Many years ago I had bought a package of socks; I think it was a set of three. They were great through a couple of washings, but then they began to sag. I didn’t mind because I had a pair of Bass leather booties that came up to my ankle and the socks sagged over the top of the boot and concealed the fact that they were booties. The sagging socks with the booties looked way better whenever I was wearing shorts, especially when I wore my baggy shorts.
I can remember coming out of a relationship with a woman who was critical and controlling. I recall the first time that I bumped into her at the grocery store after our break up. I had a basket loaded with my choices. I watched as she scanned over my grocery choices and I could tell that she was judging me based on the pickings in the basket. I could feel her doing it, and then she commented to prove my theory by saying “oh, gourmet coffee, you must be doing well at work.” That comment told me that she was looking for something to say that could make me feel stupid as usual. I felt invaded as she scanned over the basket of goods. We said our goodbyes and I checked out feeling like I should shop somewhere else.
Time had passed and she came to my job for some reason. We were exchanging keys or something of that nature. As I walked toward her I could see her staring at my sagging socks. The first thing she said to me was “you sure do love those sagging socks.” My first reaction was to feel ashamed of the choice I made, but then as I left her I realized that no, I didn’t love the sagging socks. I mean I didn’t sit around visualizing and hoping to someday I could have sagging socks. When the socks appeared, I found a way to like them. I found a way to make them work. I found a way to use them.
The moral of the story is that you can love the most beautiful of things, the most expensive of things and the most sought after of things, but when it comes down to it, you can choose to love what appears. That is where our happiness lies.
With all that said, I sure do miss my sagging socks.
Monthly Archives: May 2012
Sagging Socks
A Memorial to a Different Soldier
Memorial Day was meant to honor the men and women that fight for our freedom. They go out in hostile territory and fight those that mean to harm the world. So in honor of those that fight every day, to the death to see to it that the world is safe, I say THANK YOU!
Today though, I’d like to introduce a new soldier. This soldier is not at war. This soldier stands at the same moral standard that any civilized society would consider an asset to the world. This soldier is rarely recognized. With no uniform, medals, or ceremonies to pay tribute to his/her contributions, it’s hard to know who they are. They march next to us at work. They serve as peacekeepers and mentors at home. This soldier understands that the only weapon that can be used to harm another is hate, fear and judgment. This soldier fights silently, understanding the natural order of things. This soldier does not move the earth; this soldier contributes to the movement of the earth
Why am I introducing this soldier? I do so because every one of us, in our own way, is that soldier. We get up every day and strive for what is most important to us. No matter how simple the mission we are called to, we answer.
The acknowledgement of this soldier isn’t important to the soldier though. It is important for us to see, recognize, and show value to the soldiers in our lives. The soldier that helps us to continue marching when we fall, the soldier that opens our eyes when we really want to keep them closed, and the soldier who says nothing at all when that is what we most need. This is the soldier that I would like to pay tribute to today.
So to all of you that carry your friends when they can’t make it on their own, to all of you that quietly keep the peace in the loudest of places, and to all of you that care enough about the world to know that we are in it together…
…I say THANK YOU!
This Memorial Day I will be tipping a cheer to you.
Love is…
A message from the universe @ TUT.com
To clarify, Ramona, the primary roles of LOVE are not to heal, fix, or mend. Not to soothe, cure, or ease. Not even to refresh, rejuvenate, or restore. Hardly.
The primary roles of LOVE, Ramona, are to “Yahoo!” “Yeehaa!” and “Whoohooo!”
Get your love on,
The Universe
You were born to love, Ramona, no matter the cost, no matter what someone else said, and no matter how the past once played out.
It’s interesting that I happen to be reading the book “A different kind of Love” by Veronique Corbett. It’s an easy read but the message is as clear as the one above. If you are looking to change your mind about love, then get this book now.
The death of Beth
I never wanted to publish this poem because:
a.) I ‘m not a fan of poetry
b.) therefore, I hate to write it.
The thing is that I met a poet named Beth. She could recite poetry at the drop of a word. She read poetry, she wrote poetry and she made sure everyone knew it.
We were good friends until one day we weren’t anymore. She loved women. She loved many. She always had a woman in her bed. Then one day she ran out of women and she turned to me. I wasn’t interested, at least not in that. She retaliated harshly. I let it be. About two years ago I got extremely drunk and I started thinking about Beth. How she tortured me for three days, filling my voice mail and text space with the sound of her retaliation. How she kept my valuables. Things that she knew I valued because they were gifts from people that I loved. I grabbed a pen and began to write a poem about her. It was appropriate. I hated poems and at that moment, I hated Beth too. This is what came of the combination of alcohol, poetry and resentment.
The Death Of Beth
I wanted to write a story about someone once a friend of mine
but I wanted all the words to rhyme
see she was a poet
or so she claimed
So I felt the pressure
To do the same
Her name was Beth and as we grew
I wrote a book
And she got a tatoo
It was the name of a woman she loved
There were so many names that the image was blurred
And somehow, someway
We couldn’t tell to whom she referred
More and more Marijuana she smoked
Until the day an emergency spoke
“I am in control”
That’s what she said
But like all of us
One day she’ll be dead
Until then as her once friend
Her craziness I can no longer defend
I’ll promote her all day
Not for me, no way
No such person
That’s what she wrote
on a letter of mine
But I can not read it
Cause I’m out on the boat
Beth I hope that in a lifetime you learn
You could be buried or placed in an Urn
Monday March 30, 1992 vs Friday May 17,2012
This is a journal entry from Monday March 30, 1992
I was 30 years old.
It’s kind of a strange day. I’m neither here nor there, no fear to consume me today.
The weekend was quite relaxing and I have had a chance to speak to God. I only wonder why he doesn’t speak back. Could I handle it if he did? The question of obedience comes into play. Does he only speak to loyal church goers?
I pray every day and I tremble at the thought of not having a God.
Twenty years later, on May 17, 2012 I wrote these words:
I’ve spent the last week mulling over what to write about. I have felt stuck in that space of neither here nor there. Not really in one place… or another. Kind of the way atoms disappear and suddenly appear. Where do they go? Do you ever catch yourself there?
I quickly recognized that I had been there before. I could remember the color of the journal in which I mentioned the “neither here nor there” place. I dug up the old notebook and found the exact entry. I have never been a fan of sharing my entries because it shows the skeleton upon which I have built upon to become the whole person that I am today.
We will talk skeletons later.
Now that I’m off the phone
Ever since I began to communicate, it seems that I haven’t shut up. I have recently come to realize that I was spending an inordinate amount of my time, and I mean my personal private time, on the phone. It came by accident that my phone would stop ringing, but that’s what it took to recognize that the little device we are all so attached to is possibly keeping us too attached and more detached.
Let me explain. Just a few months ago my best friend of years left town without calling me and at least say goodbye. We talked a few times a week, for a long talk. So when I called her for three weeks without any returned calls I found out that she had moved away. I was so hurt that I cut her out of my life. I didn’t call her again and didn’t want to. I just thought that we were better friends than that.
Another good friend fell in love and joined a family of three children. Sherri and I talked every single night for at least a half an hour. Now Sherri is busy with her life. We talk once a week to catch up for ten minutes or so, but we do touch base.
Then my main source, my sister Lola, who I talk to every single morning as I sip my green tea has decided to cut me out of her life. She is apparently upset because I sent the police to her home when I thought she might be in some trouble. Understandably, she didn’t care much for my actions and so now she will punish me with her absence. I talked to Lola for the last time on Saturday evening when she was crying and asking for a plane ticket home. I never heard from her again. I have tried to reach her at work and she just tells whoever answers the phone there to say that she isn’t there. So it’s over now.
It hasn’t quite been a week since my last conversation with Lola and already I can see what I was giving up. I now sip on my tea alone, with my thoughts, with my aspirations and with myself. I used to think that the daily venting that I was doing was healthy. Turns out not to be so. The ranting and raving about how wrong things could be was just an affirmation of how things would go from now on.
Several things have happened since I got off the phone. At first I felt lonely, but then I started thinking and processing things for myself. Beginning in the morning, instead of jumping out of bed instantly these days, I find myself laying there and enjoying my thoughts. I have a chat with God and process the dreams, which have increased greatly since getting off of the phone. Now I’m actually seeing how the dreams are cleaning up old business. For example last night I dreamt that I was cutting an ex girlfriend’s hair. When the haircut was done she dogged me in front of everyone for making her sweep up the hair. Now this ex, in the dream was morphing between all of my exes. As if it was all the same yet different. As I analyzed it I could see that I was processing a conversation that I had with a co-worker earlier in the day about my relationships having many similar characteristics and that I had a pattern of behavior that I tended to be attracted to.
This morning I woke up and stayed in bed for twenty minutes while I stretched my limbs, my mind and my spirit. Then I sipped my green tea on the patio without muttering a single word. I heard the peace that I am capable of having. Peace that is content. I’m grateful for everything that I have, everything that I see and everything that I get to do.
The Power of a Shower
No one thinks much of a shower. It’s something we all do in the morning before we head out for our day of mission. As I care for my mother who has Alzheimer’s I have found that the shower is such a sacred place. Once that warm water hits her head she starts to loosen up and relax. This is the place where she doesn’t have to remember anything. The warm water opens her arteries and her mind. I must say that it is one of my favorite tasks with her. She tells me everything in the shower. Things that I already know, but for her, she thinks she is sharing her life long secrets with me. To her I’m just a stranger who is assisting her. To me this is the most wonderful space in the world. It’s just me and her and warm water. Warm waters that wash away the shame, the regret and any other negative shadow that sometimes consumes her. I can take her into the shower while she rants and raves that she is leaving us all. Then when the water hits, it all changes. I watch as her body goes limp, as she moans in delight and as she slips into a cleaner perception of her life. By the time the shower is over she tells me that she could never leave here. That this is where she wants to be forever.
The greatest honor I have had is to care for my mother. I can’t explain how rewarding it feels to be here right now. I never imagined that this is what I would be doing at this time in my life, which only makes it so much greater because I could never have planned to grow so much by doing something so simple.
My mother has taught me to enjoy the simplest of things like the shower. Who knew it had so much power? I didn’t. Until now.
Thank you Mami.
