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5:16 pm

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."
— Rainer Maria Rilke

SELF-IMPORTANCE

Self-importance can't be fought with niceties.....Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it--what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow men. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone.....Self-importance is not something simple and naive. On the one hand, it is the core of everything that is good in us, and on the other hand, the core of everything that is rotten. To get rid of the self-importance that is rotten requires a masterpiece of strategy.--Don Juan

If everyone has their own path and struggles, demons, and sicknesses; then not everything actually happens to (or because of) us.  Sometimes we just get someone else's destiny splashed on us.  

There are almost 7 billion of us trying to work our shit out or operating on some fucked up autopilot.

Bad things happen and we all get hurt.  Some of us a lot.  There is no denying that but maybe we could save a little therapy money if we didn't insist on taking everything so personally.

Love is

Corinthians says love is "patient and kind. Love knows neither envy nor jealousy. Love is not forward and self-assertive, nor boastful and conceited."

Buddy Guy and Bonnie Raitt say love "comes out of nowhere baby, just like a hurricane and it feels like rain."

 

Rama-Kandra, who is a program from the Machine world in the Matrix says love is "just a word, but what is behind that word is what matters."

Oliver Wendell Holmes says love is "the master key that opens the gates of happiness"

Peter Ustinov says love is "an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit."

Dorothy Parker says love is "like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it, and it darts away." 

But for those most effected, the wisest among us, of which I am one:

Love 
is 
you.

Why do I Write?

"Why do I write?  It's like I am slowly untying knots that have somehow formed inside me emotionally."  BBC interview heard on August 5th.  I have failed you, I cannot find the author of the quote.  Lo siento.

I have known for years that writing was an activity that I too should engage in on some level.  And for all those years, I have known why I did not write.

• I didn't feel I had anything to add to the conversation.
• The things I had to say, my stories, might be too much, perhaps seem like works of fantasy rather than truth.  
• I didn't want to be discounted or doubted or, much worse, find out I was a failure as a writer. 

Now I am writing and hearing this man's reason for writing resonates with me.  I liked the simple imagery of the emotional knots.  Imagining each admission or disclosure as a relief and release, a knot dissipating and leaving my being freer and lighter with each key strike.

This was my reason for starting hippos cant dance.  My hope is that post by post, the specters will lose their power and energy over me. Silence has always been their biggest weapon since silence is a weapon best suited for children.  But I did survive the first molting and cannot be made to be silent any longer.

There are many stories that may or may not make their way onto these pages.  I am not attempting the raw stages of some American prose.  My ambitions are much humbler than that.  When the buzzing, pressure, and otherwise distraction fills my inner reality, I create a post. There is a general loosening, muscles relax, concentration returns. A knot unties.

The biggest benefit of posting is I don't have to worry about what someone thinks or how some terrible recounting might affect a listener.  My journey is toward humanity; commonality; and away from secrecy, shame, and freakdom not to inflict discomfort on or elicit sympathy from anyone.

In the favorite words of a wonderful, imaginary friend: 

It is what it is.

Why do I write?   

For so many years, under direct duress, I couldn't speak my truth.  I kept secret after secret deep in my chest carrying the shame as my own.  Now, I lay those secrets at the graves and the feet of those responsible.  I give the burdens back to their rightful owners.

Why do I write? 

It's my revenge, my reclaiming, my reckoning and my right.  

Why do you (or don't you) write?

Psalm 124

Had it not been the LORD who was on our side,

         Let Israel now say,

Had it not been the LORD who was on our side
         When men rose up against us,

Then they would have swallowed us alive,
         When their anger was kindled against us;

Then the waters would have engulfed us,
         The stream would have swept over our soul;

Then the raging waters would have swept over our soul.”

Blessed be the LORD,
         Who has not given us to be torn by their teeth.

Our soul has escaped as a bird out of the snare of the trapper;
         The snare is broken and we have escaped.

Our help is in the name of the LORD,
         Who made heaven and earth.

This is my favorite Psalm.  I definitely had help.

FOR KATE DANGER

Why is it that you think people get married?

Because we need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on this planet. I mean what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything-the good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things...All of it. All the time, everyday. You're saying your life will not go unnoticed, because I will notice it. Your life will not go unwitnessed, because I will be your witness...

"Shall We Dance?", Miramax Films 2004 

SPECTER ATTACK

First, a brief tutorial.

There are two types of specters:  Drones and the Maternal.

Specter attacks are extended periods of time when the residuals run constant in either the background or foreground.  Before the death, specter attacks were primarily drone related.  Since the death, there is a much higher percentage of maternal ones.

A situation is the present, reality, non-specter related happenings.  Shit they try to fuck up.

Drone attacks are usually sexual, desperate, muting, and generally creepy residuals caught in my peripheral vision like cockroaches in the corner of a dim room.  Visual and emotional attacks that drop a mesh filter over the situation.

Maternal attacks are vicious, unrelenting auditory and emotional oceans incessantly and deliberately delivering wave after wave of breathlessness, paranoia, fear, and absolute helplessness.  The waves crash in my ears mimicking the rhythm of my heart.  I have the feeling my head is below water; the sounds of the situation far off and distorted by its weight.

Maternal attacks are residuals of fucked up messages about personal worth, societal value, likability, and caste level.  They are constant buzzes in my ears directly interfering with all interactions increasing steadily to ridiculous decibels.  Occasionally, I can break the momentum with an internal shout of STOP.  All the while, I smile and engage in polite conversation.

Its the ridiculousness that saves me.  I might buy into the messages if they weren't so fatalistic.  Am I really so unlikable?  Does everyone really dislike me?  Is there really nothing I can do right?  Can anyone really have no value?

Once I catch on, there are things I can do to protect myself until the attack fades.  Since the death, these are usually all day attacks.  Hopefully that will change.

Specter Attack Remedies:

Drone attacks are pretty easy.  I can choose to not focus on the residuals and continue moving forward.  They are cowards just like their creators and require my attention to exist.

Maternal attacks drain the blood from my body, the breath from my lungs, and steal my ability to concentrate.  My only recourse at this time is to ride them out.  A few techniques can make them manageable:

• Drinking.  Drinking smooths out all sorts of wrinkles in life including Maternal attacks but it is not usually the best solution.
• Exercise but the Maternal attacks have a certain psychosomatic affect on my health.
• Eating.  Hot wings and Ben & Jerry's.  But not today, I'm on a diet.
• Movies but only these and in this order:  Stranger than Fiction, 50 First Dates, and on rare occasions, the Wedding Singer.  Don't mock the process.

Today is definitely going to include the Wedding Singer.  

I'm pretty sure tomorrow will be better.

WELL, DO THEY?

I have to wear t-shirts everyday My underarm moves when I wave I did that thing with my face My features are changing as I age I find myself having trouble pronouncing some words I really don't like being around people most of the time I sound just like her in a recording Sometimes I think I'm a martyr and a victim I do think people can let you down Sometimes I don't understand my own mind My weight increases a little more each year I believe in monsters, ghosts, and the power of the mind Most people don't know me very well I feel like a child alot of the time I haven't resolved all of my issues I do this blog because its easier than talking to someone about this stuff My hair is thinning I don't have many real friends I am getting less attractive as I age I live with fear I'm ok just being with my dogs I come from crazy genes I have nothing to show for my life I am poor I had so much potential I expect you not to like me



Do these things make me like her?

IF IT WALKS LIKE A DUCK...

"Don't let's call it child abuse. It's the rape and torture of children."

     - Author and journalist Christopher Hitchens 

"Certainly even the most ardent parishioners cannot excuse the inexcusable and must realize that there is no wiggle room when it comes to the rape and torture of children"

     - David Love, Exec Editor, BlackCommentator.com 

Thank you.

It is about damn time for the right terms to be used.  Rape and torture.  

Not

     paedophilia

     Not

               molestation

          Not even

                          child endangerment   

If it walks like a duck...  

Using those watered down terms only reinforces the belief that the resiliency of childhood sees us all through regardless of what terrors we may face.  Using those terms equates these detestable acts with grazing a woman's breast on a crowded train.  An accident, an oversight, an error in judgment not to be repeated.

The rape and torture of children.  

Acts that are committed by people who, science has shown consistently, cannot be "cured"  or deterred from their deviance.  

(A prognosis these creatures share with serial killers.) 

Acts that, if they were committed by regime members in far away countries, would be considered by the global community to be war crimes. 

Serial killers commonly receive death penalties.  Those regime members commonly receive death penalties.

Child rapists and torturers get...

     20 years in prison?

     Counseling?

     Voluntary castration?

     Nothing?

There is no statute of limitations on murder.  Presumably because the person is irreparably harmed.

irreparable –adjective.  not reparable; incapable of being rectified, remedied, or made good: an irreparable mistake.

  

The rape and torture of both adults and children does have varied statutes of limitations depending on your state.  Better get your accusations in early, kids!  Are we back to that resiliency mythology again?  Why is that?  As long as God shines another sun, there is always that hope that tomorrow will be the great eraser of past iniquities!  

 

There would have been a loud sound here but I seem to have misplaced my bullshit button...

 

The rape and torture of children.  Where does this fall in the order of society's priorities?   

PETTY TYRANTS AND THE POWER OF PERCEPTION

"Petty tyrants take themselves with deadly seriousness while warriors do not. What usually exhausts us is the wear and tear on our self-importance. Any man who has an iota of pride is ripped apart by being made to feel worthless."  -don Juan

"Nothing can temper the spirit of a warrior as much as the challenge of dealing with impossible people in positions of power. Only under those conditions can warriors acquire the sobriety and serenity to stand the pressure of the unknowable."  -don Juan

...or as my new favorite church sign said, "A diamond is a piece of coal that stuck to its work."

"Altering your perception is the only act necessary to bring heaven down to earth."  -me

1,900 SONGS

Four days.  Ninety-six hours.  Five thousand seven hundred and 60 minutes.  The clock ticked steadily 345,600 times.  The radio played approximately 1,900 songs.

Inside, sheltered from blowflies, frigid night temperatures, bright morning sunlight, prying eyes of strangers and neighbors alike, she waited.  For four days.

For four days, nature compelled the flesh, expanding and tightening against cotton fabric, reaching for equilibrium between the seen and unseen.  Swollen belly pregnant with promise.

Restoring continuity between the body and the spirit so the visage conveys what laid inside.  The spirit firmly encased in its hellish quagmire of specters so much so the body crossed vast eternities to rejoin it.  

Four days it took to portray the decay inside.  Decay so jealously guarded and secretly nurtured behind a translucent paper-thin hull until that day when it burst out a seedling reaching for the sky.

For four days, the angels of mortis, autolysis, bloat, and liquefaction appeared in succession graced her each with a kiss.  

In four days, they brought in death a balance that sixty years of life could not.

Was it a phantasmagorical vision or a final moment of probity?

AUTOPILOT

Out of damp and gloomy days, out of solitude, out of loveless words directed at us, conclusions grow up in us like fungus: one morning they are there, we know not how, and they gaze upon us, morose and gray. Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow in him.  -Friedrich Nietzsche

HAUNTING

Haunting–adjective 1.remaining in the consciousness; not quickly forgotten: haunting music; haunting memories. –noun 2. the act of a person or thing that haunts;  visitation.

Residual Haunting-repeated playbacks of auditory, visual, olfactory, and other sensory phenomena that are attributed to a traumatic event, life-altering event, or a routine event of a person or place, like an echo or a replay of a videotape of past events.

I am haunted.  Rather I am coexisting in a body and mind with many residual hauntings.  It's comparable to acting in a movie while projectors are casting images of other movies onto the scenery and the actors and speakers hiss with distinct, yet unintelligible voices.  And each image and whisper affects and distracts me from the scene at hand.  Sometimes so close I have to look through them, sometimes so loud it's like a tornado around me no one can see or hear.

I have an appointment scheduled to find out about EMDR.  Maybe that will help.  It's time to weed out the specters.  Since she died, they think they run the joint. 

IN THE BEGINNING

In the beginning, there was timidity.  The people I know who blog are smart, articulate, interesting and I don't know how I fit into all that.  The year of the death has started so many different threads of thought, introspection, and re-evaluation that I need a way to straighten it out, put it in order. So I thought my own little secret blog would be the way.  A glory hole I can whisper into anonymously, confessing my humanity to the inhuman, and frequently inhumane, internet universe.  I started one years ago.  Set up the template but never posted any entries.  In fact, I don't even recall what it was called.  Something about big skies, I suppose, because I was using variations of big skies woman at the time. Lack of brevity may be my biggest challenge.  After all, someday someone might accidentally wander across hippos cant dance and I should be respectful of their time. The reason for the blog:  my mother died, I am 43, I am molting and its not happening easily, I have my lobster, and Michelle Bachmann is seriously being considered as a presidential candidate.  The hope for the blog:  I finish molting in time to enjoy the rest of my life.