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Tag Archives: human

Forced To Breathe

27 Saturday Jul 2019

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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breathe, dolphin, human, sorting, Universe, waves, write soon

Something about the placement of the sun and moon and perhaps Mercury in retrograde had something to do with why I ran out of the house and down to the shore. I couldn’t put two thoughts together. I couldn’t decide whether to sit or stand or eat or drink or write or wash a dish or leave or stay. Just before the tipping point I put on sunglasses, left my phone on the table, and got the hell out of there. I really don’t know what it was that moved me to go in that second, was it the universe pushing me, it must have been because the dolphins were present in the bay.

I stumbled out through the dune path and bee-lined for “my” spot but a summer sunbather was there. I veered east (still not far enough away from her music playing) and dropped into the warm sand like Simba on the grassy hillside the night he needed to sort things out.

The dolphin pod was not passing through our little spit of the Chesapeake this time. They were hunting playing for croaker and mullet. Normally when I see dolphin their backs and dorsals seem black, probably because of distance, a trick of the light, presbyopia, or all of the above. Today, though, they were clearly sparkling gray and white. No sweet faces seen, just bodies and flukes. Some were in groups of three, one larger-bodied and two smaller-bodied beings huddled close and loping gently along. As for the hunting playing party, it was a foamy free-for-all.

In the space of a few moments four colorful jet-skis passed right through the dolphin patch, a small Coast Guard boat came flying out of the channel, and in the not too far distance a submarine was under way, all while the sunbather had her back turned from the water and her buddies were splashing around. I felt as though I was looking at a painting where someone said, “paint everything you will ever see ocean side.” It felt crammed and unpleasant, no rhythm or ease. I forced myself to wait out the desire to leave, so I watched the boats and dolphins and jet-skis disappear. I listened to the waves curl and release and it became easier to breathe. Whatever I wished for, hoped, or wanted became irrelevant as I let the simple hissing water mesmerise.

Hands in hot water washing a dish, I mused that dolphins don’t have to decide to write or sleep or interact. I cannot live unhemispherically because I would miss my dreams where mermaids tell me you exist. I like purple ink on my fingers after I write, and reading dog-eared pages filled with moody, conquering kings.

Life vs Laptop

18 Monday Feb 2019

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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commonplace, human, laptop, life, love, social media, society

She smiled at me from her shopping cart, her perfect baby chiclet teeth all white in a row. I waggled my fingers at her and we went on our separate ways. I hoped her Mom didn’t mind a stranger trying to be kind.
He pulled back his cart and said, “Excuse me,” though he seemed 100 feet away. We smiled and nodded and went our separate ways.
The maintenance guy held up my brother’s bicycle as he was learning to go without training wheels.
A neighbor plowed our driveway when he knew my spouse was wounded and unable to do so, then my son, years later helped plow out neighbor’s houses when they had no way to get free.
There are thousands or more moments like this that prove that we are kind. That we are love. That we are worth saving and fighting for. We, being humankind. Mostly all we hear about is abuse and conspiracy and things we cannot change, and I believe we are impaling ourselves on the negative instead of seeing the beautiful children, men, and women who smile and share and give, the unnamed, unheralded. I look forward to the day that we no longer report how nice Miss Denise was because it had become so commonplace.
Put down the phone. Put down the electronic. Walk outside and make eye contact with the world… the world! The world breathes and exhales and makes and changes and creates. The world that is not parliament or congress. Walk away from the screen and embrace the living skin of the real world. Inhale the life. Accept being inhaled. Give without thought. Walk away from QWERTY. The best of us is there… right there and it will never be reported every day but you will see it and stock it on your shelves.


Post-storm thoughts

30 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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beauty, crabs, gratitude, human, social media, storm, thoughts

Good morning.

I wonder what was the first beautiful thing you saw this morning? Did you see it? Catch it in the act of being itself? Did you share it with someone you love, or tuck it in your pocket to save for later?

Something beautiful is seeing another day with hands to give and receive. Your baby’s smile. Your silky dog waiting patiently by her bowl for supper. Your engagement diamond that flashed in the sun as you walked to your car heading out for work. That song on the radio that makes you smile. (You do still smile, don’t you?)  Was it a breakfast sandwich your co-worker gave you, unasked for? Was it that first sip of coffee so hot and full of olfactory glory? What was the first beautiful thing you received this morning, took note of, and said thank you for? I hope you will share it aloud with someone.

I want to ask you that question the next time we meet. I hope you have the answer on the tip of your tongue, something to help me get to know the rest of your heart. I hope your response will loosen and blow away the mocking parts you’ve shown that I don’t want to remember.

It’s no wonder I prefer to remain unpopulated (reserved introverted anniesocial hermit-like don’t call me I’ll call you.) Sometimes it’s hard to shake off the griping and sniping and complaining, the fear that no one out there has anything kind to say to the ones they love, their friends, their neighbors. If I crawl inside any tighter I shall implode. But then I remember I saw something beautiful this morning, and that’s what I’d rather share: the beach is still there. Flat and clean. I watched solitary crabs digging from their burrows, thrusting and flinging damp sand behind. Nature is good. The earth is good. The people are good, too. We just need to dig out of our holes.

White Helmets & Thunder

13 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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help, human, refugee, silence, Syria

It was perhaps 5:30AM when I was jolted out of bed by metal pounding, great booming concussions of the sanitation truck emptying a dumpster.  It’s not Thursday afternoon, why is this horrible smashing happening now?  How inconvenient.

It was 7:00AM when I heard the sound of thunder, but no, not thunder.  A distant low boom that cuts off quickly. This is the sound of either a fighter or stealth jet.  It growled and boomed several times, and I wondered if they would be practicing around here today, but it’s gone silent now.  There’s no use trying to sleep anymore, thinking about the marvel of our machines, the wonder that we forced our way into the air, and then beyond air.  Aren’t we so clever.

It was 7:30AM when I read the that civilians are being marched out of their homes and shot in Aleppo, Syria.  Technology allows us to stay in touch with little Bana Alabed via Twitter or CNN, a human family stuck in war.  The US has amazing flying machines that boom over the bay, but what have we done to help the people who asked for freedom from a tyrant?  Silence. Our country is war fatigued and tired of being the world’s police. Our government condemns and sanctions Syria and sends help piecemeal because it’s not in the interest of our country to start a world war over ideals.  It amounts to silence. The world watches as Russia sides with the tyrant and suppresses the rebels who only asked for more democracy five years ago. I watched the uprising and the refugee crisis in the news for years in silence, hoping the world would do something.

I’m hoping to redeem myself as a human being by writing letters, Tweeting, and donating to the White Helmets  , and asking others to do the same. Revolution cannot be silent, humanity must make a joyful noise and do the right thing.

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Crime Scene

31 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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human, justice, rant, TC, Universe, victim

Is that all? The whole world, this magic wet blue orb will be remembered as just one big crime scene? After the Y incision, all those sporty, artistic, philosophic fluids drained away; the meat of our intellect, science, curiousity, courageousness; the connective tissues of love, family, hope, benevolence all extracted, examined, weighed, as Maat once did, only now there’s no one left to cross over. No one left to view the body and claim it “Mine,” and grieve. We’ll be documented and printed for eternity, a planet of possibility, now just bloodstain and ash. We silenced ourselves with every gunshot, every act of omerta, each time we shrugged off violence as the norm, or laughed it off because we stopped teaching our young how to touch “animus,” the wonder of it, the holiness of the spirit inside themselves and each other. Decency extinct because we allowed it. Could we all have been just that tired or unable to stand up and not take it anymore?

I will not pray for world peace because those are words with vague concepts and less action, exhalations that feed my houseplants with carbon dioxide, so perhaps not entirely a waste. I could light a candle and burn oxygen, study the flicker and wish that humanity would just stop killing itself. I will shed tears again and feel despair again. But then I will take part of some random act of kindness, or witness one and try to share the news. Again. I will not give up trying because I believe every crime scene should have justice, just like every victim has a name. Let justice be kindness, somehow, and know that you are so much more than a name. I don’t want to believe this beautiful Earth will be just another victim.

My Nightmare*

11 Tuesday Oct 2016

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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help, human, politics, rant, woman

It’s time to take a stand and more of us are standing but the word isn’t getting out enough because the media is too PC to print the facts, the truth, and the Word from the other side.  We are no longer the silent majority. So I am writing and sending this letter to every “news” place.  I wonder which ones will take the time to really hear us, to learn the truth and put it on the air.  I want you to put your porn and your Pokémon down long enough to take a look at our American history and by the end you will know we were right.

Our poor country went to hell after WWII.  Our brave soldiers sent off to fight come home to women suddenly wanting something “else,” as if it was better than what they had right here in the comfort of their homes. They wanted to keep working. Then they wanted to go to school where they learned about “equality” from liberals, people who told them it was okay to not want to be women but men in disguise.  Who encouraged the men to burn their draft cards, burn bras, burn flags, but the women?  Who stuck up for the coloreds when they wanted equality, like they didn’t have it already, to provoke the men into marching? That it’s okay for boys to kiss. And that we can’t be America anymore but a “global” community.  What’s wrong with just being America and let the rest of the world take care of their own mess?

Our poor country went to hell when we let women think they can decide for themselves what’s right for them, but even THEY don’t know what’s right, and we have to help them.   That’s why Roe must be overturned.  But somebody let women on the “Supreme” Court and now our country is paying for it.  They’re not practicing the law, they’re playing with politics, playing God, like they know what’s best for us?  Tearing babies out of a woman’s body is inhuman, and only an insane woman would want do such a thing. We need to put women back in the home, ask them to tend to their babies instead of killing them and calling them mistakes.

You think women are angry? What about all the men who want to work but they can’t find a job? You know why? Because the women and non-Americans have them all!  And don’t give me this crap about “immigrants” cleaning our hotel toilets and pulling tomatoes when no American wants the job–plenty of people will take the job, ask anyone!  There’d be more jobs for us if illegals and women would stay where they belong.  You think women are angry because nobody wants them in the service, but I’ll tell you the MEN are angry because we cannot fire back on our enemies in the Gulf even though we’re being missiled!  How about telling our men that we trained you to fight but it’s better if you just walk around the desert and fix schools for terrorists?  It’s NOT okay and our men must have the chance to fight the evil and make our country safe.

You know, a long time ago Charles Manson said he did what he did to show the coloreds what to do. He wanted to start a civil war between the races, so he murdered to show them how to do it.  Well guess what? Our civil war is coming and there is only one person who can help us make this country amazing again.  I will say what no one else will say because the media and liberals have taught everyone that it’s not nice to say what we feel because it might hurt somebody’s feelings.  One person will stand up to the PC garbage. One person will get this country back on top again, with help from the rest of us God-fearing men who DO know better. He may not speak the best way, but he knows deep down how much trouble we’re in and he knows how to get the job done.  Make way for the man who provides for his family, who works hard to earn his living, and cares more for this country instead of all the others.

We are the shepherds of this amazing country.  We will hold our heads high. We will hold back the flood tide of illegals and terrorists from coming here. We will hold our families, true families, together and they will never have to worry.   We will get rid of the criminals, the enemy, put them back down into the dirt below the serpents bellies where they belong. They will fear us and our country will stand strong and be ready for any enemy!  There is no such thing as equality because that implies there are unequal parts.  There is no equality, as God intended, and we will stand on the strength of that message.

God Bless,

X

*to be clear, the views expressed in this nightmarish letter are not my own*

10/13/16 Update:  Is this my country?  #Defendthe19th

10/14/16 Update: No, this, and this,  is my country:  Class and Decency  #Humanity

Neuro

21 Saturday May 2016

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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Tags

human, memory, survival

Songstress, encyclopedic, in the pine treetop; she doesn’t know a single song, yet she recites them all.

A hard rain came in, slanted, and the pine tree where the mockingbird sang dripped fat raindrops, and I fell in love. I opened my apartment door to let in the damp light and the song. The winds blew waves one way this morning and another this afternoon. I brought home artifacts I don’t understand, and that’s okay. Sometimes you don’t hafta understand. It just is.

I read and read and read today, but my eyes kept looking at the tab that said “Edit–Saving A Life.”  I wrote my morning pages in dim light, took care of my home, edited a few words and phrases, but this piece is in no way ready or done. It’s all just socks and sweaters  hanging on the line, not a fine outfit tailored to my body, to my time. I’ve had a lot of input recently, and I question the output. I question everything these days but the mockingbird does not.  I spy a nest on a branch and wonder whose it is. I wonder who will take care of G, the once-neighbor, the now-outcast because he dealt and does drugs, kicked out of his home, the one who needs the most help I will not approach because from experience, if I do, he will never be gone.  And everyone knows it. So we treat him like leper for fear of disrupting our normal fairly-happy selves. I am torn. What does that say about me and my so-called faith?  And us. We are wired for survival. Comfort and pleasure comes later. When did pleasure become more powerful than survival–or is it equal?  The pleasure of warm food at the end of the day, cold water on a parched tongue after a dusty hike?  Why is the exchange of thoughts, ideas, hypotheses as satisfying as a warm meal at days end? How long will I remember the mockingbird’s song, the view from that mountain, anything at all? Where do I keep the memory and the curiousity and need to share her body in the tree?  I don’t know.

And that’s okay.

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