The Loss of the Virtual Self

Sometimes, I miss the days when who I was online wasn't so intimately connected to who I am in real life. I once kept a blog under a pseudonym and as a result felt a liberating permission to voice there anything at anytime about any subject. It was a wonderful forum for processing thoughts and feelings.

Today, Social Media and the sophistication of Search makes it easy to see who is behind the posts, updates and mentions.

Do you ever miss the days of virtual anonymity?

2012 Goals

I think I'll pick these...

1. Celebrate today - everything we do, each moment we live is too precious to be treated as a passing fancy. I will better live in the now.

2. Laugh harder - there are too many minutes between belly laughs so intense that they make me cry.

3. Pray deeper - it is time to embrace an ancient and powerful oracle once again.

Poetry Re-Post: Entanglement

By the last micro thread of the spider’s web
Hanging
In a delicate balancing between desire to be free
From the casket of this cocoon
And to be safe from the fall to the ground

How came I upon this entanglement
But by little things, single threads of erroneous
Actions
Quiet discontentment resting feather-light
Clinging unassumingly to the sleeve of my façade

Until

Movement through my own self
Became hindered and slowly, progressed to
Halting proportions lost in one immobile
Case
Suspended by the last filament of my attachment

To you

(originally posted 1/9/09)

Airport Waiting

While the air roars overhead
Methodical. Arrhythmic. Pulsing.
While the seconds tick away
Tick. Tock. Humming.
While cars stop and go
Lights on. Lights off. Horns.
While I await your arrival
I don't dare breath until
Your touch down
Into my heart
Again

Sunday Coffee Cup- My Sister

We all have them stashed and stacked in the cabinet. Why do we collect so many coffee mugs and cups? Some are little more than clutter. A plastic memento of a meaningless event or casual encounter with a random company. Yet, for me, what I see when I reach for a Sunday morning cup for my coffee is a cupboard full of significant life moments, memories of time well sent and people kindly known. My Sunday morning coffee cup selection is never really casual. Each time I choose a mug, I'm choosing to remember and reconnect with a segment of my life.

It seems selfish to keep all of these moments to myself, so each Sunday I'll plan on posting a Sunday Coffee Cup photo and story. Enjoy this inaugural post.

My Sister - Burp!

It was Christmas of 1999. I was just months past my departure from the ordained ministry, my spirit and my life still reeling from the trauma of personal burnout. Finances were bottomed out. I was working my first 'sales' job and beginning what would become a new career chapter. It was one of those life moments when all I had of certainty and peace was each emotion filled moment, each small rational choice and a tenuous faith that somehow God would see me through.

The trip to Myrtle Beach, SC for our extended family Christmas gathering was tentative, lacking in joy and confidence. There wer to be few gifts given, few life accomplishments to celebrate. Enter my sister.

My sister is, and mostly has been throughout her life, a mess. Sometimes that 'mess' was of the playful, mischievous childhood variety of 'mess.' A mess you find yourself admiring for tenacity, boldness and undaunted determination. Sometimes my sister's 'mess' was more of the personal life catastrophe variety. Bad choices, bad timing, bad comrades and all in the worst possible order. Mt sister was going through a 'mess' of the second variety in 1999. She was, simply put, in worse shape than I was - at least it looked like it from the outside looking in.

That year, my sister took the time and a few of her very limited dollars and bought me a Christmas present. She gave me a perfectly selected mug. When I unwrapped it, the crass imprint on the outside and the playful lettering inside the rim gave me pause. The I felt a giggle forming deep inside, a giggle that begin to bubble up into a joyous laugh.

Now, years and gallons of coffee later, I still cherish this bold, playful, timely and loving gift. It makes my Sunday cup of coffee perfect. Thanks Sis!

Surprising Naked Clicks

I just visited a favorite blog of mine and found nothing but content inviting me to porn.

There is a very popular blog I've followed for a few years maintained by a snarky, humorous and creative woman. I visit there occasionally. The blog has thousands of followers.

Today I went there only to discovery that the entire blog - content, ads, photos - had been taken over by advertisements for porn sites!

The aggravating thing is that I don't know if the author sold out, or let the domain expire only to have it picked up by an adult industry cyber squatter. Either way, a very good blog is gone.

Sometimes I hate the Internet.

The Gut of It - A Thought in Stanzas

Get to the gut of it, that tight, twisting, acidic scream of the belly
There you will find you and the you that longs to be more
Pain demands change...limits, contorts and defines

She always loved me, to a fault
When it hurt inside I could depend on her, her compliments, her advocacy, her mothering
The pain would always go, run out with laughter or perspective, or distraction

It's not her fault I could never love myself, to a fault

There is the gut of it
Loving oneself through the faults

Life missing...

enough beauty
enough stillness
enough laughter
enough creativity
enough nature
enough gentle conversation
enough waves
enough art
enough writing
enough reading
enough walking

The Reverberations of Poet's Pen

while reading a poem over at Nevine's, i was reminded of how deep poetry, and creative prose for that mater, reaches into my being. it is a living witness to the full gamut of my life, even though i am most driven to write when my spirit is in pain.

yes. for the scars that remain after the battered soul heals, for the ongoing hemorrhage of internal hope, for the fears arising from tortures too ghastly to be mentioned, for the pit of despair where rests stagnant laughter, mired in decay... for these pieces of the poet's being... there must be poetry. for in the words of the verse, hammered out on life's iron fist, i often find relief and sometimes, in moments of purest grace, wonderful questions.

The Secret to Social Media Promotion

What is Social Media good for? If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times, "Social Media is NOT about self promotion!" I get it. I get it. Companies, businesses and self made experts shouldn't promote themselves. Social media consumers don't like pushy people.

Yesterday, I discovered a secret way, quite by accident, to use Social Media to advance your own cause. It worked. It's worked many times, almost every time. Interested?




It began with an innocent enough status update posted simultaneously to Twitter and Facebook: "I'll not be defeated by momentary discomforts."  Within a moment, a couple people responded. Then quickly, a few more. The statement was liked, commented on, Re-tweeted and shared. That alone was nothing special, it's what happened next. First, some back story...

Yesterday started out bad. My dog woke me up early. I hadn't slept well and as I got up,  I felt the familiar aches and pains of my aging limbs screaming a little louder than normal. I was out of my 'good' coffee. I started thinking of the difficult things at work that awaited me... Get it? Been there?

Later, as I drove to work things got worse. I began that mental spiral into the dark side, negative thinking, one sided emotions, grumpiness. I parked at the office and before I left the car used our friends over at Foursquare to check in at work and thought, "I'm not going to whine." Then I posted the update: "I'll not be defeated by momentary discomforts."

When the responses came an interesting thing happened. I felt better, supported, understood. I know many of the people who responded. I know that on a bad day, if they could, they would have my back. My day, and in a small but important way, my life advanced. Social Media promoted me.

Just for the record - if you're ever having one of those days, let me know. I'll gladly return the favor.