McIntire
(to TV Batman Theme)

Lenny
Lenny
Lenny
Lenny
Len-ny
Len-ny
Len-ny

Lenny
Lenny
Lenny
Lenny
Le-nny
Le-nny

Lenny, Lenny, Lenny, Lenny, Lenny, Lenny, Lenny
LENNY, LENNY, LENNY

————-

Found this from early April, not sure why it wasn’t published. Going to add two more for a cat suite to read.

Eddie, Cat Dude
(also to TV Batman theme)

Eddie
Eddie
Eddie
Eddie, Eddie
Cat Dude

Eddie, Eddie, Eddie
Eddie, Eddie
Cat Dude, Cat Dude, Cat Dudge

Eddie, Eddie, Eddie,
Eddie, Eddie
Cat Dude

Eddie, Eddie, Eddie,
Eddie, Eddie,
Cat Dude, Cat Dude, Cattt Duuuude

————————-

The House of the Squiggy Squig

(To House of the Rising Sun)

There is a cat in Westbrook town,
They call the Squiggy Squig

He’ll wake you up a 3am,
but you forgive the adorable Squig.

When you take a shower he waits,
On the side of the tub.
Waiting for you to be done.
Then he’ll lick all over the shower curtain.
In the House of the Squiggy Squig.

When someone new comes in the house,
Squiggy will hunt them out.
You better give him some petting time,
you’re in the House of the Squiggy Squig.

And you love to see this cat,
With the off center nosemark.
It’s cute it’s black, and again so cute.
Welcome to the House of the Squiggy Squig.

You’re in the house of the Squigggy Squiiiigggg.

Filed Under: cats, kitties, Lenny, love, No Filter, Squiggy, The Blog

A Cold Week in May

May 27, 2013 by rurugby Leave a Comment

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Just got back from a festival in the woods.

First 2 days were warm, then came a ton of hail and a tornado warning. The weather from Tuesday evening until Sunday afternoon was cold and miserable. It only really got nice on Monday as I was leaving. Hearing the music from harps on a beautiful mountain in the Berkshires.

This was an internal Rites of Spring for me. One where I napped a lot, went to bed early and did some deep meditation. I came out of my week in the woods softer. Appreciating that both me and Lanna are still in mourning. That losing a parent takes a lot out of you. That you can be part of a festival even if you lay down during the rites and just listen.

I feel my softer self coming back. But, realize my patience can still be easily tested. And that McDonald’s is not the right lunch coming out of the woods, you need more time and space.

I also realized today and this week how much poetry can be appreciated. I sold some books, but much more heard how much people enjoy my work. It means a lot.

I plan to blog more again now that I’m off the mountain. I am feeling my balance returning. I know though that it’s not going to be fast, and that’s okay. I think I will still need more rest. I will still need to be internal. Sadness and mourning comes in waves. I had a huge wave crest in mid-April that is still settling now.

We are all a little mad. Especially those of us that are interesting. Embrace your journey, love yourself and become who you were meant to be. Sometimes life disappoints us. From the small journeys of a week in the cold woods down to the 30s overnight, to the massive journey of mourning. Life is never what we expect.

But, we need to be open to the joys. Little things like hearing and sensing a cat entering the room like my beloved Squigman/Squiggy. A sunset cresting in the horizon. The green of Spring. Seeing a dear friend. A hug. A ear that listens. Hearing someone else’s story. A child’s laughter. Even a child’s tears can be beautiful. Learn to be present. Learn to be aware, there is so much beauty in this world.

Sometimes though we need to rest.

Blessed be.

Filed Under: acceptance, Edmund Charles Davis-Quinn, Embracing the Geek: A Writer's Journey, family, Henry, kitties, Lanna, Lenny, love, My books, page, Performance, poetry, Squiggy

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