Black Swan

Your notions hold true as long as your discovered world contains only {women who fall over themselves to get you}. Your perceptions of the world have to change when you discover a woman who has something else to show you. Known as a black swan, it is any event that occurs outside the realm of expectations.

The biggest events can't be predicted because they've never happened before.

We should therefore rank our beliefs not by plausibility,
but by the harm they will cause.

What's Not Being Said

Living a genuine life means the people in it want to hear each others' perspective. Think of a rose that's budding. A rose, in order to bloom, needs gentle care from things like fertilizer and warm sunshine. In the same way, without the gentle warmth of a curious interest and the nourishment of the courage to be willing to listen, things left unsaid thwart the process of coming into blossom as individuals. Whatever we resist, however, will persist and get stronger.
Being able to address things as they crop up on the path of life is important. That way, you deal with it, let it go and move on in freedom.

Reassuring ourselves that this can happen without fear of either person taking it as blame or judgement is helpful, crucial even.

I can't suppose to know what someone else's thoughts are, just as someone else can't suppose to know mine. I simply have to trust that things will stay in a place that is reasonable, that I'm capable of and safe to address questions in a calm, rational way. When I have questions I don't want to wonder, can I safely address them? It has to be one of the givens for any clear, forward-moving path.

Hidden Sunshine

The garden is preparing for winter. Tall gangly stalks that once were beautiful blossoms in the summer grew starkly black. Dormant. Asleep but not dead.

The passion of summer still lives deep inside,

like hidden sunshine.

The roots grow
through drink
and sleep.

I grow through self-help books. ha ha!

To think about: Mutuality

• Articulate
• Align expectations
• Assumptions check-in

Balance - includes boundaries, owning your own stuff. Eleanor Roosevelt's quote, "no one can make you feel inferior without your consent".

Mutuality - a circular thing

"Mutuality in relationships is the shared power to affect and the shared vulnerablity to be affected by another person."Zimmerman, Lindberg and Plsek, the following is excerpted from their book:

We call this back-and-forth sharing of power in a relationship mutuality which is a function of our interdependence as human beings. No one person can live or function alone, in isolation. That is the human condition. When we volunteer to meet one another's needs and have ours met reciprocally, we say we are practicing mutuality.
Mutuality in a relationship means that I am affecting and being affected by the other person. Each of us is open to being touched by the other, to letting them have an impact on us--emotionally, physically, intellectually--in every way imaginable. We are mutually vulnerable and mutually responsible for the relationship, for one another, and for ourselves. Mutuality means that I am open to the possibility of hanging, of becoming a different kind of person as a result of their influence, and they are open to the same. Mutuality cannot occur if one partner holds the power all the time in a relationship.
Codependency means not making choices that please yourself. It means compromising yourself for another person. Because codependency has been misunderstood and misapplied, I think sometimes we are afraid to do something for someone else, even when we might want to. One symptom or component of codependency is enabling. Enabling was originally applied to someone who assisted an alcohol or chemically dependent person in satisfying her addiction. Other forms of enabling take place around obsessive behaviors that are harmful to an individual, like needing to be sexual with every woman you meet, like gambling, like overeating or starving. Minimizing the negative effects of such behaviors on a friend or lover--without confronting the behavior itself--is damaging in the long run.
But caring for one another in healthy and mutual ways is not something we should be labeling codependence. It is not about codependency. It is about love and mutuality.
Some power issues in relationships come about because one partner has more experience or knowledge than the other; some exist because society gives certain people more status. White people, Christian people, physically attractive or able-bodied people, for example, are all rewarded in this culture because of traits they did not earn.
Mutuality, in all of these circumstances, only works if both partners are conscious of the issues and are aware of their own strengths and weaknesses. True mutuality requires that each of us function from strength, not weakness.

Riding the change

I used to play a game where I'd lay the similar shots out on a table and ask my kids which one they liked better, and why. The one on the right was my favorite, the one on the left was hers. In either case, the magic of the moment was that the seagulls came to support the perfect shot by showing up and pirouetting across the sky.

I said it. October can herald in big changes in my life. It can give you a nice ride or run you into the ground, depending on how you view the world. I am learning, trying.... to just stay out of the way and accept what is. I hurt myself fighting for control where life offers none.

So I'm hurting myself because I am fighting, not so much for control but for positive thinking, for believing I can do this. It's so damn easy to get buried in the rushing change.

Afternoon with My own

I had mapped out five stops of artists I was interested in, ended up making six stops. I was taking in every detail of everything from the time I got out of the car - what does their created world entail?

Stop 1 was supposedly to visit a creaky old potter, but an outspoken painter was there as a visiting artist. I liked how he turned things geometric in his landscapes and skies..............and turns out he teaches everywhere, including one on one, so contact number one was handed to me in the form of a sheet of paper. When the old potter came in, I looked around for his wheel. It was being used as a table by the painter, so I felt there was nothing more for me here and pressed on.

Stop 2 was supposedly about fused glass, but for me, it was all about the walkway in and the landscaping. There was a somewhat uninspired piece of walkway with cement and big stepping stones like mine, but the attempt at straight lined edges were crumbling away already, even though it was a fairly new installation. On my way out a man I'd merely seen at the first stop said, Hello again! I thought, yeah!, we're having a studio crawl. He must've stopped at one of the sponsoring wineries.

Stop 3 was about oil pastel, question mark? Right off Highway 20 and parking on a hill in a wet grassy hill, as I got out commenting, hope this wasn't a mistake, a burly man from "right down the street" inspected my parking job and assured me I'd be fine. So neighborly of him. Upon entering this place I was greeted with 2 or 3 ongoing and raucous conversations, and noticed a sign pointing upstairs, so immediately went up there. This was where the real work was done. I soaked in the specifics - stool covered in lamb's wool, architect's table, slanted ceilings covered in posters, a desk here, and work station there, a dog's bed, a bowl of water. One poster in particular caught my eye, and don't you just love the internet for giving it right to me:

.

It was completely validating reading so manythings I already do. I reached into my purse and stood there alone, copying it all over by hand for Maygen. Downstairs I was greeted by the artist who said hello and asked me to sign her guest book. I explained what I'd been doing upstairs, for my daughter who had recently gotten honest enough to sign out of a military career to pursue her passions, but not soon enough that she still had to go to Iraq next week. Felt so normalized about it, not at all the scared emotional wreck anymore. I found a stack of cards of reproductions and learned this wasn't oil pastels - this was printmaking. She was telling someone about her history, a BFA from OSU, piece meal work as an illustrator as she raised a family, then name dropping someone local and prominent - a Swedish name that sounded familiar- who asked her to move back into her original passion, the process of printmaking. I listened and watched as she demonstrated the process, holding a card I'd chosen, waiting to pay her for it. She said as she took the card and my $5 dollar bill from me and moved toward the cash box, that this was the first print she had done after getting back into it, that it wasn't for sale and the original was hanging upstairs. I think that raised me a level in her eyes for having picked something so close to her heart. I smiled and wished her well as I left.

Stop #4 was profound. This was supposed to be about pottery, and as I looked at the work, the studio - it was so familiar, the little test tiles, the glazes, the wheel. I couldn't identify the potter for awhile, so I just lingered and observed. I liked the feel of the place a lot but near the door was a poster with photos of the raku process. They wore dust masks, and it was then I remembered.......doing pottery is hazardous to your lungs. Right then I knew. I can get where these people are fairly quickly as a painter. As a potter, it would take years and I might still stuck, and the health risk is too great. A door closing, easily this time.

Stop #5 was kind of an accident but there was a jewelry maker who does wedding stuff and another chance to drink in an inspiring world.

Stop #6 had a kind older man who keyed into my interest in his photography, again not what I was expecting to see when I came, but nonetheless worth the price of admission. Photoshop and making photographs look like paintings, he described his process and I am on a list if he opts to teach a class. I shook his hand as I left and he is missing his right thumb. I said, just like my Grandpa, only he had a little stump and I remember sitting on his lap playing with the stump. He blew it off with fireworks in his early 20's, he said. Check him out, Harold Wood at www.photoartsguild.org

A Peek into my Head of Long Ago

Kelley, the friend in Lake Oswego who treated me to hearing Wayne Dyer talk, had a little envelope for me when I got there. I have been familiar with her handwriting since Junior High. On the outside she had written,

"others' writings Sharon 1977"

I just got around to finding out what was inside because I knew it would take emotional energy that I simply couldn't afford until now. 1977 was the year I had moved to Stamford, Connecticut - my lonely lonely desperate senior year in high school. At the last minute I became a puck bunny and my life turned into instant popularity via sex, drugs and rock 'n roll with the Captain of the hockey team, but it was a long lonely painful time until that came along.

This was February and Kelley drove up from New Jersey, picked me up, and together we embarked on a road trip to New Hampshire. I had been to New Hampshire every summer for about 3 or 4 years throughout my teens, but this was my first time going anywhere with Kelley. I had a love-hate relationship with Kelley, mostly out of jealousy on my part, because she was continually going on these exotic vacations (i.e., Aruba at 16 years old!) to faraway places and her family always had these gorgeous photographs framed in their home. Hm, see the beginnings of my passions, anyone?

So this trip was special because Kelley graced me by including me in her perfect bubble she always seemed to be walking around in. It was a great time - she drove a white Volkswagen Rabbit with Yes playing the entire way.

The envelope, oh yeah - what was in there? We had jotted down funny road signs we had seen on the back roads of-

Frost Heaves

Blind Person
Deaf Child

Saddle Horses

Otter Bridge Dam (ok so we were stoned)

There was a sort of stick figure guy gesturing to a building and the sign said, Bill Ding

And we heard a weather report on the radio that called for "snizzle and drizzle"

And then there were snippets of things I had written in my journal that Kelley had copied over:

Lay down on dreams
& things remembered
It's just the same -
this miss-you game


Open highway -
I'm free & flying
You'll take me where I'm going
The sun is shining
Got a friend by my side
Scenes of beauty flying' by

There were pages and pages of lyrics we'd written down. One was to the Renaissance music I used to dance to, "Carpet of the Sun" which bears repeating:

Come along with me
Down into the world of seeing
Come and you'll be free
Take the time and find the feeling
See everything on its own
And you'll find you know the way
And you'll know the things you're shown
Owe everything to the day
Come along and try
Looking into ways of giving
Maybe we will fly
Find a dream that we will live in
We'll look into the eyes of time
Past ages have turned to dust
And born somewhere on the line
The loving that grows with us

Come into the day
Feel the sunshine warmth around you
Sounds from far away
Music of the love that found you
The seed that you plant today
Tomorrow will be a tree
And living goes on this way
It's all a part of you and me
See the carpet of the sun
The green grass, soft and sweet
Sands up in the shores of time
Of ocean, mountains deep
Part of the world that you live in
You are the part that you're giving