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STOP THE CHAOS

Silence from my end is not a good thing being a poor blogger but my excuse, if you even care, is that I have been in a total state of shock as I have watched and listened to the stories of violence and destruction that have exploded all over this country.

How do I even have a conversation with you when there are so many earth-shattering events occurring? The feelings that are surging through each one of us, every single day is so toxic. I’ve sat back for months watching, listening, crying, shaking my head so disturbed by what has been happening that I am left speechless.  Frozen. I move through the day like a robot functioning on auto pilot. 

I ask myself is there anything of value that I might have to share? Who gives a shit what some no name individual thinks or feels?  Who am I to talk about any of this it is so horrible.?

I want to know how do we overcome these wounds? How do we heal from these profound injuries to our hearts? How do we stop the chaos?

I know that anything I might say to you has probably blown through your mind at one time or another just as it has mine. Somehow, some way we must come together.

There is so much hatred spewing out into the world I can’t even imagine how we can contain it. We humans are so vile to each other in so many ways that I fear for my life. For your lives. For my children lives. The fear is unimageable.

Stories pour out of every news outlet available. Some offer vivid pictures if you can’t imagine it yourself. I have no doubt everyone is talking about all the destruction that is and has been occurring. There can’t be anyone who isn’t shocked, ashamed, and disgusted by what one human can inflict on another.

I move through my day-to-day business in a state of shock.  I interact with my family and friends. I go to work, pay my bills, but there is this impending feeling of doom inside my chest that is so new to me that I can’t even grasp how to express it or to eliminate it. This fear is embedded deep in my heart.

Saying we must come together is not enough. The words are meaningless. The horror that has happened in the last of couple years has shaken all of us to our very core. Sometimes I stand and just stare at the television feeling like a trapped animal. I don’t know how to make things better. I don’t have any answers on how to change it except for platitudes like “We need to love each other. We need to help each other.  We need to come together. “  Bullshit, we need to stop the violence on all spectrums, against ALL PEOPLE.

I know that there are great individuals out there doing wonderful things. There are organizations and groups of people that are plugging along trying to make it a better place, but I think we all feel so helpless, and for me it’s not a feeling that I’ve often felt, so I am frozen and frightened and don’t know where to turn. Our leaders don’t have an answer, and the tide keeps moving in. How is it going to end?  How can we make it end?

How do we as individuals, and as a group take control of this violence?  How do we step into the storm of hatred and bigotry to bring an end to this? People are dying, children are being murdered, strangers are assaulting strangers for no other reason than they feel hate at what they see before them.

The color of one’s skin is something to hate.  The nationality of another is something to loathe.  People’s sexuality is despised. Rich hate poor, and poor hate rich.  Your religion is a reason to hate despite what your holy book preaches, and someone just doesn’t like the way you look.

I’m not a religious person. I don’t go to church. I have not had great experiences with preachers who run churches, and although I was raised a Catholic, I gave that up because the nuns and priest looked down their noses at the poor in our parish with no money to give. We were a very poor family.  Not a good experience for us.

In the past I was not one to believe in the end of the world theories told by religious leaders to keep us all in tow.  Discussions by those leaders that the world was going to come to an end in fire and brimstone. These preachers and such liked to fire up the fear and hysteria in its congregants.  It was part of the reward of being a “leader” the power to evoke sinners to be less sinful. But after witnessing all this violence. The hatred. The bombings and wars. Murders, rape, and genocide, I think those prophets who have said the world is going to end are correct.

We humans are going to be the catalyst that ends our world. This world that has been given to us is going to be destroyed by us because we are so foolish and stupid that we let our extremism, our extreme racism, are extreme sexism, extreme religiousism get in our way of appreciating all that has been given to us. I mean you add any ISM to any bigoted idea that you have and that’s what we’ve become, a people of intolerance and hatred who disrespect their world and each other with total disregard for human life, total disregard for the animal kingdom, total disregard for the oceans of the world, and the planet that God gave for our safe keeping.

Despite my personal feelings I will share with you that I do believe in a higher power.  I do believe in a God, and I think it is time for all of us to come together and offer up a prayer to our God for the strength, knowledge, and courage to evoke a change in our world right now.

I ask that together we stop everything that we are doing and say a prayer in whatever language we speak, asking whatever higher power we pray to, to help us heal this world. Those of a scientific mind probably are aware that there have been many studies that verify that prayer can and does make a difference.  Put aside your doubt and be open to that fact that as a massive world of people we can come together in prayer, and perhaps jump start our humanity back on track.

I will pick a time and together we will say a prayer to bring these horrible events to an end and bring all of us back into balance because right now, we are tilting out of orbit as humans.

Let us get together tomorrow at sunrise, or any sunrise that works for you as (there are 7,868,872,451 people on this planet right now as listed on google so there will be a multitude standing by your side whatever time you say your prayer.)  Get up, face the rising sun, and offer a prayer to God that sanity will be restored to our people. Image the multitudes standing beside you as you say your prayer for our world and each other as well. And as I always say, have a great day today, you and I deserve it.

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Ranting About Abortions.

Sometimes we just need to say what is in our hearts.

The title is ” I have a poem”

Some say My Body, My Choice.

Then comes coupling, obscuring the voice.

One heartbeat, then there are two.

One must die, who will choose.

Little voices screaming in my head.

You can’t be here, you are dead.

Bits and pieces on the floor.

How can you stand all that gore?

My Body, My Choice.

Can’t you hear its tiny voice.

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Dam the Holidays

The fireworks are over. The crowds have found their way home, and we are returning to the mundane day to day stuff we call life.

Hello, welcome to my Blog, this is Kris.

She loved these shoes.

I hope you made it through the holidays.  If you have followed my blog, you know that the holidays are my least favorite time of the year.  I hate all that fake happiness and good cheer.  We are so pressured to be joyful. If we are not happy during the rest of the year, Christmas won’t make that much difference.

I grew up in a very poor family filled with drunken relatives, so the holidays never went well.  Even into adulthood I felt that left over feeling of dread and sadness that would envelope me after the shit hit the fan.  Holidays did not represent good times. 

Now a good therapist would say create your own good times, and I try too, but there is still that emptiness inside that says it isn’t real.

It is like that commercial where the lady carries a happy face card on a stick and waves it in front of herself at family gatherings.  No one sees how she really feels.

I call my episodes Christmas affective disorder.  Or to be plain “I hate Christmas disorder.”

Don’t bug me.

To me there is really no purpose to Christmas.  According to many brainiacs it was not when Christ was born so why the fake celebration? They say it is a time to share with family, but the cost is ridiculous.  We need food, gifts, decorations, clothes, trees, and all the other hoopla that goes with it.  By the end I am exhausted and feel empty inside.  I know my daughter-in-law gets overwhelmed trying to do Christmas with her family, her husband’s family, (me and mine), and then her own family.  I mean why do we create such stress for ourselves.  Who thought this up?

I looked up how this whole Christmas thing got started and found some interesting facts. Below is one fact.

For many centuries, gift-giving took place on December 6 around Saint Nicholas Day or in early January after New Year’s Eve. The popularity of this custom grew after the positive reception of the 1823 poem The Night Before Christmas and the 1843 novella A Christmas Carol.

Another fact.  “In 1800s New York, the overlapping interests of middle-class families and the wealthy produced a cultural practice that’s still in place today.  Check out this web site to read the whole article. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/12/why-people-give-christmas-gifts/421908/

She’s an Egyptian queen.

Fact three, it was really pushed through, promoted, encouraged, all on the tail of commercialism. Big businesses promoted the family theme to “make money.”  ( that’s’ my quote).

You can research the rest of the details if you are so inclined.  I am not.  Suffice it to say that big business invented this great money spending holiday, and it took off like wildfire.

Well, I have had enough.  I am not going to participate again.  I will not go into debt buying gifts that end up in a pile somewhere.  I am done.

What you say?  Yes, I am done with this Christmas crap.  I am going to talk to my family and from now on we will only share a meal together which we do a hundred times a year, and perhaps some quality time. Just like we do throughout the whole year without any obligation to purchase gifts.  Birthdays are the exception.

I bring this up because I know that I am not alone with my Christmas Affective disorder, disorder.  There are many that suffer for months until it is finally over.  And I am here to tell you that it is okay to give up Christmas and Thanksgiving. We won’t even go into that holiday.  You do not have to follow anyone else’s trends.  Do what you want or do nothing.  It really is up to you. 

Turn off the television, forget all the adds for the latest electronics and toys. Most adults would rather buy their own things then end up with some item that they would never have bought for themselves.

I can sing ” memories’ for a peanut.

The idea of making time for your family should be something to reach for throughout the year, not just for two months.  We can love each other, and nurture that love in many little ways all year round.

I get the whole family theme behind the holidays, but it does not need to be tied into monetary things, or obligations.  It should be something you give from your heart.

I love my family; I love my grandchildren.  I think that is the important aspect of all these holiday themes. Family and love.  I shower them with love and gifts all year long because I love creating happy memories with them. 

What I say to you is create happy memories!  If you do not have any family spend time with a friend but do something together.  Play cards, watch movies, play sports, talk, go on an adventure.  It does not need to be tied into a holiday theme.  It can just be a moment of sharing.  Those are what really feel the best anyway.  I cannot tell you how often I have relived and laughed at the silly things my granddaughters and I have done together.  “There” that is the secret behind all the holiday themes, togetherness.

So, for today know that you are not alone.  You are never alone.  You are in someone’s thoughts somewhere.  And for today, have a great day, you and I deserve it. Oh, and have a Happy New Year.

One of my favorite pictures.

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Runner’s High

Hello this is Kris, welcome to my blog cast. I am sorry it has been so long. It is not as if there hasn’t been lots to write about. One just has to view the news to become stirred up. But sometimes it is just too much and talking about the day-to-day stuff seems irrelevant.

Chores and sleep keep me bogged down. I work a lot of nights and sleep becomes the most important part of my day. I get three or four hours, get up, do chores, then go back to bed so I can get maybe four more hours of sleep later.

Despite the fatigue from this schedule, I continue my walks with my best pal Tessie. She is getting old and decrepit and loves to get in her snuffles every day. Okay, I am getting old and decrepit as well.

Today we were walking on our favorite trail. The temperature was 55 degrees. The sun was shining, and it was so lovely for the end of November. Who could ask for anything more?

Hello

While I continue walking the trails, I have decided I will not go on a pilgrimage to Spain next year as there is just too much going on in the world that is unsafe. People are getting crazy. And there are just too many strains of COVID that make me a nervous wreck when I think of travelling. And yes, I have been vaccinated. I do not think it is any worse than all the other childhood immunizations we are required to get. I am a nurse and I know people have died from this dreaded disease, many people, and I think we all need to protect ourselves, and others as much as we can.

Well enough on that, I don’t want to spoil anyone’s Thanksgiving weekend. Besides, I want to talk about something trivial, like the runner’s high you hear people talking about. I am sure you have heard it mentioned. How it is almost better than drugs, but can I ask you have you ever witnessed anyone running that looks like they are on a lovely trip in their minds?

No of course you haven’t! Most runners I see running on my trails look like they are trying to take a good dump. Sorry but it is true. They run along groaning and moaning. Sweating, straining, and spitting snot on the trail as they hurl past me. Where is the high part, I want to ask them? It certainly isn’t evident when they run past. I have not seen one person jogging along with a smile on their face. They look like it is painful. I am sure they feel such superiority as they race by, and I am “only walking for exercise”, but at least I don’t look like I am going to lose my lunch.

I’ve heard the saying runners high, and I’m sure you have too, but my question is when does that occur. As I’m walking along and these runners zoom past me, they have this horrible look on their faces as if they’re in pain, as if they’re constipated. Their feet are slamming on the ground as they hurry past flinging sweat in my direction. If I see them before they zoom by, I give them a wide berth, so I don’t get their body fluids flung on me. How can we know when they are finally high, from running, when they look like they’re dying?

Okay, there may be a smirk somewhere.

To me a runner’s high should present the appearance of being happy. These people don’t look happy and high, they look like they’re on their last leg. I don’t want to get a runner’s high if that’s what I’m going to look.

I know that exercise is good for all of us, and I shouldn’t make fun of people that are out there really trying to exercise, but can you tell me when that high hits you. When on your short or long run do you actually feel happy and relaxed.  Does it really ever happen or is it a myth. From my experience I am leaning toward myth.

I walk at least five times a week with my dog Tessie. You may have seen her pictures in the past. And I can tell you I have never reached a walker’s high. There are some days when it’s lovely out, but the walking part is tedious. I’d rather be laying in the leaves smelling the scent of autumn then walking or running. I usually can’t wait to get home to my couch. I’d rather be sitting with my feet up relaxing although I do love the great outdoors, and the sunshine on my face. Occasionally I see wildlife hiding in the trees and brush like deer and turkeys, turtles too. That does bring a little rush of happiness. I guess you could call that a “ high” as I watch these animals share in my space.

I also love crushing the leaves as I walk, there are a gazillion leaves on the grass right now, it is like stepping on a large pile of potpourri. So, while I cannot admit to any “high” gained from my walks, I will say that it always makes me feel better once I have completed my trek, and Tessie and I share in a cool drink of water. Isn’t that what life is about, finding moments of contentment. It is so important right now in these troubled times to let go of the stress brought on by current events, and differences of opinions. Take a moment to steep yourself in something that brings you comfort and peace. I am not talking about any drugs or alcohol. I am talking about things in nature, music, laughter, and family and friends. How many videos have you see where people share their joy in owning a pet? I love my dog Tessie, she is twelve now, not too much time left, but I will cherish each moment. Find some moments that you can cherish as well, and as I always say, have a great day today, you and I deserve it.

Tessie loves her buddy Hudson

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Strangers From the Great Beyond.

I logged onto Facebook tonight, as I do most nights, just to read the funny sayings, and look at the posted pictures of strangers I do not even know. They stare into their cameras asking me to be their friend. 

They found me because they may know someone, who may know someone, who may know someone that I might know, and I got caught up in the faces looking back at me. Who are these strangers reaching out into the great beyond looking to form a bond with another?   

Who are these unknowns I ask myself?  What do they want?  How did they find me? And what do they want to me to know about them? 

The faces that have posted on my home page come in a variety of shapes, colors, nationalities, age, and gender.  They show pictures of their children, family, lovers, and pets. They garden, cook, paint, dance, and find joy in a large variety of venues, and yet they are so lonely that they reach out to strangers for a connection.

I have had friend requests from people whose countries I can’t even spell.  Their names come up in a language I can not decipher.  Why would they want to friend me?

I must admit that this frightens me. Why do these strangers send their personal histories to so many people who do not have a clue? 

I know more about some people than I ever wanted to know just because it comes up on my page.  I do not ask for this information. They just gladly send it out.  Why?

I know that in this age of broken families, and lost childhoods many people are needing to belong somewhere, to someone, but is the world wide web the best place to establish that link with another?

I say instead of reaching out to strangers, reach out to those lost connections with your families and friends.  How about your neighbors?  Older folks in the community who may not have the internet would love a chance to sit down and talk with someone, in person of course. They need friends as well.  And they are close to home.

We don’t need to reach out to the great unknown to find love, it is right here at home waiting for us to show up at the door. 

I think we reach out to strangers because they do not know us.  We feel safe in the anonymity of who we are in the face of strangers.  We can become who we want to present to the world.  From a distance we can be anyone, from anywhere.  But only those who truly know us, can really love us for just who we are.  And I think that is what we are really are looking for when we reach out on Facebook or other websites.  Someone to love us just the way we are….

So, for today love yourself, then reach out to love someone else, preferably somebody you already know.  And as I always say, have a great day today.  You and I deserve it.