by minimus 559 Replies latest jw friends
Dear Diary,
3:00 a.m. and all is well. I imagine so, at least. Haven't heard the news yet. But am sure curious what's afoot re: the blood issue. Why were the meetings cancelled? Only overseas? Talked to a JW yesterday and no change in scheduling here. I wonder if anything significant will ever occur in the WT....Will this be it---blood? lawsuits?
"Memories of the Alhambra"---such a beautiful guitar solo is on now.
Coffee soon, but not quite yet....
C...
Dear Diary,
A new day has dawned and I am stirring---myself, and cream into my second cup of petrol. The jolt is never immediate; it may, or may not, hit later. Strange how I can fall asleep afta acuppa! Afta two? We shall see what we shall see.
Checked with Dr. WAC. The appointment was not planned---what a coincidence that I should cross paths with the dear old gent, who has helped me with my nerves. Simply [yeah, right!] take one day at a time:
"One grain of sand at a time" [through the neck of the hourglass].
"One task at a time."
"Safe for today."
"Today is our most precious possession."
I think the above good advice should get me through the day. The worst, he explained, is unlikely to happen---you get shot or thrown into jail. His wisdom is not lost on the likes of me. Dear Diary---I shall return momentarily........
C...
Dear Diary,
Talked yesterday with a fave cousin on the phone for two hours. We were talking about getting past certain things, like unrequited love. Some parents are incapable of showing love and concern. They say cruel things that make us cry. She has come to terms with an emptiness that can never be filled. We had grandparents in common, loving and generous ones. I was amazed through the course of our conversation how much she sounded like Grandma---her voice and her wisdom and love. I told her so, and that I loved her. We are friends forever; we will stay in touch....
I'm going to have a nice bowl of chicken soup now.
CoCo
Dear Diary,
Need to stay home today and talk to no one---that's the plan. On the phone Sunday about four hours total to different ones---friends and family. Exhausted mentally. Gotta see Meg Ryan again in "Hanging Up" to remember how she did it; toss the phone, was that it?
Music and soup and you, DD, today. My little ones tomorrow. Need all the energy I can muster. Dr. WAC really helped me. Peace and calm. I have chosen to let nothing and no one deprive me of what I have worked so hard to achieve in this last year. Thanks, most importantly, to my Father and His Son. There is still so much I am uncertain of. But, when in doubt---LOVE!
C...
Dear Diary,
It is truly amazing what you can do with near-to-composting carrots! I diced 'em up [still firm] and threw them into the pot of frozen chicken broth. Chinese cabbage adds a wonderful, piquant touch. I end up with so many containers of the frozen stuff that I gotta make soup. Sam Levinson said in his book, IN ONE ERA AND OUT THE OTHER, that their NY [think it was there] apartment was cold in winter, but Mom's hot soup was the next best thing to central heating! Well, consider me "centrally-heated," DD. I'm off to another bowl and a hot bath. I should be fairly glowing shortly.
I hope all my friends here and abroad have had a great day........
C...
Dear Diary,
Just up from nap of the early evening. Still groggy but good to go for the night. Howsabout a little Kipling? Such thoughts, in random form, have been racing through the head lately, while not realizing they were embodied in his poetry:
IF
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those imposters just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!
This is heady stuff, DD! I'm going to have to chew on this and get back to you. So much has lain unexpressed in my heart; how did Mr. Kipling know to dredge it up?
C...
Dear Diary,
Woke up and wasn't freezing; heat didn't come on because it's actually warmer outside. Cloudy and looks like rain. Sure need it, as well as snow in the mountains. Skiing isn't anything like last year this time.
NPR commentator, John Zeck, said something about Microsoft and a new product [?] called VISTA and mild excitement over it. Heard Glenn Gould and Los Romeros already this early a.m. Seledonio Romero was head of the guitar-playing clan, I gather; I thought it was Pepe? Anyway, the grandkids are part of the music making. I remember an Angel in there too. Schubert playing now, "Rosamunde"---Hagen Quartet.
News on: Fallon; Central Command/Tech-Com/Naval Officer to be confirmed for highest post [?]; Minimum Wage; Iraqi casualties at Shiite mosque.
Back in a bit, DD. More coffee---an absolute must! Hope to catch some music this week. Fund drive seems to be at least 18 hours a day, all week. Listening to some long-neglected CDs: Vangelis a fave..........
CoCo
Dear Diary,
The coffee may not be perking, but I am at last. Drip coffee. You surely must know that, as you see the ritual each morning. I guess I was mistaken about rain; the clouds of earlier have dissipated. Perhaps another walk in the park today.
I've thought more about Rudyard Kipling's poem, "If." His beautifully expressed thoughts ring true today: Keep your head when other do not. Trust yourself even when others do not. Neither lie nor hate though others do. What especially grabbed my attention were the following words:
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, [...]
Not so much my "truth" but seeing what is established as correct information denied or ridiculed. I see the need to move ahead with determination and resolve yet not necessarily use my waning resources to tear down every bastion of willful arrogance and ignorance. Let the truth stand on its own. I repeat myself, DD---I realize that. But I have to recall and repeat the immortal and timely words of Thomas Jefferson:
I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility
against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
I have more of his words to share, Dear Diary, but later. I may have become the turtle---no longer the hare---but I am moving forward; isn't that what truly counts?
C...
Dear Diary,
I've returned, reinforced with more words of Jefferson. Sometimes we get so anxious over suppression of truth and the oppression of those who champion it, and rightly so. But what Mr. J. stated allows me to keep my perspective:
Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself. She is
the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has
nothing to fear from the conflict, unless, by human
interposition, disarmed of her natural weapons, free
argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous
when it is free to contradict them.
Thomas Jefferson; Bill for Establishing Religious
Freedom, 1779.
You think about this, DD. We'll talk more tonight. Music lessons now and dinner with the "new family."
C...
Dear Diary,
Finally made it home. Had a wonderful afternoon with the kiddies and met a professional acrobat at the kids' jungle jim. He was doing a workout: walking on the lateral tubing of the cyclone fence, working out on the horizontal bars, doing handstands, etc. I asked him to do a backflip, which he did---effortlessly! Gotta hate the kid (young man). He explained that you do need a spotter when learning b'flips to support you. Fascinating.
Had a great time with my new family. Music, food, watched "Phantom of the Opera," with Emma Rossum, Minnie Driver, Gerard Butler, Simon Callow, Miranda Richardson. Love 'let's have a little of the new electric illumination to scare away the ghost of the opera'---then the chandelier rises like the phoenix to renewed life, swaying till comfortably perched in her former lofty abode. The music is magnificently crafted to touch the heart as well as the intellect. ALW is a genius. Sure helps to have surround-sound!
C...
