Me and St Pete

I have imagined God as a game show host where we all go down the chute to hell (Father, Son, and Game Show Host by KD Rouse)
I had a day dream about playing "Defend Your Life" with St. Peter at the Gate too.
"Well, " he booms like thunder. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
All I can think of is "Plop, plop. Fizz, fizz. Oh what a relief it is."
 I see him scowl and all I can think of to say is "I''d rather fight than switch."
"Excuse me?" he roars.
"This tastes like butter!" I exclaim.
St Peter reddens so I keep trying.
"You're in good hands with Allstate." I chirp.
"Enough!" he yells.

I warble "Have it your way!"
"Do you not understand the gravity of this occasion?" splutters St. Pete. "Your immortal soul is at stake."
"SOOOOUUUUULLLLLLLL TRAIN, " I sing. " Save 15% on sole while quantities last, " I say.  "We cook your steak to perfection."
"Lord, Lord," says St. Peter, with his face in his hands. "Why hast thou forsaken me? I get all the crazies."
"Fear not, " I say, "For the angel of the Lord is upon you."
St Peter snorts. "You don't mean you do you? It's up to me if you get your wings and so far I haven't understood a wor..."
"Fly with me!" I sing. "Come fly with me!"
"That does it!" yells St Peter. "Century after century I've done this. GO on, Go on in. Let HIM deal with you. I quit!"

Tees, Ringtones, & Songs

If you want a KD Rouse thing or another, here is my little store: 

KD Rouse: Reverb Nation Store

Socks on Hardwood Floors

Even if you are a terrible dancer, like maybe I am, it is very fun to dance on hardwood floors in socks.

My Sister's New Children's Book

Picky Little Witch by Elizabeth Brokamp

Picky Little Witch at Amazon

I Know What I Want At This Juncture

I know what I want for this next era of my life.
I continue to need freedom to write, therefore, I need $.
I realize I"ve had it with worrying about how to pay my basic bills.
I've decided I do not want to perform out as a singer/songwriter at this time.
I want to place songs with successful singers and unknown stars.
I do not want to be a librarian although I almost have my Master's in Library and Information Science from UNC-G. The time is not wasted however. I am using this new information to organize my thoughts, prioritize, understand my values, and learned more about communication. Besides school, I write.
I considered going to Grad School for writing but I didn't want to be told what to write or how to write. I just want to write what I want. Plus at the end of library school, I can be a librarian with a job if my writing endeavors never translate to money. I am prepared to be a cheerful librarian. I love the library, but I don't think I will have to work there. I think I will have experienced some success by then.

Entirely Different.

Walk with me, before you help me back on my rocker.
I am a new sack of sugar. Entirely Different.
I am an inch shorter, scarred and yesterday I was still beaten down and battle worn.
Today  I am Entirely Different.

Hip and Broke A Songwriter's Journey by KD Rouse

Blue & Red, Red & Blue

Wordless instructions for air conditioning and heat are depicted by red and blue, or is it blue and red? Like right and left, I can never remember.
Your hands are red and raw, and your lips are blue, if you are cold.
Water can be blue and many other colors and if you are eaten by a shark, the water runs red.
Fire has red and blue flame.
You might feel blue if you are hot,  your face flushed and red.
Our blood is secret until it spills red.
We are called Blood-bloods and red-blooded.
Hot, cold, red, blue. Which is which?
Only your thermostat knows for sure.

Seasons, Cycles, and Circles

Some of us, especially women, have difficulty distinguishing right from left. We live in seasons, cycles, and imperfect circles. What is right and left to spinning women?

Untangled Strings

A tangled mare's nest of thoughts is not a good environment for much of anything. If you write out a thought one by one pretty soon they are appeased and can leave.
Writing brings untangled strings.

Fountains, Trees, Stars

The  fountain's flow is illustration of balance without nets or tightropes.
Trees give and give and cheerfully use our left-overs.
Stars cheer us on.
They shimmer and twinkle, tempting us to dream.beyond our tiny skulls and bones.

My new facebook page

http://www.facebook.com/platform

How Long?

I am eight and my stomach hurts, hurts, hurts. I am getting fevers. I remember 105 like a crazy dream. Dr. Shaver is mean and asks me questions. My sisters are at home and I don't know the right answers. He's getting angry. "When was your last bowel movement?" he snaps. I am bewildered. I don't know what this is. I wish my big sister was here. "Bowel movement," he repeats. I am clearly bewildered. "BM!" he yells. "CaCa, Poo-poo, Doo-Doo! Poop! How long?"
Now I understand what we are talking about but I still don't have an answer. I didn't know you were supposed to measure it or even notice it.

Dr. Shaver is angrier. "How long?" he demands. "Once a day, a week, a month! How long?" I don't know so I guess the right answer. "One month," I say, hoping I chose the right answer so he will stop being mad.  He is more mad and leaves the room.
They corrected my crooked urethra at Children's Hospital. The hospital doctor is nicer but he still asks questions: "Why didn't you tell us it hurt when you peed?" he asks. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe no one ever asked.

Eating Waffles on the Fence

Do things happen for a reason?
Many people think so.
I like my past ever so much better if its true.
Still I waffle on the fence. Do they or don't they?
I think we have to graduate from this life before I know for absolutely sure.
It could be a mix of intention and chaos is what I say still, if I were pressed on the issue.
I never intended to be a waffler of fence sitter, but there you have it.

The Gamut of a Gamut

If you were to walk the gamut of a gamut, and examine both ends, you would find yourself back where you started. I walk my tightropes point to point through spiraling ellipses.

What SIde to Fall

Walking on my tightropes, I wobble, and sometimes fall. There is no net. The trick is to wobble and fall on the "better side."
Our children do better if we fall on the side of (slight) neglect rather than excess.
Small children want your love and attention more than they "want" a new car or a fancy house. Older children care but don't get it twisted. A baby, a child, doesn't know the difference between owning and renting a house.

Fall on the side of compassion over "justice," I say. Justice is subject to human judgment, and people in the justice system have agendas, and care more about power, prestige, and money than human well-fare. Can you imagine fining a homeless woman for being in an abandoned building? Fines and court costs to the hapless bum who is caught drinking a malt beverage in public? Oh please. Doesn't it seem strange that everyone caught in the "Justice" system here is poor, and black or toothless white people? Does it not seem strange, day after day, the courtrooms are filled with the same people. No suits. No ties. Plenty of smack down.
Seasoned jail house lawyers abound, knowing as much about law as any attorney, but they are caught on the wrong side. Hide from "Justice" children.  Run! Hide! Once you enter the circle of misery, you'll never get out.

Teeter totter as you will, but don't fall in "Justice!"

Bing! BIng! BIng! Ricochet Rabbit!

When you have lazy synapses or some such, and the joy juice just does not flow, you try a new med.
The cartoon cat eats the mouse, and his body bulges in mouse shapes every which where.
First you are the tin man, warm oil trickling and tickling your head, taking a new med that seems to be working.
Such a relief. A blessed relief.
But it also takes time and then you are a cartoon cat, bulging in the most unexpected places. The cat has gone and swallowed Bing! BIng! BIng! Ricochet Rabbit! Stick to mice, you silly cat, but in the meantime, the blobs must settle before you join the Others.

Why Doesn't Sharon Share?

"This has apparently become kd rouse's personal therapy page, not fans of Sam Moss. I cannot listen to it any more. I'm out."----Sharon


I think about my indescribable friend, the late Sam Moss, and what he would say about my experience with his fans. If it were just me, the Sharons of the world, would beat me down. I would be so upset that I don't think I could share my personal tributes, my stories of  Sam, that I started well before he died, although it is done.

I would be astonished that the Sharons of the world are very nice people with lovely quotes on their web sites and many friends, but these Sharons would rather have a pure nothing stagnant tribute to Sam than have it sullied with my stories and emotional outbursts.

I have been scolded and slapped down basically for sharing.
Sharing sounds so much like Sharon.
Why doesn't Sharon share?
Let her put her precious things on display, and let me be the Sharon for a change, and snipe and scold and slap down.
Let me break her good intentions to bits for a change.
Let her spend hours and hours of her life writing, and let me be the Sharon who needs only seconds to roll my eyes in disgust, disregarding, disapproving, judging.
Let me be the one to reach into her world and tell her what a stupid selfish girl she is.

I could never be a Sharon though and the Sharons can't be me.

The Sharons write a poem or two that is too precious to share.
Sharon can't risk sharing because she knows there are other Sharons that lie in wait to jeer and spit.
I ask Sam about this Sharon, wanting to know where she had fit in his kaleidoscope world.
Sharon who? asks Sam. Remember, don't let the shitters get you down.
Don't let the shitters get you down.
Don't let the shitters get you down.
Don't let the shitters get you down.
I repeat it like a mantra and hope my sharing bone hasn't done been eaten by the Sharons, the Sharons, the many, many Sharons.

The Samurai & the Zen Master

"A Samurai once asked Zen Master Hakuin where he would go after he died.
Hakuin answered 'How am I supposed to know?'
'How do you not know? You're a Zen master!' exclaimed the samurai.
'Yes, but not a dead one,' Hakuin answered."
                                               --a Buddhist proverb--

Carbon Bags and the Trick of Three Clicks

Aliens call us "carbon bags of mostly water."
How can we argue that?
But we are two-sided creatures, our real selves hidden in flesh, peeping out behind our eyes.
Our houses of flesh are just houses after all, and will succumb to the ravages of time just as any house of sticks or bricks.
We don't realize our two sides are divisible by 3, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, for we are taught to leap into the arms of a mixture of truth and lies, and we forget to run from men in white shoes who have all the answers. White shoes are not the answer.
Oh Dorothy! You've had the Ruby Shoes All Along!
You coulda, woulda, shoulda known, silly girl...

How could she know though?
How could she have known that with just 3 clicks, she could have been home like she wanted.
But how lost the rest of us would be, us Tin men, Totos, Scarecrows, and Cowardly Lions, if Dorothy had not taken the long way around, living, sharing, learning, while she kept on.
In the flesh, the long way around is the only way possible, and shoes are only shoes.
It's the person wearing the shoes with the power, but wearing shoes, even ruby ones, is not enough.
The person in the shoes has to know what they want even if they somehow know of the trick of the 3 clicks.
The person in the shoes has to be absolutely clear of their destination, meaning they must blunder and fall, fail and crawl, bail and bawl many miles, learning what to keep and what to throw away, before a clear destination is visible.
We are born explorers, we "carbon bags of mostly water."
When we stop, we decay and die.
Clicks make a better story, but the power is within.
Choose, at least, to die first and then decay.
Live it up while there's time, for we are only 3 little piggies after all, in our little houses, in our flimsy, little houses.
Dance, dance little piggies! Dance over-time! Someday, later or sooner, the wolf will be at each our door. Our jig will be up.
The Piper Must Be Paid!

Nothing Girl and the Tallest Poppies

"All the world is a stage, " and the stage is an odd place.
First, you have to think you are good enough to be on a stage. You have to publicly admit you think you are good enough by even stepping on a stage.
You don't know if other people think so too, so you have to bare your soul without knowing how you will be received.
Everyone is kind and gushing at open mikes when you are paying your dues and suck.
The slicers and dicers come later when you are a taller Poppy.
All the world is a critic who can slap you down but good.
They get to autopsy your soul, critique, jeer and be uplifted without breaking a sweat.
The critics never have to step on wooden stages and bare their souls.
They can help you or help you crumble.
If the taller Poppy survives, then you win a double-edged sword.
You win money so you can do what you do without worrying about dinner, sure, but you also gain something worse than the slicers and dicers of yesterday.
You suddenly have an entourage of smiling, ingratiating stealers of souls and you will never again know who is truly your friend. They love you so much, they stalk and hound you, and sometimes kill you.
They love you so much they wouldn't change a hair on your head.
They'd rather stuff you and put you on display than for you to change a single hair on your own head. 
I've not been there of course, but if I proceed this could be me.
The critics scoff: "Oh, yeah. Right. As if."
But your heroes are flesh and blood. They squat and smell if they are unwashed. No one thought they were anything until you caught the bandwagon and thought they were everything to shake and shiver to.
I don't seek fame, but it might find me yet.
I just want my dinner, and I am very, very curious about how far a Nothing Girl can go.

Missing the Church Boat & An Unexpected Friend

It takes a moment to remember where I am. Awake or dreaming? Day or Night? What day? What year? What time? 
 It comes back to me as I lay in my bed soaked with sweat.
I am awake now.
It was a dream of buildings and oceans, true, but this dream is different than the ones before.
I am not lost.
I am late and miss the boat, but I am not lost.
Eyes are rolled and I cause a commotion in the Church Boat without ever stepping foot in it. A church lady says I stole a cartridge of red ink and apparently I give them much to talk about in their boat, even though I never stole red ink and tell her so on our boat to boat call. She calls me a bloody thief and slams down the phone.
Still, even in my dream, I think it is funny, because if I were to steal anything from the Church,  it would be red ink.
In some bibles, Jesus talks in red, and despite how I hate the Church, I cannot hate Jesus!
I love his red words, so I laugh.
This dream is different.
I am not lost. I climb walls of my Building to get in, and once I even use the door, but mostly I am swimming, swimming, swimming in a big beautiful lake that leads to the Ocean.
Usually, I am alone in my dreams except for bumping into my big sister who always listens and helps me.
All my sisters are there but we are all busy. Even when I see my big sister, I am too busy to talk. I am swimming and swimming, loving to swim and I make a friend.
My friend is Danielle. She lives in Virginia near my grandmother. She is a single mother, and has three babies too. She likes emphasis on the first syllable of her name, something I have to practice to get right.
My babies are grown. Hers are really babies, and I make them laugh.
We both miss the Church boat and on a whim, we get our own boat and follow the Church Boat from a safe distance.
I have never traveled with a friend before and it is fun.
When I learn the babies names, I see she has 3 plus 1 children, not 3. The littlest one is my stepson from long, long ago. He should be grown but she adopted him and I work extra hard to make him smile.
When we tire of boating, we swim with Danielle's 4 babies back where we started in the big beautiful lake behind my grandmother's house.
I stand on top of the dam and am a laughing, roaring king singing a roaring, laughing  king song to amuse the children. I end my song with a cannonball and they clap with joy when I emerge.
They thought the waters much too shallow to jump.
I tell them the secret.
Never jump feet first into shallow waters, I say. Curl up and hit sideways.

Corsets and Cockroaches

Law is a too tight corset, oozing with our muffin tops.
Try to throw it away, and you are clothed with chains.
Wear it, pretending ti fits and you are a sheep among crowing, cowed sheep in lumpy, bumpy clothes, adoring and praising the emperor for his inspired lumpy, bumpy attire.
Cinched tight, the corset pleases, giving us sleek, hourglass curves, hiding our greed and excess, our open sores, our wastelands, our gasping breath..
Cinched tightly in corsets we dance until dawn, such pretty pretty dancing. The children have all gone to bed.
Many were the ones to help you into your finery, your too tight corset.
When the music stops , you are alone,  afraid .
The corset has grown into your flesh.
A cockroach crawls out of your bosom and laughs.
You pray for angels with scissors... or not.
Just as often we give our cockroaches pretty corsets and pretty names and keep them as pretty pets. We whirl dreamily, reliving our dances 'til dawn, wearing our festering corsets like skin, dreaming of our next designer gown. 

Mental Patient on Board (with Miles To Go...)

My doctor has seen me through every hill, dale, and dusty trail of bi-polar-ism for the past 20 years, the dale side mostly, although you can smash your life to bits in just one manic night,  which isn't swell either.
I apologize to him for coming in last week on his day off but I was dying. I say I don't think his Doctor partner liked me too much. He came in looking like a kindly grandfather and went out like Walter Math-ow in Grumpy Old Men, muttering and wringing his hands.

My doctor is still poring over the notes from my visit with his partner. "Yeah," he says while he reads. "He doesn't do too well with mental patients."
It had never occurred to me that I am a mental patient, although sure as sure I sure am.

I, who have spouted so much about the power of the mind...the power of positive thinking, smiling to jog real smiles, I have had to accept that depression is not a beast I can tame alone. I can't have it counseled or coaxed out. My synapses are lazy or some such,  and therefore not enough joy juice gets through.

I have had to accept that some people need meds to live and I am one of them, despite my former suspicions that meds were cheating or a crutch or a quick fix. I 've had to raise my little white flag again and again and surrender to being ...a mental patient.

"Your case is very complex, " says my doctor. I see the sheaf of papers nearly the size of an unabridged dictionary that charts the course of my previous states of mental health over 20 or so years. Yeah, I say. It's been a ride. We both snort compassionately. "Ain't life grand?" I say like a song.

I tell him I didn't realize how spoiled I am to have him for a doctor. He never gets exasperated and scowls at Bing, Bing, Bing, Ricochet Rabbit! He says hello and other kind things even if I appear as the spluttering, soggy rock  Delila and Gypsy Nurse don't phase him in the least. He hugs me when I tell him my tether to the Mother Ship has been severed and I am lost in space.
"Mom," my grown daughter says, "Will you try not to make all your health symptoms sound like science fiction when you are talking to the doctor?."
"Science Fiction?" I repeat with surprise. 
Meds sound magic and easy, but oh no. You have to be a guinea pig and try different combinations before you get it right. Then out of the blue, everything that has been working doesn't work any more. You notice you're crying again and not stopping like usual, or you want to knock someone's head off when a no thanks would suffice .You don't want to see anybody or be seen. You hide and hide even though no one knows you are missing.

Of course, I have no idea how my story ends, but I know more things than I did yesterday and I am pleased. I am okay with a life with meds. All attempts to go it alone are disastrous.
Still, looney tunes or not, like Frost said, "I have miles to go before I sleep."
I will sing again, my wings only slightly scorched as I climb my way to new ashes.

The Faces of Dreams

Many things are dreams.

Dreams are gibberish, sorting through all our bits and pieces as we sleep, presenting us with a crazy quilt of things that don't usually go together.

Some dreams are not gibberish. They tell you stories and when you think about the story, you can see what you are in the game of life. The dreams that hold endless stairs to climb, relentless shooting elevators that stop at the wrong floors, and being locked out, going the long, long way around to get back to a place that moves and changes, these dreams are a mirror. While unsettling, these dreams reveal your state of being. These dreams do not stop. However, they will change as you do. Running in place like a cartoon character will cease when you take action in your waking life. Would that it would be rosy and posy dreams ever after, but no.

These dreams see you the naked of nakedest and see before you do, the state of your being. These dreams change but go on. Being chased, chased, chased, and lost, forever lost, and climbing stairs going up, up, up; Each phase of dreaming is relentless until you change in real life. Elevators that zoom up and down at alarming speeds, being late and lost, forever lost, looking wistfully at the rooms of students and walking by, and forever by, knowing this is not my place as I search and search; These dreams are relentless, changing as I change in real life.Real live waking life.

Yesterday, the Church chased me as I slept. I searched my building, my big, big building, for something important but I still don't know what. The building changes and grows as I search and I am chased by the Church.
No. The church did not chase me.
It was worse.
It anticipated me and had services in huge rooms next to wherever I went. I liked the singing. I am a sucker for the singing, but I still say No thank you, firmly, every time until I get fed up! Get thee behind me Satan!,  I scream at the sweet, grandfatherly Church Usher who has been nothing but sweet, sweet, sweet, but when Mr. Sweet shows up in the Green Room before my show, I go ballistic, and kick him and his sweet posse out. 
Tonight my dreams hold buildings that grow, grow, grow. Everything is tilted on its ear, the streets changing locations and melting into the sea as I search on, forever lost, without quite knowing what I seek. My building is big. Huge. I can always find my way back. Buildings to Oceans. Building to Oceans. Both are my home.

Dreams we make up are our highest fairy tale aspirations. This kind of dream fuels our journeys. Sometimes when you get close to this kind of dream, you realize that your dream is better than the reality. Your version of your dream is sugar plums and cotton candy, with no mention of sharks and hungry tigers. Up close, close to living your dream, you can see the sharks and tigers swarm.



Some dreams are Holy and entirely different from the dreams that are gibberish and the dreams that are not gibberish.


These dreams are a gift from...
These dreams are a gift from?
These dreams are a gift.

In one such dream I  was drowning, trying to swim through rocks and seaweed and a Voice said  "You do not have to go that way." I changed course and swam through clear waters, bursting through the surface, gasping but alive. I see myself walk down a sunlit beach. To this day, I can hear this Voice saying "You do not have to go that way," if I find myself drowning in any which way. I can turn. I can go another way if I've ventured into treacherous waters.

There are dreams. There are dreams, and there are dreams.

Delusions of a New Hypochondriac

Being bi-polar is tricky. Lord, Have Mercy.
It's sneaky.
You can't hide from it.
You can't outrun it.
You can't out think it.
You don't always know how bad its gotten until you are deep in the throes of an episode.
All the doctors say I am delusional.
I think something is inside me, eating me alive.
If I am manic, I think it is perfectly fine to operate on myself to get this thing out.
I almost bleed to death, fainting on the hospital sidewalk.
I am checked out spread eagle, every which way and again and again they find nothing physical except an ulcer and stress from another depressive low-low. Now I have to think Okay. What if they are right? (Something I have never considered until now.)
Now that I know I am not dying, I tell my aching delusional body that we are going to boot camp. I am the Coach and I do not stand for whining, wallowing, hypochondriac slackers! Uh-uh. No Sir, Missy.  No way. No how. I'm going to work you so hard, you'll hurt for real! You are getting in fighting shape! Do you understand? What? I can't hear you! Louder!!

I shed my skin to begin yet again
I am going to pretend the Doctors are right until I think so too.
Baby is going to the gym where she learns the difference between real and phantom pain, and gets in fighting shape to boot. 
Baby with wrinkles and whiskers, you are far from done.
Now: Engage, Mr. Spock. Engage!

A Fairy Tale, More or Less....

More and Less,
Some people want More and More.
Some people say Less is More.
We say More or Less if we are in the ballpark.
This is a funny world.
I didn't know we are a fairy tale where anything is anything, and so many things are Everything, more or less.
I didn't know that behind each pair of eyes lies a different version of reality. We think we all live in the same world but we are only approximately together on the same planet, our perceptions of reality as unique as our DNA. Even just two witnesses of the same event can't agree. Our stories change as we tell them. Our history, told by victors.
A strange place this is where less is more and more is more, and enough is not enough. .

Secret Exhibitionist Chases Moonbeams

It's just like me to keep a web blog and then keep it a secret. I can say anything if there are no faces I know attached.  I am probably isolated in cyber-space again and it pleases rather than distresses. I am a Secret Exhibitionist leaving a digital trail of the many faces of Katherine Dashiell Rouse, aka KD. Whether anyone ever cares isn't an issue for me because Martha Graham said so, and I believe her.

Expectations must weigh heavily on one's shoulders if one becomes popular. If you "make it," where is "it" exactly?" I know the Music Industry and Fans of the Famous have trouble accepting changes in their idols,  who are denied personal musical evolution, phases and stages, exploration, and changes. They better love, love, love whatever album breaks because you will be playing it over and over,  matter how their music may have or could have changed over time.  Neil Young was sued by his own record company for "not sounding like himself," Prince was locked in a cage (that he beat) and Dylan was booed off the stage when he played an electric set of his songs and the crowd expected his acoustic self. Fame can limit your freedom to play music. I have some pretty impressive recordings but nothing is yet good enough to release to what I hear in my head. Given all my studio attempts were free or meagerly funded slap dash attempts, I think I've done well. Recording is difficult for me-separating my guitar part from vocals as they are linked in my mind and fingers, but recording is what I want to do above all tasks. I want my album to be the quality of what  I hear in my head, things above my ability on guitar. The wholeness, the richness, the creaminess and dreaminess of the album in my head will be the album I realize. I hope I am not just chasing moonbeams.

If They Could All Be Aunt Lizzies...

Psychiatry and psychology are "soft" sciences. There is no accurate way to measure conditions or keep controls. Actually, I think that every case of mental illness might be as unique as the people who have challenges with mental health (shall we say.)

The Professionals in the Mental Health Business don't know much because much is unknown about the brain. Adventurers and Discoverers of New Lands! Despair Not! There is still the depths of the Ocean, the heights of Outer Space and Beyond,  and our very own Brains to explore.  

There are good counselors and good psychiatrists, but not everyone is what we call an Aunt Lizzie, someone who is like my clinical psychologist sister Elizabeth up in Northern Virginia
.
I found help at my family doctor more than with anyone else, except for support of the Aunt Lizzie's' Aunt Anne's and Aunt Mary's', the many Bill's', the Sam's', the Miss Doris's', Kind Strangers, and now the mysterious BHU  who have all given wise counsel, information towards cure, and ways to think of things differently than the reality I have accepted.
I see how important it is to connect with people because our problems are often the same as with Others, and Others can offer the very wisdom you need to proceed forth . 

Cinderella Mouse Plays The Game of Life

Chronologically, I am 53 years. Inwardly, I can't guess my age. I feel like a baby.
I hate the game Chutes and Ladders. It is my least favorite game in the world but I still keep falling down chutes and starting over again. Falling and starting over, over and over again.
Every time I think "I know the truth," my life is torn apart. Broken dishes, broken dishes. Everything smashed to bits as I look the same but am rising from flames having to be reborn, reborn, reborn.
I remember her, some 30 years ago. We are standing on the driveway in the warm sunshine, my baby son and me. I adore him, and I finally have a purpose in life. I am beaming at him toddle, and I sigh with satisfaction. I got it all figured out. I know what deep pure happiness is. I am a 21 year old mother, a cookie-baking, in the church choir, singing Episcopalian with a baby, and I get to stay home with him! I get to have more children! I am happy to the point of being smug as I watch my child, my son, my reason for being.
That devoted young mother, me, could not imagine in her wildest dreams what the future would hold.
I am not sure the young me would recognize me at 53. It's been a crazy, bumpy ride and never, ever, would I have imagined it. Never ever did I expect  who I have become.
I got thrown out of my cookie baking, super mommy world when violence in the home drove me to an escape plan. I was forced to be a leader for the first time in my life, very strange for an invisible nothing girl, very difficult. I hatched a plan of escape and stuck to it, skimming money from my own tips and depositing them in my secret bank account before I got home. I was the Captain, the Keeper of the Flames, the Sheepdog that gave unconditional love, and a safe perimeter in which my children could be free, free from fear, and learn to make choices.  We sang, we danced, we had adventures inside circles as large as I could make them.
Always with me, there was One Chance to Learn On. There has to be a chance for a child to learn not to do something or learn to do something before they get whipped. They should never be whipped in fact, but if there has been a rule clearly explained to them and they break that rule, there must be a consequence. Hurting a child, terrifying a child, that sick thud of nausea and fear when you hear your sisters or brothers being whipped with a belt, sometimes knowing your next. Be quiet. Be very quiet, quieter than a mouse, and be helpful, helpful as a busy, invisible bee and watch your big sisters to know what to say and do so nobody gets whipped. Little mouse, hiding in the closet, would not recognize herself in me, would never imagine the fire and fight, the fortitude and doggedness that would be required of us in her future. Cinderella mouse never imagined the spotlight.

Love and Everything Else

Many things are called love that are not love. Love is pure, a burning white light amidst darkness. It commands kindness and compassion and requires respect, acceptance, and dedication to uphold even a fraction of the love that exists. If we sort our soiled linens as we go, to piles of love and piles of things that are not love, Love becomes more clear. Love, Godly Love, True and Pure Love, is a tiny pile that requires no washing. It is durable, and everlasting; Your star to watch as you navigate tricky waters.
All that is not love is a horrible mess. Clean it all you want but all that is not love leaves stains. Jealousy, anger, abuse, neglect, cruelty, we call these things love. The things that are not love are durable and they are our shields and cloaks of darkness. We do horrible things with all that is not love if we are hidden and think we won't get caught.
Luckily, we have Love.
 Shiny and bright.
Warm and beautiful.
Pure Love.
We have only Love as our star.