Bullet

Imagine you’ve just gotten shot. 

It was a stray bullet from someone target practicing but being dumb at it, and your injury was a flesh wound, but it hurt like you had had all your teeth extracted without Novocain. 

As you are standing there in shock, clutching your side and holding it tight to halt the blood flow—without much success—the doorbell rings.  

Grunting, you shuffle over to the door, and open it. 

“Hey kiddo,” your friend chirps out with more vigor than you have heard since Halloween. “Let’s go have some fun, how about river rafting?” 

You stand there with blood seeping through your fingers, oh, no, you think, Howard (the friend) faints at the sight of blood.   

Okay what do you do now?  Pull the friend in, tell him to pull himself together and bandage you up? Excuse yourself, go to the bathroom and tape up your side and go with him? 

No, chances are you want to go to the hospital. You want a sterile environment with the best surgeon available. 

The same goes with psychological wounds. You want someone compassionate enough to allow you to vent your story, and savvy enough to see what really needs attention. (Triage.) 

Maybe the bullet is still lodged in your beautiful flesh. You want someone to take it out, and do a good job of it. (And someone to get you to your place of healing.) 

Sometimes we are tempted to bandage up our own the wounds saying they are trivial. ”Lots of people have it worst,” you say. “They got shot in the heart.”  

Yet, small injuries, like splinters hurt, and need taken out the same as bullets. 

We don’t numb ourselves with substances so we don’t feel that splinter. No, pull it out. It will hurt for a minute, but the healing will come and you will go on to live a long enthusiastic life. 

I’m not talking about people who like to whine so they will get attention, I’m talking about people who muscle it through, and ignore issues that are best faced and extracted. 

Pain is there to be attended to. Now, after the surgery is the time to celebrate. Pull out the champagne. 

In Martha Beck’s Finding your North Star (that thing that drives you, your life purpose) she says that everybody ought to go to therapy, even if you don’t need it, it’s like God is rubbing your tummy, 

According to Beck, a lack of enthusiasm for life is always a sign that the deep self is hurt. Every person’s essential self is pure productive energy, and yours will send you into a fulfilling life almost automatically if your emotional psyche is in good repair.  

What am I doing here on this page? 

Good question. 

I see a lot of people walking through life with a slack jaw. That tells me they don’t find life to be the exciting adventure they thought they would have when they came here.  And true, I want that enthusiasm for life that sounds so alluring, and so I read and write and endeavor to help myself, and in the process assist others. 

That’s my goal. 

You know they say that we can help each other because our holes don’t match? The holes I am talking about are the holes in our psychological underwear.  

So the story goes, we all have a frog’s suit that we pull this way and that trying to cover the holes in our underwear so people don’t see them. (Or even to hide them from ourselves.) Except what we don’t know is that under that underwear, is the true princess. 

 Or prince. 

This is off the subject but too good to miss. 

It’s How Wolves Change Rivers 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q

The introduction of wolves into Yellowstone after a 70-year absence, created an unprecedented flourish in the ecosystem.

The Greatest Secrets

Thank you all you readers that have stuck with me as I griped, expounded, pontificated, experimented, made a fool of myself, and wandered off course over the past few years.

You are my sunshine

My only sunshine.

You make me happy when skies are gray

You never know dear how much I love you.

do not take my sunshine away.

I saw this on a pillow this morning in a shop downtown and thought of you. 

The shop's window pulled me in, loaded with brilliant crystal as it was. I'm a sucker for crystal. Well, I picked up a champagne flute, turned it over, and the price jumped out at me, $110.00 per glass.

Lordy, I'd be afraid to wash that glass, and what price must the champagne be to pay homage to such a glass?

I carefully placed the crystal back on its shelf, and beat-feet over to the sandwich shop where I was headed.

I've been off bread for a couple of weeks, (trying to lose weight), but I'm splurging today, and having a sandwich, even bought a loaf of sour dough for dinner. My foodie daughter told me that fermenting the dough makes it healthier.

She also gave me the best explanation I've heard of why it's better to sprout or ferment wheat. I have rebelled against the current trend that the "#Staff of Life," aka wheat, is not healthy. Well, spraying it with Roundup would certainly do the trick. and apparently some companies do that. Maligning the plant. They ought to be ashamed. 

No, they ought to stop.

This is the explanation my daughter gave me: Some grains, aka, the seed of the plant, have enzymes that when the seed sprouts it releases the enzyme keeping other plants a distance away. 

I've seen this around some trees, nothing will grow right next to their roots. This is for self-preservation and for natural spacing that makes for a healthier crop or forest. 

The trouble is the plants protective enzymes can interfere with our enzymes. But help is on the way. If grains are either soaked or fermented it makes them easier to digest. Maybe then we're not seen as an intruder.

The process of sprouting uses part of the germ, the layer of carbohydrates under the seed coat that is fuel for the baby plant. As the germ is used up by the growing plant, it has fewer carbs for us, but more vitamins.


Sprouting  breaks down phytate, a form of phytic acid that normally decreases absorption of vitamins and minerals within the human body.


Ancient peoples sprouted and fermented grains. I don't know how they knew to do this. I don't know how a lot of food preparation got to be, but somehow the idea of sprouting or fermenting got into their cultures. 

Well, that's the health lesson for the day. 

As I was driving home, my sandwich tucked away so my dog wouldn't get it,  I mulled over a conversation my husband and I had last night. At home, before biting into that sandwich I opened the computer and ordered the book my husband had told me about. It was PTSD, Time to Heal by Kathy O'Brian.

It wasn't available on Kindle so I must wait for delivery, so I can't tell you much about it, except this: One is we know a person with Post Traumatic Syndrome which makes me interested, and two O'Brian tells people as they are going through her book to write down their thoughts. I believe in writing as a therapeutic technique especially for folks who tend to repeat themselves or recycle stories. This is true of many PTSD people. 

I have long thought how terrible is is for folks who must replay horrific events in their mind over and over. You have probably been plagued at one time or other with something you saw of experienced that traumatized you. I saw a movie once that I should never have seen, but it caught me unawares, and I replayed that scene for months. It finally wore out, and no longer bothers me. But with PTSD people the event doesn't wear out, it goes on and on.

That brings me back to writing out thoughts. Who would write a sentence over and over, the way it cycles through their brain? That would get old in a hurry, not to mention writer's cramps. Put a period at the end of a line and be done with it.

Sounds like a good idea.

I'm not saying writing will cure a person of PTSD, I haven't read the book yet, and I don't know much about the condition. I do know they say there is no cure, no blood test for it, and conventional therapy is mostly ineffectual. 

Okay, this brings me back to the eyes. 

Remember a couple of months ago I wrote about the #Bates Method of Vision training, and was surprised that so many people wanted to know about it.

They say that the eyes are the windows of the soul. We know there is a direct pipeline from the eyeball right into the brain. In fact, it is as though a part of the brain has been pulled into a long strand and attached to two stimuli seeking balls.

We know from unconventional therapy that tapping around the eyes while thinking of a particularly painful event can lessen the painful memories. If a person is kept from rem sleep, their natural rhythms get messed up. That tells us that eye health is important to our overall health. There is a therapy regarding tracking of the eye that I've heard is beneficial.

Don't hold me to this, it is an hypothesis worth looking into. I'm just wondering if the eyes have the answer.

Conventional medicine does not have a cure for PTSD. There is no chemical test for it. It is diagnosed by symptoms, and those symptoms are then compared to a chart of drugs. when the symptoms and the possible help of the drug line up, that drug is prescribed.  It's all subjective.

What if there really was a cure? 

I'm going to read the book.

Well, that was my morning, except for that input from my publisher.

Well rats. 

Who wants to buy a book that isn't touted by Oprah?

I have some work to do. 

So, how was your morning?

I'm Working on It

After I mentioned Howard Beale"s speech from the movie Network last week, I got this from a reader:  

‘Speaking of leaning out the window....I'm reminded of Jason Robards in 1000 Clowns...  

  

Murray: [Leans out his apartment window] This is your neighbor speaking. I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say that something must be done about your garbage cans in the alley here.  

[raises voice]
  

Murray: It is definitely second-rate garbage. Now, by next week I want to see a better class of garbage, more empty champagne bottles and caviar cans! I'm sure you're all behind me on this. So let's snap it up and get on the ball!  

Last Saturday I should have asked for two brochures from the Tesla Dealership so I could throw one in the garbage. That would be classy garbage. Now I'm working on emptying a champagne bottle.  

On Saturday my youngest daughter and I traveled to Portland. We stopped along the way to take in a Tiny House show, and then on up to our newly discovered favorite lunch, the Thai Lettuce Wraps at the Cheesecake Factory. All the vegetables are so fresh, the chicken is seared just right, and the three sauces make it perfect. I suppose it’s meant to be an appetizer, but we each order one. It’s our main meal.  

El Yumo.  

After lunch, we wandered into the Mall and I was attracted to a fiery red Tesla car sitting in an open showroom. A red car with seats the color of new-driven snow. Jazzy. As I was snapping a picture of the dash--that had no dials, no speedometer, no clock, no anything except a slit that was the air vent, a salesman slipped into the passenger seat beside me, and asked if I wanted an explanation of the car.  

Well okay. I was sitting in his car after all. 

 A display screen sat directly in the middle of the dash--ha ha, dashboard, an old term for horse and buggy days, a protective device to keep the mud from splashing on the wagon's inhabitants. That car probably had a device that would spit on mud splatters, and then a little rag would come out and dry it off.

All of the car controls, except for steering and gas are done on that screen--Oh, it will do that too, drive that is. That car will drive itself and skitter into a parking place without any help from you. (You do need to take hold of the steering once in a while so they know you’re still alive.)  

The salesman  proceeded to explain the bells and whistles that came standard on that car. It never needs maintenance he said, it never needs the brakes replaced, and it will travel 350 miles on an electric charge. If you are sitting in a restaurant and it gets to be 110 degrees outside, and who knows how hot inside your car, simply remotely set the car's temperature at say 72, and a cool car will be waiting for you.   

“What about a dog in the car?" I asked. Well, that’s taken care of too, set the temperature, the battery will run the air conditioner, and a notice will pop up on that mammoth display screen, “Dog in car. The temperature inside is 68 degree.” Anyone snooping through the window, or a policeman checking, will see that you have taken care of everything.   

“How much does the car cost,” I asked.  

“Forty thousand,” he said.  

“What?” I exclaimed,” that’s less expensive than the Chevy Silverado I looked at last week.”  

Well, the price went up to $50,000 or $55,000 in the course of our conversation, still, I thought Teslas were in the $100,000 range.  

This isn’t a Tesla commercial; I became interested in electric cars when my eldest daughter bought one—not a Tesla, and I found that you can travel across the country easily from charging station to charging station. It’s all mapped out for you. 

I commented that I never see a Tesla on the road, or else I don’t recognize them. They rather fit in with other sedans. My thought is they ought to stand out as a Ferrari did in the seventies. (That red one stood out. When I asked how they kept those white seats so clean he answered, “You know how many people sit in this car each week? The seat upholstery is made of recycled pop bottles and mushrooms." (Mushrooms? I still don’t have the answer to that one.)  

And then coming home I came up behind a car in the I-5's center lane going exactly 65 miles per hour. “It’s a Tesla,” my daughter exclaimed. I followed it for a while as it stayed steady in the center lane at 65 mph.” I bet they have the speed control set,” I said, “This Prius is going to pass that Tesla, Check when we go by to see if an old person is driving it.”  

Nope. It was a couple of young people dancing. A pillow covered the steering wheel and arms were waving all over that car. They were partying hardy. 

Take a lesson from the kids. Party hardy. 

Come on, I expect to see some classy garbage in your bins this coming week.