Papa, the Adonis in the long johns with a flap in the back.

As I flit through the reminiscences of my early childhood, I see a live Charlie Chaplin, silent, fast forward comic strip of my dad, his long johns sparkling white with the beam of the full moon, and a ridiculous silhouette of himself, with both hands holding on tightly to the crack of his back flap, rushing to the outhouse.

Papa was a religious man , a symbolic replica of the Greek fertility God, Adonis, with quicksilver running thick in his veins. God forbid any of us, kids should see his divine crack.

His sudden ghostly presence in the dark of the night reminded me of a lightning. One minute, he was there and the minute after, he was gone. I always knew the exact moment it would happen, counting to 60, after their bed had suffered a mini earthquake. The bathroom urge came with reluctance for him, I’m sure. There was no heat in the house, as the fire had died down, thus explaining the Charlie Chaplan fast track cartoon strip and his need to quickly return to the heat of…mama’s warm thighs and breasts. Holding on tightly to the back flap didn’t slow down his Speedy Gonzales sprint.

Mgr Lorrain was a happy priest. Every year, he would undertake his parish visit rounds and realize that, in 80% of his assigned protegee families, a new babe was born, awaiting his blessings. As busy as he was, he had no time to register big comments in his book, so he settled for his secret code that he would not share with the bishop: “MMA” which translated in French: “Meme Maudite Affaire.” “Same damn thing”.  Procreation multiplied by a hundredfold. More baptisms, more money in the basket, more future priests and a happier pope. Magnificat!

The men, including my dad, were well coached for steady production, as the marriage vows were binding and irreversible : “Do you, Yvonne Marie, Aphrodite, promise to honor, love and obey this man, Louis-Irenee Adonis, for as long as he lives?” My mom’s sister, Antoinette who served as witness told me that Yvonne thought about it, long and hard. After a pause, her sky blue eyes met my dad’s questioning brown eyes ( he was starting to worry) and solemnly declared: “Yes, I promise to honor, love and obey this…(in her head: handsome, sexy, hot looking) man, Louis-Irenee Adonis for… as long as… it lives.” Everyone thought the mistake came from rattled nerves but mama was an old soul and old souls know from experience, that all good things in life were like the roses in her corsage. They eventually wither and dry and trying to obey an old man in bed could become a challenge,  if not an impossibility. Yvonne never made a promise she could not keep.

So, from 1930 to 1958, the Adonis in the long johns with a crack in the back, was king of the castle. Head ache or not, mama Aphrodite opened up, obeyed and fetched with the loyalty and devotion of a cocker spaniel. The juices of fertility flowed abundantly and generously. Louis-Irenee Adonis had put his godly, manly foot down and taken his chivalrous ambitions to bed with him. Soon, the house was furnished with wall to wall kids. Out of the stardust and the blessed union of the couple came: Lina, Noel, Claire, Annette, myself, Rheo, Rolland, Mimi, a miscarriage, Michel, a miscarriage, Micheline and finally, the cherry on top of the cake and the cutest of the bunch, Joanne. All in all, my poor, saintly mother had taken the good and the bad, the pretty and the ugly, the joys and the sorrows and had beaten the path through 13 pregnancies. If your arithmetic is accurate, that means an average of 120 months or 10 years. Now if you ask me, that’s a lot of obedience, honor and respect.

Mgr Lorrain had to work hard to get such formidable results from his parishioners. Now and then, he would call in a missionary who had celebrated plenty of masses in Zimbabwe with women wearing nothing but grass skirts that were easily set on fire. ( I mean the skirts). Those were happy celebrations for the missionary, as they sang religious hymns to the beat of tamtams, swaying hips and dangling breasts. He always ended his masses by lighting a candle and praising the Lord for his sex-treme generosity.

That missionary would gather the men only, in the basement to teach them the new tricks on the African market or elsewhere. He convinced them to throw all inhibitions to the wind and experiment with oral sex and other more sophisticated prowesses. The men’s mouth and eyes opened in wonder and lust, as they all felt a sudden swelling in their lower garment. They had never heard of such a beautiful invention. Now, who would have thought of that? It sure had to come from the holy spirit…or maybe Mary Magdalen…

But one nasty farmer wasn’t so easily convinced. He said disdainfully: “But, father, did you ever smell that? It smells anything but perfume. (true story) The priest smiled and said: “Once you taste it, Ben, you’ll change your mind. Believe me.” Silence grew thick in the basement. Acknowledging that missionaries never lie, men walked out of there with new exhilarating, lascivious, kittenish dreams floating in their heads and new challenges for the poor, obedient little wives.

The news spread like a wild brush fire, in the village. You could see little women whispering over the fence to neighboring wives who would discreetly spill the juicy gossips to cousins, aunts and friends. Hysteria and confusion had taken over the once peaceful little hamlet.

Yvonne was also on high alert. She came running to her married daughter, Annette and, out of breath, she whispered: “Annette, I’m afraid I have some very bad news for you. Your father has lost it. I think it’s that rabid fox who bit him. He’s acting very, very weird. He tried to put his tongue in my mouth. But that’s nothing. You won’t believe the rest. He… He… I think my life is in great danger. He…. He….Boy, that’s hard to say. He…he… he tried to eat my pussy! This African missionary has turned your dad into a cannibal!”

Annette coughed a couple of times to choke her laughter. Her husband, Claude had also been  there, at the missionary pep talk,or should I say, sex talk. She knew all about it. So she simply took my mama’s shaky hands into her own, looked her in the eyes and said: “Well, you’re still alive, aren’t you, mama? How about a good mint herb tea? It will make you strong.”

“Now, Mr. Missionary priest”, Annette thought, “next time you come, why don’t you bring along a few grass skirt ladies for a free demonstration to a “Women only” night, so the sweet little ladies, here, know how to react?  Your African girlies would feel right at home, with you to guide them, right? Provide us with free burlesque entertainment!”

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Whether we wake or we sleep,

Whether we carol or we weep,

The sun, with its planets in chime,

Marketh the going of time.

Fitzgerald.

Time is a cruel thief robbing us of our strength and physical capacities.

There came a time in my daddy’s life when, what had been done 2 or 3 times a night, now, took 2  or 3 times to get it right once.

Things were not so hot anymore as the little woman was still obedient but the stubborn genitals had a mind of their own. Who would have thought that the little wife would still obey but the genitals would not? And even the little woman , now, was getting impatient and running out of stamina.

So, one day, Yvonne did the unthinkable. She disobeyed. Well, not exactly. She had promised to honor, respect and obey Louis-Irenee-Adonis for “as long as it lived,” and it was as dead as a dead worm, no more jiggling, no more crawling, no more heeding, nothing. Dead. Caput. Finito. Requiem. Her job was done. Period. Sorry, beautiful Adonis. Aphrodite rests but she still loves you.

Heart broken and humiliated, my poor dad dragged his body to the confessional where he miserably confided that Yvonne stubbornly refused him his marital privileges. The priest calmly asked:”How many times did Yvonne refuse your marital rights, in the month, Louis-Irenee?” My exasperated dad said: “Well, August has 31 days; she denied me my legal rights 31 times.” “Holy Moses,” exclaimed the priest, “you”re trying to run a marathon, at your age, and you’re asking her to run with you! Easy, old boy. You ain’t what you used to be!” He calmed down a bit and added: “Irenee, my dear, thank the Lord if she accepts once a week. The world is changing, you know. Go in the peace of the Lord, old man.”

You could hear giggles in the old priest’s cubicle. He whispered: “Children say the darndest things and old men have the darndest dreams!”

My dad wasn’t quite pleased with the results of his last confession. Completely baffled, he was left with the feeling of having a foot in quick sand with no branch to hang on to. Although Yvonne was  still full of attention and a tender spouse, there was now a no trespassing sign on her sex jewels and she held on firmly to her decision. The sad thing was, although it was winter down there for my dad, it was still spring and summer up in his head.

So, one night depression had taken its toll, dad came to confide in me, his school teacher. Sure I could convince mother to come to reason and allow him his pleasure, at least once every full moon. Surely, somewhere between estrogen and death, there was room for a few more flings.

But my answer was a blow to his private parts when I told him that sex is something consensual. We were in 1965 and, for the first time in his life, my dad realized that the little woman had a right to say “No. (or to be polite, not tonight, dear, I have a headache and I’ll have another one tomorrow night, but I still love you.)” The only advice I could offer him was to wait, be extra nice, and very patient. Maybe… just maybe.

Poor old Dad! The winter nights were now long and sad. They were about as exciting as watching mosquito larvae hatch in the Grand-Desert marshes. He would even let them sting him just to be entertained by the mosquitoe’s body transformation into a ruby red pomegrenate marvel.

He sat at a table and played a patience card game called “Beat the devil”, silently  wishing, hoping and chasing his own demons. Sometimes, you could hear his soft voice sing some sad verses, trying to summon up the past, the golden Adonis days: “Yvonne, ou donc es-tu?” (Yvonne, where are you? Where is the sensuous Aphrodite I used to know?)

Then, one night, on the 10th of January, 1978, at the age of 67, papa sat at his card table for his usual game, and just as he ended a successful play, he slipped down from his chair and calmly passed away. The table was left untouched in the corner of the house where the cards laid intact, displaying his last game. Louis-Irenee Adonis  had beaten the devil.

“Village, au fond de la vallee, (Village, deep in the valley,)

Des jours, des nuits, (The nights and days)

Le temps a fui. (Have slipped away.)

Voici, dans la nuit etoilee. (Then, during one starry night,)

Qu’un coeur s’endort.” ( A heart stopped beating) . Les trois cloches. Jean Villard.

Papa est mort. (Papa is dead.)

C’est le delire. (I am delirious.)

Mon coeur chavire. ( My heart is lost in a sea of emotions.)

Tout se dechire. (My whole world is in chaos.)

J’etais son enfant, (I was his child.)

Je l’aimais tant! (I loved him so much!)

Dad, up in your big sky, I’m sure you look down on me while I’m writing this blog and , with beautiful mama by your side, you smile at those earthly souvenirs. Those were the lives of your young days as they were lived, then. This is now, as we see it, with eyes full of wisdom, higher intelligence and understanding.

I have only a word of gratitude for you, mom and mgr Lorrain. If life would not have been that way, then, if it would have been like now, with every family having a max of 3 children, then, only Lina, Noel and Claire would have seen this earth. Annette, myself, Rheo, Rolland. Mimi, Michel, Micheline and Joanne would have remained star dust. And my beautiful children and grandchildren would have consequently been obliterated.

So what can I say, dad? You may have been an Adonis in your younger days, forcing mama Aphrodite into fertility but I’m definitely reaping the benefits. And I have to humbly admit, looking at my brothers and sisters, that you and mom have done a mighty good job as you have specialized in next to perfect molds.

Papa, you have worked hard, long hours, to put bread on the table and clothes on our back. And although the cockroaches and the mice did not survive at home because they did not have a crumb left to feed on, we always had an egg or a toast to look forward to, for breakfast and we never starved, thanks to your ingenuity and constant workload. For this, in the name of my brothers and sisters and myself I send a “thank you dad “on the wings of the wind, hoping it will reach you.

And to my mama, the beautiful, flawless Aphrodite, I say: Hope heaven is to your liking with lots of roses, birds, butterflies and funny things. Even with all your hardships, the only picture of you that lingers in my head, mama, is your everlasting smile and a cascade of giggles as you always exercised Figaro’s philosophy: “Hurry up and laugh out loud before you cry.” God bless you, mama.

Mama crossed over to meet dad  at the end of the summer, 1999, at the venerable age of 86.

I’m convinced it was a champagne and fireworks occasion out there, in heaven as the last showcase  showdown of the Perseid meteor showers streaked the dark skies down below, leaving a trail of star dust and unforgettable souvenirs of two beautiful soul mates whose destiny had been joined forever.

Mom,  dad, may you find eternal youth and everlasting bliss in each others’ embrace.

Postscriptum: This is my 20th blog. I offer it as a special dedication to my dear brothers and sisters who have lived those precious souvenirs with me and have traveled the same paths as I did to achieve wisdom and success. I love you dearly and hope to walk with you towards more adventures and gatherings.

If you want to read more about the teenage years of my mama, Yvonne, search blog for: “A groundhog’s prayer”

God bless you all.

Vigil Gizzle

The Polyglot Curse.

Poor Adam had one huge problem. When he was looking at naked Eve, after the fatal “Dies Irae”, when God chased them away from the garden of Eden, he always felt that the leaf, stuck on his huge appendage, didn’t hide it all. Knowing now the difference between good and bad, he blushed from shame. What would the neighbors think? He had to find something bigger than just a foliage to cover his humongous private parts who seemed to have a mind of their own. So, he went for a walk in the forest, found a smooth forked branch and ripped away the bark. Size was perfect and shape, even better. To avoid splinters, he carefully covered the front and back with a spotless polar bear skin. Those sweet teddies smothered in the smoldering heat. Migration was an imperative, to avoid extinction.

Since Adam didn’t want to be stuck holding on to the forked branch all day, he picked up sturdy vines, mounted them tightly on the wood and realized they joyfully resonated, when touched. The vibrating chords were music to his ears. God had taken away the garden, not his brain factory and imagination.

They say that necessity is the mother of inventions. Without even being conscious of it, Adam had left his first legacy to humanity: a twanging guitar. And God looked down and smiled, whispering: “Yep, a sense of humor and a twanging guitar will set him back on the right track. I’d bet my last apple on it.”

Eve was a great audience and when the neighbor, Cain, showed up, Adam didn’t feel shame anymore as his private parts were well covered.

But, something was missing. He decided that Eve should participate in the symphonic twang. He searched among the remnants of their last meal and found a bunch of rattle snakes’ rattles. He neatly tied them, forming a circle. How about that for a cymbal? It could even camouflage the lower half of Eve’s private parts. Her breasts were not to be hidden because they perked up so beautifully when she danced the step, step, quick, quick, step of a chacha, it would be a shame to cover them. So, out of deference to Adam and Cain, Eve left one uncovered and, out of respect for God, she concealed the other one with her silky white hand and her lusty long hair.

Adam called his band: “Dam’s Twang”.

Now for words… He started with repetitive sounds.” Yeh, yeh, yeh, twang, twang, twang.”
That was not quite good enough. He added: “I love you, yeh, yeh, yeh.” To which Eve repeated: “You love me , yeh, yeh, yeh.”
To which Cain encored: “We love you yeh, yeh, yeh!’ To which Eve chanted: “We love we, yeh, yeh, yeh, ah, aaah!”

Now, with a love like that, you know things can’t be bad…

There was so much love between the 3 of them that they multiplied and became legions. And every time they “sanged and twanged”, they added more vocabulary to their daddy tongue and they called that new found language monoglotism. They were fond of themselves. Who needs an Eden now? Eh?

They were so proud of themselves, speaking such a beautiful monoglotism that the day came when they  decided to celebrate by crowning a tyran by the name of Nimrod. With a name like that, you’re not actually dripping with the milk of human kindness!

Twit Nimrod monoglotted to them:  “Why should we live downstairs and God upstairs? Let us build a tower ending with a gimlet that will pierce the clouds and we’ll attack God. We’re legions. He’s one in three. Plus Cain swears he has only one eye. He’s getting old and weak; we can take him down and reign over him.”

So up went the walls. 5433 cubits and 465 in height, plus 2 palms, 13 others and 30 stades. “Let’s go. You, the Lady who’s giving birth, no time for procrastination, get going! We need more clay, more bricks, more steel. Throw in that bawling kid, that nursing mother and that crooked old sag into the next cement batch. They can’t even muster the pulling force of a healthy fly!”

As patient and forgiving as God was, in his golden chambers, he was slowly losing his divine temper: “Those God damn idiots! Oops, that’s my name! They think they can steal my upper chambers. Let’s see what’s in my trickology book… Ah, here it is. Chapter 9. Seventy two new languages multiplied by 72 dialects. That should be confusingly hilarious and trigger an inevitable onset of mass hysteria.”

So it is that, out of nowhere, someone spoke Hebraic, another Italian, a third Algebraic, a fourth one, Trigonometric and you get my drift? Total confusion. Huge chaos. Utter mayhem. Polyglutony spreading from everywhere, and God slapping his knees, laughing.

They had no choice but to find who talked what and, like in a good Sesame Street episode, sort out which one belonged with the other, kiss the new-born strangers goodbye and desperately spread out toward the unknown, blind adventures of the four wayward, restless winds.

And, so it came that, after 40 some years of hard labor, blood shed and useless sacrifices, the Babel Tower sat, incredibly ghostly, cockeyed, gloom-infested in its ugly pretension, a lingering testimony of human exploitation and destructive coveting.

This was the end of the Babel tower and the beginning of the polyglot curse that would plague humanity to the tune of discording polyglot twing twang sounds. (They still talk the twing twang dialect in some part of Taiwan or at least, that’s what it sounds like to me…)

And now, because of that smart Alex Nimrod and his blind followers, if we want a taste of the human pot luck, we have no choice but to learn a few new languages.

I’m a descendant of the bunch of nomads they called Franks, later on described as Frogs or French. Relax. Things could have been worse. I could have been “angrophone”. Oops, scratch this one. These good blokes have royal blood flowing in their veins. They have a queen and let me borrow her sometimes… even if I don’t ask for her. They’re generous, that way…or is it that the geriatric staff needs a break now and then?

Anyways, being born in a bilingual province forced us to live and learn the hard way.

My sister, Joanne had a cyst on her head. Ignoring the medical term, she used the french word for lump “une bosse”, and hesitantly ventured: “Doctor, I have a bosse and it’s gonna bust” The doctor, not fully understanding but seeing an emergency case here and money to be made, wanted to wheel her pronto, to the operating room, where she would have ended up with a much bigger “bosse”. But that didn’t happen. Her English was weak, not her brains.

My other sister, Micheline, gave Zellers stores quite a bad reputation when a client asked to leave her purchases and purse behind the counter while she went to get another item. Not wanting to endorse responsibility, Micheline said: “I’m sorry, Mam, Zellers is not reliable (meaning liable).” Bunch of crooks!

And then, there’s Marie’s cousin who brought her shoe to the cobbler and asked him to fix her smell (semelle=sole). The cobbler sprayed her profusely with a cheap cologne and said: “There you go, that will be 5 bucks.”

I wasn’t any smarter. One day I was telling the other teachers about a speeding ticket. In French, when you have to deal with someone, you say: “J’ai eu affaire a la police.” So I translated word for word and said: ” I had an affair with a pawliss ” I couldn’t understand why, after that, they tagged me as “Hot stuff”.

And even the Frenchies from France don’t talk like us, here, Canadian frenchies. One of them was sitting next to a french Canadian in an airplane and he asked him if he kissed his “gosses” before leaving. Now, gosses for a Paris guy means his kids, whereas in Canada, it means testicles. So the french Canadian just said:” Hell, I have a hard time tying my shoes, do you think I’ll kiss my “gosses”?

Once my frenglish was a bit better, I decided I wanted to communicate with that sponsored child in Peru. So I spent 3 months in Ecuador, learning Spanish.

Here again, I was puzzled when men started following me home repeatedly. At my age, I have nothing of the Madonna look. Saintly little old ladies meeting me on the street cross themselves. I think they see my invisible horns… So, I try to remain anony…mouse and mind my own business.

What was it, then, that triggered this puzzling, more than friendly behavior among men? The answer lied in the simple little vowels o and a. “Me gusto” or “Me gusta”. “Me gusto”, I love you. “Me gusta”, I love it. I was constantly using the first one because it had a nicer ring. Me gusto, Me gusto, Me gusto. Crazy for love.

Another term I learned the hard way was:”Mi regalo?” I had brought my MP3 loaded with Spanish songs and listened to it daily, during my leisure walk. Little Pedro kept following me everywhere, repeating constantly : “Mi regalo? Mi regalo?” Not knowing the meaning and to free myself from his constant question, I was saying: “Si, si”. My MP3 kept disappearing in his pocket and I had to retrieve it. The day after, he would come back with his regalo question and I would say yes again, to go looking for my MP3 in his pockets.

Okay, it was time for me to consult the dictionary to clear that regalo bit once and for all. This is when I learned that “Mi regalo?” meant: “My gift?” to which I was always answering yes. He eventually stopped regaloing me and started saying another 2 words: “loca mujer”, to which I said:” Si, si. I am a crazy lady.” That “loca mujer” phrase, I fully understood and agreed.

I didn’t give him a MP3 as they were not yet in the local small town stores but I did buy him a brand new pair of “zapatos”. Consequently, he changed his tune from “Mi regalo?” to “Me gusto”, and “Me gusta” but not before he introduced me to his 4 other hermanos who also needed to be ”zapatoed”.

Now that I know enough English and Spanish to negotiate my way out of trouble, I’m thinking of traveling to Italy for my fourth language but I’m hesitant for 2 reasons. What if I come face to face with Cardinal Baragan and decide to shoot him? ( Blog about “Thou shalt not.”) I don’t think the polizia would settle for a carved RIP on his grave and I could end up in “prigione”, or even worse, crushed under Baragan’s evil crook ’cause cartoon jerks like that airhead are as everlasting as Willie Coyote in hot pursuit of the road runner. You just can’t get rid of them!

My other reason is as valuable. With all that global warming, I heard, as of lately, that Venice is flooded. Mama mia! This sends chills down my old backbone! I can’t swim and I sure don’t trust the roaming gypsies and their troubadour beaus singing “O sole mio, we got ourselves a sole fish that will go belly up.” Mater Dei! I might end up 20 feet under with only my purse swimming back to shore. Arrivederci!

With that in mind, I decided it would be wiser to learn this new tongue in the comfort of my home.

Italian words are closely related to French or Spanish, making learning Italian as easy and as enjoyable as a stroll in the Vesuvio National Park. Let’s see. Here are a few newspapers.

- El Tempo Frosinone: The temperature of the frozen nun. Easy.

- La nozze de favola de Chelsea Clinton. Simple. Favola has the same word origin as “feve” which means beans in french. So the sentence spells: Chelsea Clinton has a bean up her nose.

- Duello sul caso caliendo. Ha,ha! Caliendo means warming up in Spanish. Sul in french is a term for drunk (saoul). Caso comes from french “casser”, meaning to break. I get it. A dual broke out between 2 drunks. They don’t say who won…

- Per i maestri, l’ombra e gratis. ombra in spanish: cloud, or shadow , gratis in french: u don’t pay. The master doesn’t have to pay for the shade of a cloud. How generous!

Prime crepe nel muro di omerta. Muro : mourir in french (to die). The premier died after eating Omerta’s crepe suzette, sounding the knell.

Okay that’s a beginning for Italian lessons and maybe the fino.

I tried to learn a bit of German but it didn’t work so well. I asked a German guy: “How can I ask the teacher to introduce me to basic German? He gave me a sentence to memorize : Sabberst du oder hast du tollwut?” The German teacher took a look at me and threw me out on my head. Turned out the sentence given to me meant: Are you dripping or do you have the rabies?

That’s when I decided to learn to speak American, instead. Speaking American is a bit like speaking English except that they have fancier, more trendy, more educated words like Yankee doodle, da, yep, dude, Bollywood,etc.

There’s an expression they use a lot, that no other country dares to boast about. It’s called: “Living the American dream”. We also have a similar expression in Canada but it’s kept a secret, because, from observation, we know that the simple word: “Living the American dream” triggers a series of alarms in terrorist countries. They seem to misinterpret it as: ” Live Sacrificial ox ready for the altar.”

In their eagerness to help and, attracted by the smell of ox blood, they generously provide a well spiked Molotov cocktail, exploding to the symphonic tune of a “Thunderbolt and Lightning Polka”, complete with a grand finale of self-immolation, crowd destruction, demolition derby and of course, the blood shedding ritual of the sacrificial ox.

Leave it to them; they know how to put a sparkle into a party and liven up an American dream.

So, I’ll learn to speak American but avoid whispering the bad words:”Living the American Dream” in case it’s misinterpreted.

The United Nations are working very hard to abolish the polyglot curse and develop a universal language.
Maybe, just maybe, one day, another Babel Tower will stand, built by joined hands and hearts, piercing the clouds and the dome will show a dove, the symbol of a new breed of people who speak a universal language, the language of peace, love and fraternity.

Edenmom aka Polyglotle Gizzle.

Astro… Logical Mumblejumblography.

Is our destiny a thread woven in the fabric of this universe?

In his quest for happiness and because of his anxiety, facing the unknown, man has turned to the sky for answers. Question is: Will he find them there?

Mythology has played a game of connecting the dots with the stars, inventing gods and goddesses, creating heroes and villains and did such a fantastic job at it, that myths have traveled throughout the ages. But then again, we can say the same of Mother Goose nursery rhymes and Little Red Riding Hood. So, unless you’re as naive as a child, and in search of a good bedtime story, off with zodiac signs and their soap opera gibberish.

Is our destiny really written in the sky at birth and are the stars really revealing secrets of futuristic success and happiness in our daily horoscope? Don’t count on it. The only way to predict the future is to make it yourself.

Astrology has never been accepted as a pure science. According to the “Gemini Syndrome” book written by scientists Culver and Ianna, “while the sun and the moon affect us strongly, the gravitational force and electromagnetic fields of the planets are weak.” They calculated that, for example, the gravitational pull of Mars on a baby at birth is 500 times less than that of the hospital where he was born. So don’t waste your time and money trying to trace a birth chart unless you want to have fun.

The Sun, on the other hand definitely plays a role on our mood swings and vitality as it triggers us into action. We all know the difference in people’s attitude when it’s cloudy as compared to sunny. We depend on the sun to refill our nutritional cornucopia and our vitamin D supply. As much as the sun can mean life to this earth, it can also mean death if we break the ozone wall protecting us from it.

The sun throws a bigger punch than a million atomic bombs put together.

Along with the sun comes the moon, the only other  luminary that affects us enough to talk about it as its gravitational pull moves the tides. It seems to arouse mood swings in humans to the point of emotional outbursts of love and affection.

“There is something haunting in the light of the moon.

It has all the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul and something of its inconceivable mystery.”

Joseph Conrad.

That’s it, that’s all. Amen.

Now back to the Zodiac signs.

The sky has been divided into 12 sections, each representing a time of year equivalent to the 4 seasons and the 12 months. The same stars and planets are seen clustered together, as the earth rotates, displaying special constellations named by their mythological terms.

And this is where the mumble jumble and the mystery begins for me. My feeble mind cannot explain why people born in the same month, under the same sky map, seem to have the same traits of character. Scientists say the stars and planet have no say in it. They turned the problem around in their heads and refuse to give it any type of credit, A recent study involved suicidal cases. They carefully traced their birth chart and searched high and low in the sky for tattletales of predictions and came out empty handed. So our destiny, if written anywhere is not in the planets.

But then what is it, in those Zodiac signs, that hits so close to home when describing individual common traits of people born under the same zodiac sign? And who titled each sign with a name so appropriate for each zodiac group? The chosen symbols seem to have come down from mythology but, please, tell me, if you know who’s the genius who hit the target so right on, to describe different zodiac traits.

What was the combination of elements or ingredients present in the atmosphere, at that special moment, that caused those individuals to imitate in action the constellations present in the sky at birth? We all know, for example that a Leo  has the pride and domination of a lion and that  a Pisces is as slippery as a fish.

And it still doesn’t make sense. Birth is a finished product. It doesn’t give individual characteristics like a fairy godmother with a magic wand. I think we should roll the film back to conception and ask what were the elements or ingredients then, in the seed, at conception, not at birth. It would compare to trying to find what’s in a cake after its cooked as opposed to checking the ingredients before they end up as a cake.

So whatever makes the people under the same sign act similarly will remain a mystery to me. I know there is some magic there but I haven’t found any scientist with the answer. So whatever the mystery, it remains  a mystery and we are left singing with Doris Day:

Que sera, sera

Whatever will be , will be.

The future’s not ours to see.

Que sera, sera.

So instead of trying to question the why, I concentrate on finding the” what do I do with what I know of others and how do I use it to my profit and their benefit?”.

They say that a teacher is good if she tries to know John before she tries to teach John arithmetic. The same is true for the Zodiac symbols. All the signs, no matter how cute or ugly, have the makings of  a king or a pauper, an angel or a demon, a giant or a dwarf. Famous people, geniuses and artists figure in every sign.

To help you out, here are a few pointers.

Before you deal with anyone in any type of situation that life throws at you, find the person’s zodiac sign and deal accordingly with them. If you feel uneasy about boldly asking their sign, watch their moves and mark their words Their speech and behavior will tell it all.

Aries:

March 21 – April 19.

Aries will approach you with a “Let’s tackle it” and “Don’t blame me for it” attitude.  Like the ram, they are more than ready to confront any challenge. They dislike being analyzed and boldly tell you that what you see is what you get. So, patience is your best strategy and, easy with the negative comments. Negativity won’t lead you anywhere. You’ll have a hard time reading Aries’ emotions as they are enigmatic, so you might as well sit back, watch and wait. When they’re good and ready, they’ll lay it on your lap. And when they do, you’ll be rewarded as they will prove to be helpful, concerned, focused and friendly.

These people are well grounded and intuitive. They serve their purpose in successful careers as they are hard workers, enjoy a good challenge and see it through. You can count on them; they’re no quitters.

Rosie O”Donnell. Charlie Chaplin, Jacky Chan and George Washington were born under Aries.

Taurus:

April 20 – May 20.

The Taurus character has ”Butt head with me, buddy, you’re dead!”, written between his forceful threatening horns. So you might as well find other strategies than force. They are suckers for earthly beauties, widely ranging from sport to fashion to jewelry etc. Use these diversions to get your way with them. They’ll relax and eat right in your hand. And after you have aroused their earthly instincts, although they are known for procrastination, they’ll find the right stamina to pull the cart where you want it.

Their sensuality gives them a reputation of intensity in amorous liaisons.

Born under this sign are: Audubon, Cher, Freud and Salvador Dali.

Gemini:
May 21 – June 21.
You won’t get to study the Gemini if you sit and look. He’s on the go. He’s doing 50 projects altogether and talking enthusiastically about them. He’s an intellectual, so be ready to answer What? When? How? Why.? He’s a gust of wind. Your challenge will be to pin him down, to find a way to challenge him into stability. He’s funny, energetic and a good companion but if you want perfection, he won’t deliver; move on. Just make hay with what he has: good communication skills, witty, persuasive, enthusiastic; all in all, a fantastic salesman…or a lawyer….

Born under Gemini are John Wayne, Barbara Bush, John F. Kennedy and Donald Trump.

Cancer:

June 22 – July 22.

If you don’t hear her (him) come and suddenly, she (he)’s there and someone speaks to you with a soft voice, you have a cancer in your presence. She (he)’ll inquire about things that matter to you but is hesitant about taking you in confidence into her (his) own private world. If you are in the least pushy or aggressive, she (he) will push back forcefully and defend his (her) territory with the claws and persuasion of a crab facing danger.

Your best strategy with the cancer person is to come with a peace offering. He(she) will then drop his (her) security blanket and will become caring, attentive to your need and generous. Cancers make excellent care givers as they are soft spoken, particular and good listeners. Take advantage of those skills for your own benefit but a velvet glove is recommended as they’re easily bruised.

Dalai Lama, Tom Cruise, Rembrandt and Degas are Cancers

Leo:

July 23 – August 22.

A Leo person will approach you first with a question like: “Wasn’t I great?” or “Are you proud you’re my friend?” They think of themselves as the center of the universe and they deserve the spotlight as they make sound judgment calls, are passionate about their wishes and committed to see their objectives become reality. So. if you chose to have a lion as a pet, get ready to play second fiddle to him, otherwise, he’ll eat you alive.

Leos are great leaders and their energy can definitely be put to use to stimulate group synergy and get the ball rolling. Just don’t try to stop their race to the top and don’t forget to applaud, now and then. They’ll do the work for you while you sit and enjoy a martini.

Born under Leo are Lucille Ball, Davy Crocket, Bernard Shaw and Sandra Bullock

Virgo:

August 23 – September 22.

When you cross a Virgo, he-she will have a stack of files under his-her arms or will be busy organizing the next party or storing objects in a practical, easy to find sequence. His-her concentration is so dense that when you ask: “How are you today, she’ll answer: “Third drawer, under file b, just before the Atkin’s dossier.”

Then, she- he’ll realize your sleeve has a tiny spot on it and she’ll clean it for you.

The Virgo person is a much appreciated, reliable person to have around. Let him-her take responsibility and rest assured that this capable person will bring structure to your life, wherever your organizing skills are lacking.

You will never need to be negative with him-her as he-she assumes the role of self-criticism.

Virgo shares her sign with Goethe, Michael Jackson, Mother Teresa and Shanya Twain.

Libra:

September 23 – October 22.

Libra will exercise a magnetic pull on you even before she-he starts speaking, as you will be drawn by her-his charm and lovely smile. Without even trying, he-she has the world at his-her feet and knows no enemy. She-he loves what you love, she-he favors what you favor. She-he endorses anybody’s personality. Her-his only problem is to make a choice as she-he teeter totters from one end of the scale to the other.

She-he is an excellent partner to have around if you have a dominating personality as she-he will spread peace and friendship in your entourage and always agree with you. Libras are great social workers as they are humorous, energetic and relaxed.

Libra is the zodiac sign for Franz Litz. Pierre Trudeau, Pavarotti and Mario Lemieux.

Scorpio:

October 24 – November 21.

The Scorpio’s approach to you spells:”Be my friend or be my worst enemy. I can bring you down to your knees, if you resist me but I can also show you the way to success, through hard work and brain storming. I’m proud of who I am and you’ll never guess what lies at the bottom of my heart because confiding is not in my nature. But if you gain my love and friendship, I will elevate you to new heights you’ve never experienced before as I am a silent observer and I learn. Bring me money. Bring me power. I lust for them. And be with me or against me.”

Well, with that in mind, you either get out of the way or if you like a good challenge, you slowly, very slowly approach the Scorpio, see the good in him and you have yourself one hell of a protector, a fantastic dominant friend or a 7th heaven lover.

Born under this zodiac sign: Daniel Boone, Leonardo Di Caprio, Maria Shriver and Francois Mitterand.

Sagittarius:

November 22 – December 21.

With a  permanent smile on his happy face, the Sagittarius will proclaim that everything and everyone is beautiful in their own way.  He will also convince you that, with effort and hard work, it is possible to access the impossible dream. Unless he’s pushed to the limit, you can always count on the Sagittarius for honesty and integrity as it’s not in his nature to hurt anyone. He is also a great protector of the weak and the underdog.

You’ll find it rewarding having him in your social circle as he is a ray of sunshine and he’ll never let you down. But being an idealist, it will, at times, be a puzzle to read his mind and clarify with him, what is still a dream or what is a reality.

Born under this sign: Engel, Tina Turner, Bo Derek and Billy Idol.

December 22 – January 19.

Capricorn

The Capricorn character will need to see your business card before he tackles a conversation with you. He’ll immediately ask for your zodiac sign to figure out how he can profit from your astrological market place. If he figures there’s more work than pay, he’ll simply pass you by. He’s serious, pragmatic and demands results.

Once they’ve achieved their goals, the Capricorns’ capacity to relax and enjoy life is equally great. As friends, you will find them to be selfless, straightforward and heeding.

You most definitely can take advice from them in business matters and, having them as associates is a great asset as they’ll never back stab you and will be open to all sorts of challenges where they’ll exercise caution and wisdom.

Born under Capricorn: Cicero, Muhamed Ali, Richard Nixon and Nicolas Cage.

Aquarius:

January 20 -February 18.

The Aquarius person will solemnly announce to you that he lives in the age of Aquarius where rules are meant to be broken, new trends are in and out with the old. He is modern, unique. sharp witted and accepts diversity. To the more traditional character, he may seem cold, unpredictable and sometimes maddening but his outstanding qualities work as a magnet for him, as friends want to learn more about this modern day enigma.

If you accept the challenge of a friendship with an Aquarius, be ready to step into a modern world of changes and freedom, dropping paralyzing rules.

Born under Aquarius: Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Marlene Dietrich and Babe Ruth.

Pisces:

February 19 – March 20.

“Am I coming or am I going?” or ” What’s your name, again?” Yep, you’re dealing with a typical Pisces. Lost in his own inside turmoil of intense emotions and dense meditation, the world turns around him and he is barely conscious of what’s happening. When you tell him to close the door, there’s a draft, he’ll answer to you in an absentminded style:”There’s more to life than what meets the eyes.”

His intense vulnerability, his fear of rejection will trigger an immediate, sometimes devious, slippery escape, as he goes the extra mile not to get caught in an undesirable situation.

The depths of his mental and emotional world are breeding grounds for artistic talents, especially music. The Pisces individual has so much to offer that it pays to include him in your social circle. But again, here, use a velvet glove to approach him for fear he might slip away.

As part of the “Pisces species” you will find Einstein, Seuss,Victor Hugo and Jackie Gleason.

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Well, folks this is it. Dealing with individuals is a science and an art. And if you want to get the best of each of them, the one and only science I recommend is the study of each individual’s zodiac sign. It unfolds it all in the spotlight of his personal traits and, in that light, dealing with them successfully and tactfully afterward, is a sure shot trigger to positive action.

For your entertainment, before I say goodbye, I found this amusing little pictograph in my search. I thought it was hilarious. Take a look at this one.

So, since I am a Gemini here goes my: “Who? What?  Where? When? and How?”

WHO thought of something so utterly irrational? It’s either a genius or a Pisces with intense algebraic equations in his head or mysterious revelations unknown to the rest of us.

WHAT good does it do to know that I, a Gemini, am a lovely pair of shoulders? You want to lean on me?

WHERE are Pisces going with their feet? Back to the ocean?

WHEN was it dictated that the Virgo would organize my bowel movements and alphabetize the foods I ate today so they will come out in the right sequence?

HOW did the Scorpio end up being the sentinel of my very private parts? What if he turns against me? Ouch!

May the sun, the moon and the stars light your path to the gateway of happiness.

Edenmom aka geminel gizzle.

Down with misery, dirty with luxury.

Carved in golden letters on the marble wall of  Maestro Juan Corazon de Marmol’s hacienda:

I, YOUR MASTER, in search of his happiness and yours , dictate that you, the servant will provide the following services to the letter, on a daily basis:

The  bath will be elbow-tested for temperature and my back, scrubbed before maid leaves premises.

When I undress, maid will catch my expensive clothes before they touch the floor.

My toe nails will be clipped exactly 1 millimeter and my shoes will be boned before polishing.

My newspaper will be ironed and my cashmere socks and moire under wears, warmed up.

You are expected to lower your eyes in my presence.

Maximum wage will be set at 5 American dollars for a 10 hour service and any servant who dares ask for a raise will be immediately fired.

Maestro Juan Corazon de Marmol.

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Diaries of Maestro Juan and servant maid Juanita.

Maestro Juan:

January 3rd, 2010.

Guests are like fish. After 3 days, they begin to stink.

The black limo broke down and was replaced by a white one. How humiliating! White is cheap and reserved for low class businessmen.

We found slivers of metal in the truffles imported from Perigor. At 2000 francs a kilo, that’s a ripoff.

We were out of 1929 cognac because the guests overindulged.

What a miserable way to start the year! Why am I  being so persecuted? What am I doing wrong?

Juanita:

Guests are like fish; after 3 days, they stink but the boss stinks even more. On top of doing overtime and not getting paid for it, Maria and I each spent the night trying to soothe a terrible toothache that never seems to go away. Plus, when I finally fell asleep, I was awakened by a cockroach crawling on my lips. We both dragged ourselves to work. I turned 15 yrs old on January 2nd. Maria, who is only 13, wanted to give me her sugar  bun for a gift but I refused as she needed to eat before scrubbing all those marble floors.

Maybe if I whistle, the aching sensation will go away…I have to be strong to help Maria through this  dark tunnel we are crossing. Is there light on the other side?

Senor Corazon de Marmol:

January 10, 2010:

I felt like eating caviar. So I called the pilot for my private jet and we flew  to the Gironde river in France in search of a mouthful of those expensive  Pearls. Back home I opened a bottle of dry champagne and, crushed between my tongue and my palate,  that splendid explosion of caviar in my mouth climaxed to ecstasy. But that gluttony cost me as my night was sleepless and I had to call  Luxury Kelly to massage my back and other frivolities. I asked her to come naked but wear the floor-length sable coat I had given her at Christmas. She was a beauty but I ended up chasing her away because her hands were too cold and her nails scratched too much. Hard to get good service, these days.

Juanita:

January 10:

The boss went to France and back. We could relax a bit and we even arrived 2 minutes late. We were busy  at home, debugging the black beans for supper. On top of that, the cockroaches were making a terrible noise in the walls; we tried to chase them away. The  bush rat invasion is uncontrollable. They ate part of the mattress. We’re lucky we’re still alive.

Mom, Dad, why did God take you away from us in that terrible accident? We see children laugh, play and go to school but we have to work all week and go to Saturday school to, at least, get a grade eight diploma. Otherwise, we’re condemned to a lifetime of washing toilet bowls and catering to double chin, stinky old men. Is there a justice somewhere?

Juan:

January 15:

I made a short trip to Havana yesterday for a couple of the best cigars. Only there are the perfect elements of wind, sun, soil and water to make the “puro”.  With  the smoke of such a cigar surrounding me and the fizzing of a vintage Kruz in my veins, I feel a sudden sexual outburst in my lower abdomen. But I’m tired of mistresses. What I really want are those two little virgin maids, Juanita and Maria. But what if the mafia finds out…They’re only children and the mafia boss is strict on that line. I pinched Juanita’s tight little buns one day and she slapped me in the face. Some guts, she has but it only made me more lustful. Can’t fire those two. They’re too cute looking. Who knows,…maybe one day…

Juanita:

January 15.

That low scum, fat, ugly baboon of a boss pinched me, the other day. I thought he would throw me out on my head when I slapped him. I’ll die before I let him touch me. And if he ever tries something with Maria, I’ll kill him.

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You think Senor Juan Corazon de Marmol is a bad guy?

We’re talking good guy, here. He didn’t rape the maids  and he paid them.

Fourteen million children live in slavery and are subjected to the lowest, vilest treatments one can possibly imagine. They perform forced, sexual favors. They work unbearably long hours in chain productions.  They’re locked up in murky, wet basements  and fed dog food. And the world leaders sigh and walk away.

I met 2 of those orphan children on my last trip abroad and, although I give thumbs up to the owners of the hostel where I was boarding and where they were working, for treating them with love and care, it still remained that a 15 and 16 year old orphan girls were endorsing adult responsibilities with long hours and minimum pay, instead of being out playing or within a school system, studying.

I had noticed that Emmanuella (fictive name) was biting her finger nails to the flesh, causing wounds and constant bleeding. Whenever I saw her, I smiled and softly lowered her hand. She would willingly stop, smile back at me and go back to her nail biting.

Knowing I had earned her trust, I said, one day: ” Emmanuella dear, bite those four fingernails, but the thumb belongs to me. If you haven’t touched your thumbs in one week, I’ll give you five dollars. ( a day’s salary ), and  if you succeed in not chewing any of them, I know you freeze at night because you don’t have good blankets, we’ll go shopping for the two nicest, biggest bed in a bag ensemble, you’ve ever seen.”  I dug in my pocket, gave her a pack of gum and asked the owner’s permission to allow her to chew gum until she breaks the habit.  After a month, we sat and painted  Emmanuella’s long fingernails a sparkling red and left to go shopping. Noel in Canada is nothing compared to the dazzling fireworks I witnessed, that day I spent in the stores, spoiling  those 2 orphan girls. You should have seen them, trying their new pajamas. They looked like two little dolls on Christmas eve. For them, it was their first real Shangri-la.

While I was holidaying at the hostel, I visited the dentist for a cavity and I started laughing when he gave me the bill. Ten buck. Ten buck? You’re kidding me, right? In Canada, I would have been in for a couple of hundreds. Upon returning to the hostel, the girls came to me and whispered: “Senorita, we didn’t sleep last night, because we both had a toothache.” I laughed and said: “At the price it costs here, girls, both of you, go to the dentist and don’t worry about the bill.” Turned out that Emmanuella had 12 cavities and her sister, less but one tooth was practically gone, necessitating  extra procedures. I spent a lot on crazy things for myself out there; why not for a good cause?

My last “grandma can’t say no” came when the oldest girl graduated from grade 8 and that was the end of school for her, as she cried tears of sorrow because she wanted so badly to become a hairdresser to avoid washing toilet bowls all her life. At that moment, I remembered another little girl in 1955 who had to stop going to school because, after grade 10, colleges were for the rich only. ( Blog: In Search of the Impossible Dream.) So good old softie here, dug in her purse and forked out a miserable 600$ to pay for a year’s tuition, necessary material and right to exams, at the hair dressing school.

I am not sure I had helped much because I had spoiled them rotten and, seeing me leave, they cried and I cried. I just wished I could have put them both in my back pocket but, that’s not life.

The night I was leaving, I stopped at a rotisserie to pick up a chicken breast and decided I would take a whole chicken so I would have some for breakfast on departure day. When I came to the open counter, a poor man was standing beside me. He had all of his belongings wrapped in a dirty rag at the end of a stick. Of course, he couldn’t afford to buy, so his supper consisted of smelling the food which caused him to drool like a starving dog. He was not begging, simply looking, resigned and silent. I turned toward him and asked him when was the last time he ate, to which, he raised his shoulders and said: “It’s been so long, I don’t remember.” How could I  possibly go home with my whole chicken? I gave him half. He didn’t go anywhere to eat. He dropped to his knees and that’s when I realized eating a chicken was another story; he had no teeth. Nonetheless,  he swallowed the whole lunch in 10 minutes, bones and all. He even licked the brown paper bag.

Don’t think for a minute, I’m telling you these stories to boast about them. I had no virtue in doing so, as the joys of giving were greater than their pleasure of receiving.

My only objective in telling it the way I lived it, is to give the good people  who have the means to help atone misery in this world, that extra little push they need to turn their good intentions into actions. World Vision is waiting for your call. (No, I’m not working for them, just thinking they’re reliable and trustworthy.) For 32 dollars, monthly ( the cost of a lunch at the restaurant), you’ll feed a family of 5 for 30 days. You won’t even notice it in your budget and you’ll live with that wonderful feeling attached to a good deed.May you find it in your soul to break the ankle chains off a tearful slave child or feed a starving babe. Que Dios te bendiga, amigo!

Edenmom aka frazzled gizzle.

All aboard on the train, en route for a guilt trip!

I think my guilt trips started in the birth canal when I decided I would go down feet first instead of falling on my head. I deserved much more than a frown for doing so and I accepted the good slapping on the bum that the doctor gave me.

In one of my baby dreams, I had a vision of an angel with a train engineer’s cap, yelling: “Get ready, baby Gizzle. Pack your bags; we’re leaving the station, en route for a guilt trip tour.”

The first stop came when I was 4 and I stole a lump of sugar. I felt such guilt that I dove under a bed to enjoy my loot of the day.

Then came my first school year shame when, telling a story for the grade 1 class, I had a slip of the tongue and instead of saying: “Bebe prend Pitou par le cou.” (Baby hugs Pitou) I said: “Bebe prend Pitou par le cul.” (Baby grabs Pitou’s rectum). The nun laughed and I cried from shame and guilt.

Again in grade 4, the nun had this sheet where you had to check yes/no if you brushed your teeth. How could I? We had no toothbrush.(1949. The world was still busy picking up the pieces of  bloody World War 2 and providing tooth brushes for needy families was number 99 on the list). To avoid shame, I would put yes, now and then. But out of guilt I would confess my sin on Friday. It never dawned on that old nun to start the questionnaire with: “Do you own a toothbrush?” But I got tired of lying and ended up brushing my teeth with the floor scrubbing brush.

The worst guilt trip came the day I felt like climbing the highest branch in the play tree. It gave way; I fell but not to the ground, although I wished I had. I remained suspended in mid air, stuck on the fork of a broken branch, held only by the crotch of my little panties, waiting to be rescued. I had to place my faith and trust in Tutur Menard’s skills with his pocket knife for the delicate procedure. I was cherry red and he was muffling his giggles with a groan, knowing fully well that, once down, I would slap him if he dared laugh at my tragic situation.

But that didn’t stop me from feeling shame, knowing that he had seen my very private parts and, in my head, that constituted a heavy duty sin.

I witnessed quite a few guilt trips within the family circle as well.

My brother-in-law, Germain wouldn’t miss his chance to play train operator of the guilt trip train. He would watch his young wife Lina, get ready to go berry picking in Menard’s ” No trespassing” raspberry fields. He would grant her time to get her basket 3/4 full and then, handkerchief over mouth to disguise his voice, he would yell from the top of his lungs: ” Get out of my raspberry field, you miserable thief!” Lina would come home grumbling, sharing her anger and shame with “guilty as sin” husband Germain, who couldn’t hold back his giggles until Lina realized she’d been had. After a friendly squabble they would  kiss and eat the delicious little fruits. Nobody could stay mad at Germain as he was the best joker and never meant any harm.

My brother-in-law Claude lived a hell of a guilt trip too when, in a fishing expedition, he threw a cast of the fishing rod and caught my brother Noel, right in the eyelid. Try as they may, the hook couldn’t be removed without endangering the eye and they had to go to the hospital, fish Noel, fisherman Claude and Wiggly Willie, the hooked worm, perched over the eyebrow. Talk about a guilt trip!

My brother Rheo also got to admit his guilt in another fishing trip, when he ran ahead of Roland and Alex in the swirling rapids to get the biggest trouts. The 2 of them had the last laugh when, in the rush of the vicious current, came a miserable, floating Rheo, asking for rescue. Alex caught him by the shirt and said: “Say you’re sorry, buddy.” Dunk. “Say you won’t do it again.” Dunk. “Say I’m the nicest brother-in-law you ever had.” Dunk. Contrition came in showers of apologies as the contrite wet hen was rescued but not before one last concession:”Say you’ll give us the 2 biggest trouts in your bag.” Dunk.

The guilt trips at home were not half as bad as the ones at a friend’s place. The young lad would clean his dad’s truck for 25 cents. Tired but happy, he would put his fortune under his pillow and fall sound asleep. During the night, big daddy would come and steal the quarter and the day after, he gave him a licking for having lost it. If you ask me, dad should have had the biggest guilt trip here.

Childhood’s golden hay days came and went and suddenly I was a young adult.

Then came the courting years with its “Thou shalt not”, the wedding with its “Thou shalt” (we’re talking 1960 here) and the babies with their “Thou shalt have no other god but me for the next 20 years”.
Your first guilt trip upon child birth, takes the form of a 6 months restraining order against both grandmas and grandpas. Both sets of grand-parents enter a fierce competition to see who will make the biggest handmade teddy bear and the tallest raggedy Ann and Andy. And both grandpas chip away at wooden toy soldiers until the baby’s room is so full that only a bulldozer can clear the road to the baby’s crib. By the time you reach him, he has cried himself back to sleep with a yellow dunk stuck to his diaper and suffers nightmares of gigantic raggedy andys staring at him and an army of big eyed soldiers noisily marching in. Now, that rash looks like a field of strawberries and it’s all your fault for your slow actions. On top of that, your restraining order has temporarily alienated both sets of grandparents.

Then, the toddler years roll in as baby signs his suicidal pacts with the devil to self destruct before the age of 5. His favorite toys are a pack of matches, his dad’s acetylene torch, the tall ladder reaching the rooftop and any sharp or pointed object. As you cannot possibly always be one step ahead of him, you ride the tide of guilt trips thanking the Lord he’s still alive as well as the dog with the compass sticking out of his nostril.

And off to school he goes with teacher’s reports stating that your child urgently needs to improve, this and that ad vitam eternam. To avoid guilt, you run to Little Leagues, you taxi, you sign up for summer camps, you buy oodles of toys ’cause if you don’t it’s considered child abuse. You end up with a hole in your wallet and holes in your own clothes while your son is flying to treasure island on his magic carpet.

Raising a teen is not easier as he’s been told by a modern society that you have all the duties and he has all the human rights. So, for five years you kinda flow in a sea of decisions and indecisions , guilt and assertion, restrains and freedom until one day, he’s off to college.

These are the Hamper years as they still consider home, a filling station. They come in carrying a hamper full of filthy clothes, harboring wild life and go back painfully dragging a hamper full of canned goods, beer and pretzels, leaving your cupboards and your fridge as empty as if an army of red ants had invaded your house.
And when they send you a three sentence letter: ” No mon. No fun.Your son”, you feel too guilty to answer: “Dear lad. I’m sad. Your dad”. You turn around and break your rainy days piggy bank.

The wedding day comes with its load of guilt trips. They can’t afford just yet to live in an apartment. So you spare your basement, feed them, babysit their new born and because you can’t live with the idea of throwing your own flesh and blood out, one day, when you go down to recycle the empties and the 40 pizza boxes, you spot a hair brush with gray hair stuck to it… And you reflect :”They were supposed to stay only 6 month…Has it been that long that they’re now turning gray?”
But you still can’t throw them out. It would be cruel. So you and your husband make a big decision. You concede the house to them and you move out to another town.

George Burns says that “Happiness is a close knit family, living in another town.”

You are now a senior. Your guardian angel has retired and so has your conscience. No more guilt trip; God forbid. Now you play a different game. It’s called Ping pong. “You throw it at me, I throw it back in your court.”

Oh people will still try  to “guilt trip ” you  but you don’t buy any more.

When that friend of mine asked me to babysit that 6 yr old freckled face boy who looked at my home cooked meal as “weird food” because it didn’t come with a McDonald toy and didn’t have the familiar smell of additives, I stopped and studied him. He was turning it around and smelling it as if I had served him a week old, fly infested road kill. I simply took away the plate and told him to go to the fridge and cook his own meal. He went into a temper tantrum and told me if I didn’t feed him he’d tell his mama that I was starving him, to which I simply answered: “You can tell the pope and mother Theresa as well. Why would I cook a meal that you throw back at me? You don’t eat it anyways, So, if I’m not a good cook, be my guest; here’s my apron.” Never had a problem with that little guy after that. Wiped his platter clean.

World Vision is an excellent organization. I have a sponsored child in Peru for which I pay a monthly fee of 35 dollars so they won’t starve, the husband being dead. Every year, I send the family of eight, 100$ for the nina’s birthday and they write back to me, including a photo. I can see how happy they are and how the moneys were well put to use.
But this year, I happened to fall upon an overzealous worker who tried to send me on a guilt trip stating they needed I50$ in the least to bother with the hassle. I simply told her: “No problem. Forget it. With the same amount I can buy myself quite a few martinis at the corner tavern, Good bye.”
She didn’t let me hang up. She told me she would see what she could do. A month later, I received a thank you note and a photo of the proud mother and family showing me a cart full of groceries, 2 pairs of running shoes, 2 blankets and 3 ponchos. Ha Ha!
A hundred bucks seems to go a long way in Peru.

One last piece of advice. Let everyone know that your guilt trip train has arrived at destination and you don’t ride any more. And if someone feeds you fish with bones just to make you choke on them, exercise the Heimlich techniques on you and force you to say:” I owe you”, mutter a quick thank you and walk away. You saw right through his little scheme.

By not heeding to guilt trips you have now become more God like. God doesn’t care for guilt trips. You all know the story of the mafia guy who was judged and condemned to hell for all his bad deeds. He tried to plead his cause saying he had given a gold coin to a poor man, one day. God simply dug into his deep pockets, gave him back his gold coin and said: “Now, we’re even. Go to hell!”

The big balloons of guilt are now afloat and finally drifting away. Kiss them farewell and don’t look back.

Edenmom aka as brittle gizzle.

Impossible dream path opening on dazzling Success Bld.

“Only he, who attempts the ridiculous, may achieve the impossible.” Spanish writer who inspired Don Quixote’s author.

Someone approached me the other day to write an article on how to make an impossible dream come true. And call me “Nervous Nina” but that scared the living daylights out of me. I have made so many blunders in my life that I wasn’t sure I qualified for the role of instructor. Then again they say that if you don’t make at least 50 boo boos in a day, you haven’t tried hard enough. After 70 years, I reduced my goof ups to 50 a week.

They say that “mistakes are the portals of discovery.” (James Joyce). When someone told Edison he had failed  1000 times before succeeding with the light bulb, he simply answered: “The light bulb was an invention of 1001 steps.” He was aware  that success covers a multitude of blunders.

I have yet another fear. What if my article is so convincing that it falls in the hands of an insane person, like that crazy dweeb who, to gain fame, alerted the whole USA Defense air squad, when he declared his child to be in an out of control hot air balloon?  He sure lived an impossible dream but that didn’t have a dazzling ending as it opened to a “not so dazzling” reality boulevard : a row of jail cells, and fame in the sense of notoriety.

Or what if I read in tomorrow’s Sun : ” Wacky Grandma steals jet fighter for joy ride?”

So, if you feel in the least suicidal or self destructive, or if your brain noodle factory should be closed for repairs, please, X my blog instantly.

But for that specially intelligent person who wakes up one morning with a faraway twinkle of a remote, impossible dream, please, do not extinguish. Big dreams start with small sparkles. Listen. Open up. Step into. Receive.

When Barack Obama had his first glimpse of himself, being president of  USA, he slapped both knees and said : “Now , that’s a good one. Lucky I’m not a centipede or I would have to slap 100 knees. Imagine America, from slavery to ku kluk klans to Martin Luther King to some hot chocolate president … Hmm.” Then he turned around and wrote in his diary: “Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of mind. It asks too little of yourself. It’s only when you hitch your wagon to things larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.” At that moment, in his mind, a president was born.

When Grandma Moses took her paintbrushes, at age 76 and set out to paint, people thought she mistook them for her make-up kit. But nothing could alter her determination. An artist was born.

Could you imagine what the world would be like if people would have listened to sayings such as:

“The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a fad.” President of  Michigan’s Saving Bk, trying to convince people not to invest in Ford.

“Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military use.” Marshal Foch 1911.

No pressure. no diamonds. Risk and reward travel side by side. You have two choices. Try and learn from your mistakes or do nothing and be nothing. One of these days is none of these days. To avoid making mistakes is the biggest mistake of all.

“He slept beneath the moon,

He basked beneath the sun,

He lived a life of going to do

And died with nothing done.” J.Albery

But then again, this is not you. You have brains. You have personality. You have will power. You’re absolutely the type…

To dream the impossible dream,

No matter how hopeless,

No matter how far.

Joe Darion (The Impossible Dream).

READY, GET SET, GO!

DON’T JUMP!

I’m afraid I have to start my article with a “Thou shalt not” to avoid you a leap into emptiness and destruction. We’ll get it out of the way and then proceed positively. A few things should be taken into consideration here.

1.If you or your peers should suffer physical pain or hurt from your decision, don’t do it. I’m not talking about departure here. I’m talking about self destruction, suicide or causing physical hurt in order to reach your goal.

2. If, to reach the upper rung of the ladder, in a dog eat dog world, you must break the law, climb on someone’s back, proceed ” by hook or by crook” don’t do it.

You’ll never be happy as you didn’t use fair play and you’ll spend your lifetime looking over your shoulder, to see who’s going to outsmart you or kill you.

Hitler always fed his food to his dog before he ate in case it contained poison.

Another good example is the mafia leader who can’t go to the  washroom without bodyguards and ends up dead anyways.

Closer to home, you see filthy rich people, sitting in the director’s seat and living an unhappy life because their conscience, like a bad mother-in-law, always nags at them.

3, Ask yourself if you have the maturity to proceed with the impossible dream. If you’re fresh out of college with big dreams, already tired of your job and other obscenities and thinking about stealing the director’s chair right off the bat, stop ! The chair is too big for your little derriere; you’ ll fall off and hurt yourself. The first rung is where you have to start but then, aim at the second, not the last.

4. Stay away from easy money scams. It never, I repeat, never works. Your chance of getting hit twice by the lightning is equivalent to your chance of getting rich fast. And if you do like that Mafia guy who, more pious that the pope, stopped in front of the Virgin Mary statue, to pray for the success of his expedition, on his way to hold up a bank at gunpoint, think again.You left your brain in the powder chamber of your gun and it will go kaboom on your first bang.

THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM ON THE GO

INNER DEMAND.

You wake up one morning with a need to turn your world around. At first it’s a quiet yearning but if you don’t heed, it becomes more insistent and rises to a screaming crescendo. Like a crying infant it needs attention, but don’t act. Observe.

Visualization: It shows you greener pastures, a sense of accomplishment, a letting go of your old routine, the simulacrum of life without issue. It also shows you mountains to climb, thorny roads to cross, a journey across a mad sea.

Reality check: A possible failure can occur here. You may have to pull back temporarily for a deeper analysis or take another road. Are you ready for that? If you don’t try you won’t know…

You’re weak… You dare not…But the joys of this life depends on whether you accept the challenge or not and the only way to find peace and happiness is to leap. It leaves you no choice. So you’re off and running!

Climb every mountain, search high and low,

Follow every byway, every path you know.

Climb every mountain. ford every  stream,

Follow every rainbow till you find your dream!

Oscar Hammerstein in “The sound of music.”

From this point on, don’t look behind; look ahead. You have built a castle in your head. Now is time to put the foundation under it.

Knowledge is the key to success. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. (John Wooden) Research all there is to know. Analyze carefully the pros and cons. Consult with people who have been through the ropes. Try to foresee the obstacle course and possible detours. Be ready with alternate choices.

Set aside your feeling of shame and failure. Failing , after trying hard is succeeding, as you will learn from your mistakes and people will give you credit for having tried. A man, looking at the stars, is at the mercy of puddles (A.Smyth)

I once had a friend who loved canoeing. She had a dream to be the first solo woman to ride the currents of fast moving waters, including portages, from one river to another, in the wilderness of the  Northern Ontario tundra. Her only rescue would come via small planes who were warned to check for her flares of distress. After a month of hardships and endurance, she gave up. She was still acclaimed with cheers and hurrays when she came back from her expedition. Even in front of defeat, she was stronger, got better acquainted with the wild life, the vicious currents and ragged edges of the rocks. But overall she had developed a taste for the thrill of the unknown.

We all know that Terry Fox did not see the end of his dream. Could you think of anybody who would not be awed by his determination? He inspired the whole universe and even after death, memories of him will live forever.

So. put away your fear. You can only be a winner in this game, as you will come out of it stronger and wiser.

Homework time

Set your goals with priority lists of 1 to 10. Each of these objectives should be accompanied by a doable action.

Make a plan but be flexible, as it will need constant corrections. When you look back at your original plan, so many times corrected, it will make you laugh. Going through each step will be confusing , exciting, but also exhilarating and rewarding. You must absolutely take a breather, now and then, not to burn both ends of the candle. Enjoyable activities will replenish the well of energy.

Register date, time and duration for each step of your plan; otherwise you’ll always find the perfect excuse to wait for tomorrow.

Pearl Buck says that “every mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.” Keep this in mind as you progress with poise and alertness. Be aware that a calm water can hide alligators.

Stick to your plan like a postage stamp adheres to a letter, until the moment of delivery.

Positive thinking.

Now, you have done your homework on the subject. You are at peace with the possibility of a failure that is still, in the long run, a success. From this point on, stay away from killjoys who will try to throw a wet blanket on your flight to new heights. Think positive . You’ll experience great pleasure in doing what envious people say you cannot do.

Raising your quest quotient:

A Mantra is an electric plug in, for a re-boost of energy. It will help you when doubt and fear settles in. Every time your spirit enters the smoky patch of indecision and fear of the unknown, you will repeat your mantra until you find inner peace and strength. Memorize.

Success sides with he who dares.

I want it so bad, it hurts

My survival kit is my sense of humor. I mature the day I can have a good laugh at my mistakes. Failure is not bitter if you don’t swallow it.

I’m not on the dark side of the moon anymore; I see the light glowing brighter.

A ship in harbor is safe but that’s not what ships are made for. The mad sea makes a good mariner.

Life is either a daring adventure or Nothing. Avoiding danger is no safer than exposure. (Helen Keller)

Victory belongs to the most persevering, (Napoleon)

There are periods when, to dare, is the highest wisdom (William Channing)

When one hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior. (Henry Link)

You are not scared anymore. You know for a fact that the inner voice you have heard and the persevering whisper of the wind, have transmitted nothing less than a key for unlocking the riches of a new adventure. You have fully prepared. You are strong. DO IT IMMEDIATELY. DO IT FLAMBOYANTLY!

-Come to the edge.

-I might fall…

-Come to the edge.

-It’s too high…

-Come to the the edge.

And she came and he pushed

And she flew!

Chris Logan.

Good luck, little dream weaver and may God bless your impossible quest. And if, heaven forbids, you fall, get up, dust yourself and carry on as if nothing happened. Like the great Gretski, skate where the puck is going, not where it’s been. Everyday, you are getting closer to live the impossible dream. And happiness awaits you there, happiness you would never have known if you hadn’t tried.

So, fly away, Paloma Blanca. Long term feather forecast: blue skies and red sunsets.

Edenmom aka little gizzle

THE SPOILED BRAT SYNDROME.

Nature is my playground. I love walking in bushy paths, with the sun filtering though the foliage, reminiscing of days gone by.  I often think of the effect spring had on us, children, when we were young. Winter had taken its toll and we grew tired of playing hang man, hide and go seek under the beds, guessing how many marbles we had in our hands or throwing them close to the wall to see  who could tick the jumbo one. We would spend hours watching grandpa, uncle Lorenzo, pappy, Germain  and Dollard Allard play a card game of 45 for, at stake, a chicken or a  bushel of apples. The chicken left me indifferent as it sat, headless, on the corner bench but I greedily eyed the bushel of big, red, delicious apples.  It meant an apple a day  to go to school for the whole month of September. It meant feeling like  the wealthy Martin girls and enjoying a luscious fruit at recess. They threw away the core. We ate all of ours and even ate theirs if it didn’t get too filthy, on the ground.

That neighbor, Dollard Allard was quite the happy clown.  Walking by his house on my way to the store, he would call my name and say :”Hey kiddo, give your dad a message for me. Tell him to eat sh’t. ” I  would blush like a kid caught stealing an egg and he would explode with a hearty laugh, knowing that the message would be faithfully transmitted. And hearing that, my dad would burst laughing and keep on chipping at the reindeer ashtray he was carving.

The winter nights were long and sometimes feisty. But thank the Lord we had Germain, my older sister, Lina’s new husband. He would put a quarter on the edge of the table and provoke 10 and 12 yr old Roland and Rheo into a wrestling match and acted as a referee, always taking into consideration the strength of each one. And then, it was quiet hour as we gathered around the fire to hear one of Germain’s far fetched stories. He was the best raconteur you’ve  ever heard. He had a new tale for every night of the week, and at the scariest moment, he’d suddenly blow the oil lamp out, leaving us screaming , laughing and hugging each other in the dark.  I still, to this day, remember his ” lady with the green garter”. They don’t make them like Germain, anymore!

The evening would end with Lina strumming on the guitar some quiet melody such as “Evangeline” or “Souvenir d’un vieillard”, each one of us, mingling his own tenor, alto, baritone  or soprano voice in unison and putting his heart into it as if we  were competing against the Von Trapp family.  After which we’d hop 4 in the same bed and cuddled together to keep the warmth between us. You see, the fire would  slowly die  and we had only one woolen blanket over which mama threw old army coats given to us by the Salvation army. They served as a second blanket and we appreciated the gesture. Those same army coats that went to war and back with our soldiers, were also ripped apart at the seam and remodeled to make each of us, children, a good winter garment. One more time we looked like the Von Trapp family when Maria used a curtain to sew play clothes for them all. You could tell us apart from the rest of the school children, each one of us, being the perfect replica of the other. Happy with the Happy gang!

Those winter coats were a poor protection against the severe northern climate. But that did not stop us from sliding down neighboring hills called “les bols a Savard.” We also loved to hold a weekly best snowman competition. We envied the rich children who could ski and skate. I remember once, someone gave my older brother, Noel, a used pair of size 10 skates. Temptation was so bad that I stole them, one day. They were so huge I could have stuck both feet in one skate. So I put on 7 pairs of woolen socks that I also stole from my brothers, so they would fit and furtively went to a nearby frozen patch. My feet were turning outward, inward and I spent more time on my little behind than on my skates. I came back home as happy as a queen; I had skated like the rich kids.

Spring was my favorite season. The mere feel of a soft breeze caressing our young  face and the perfumed scent of  apple blossoms and lilacs filling  the air was enough to  stir our youthful stamina as we visualized a season of new adventures, with a few inches added to our lengths. We dreamed of going into the forest to the play tree, climbing it, chasing each other to the top, finding a bird nest and counting the blue eggs, eating gooseberries before they were ripe, spitting cherry stones to anyone within range and outrunning Mr. Boulanger’s big, menacing bull. We would end our expedition with the electric fence test of endurance, to see who could withstand the current, the longest. I still have a fresh memory of that weird sensation of electricity traveling through my hands, down my 90 pounds body and making its way trough my legs before dispersing into the ground. Holding on to the wire required a lot of will power.

Ah, to be young again!

It was a bit of a windy day and I came back to reality when a sheet of paper twirled in the wind and stuck to the bottom of my long skirt.  The page was a bit filthy but decipherable. I felt like an intruder reading something so personal  and so touching but nothing happens without a reason, right? The whole text was a cry from the heart, full of  sadness and despair. I just couldn’t ignore it.  So, I thought I would put it in my blog. I don’t believe the author of this letter bothered to give it to his parents as they never paid much attention to him. He mentioned they’re surfing the net; they might accidentally Google a tag from my blog and read their son’s or daughter’s letter…

I know he’s not alone in this dilemma. If it doesn’t catch their attention, just maybe, his letter will touch a few other parents who could wake up too late and live a life of regret…

The letter read:

Out of the darkness of my dying soul, on this miserable 30th day of May, 2010.

Please mama, papa, I need your help. You spoil me rotten and yet, I feel I’m missing something, inside me. Oh, sure I have all the electronic tricks you can’t even pronounce, that are new on the market. I wear the latest styles and I’m dressed like a king to go to school. And, on my birthday and at Christmas, I get so many gifts that I can’t remember who gave me what. But my soul is hurting and  longing for something different and, at the end of the day, I feel devoid of happiness  and I wonder if you really love me or if you give me all these things to…I don’t know…keep me busy or get rid of me? Well gifts are not enough. I want more.

You see, I can go to bed whenever I want to; you don’t really care. I get all caught up in those war video games and, in them, I want to kill and destroy. Then we say a distant goodnight and I have nightmares, fighting those evil eyed cyclops in my dreams. I wake up tired because I went to bed too late and the next day at school is a blur.

Please mama, papa, can one of you drop his laptop and give me half an hour of your time to ask me how I feel, what I did today and what are my worries? You are always so busy, we never get to communicate. Am I worth nothing in your eyes?

It doesn’t really matter whether I perform well or not. Either way, as long as I don’t kill someone, you don’t comment. Indifference is the name of the game.

I look at myself in the mirror and I don’t like what I see. Sure, I have nice clothes on my back, nice streaks in my hair but also a lot of fat that doesn’t fit. How do I get to look like those teen magazine people, mom? My heart races more than I do when I run and I’m out of breath in no time. How do I develop the will power to quit eating those fat chips when I’m so lonely and I just munch to do something with my time? Dad, you seem fit; you come late at night from a visit to the gym. Please show me how. Or are you too exhausted from your own efforts for looking like some hot dude from  GQ?

Last Saturday, we played video games or wiwi all day which was kind of fun. But the sun rose in the morning and went to bed at night and I never saw it. I heard children play outside and you were both too busy to come and throw a few baskets with me. I want to go outside but nobody, my age, lives in the neighborhood. I want to see the animals in the zoo, the fish at the big aquarium, I want a ride to the school gym to play with friends. I want to break all the video equipment. Maybe one day I will.

Mama, papa, you don’t seem to realize I’m a big person. You throw yourselves at arms’ way to do everything for me. Would you please stop that. I want to learn. How can I, if you’re always 2 steps ahead of me? Every time I want something, we just go to the store and buy it. I never get to really work for it, leaving me happy but undeserving.   You’re giving me a feeling of helplessness. Please, allow me to grow up.

The summer holidays will soon be here and I feel no enthusiasm. I know we’re going to spend lots of time on video games. Could we vote on limiting the time to 1 hour per day? I want to learn something new. Could you please teach me how to play guitar? Maybe bring me to martial art school? Or find me a Spanish  teacher? Learning a foreign language is in, for cool dudes. Then I would feel my summer was not wasted away like last year’s vacations.

I am trying to remember when was the last time we went to the kitchen as a family and cooked a real good meal from scratch. Maybe last summer? Please, mama show me how to make a good salad, I’m tired of Club Price instant cooking. I have to drink a gallon of water after eating. What is it they add to the food to preserve it? I am hungry for real food, not frozen and not processed. Could we grow a garden, maybe? That would be so cool.

I have a great esteem for you both as you seem successful in your work. Could you please show me the way to success. Competition is fierce out there, teachers say. Unless you’re above the others you won’t make it. Could you please show me how to organize my day to become the best. I know it requires efforts but with your help and encouragement, I should raise to the top.

I’m not trying to scare you or anything but if I don’t fill that emptiness, self doubt and confusion stirring in me right now, I may get tempted to do like some of my friends and turn to drugs. I know it’s not the right thing but I need your help here to fill the gap. There’s got to be more to life than just video games. Is there, mama or is that it?

They say that  suicide is the second leading cause of death among teenagers. I don’t think this is the right solution but please, papa show me the way to happiness, hold my hand and guide me.

Now that I am a teen, I need a sense of direction. What’s in life for me other than tears and loneliness ’cause even with you both around, I feel no one really cares about my feelings and my dreams.

To be or not to be…

Yellow light or black hole…

They love me, they love me not…

This is no way to live. I want to turn a new page, come alive again, play, laugh. Problem is I don’t know how if you don’t teach me. Helpless . Emptiness. Clueless. Darkness. Sadness. Loneliness….Is the world such a sad place or am I missing something?…Silence…Goodnight mama. Goodnight papa.” Goodnight luv. Sleep well.” ” Ya… I’ll try.” Guess it doesn’t really matter whether I live or die…they wouldn’t even know I’ve gone missing…”

You see, mom, dad if I don’t really soon find any joys in living because right now, I feel empty inside ,  I may very well decide I don’t want to live after all because this life I’m living right now doesn’t fulfill me. Please help me see how beautiful the future  can be. I know happiness is there, somewhere, but I need your help to find my own path to it and I promise I will keep looking if only you will hold my hand…Suicide is for the weak and I know that, down deep in my soul, I have strength… or do I?

Man , that Corridin makes me sleepy…I’m so tired right now I could sleep forever…

Signed:

Only me, a nobody, a spoiled brat, a lost soul slowly dragged by the twirling waters  of a tumultuous current.

********************************

I couldn’t sleep that night. I tossed and  turned until I came up with the only decision I could think of, as remote as it might be. I went to my local library and made 50 copies of the letter. I then climbed the highest peak I could reach at my age, overlooking the schools and park areas and threw the 50 copies to the four winds, hoping one would touch home base. I then slowly came down and breathed a sigh of relief as I had done my share for spreading the word, if not to that exact parent, maybe to the folks of a similar sick child, suffering from the spoiled brat symptom.

The first star came in the night sky as I silently whispered a poem from my younger day collection:

Star light, star bright,

First star I see tonight.

Wish I may, wish I might,

Get the wish I made tonight.

And I sent a kiss on the wings of the wind: “To You, unhappy spoiled brat! May you find compassion and the strength to carry on.”

edenmom aka dazzled gizzle.