Author Archives: Kami

Teeter-Totter, Bread and Water

Posted on May 28, 2013 by Kami

It’s Gratituesday! Today I am thankful for the concept of gratitude. I know that sounds like a circular thought, but it’s not, at least in my case.

Seesaw with a crowd of children playing

Seesaw also known as a teeter totter

Consciously looking for the good things in my life brings a bit of balance into my mental equations.  I lean toward the depressed and pessimistic side of life. I tend to hover on the precipice of what bad thing is going to happen next. I’m scouting around for whatever it is, worrying, fretting, anxious. It’s as if by anticipating the difficulty I might be able to keep it away, or gird myself for its onslaught.

Then I stumbled on the idea of something quite the opposite to my natural inclinations. The idea of gratitude found a foothold in my negatively charged brain. Now gratitude is my fence, my force-field against depression, my castle wall of fortification against an abyss of sadness that seems to always be pressing in. Gratitude bring balance to my varyingly unbalanced mental life.

More effective than medications, gratitude has kept me, for the most part, balanced and reasonable. I may not be outright optimistic, but I’m at least not wallowing in self-pity and overwhelmed by life’s constant barrage.

English: Vegetable market in Heraklion, Crete....

So I look for the good stuff. I’m thankful for the simple things. I embrace the happy parts of my day. As a result, my mental health stays healthy-ish.

Yeah, the tough stuff is there, hovering everywhere, clamouring for attention, screaming for acknowledgement, crying out for my time and efforts. It occupies plenty of my time and energy. Like junk food for the soul, it’s very tempting to give in and indulge in sorrow, self-loathing, criticism and cynicism.

Gratitude serves as mental fruit and vegies, healthy food for my starving psyche. Gratitude quietly saves me from myself and helps me feel whole and well.

For that I am very grateful.

Categories: Gratitude, Gratituesday | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Don’t Forget Snowballs For Memorial Day

Posted on May 26, 2013 by Kami

Memorial Day conjurs picnics, boating, family get-together’s, barbecues and the launch of another summer. Hopefully, after you read this post by a fellow blogger, you’ll include, if not highlight, the real gifts and reasons behind this holiday.

Gina left the mall's avatarGina left the mall

Burgers, beer, sunscreen…on Memorial Day Weekend there’s shopping to do, beaches to umbrella and pools to cannonball. Even so, I’d like to suggest one more thing to the list: snowballs. Specifically, Snowball Express, a charity that serves the children of men and women who died serving our country. Since Memorial Day is meant to honor these men and women, doing something for their loved ones seems like a fine idea.

A Snowball’s chance

Snowball Express, “creates hope and new memories” for children of the fallen by organizing special events for them. It’s a chance for these kids to have fun and be with other kids in the same situation. Also, the families get to see that they are not forgotten or alone. Past events include baseball games, magic shows, and concerts.

Now you know

The number of people in active duty is small, about 1% of the population. So not…

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Categories: Death, Gratitude, Love, People, The World | Leave a comment

“It Has Its Ups and Downs”

Posted on May 25, 2013 by Kami

Elevator Operator.

How many people do you know can list that on their résumé?

I can.

Yeah, I know, totally cool.

Or Not. Depends on your perspective.

I was in college. The summer between freshman and sophomore year I decided to stick around campus, get a couple of part-time jobs, take a summer-sized load of classes (very few, but daily) and hit as many parties and social events as I could.

The copy/print shop job I really wanted went to someone else. I ended up applying for anything and everything that was left.

Summer Jobs

I got hired for two positions on campus. Not sure the first job had a real title. Basically I either rubber-stamped the glow-in-the-dark ink on the hands of students going into dances, or I held the fluorescent light that showed they’d already been stamped. Dances were always on the weekend. It kind of cut into my plans to go dancing myself, or going out much at all.

English: LED elevator floor indicator

The other job I landed was elevator operator. There weren’t that many floors in any of the buildings on campus, but summertime brought out the bored students, the local teens and the let’s-make-out-in-weird-public-places couples. So they wanted someone maintaining control of the elevator. I usually only worked when there was “an event” in one of the restaurants in the student union center, or if there was a dance. Again, weekend hours mostly.

Fortunately, the elevator stayed busy. Surprise registered on most people’s faces as they stepped on board and saw an elevator operator.

It was a sort of dream come true for me.

Back in the Day

I remembered as a kid, only a decade or so earlier than this summer job, riding the elevator in JC Penney. The elevator operator sat on a small metal stool next to the buttons. He’d open the door with a button, and then manually push open the crisscross cage doors, and then we’d step in the elevator, my over-active imagination peering into the miniscule gap between floor and elevator, fearing for my life.  When we were all loaded into the small metal box, the operator would lean out a bit through the open door and holler, “going up?” in a sort of question/statement.

English: This is the controls on a dover elevator

Seeing no one, he’d pull the gate closed, and then push the button that closed the solid metal doors. Then he’d ask, “Which floor please?” To which each person would reply with a number and a “please.” Going down offered the basement level as well.  I’d wait for that swooshy stomach feeling as the elevator pulled up to the next floor or dropped down a level. I loved/hated that feeling for its mixed sense of excitement and dread.

I always wanted to push those buttons, make them light up, be the one in charge of the numbers over the door as they changed. I thought it’d be a great job to have. It came in a close second to candy counter salesgirl.

Dream Come True, Sort of

I wasn’t lucky enough in my new job on campus to have a stool to sit on, or a gate to pull shut. Everything was automatic. I did get to ask which floor, and push the buttons. By time I was in college no one said “please” or “thank you” when they requested their floor, or when they exited the elevator. I earned some spending money, met tons of people, learned to make small talk in a brief amount of time, and became comfortable being around strangers. It was a good experience.

Very Punny

There was one perk to that job that I really liked.  When my roommate or a friend would ask how work had been, I could reply, “Oh, you know, it has its ups and downs.”

I could never resist a pun, good or bad.

What’s the most unusual or interesting job you’ve ever had?

Categories: Memory Lane, The World | Tags: , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Summertime

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Kami

School’s out today for the next couple of months. No more national anthem wafting across the park every morning at 8:45. No more a.m. and p.m. traffic as parents drop off and pick up their littles. No more playground noises, of tether ball chains against poles, kick ball, swings squeaking, girls screeching, boys in mock battles, girls piled up in little cliques like so many fall leaves blown into a pile.

Ah, the summer freedom of children.

Months stretch out before them in a vast sweeping prairie of waving grasses, unexplored trails, toes in cold streams, popsicles dripping, and entire days spent swimming.

Oh wait, that was my childhood. Do kids still do that?

English: Cottonwood Trees in Lions Park

There’s still a sense of freedom, but I get the feeling that it’s only a pale shadow of the freedom I enjoyed.

I took off running by ten every morning to my best friend’s house. From there the two of us would race to the park, with its open grass fields, a swampy tadpole pond, a meandering creek, a cottonwood tree-filled valley, ivy covered hills, rusty barbed wire fence lines. We spent most of the day there roaming, dreaming, romping, hiding, in imaginary wars with other kids who also played there.

Completely unsupervised.

Yes.

Not an adult in sight. Can you imagine it?

It was a different world. An innocent time. A protected, sweet existence.

A small pocket of pure perfection.

Categories: Memory Lane, Nature, Outdoors, The World | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Before I Kick the Bucket

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Kami

Bucket List, Schmucket List.

I’m probably one of three people on the planet who doesn’t have a bucket list.

So shoot me.

I’ve tried to make a list. I’ve started one. There’s one thing on it. I look at it and smirk. The smirk morphs into a self-deprecating laugh, which then mutates into a sinister shoulder devil.

The shoulder devil proceeds to tell me what a loser I am. The little dude whispers that I am what my life hands me. He murmurs things about obligations, commitments, real life and being self-less. I know, not your usual shoulder devil by any stretch. This one comes from the ranks of the Discouragement Platoon. He uses whatever he can get his hot little hands on.

He’s been quite effective so far in keeping me from even considering possibilities. Everything I can think of sounds unrealistic, undoable, pie-in-the-sky silly to me.

I don’t even start the list, I think of it in terms of questions and this shoulder devil smacks them down.

  • Write a novel? Right…that’s funny. When would you have time for that and who would read it anyway?
  • Hike the Grand Canyon? Are you kidding me? You’re seriously considering hauling this body down and back out of the biggest hole on the planet? Don’t you get out of breath going up a couple of flights of stairs?
  • Explore Alaska? Sure, right after you scrape together the rent money and sweep up what’s left over.
  • Build a cabin in the mountains? Silly girl, perks like that are for the beautiful, smart, adventurous people.
  • Eat at a five-star restaurant? Um, aren’t you the meatloaf and pot roast queen?
  • See the Statue of Liberty in person? Remember you don’t like crowds, big cities, the east coast?
  • Go on a week-long mountain bike trip? That’s really funny, have you seen what you look like on a bike? 

Sand bucket on the beach of Punta del Este, Ur...

Okay. So maybe I shouldn’t aim so high. Maybe my bucket list could take on a more realistic, more achievable, more down-to-earth feel.

For instance?

Like, oh, I don’t know.

A bucket list by definition is usually big important stuff, right?

So I’m stumped.

I could try looking at it a different way. What if I had less than a year to live? Then what would be on my list. My shoulder devil growls a low deep gurgle of aggravation and simmers himself into a poof of steam, disappearing for a while.

Phew.

  • See my other two daughters get married. Enjoy that look of bliss on their faces. Throw a big party for each of them.
  • See my granddaughter whose arrival is due in 3 months.
  • Tell my kids that I love them more than life itself.
  • Spend time with the other two Grands. Lights in my life!
  • Make sure MSH knows I cherish him. Thank him for the wild ride we’ve been on together. It would have been horrific without him.
  • Hug my Mom and Dad and try to infuse eternal gratitude into the hug.
  • Hang out with my siblings, chatting, laughing, reliving the good old days.
  • Apologize. Mend fences.
  • Write down everything I can get out of my head and on to paper about who I was, who I am, what I learned.
  • Laugh a bunch.

That would do it. It’s what’s really the big stuff. The big stuff that matters in the long run, in the short run, and while running out of breath.

Maybe I should get started.

That other stuff, may or may not happen. Whatever.

But the big, important stuff, I need to get ‘er done.

Categories: Death, Family, Humor, Relationships, Wondering | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Skipping Rocks

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Kami

It’s Gratituesday! Today I am thankful for all the time I’ve spent skipping rocks. Sending a small flat rock spinning out of  my hand to dance across the surface of the water vibrates some string in me.

Perhaps it’s the wonder of making something heavy and utterly unfloatable perform such a magical feat.

Perhaps it’s the surroundings of shore, sky, water, wind and trees.

Perhaps it’s due to the contemplative nature of finding just the right shape and size of flattened, smooth rock.

Surface waves

That perfect chord vibrating deep within me might even happen as I watch the circle of ripples each skip of the rock creates. One, two, three, four, FIVE! I haven’t ever skipped much further than five bounces on the surface. Some people have just the right touch and can make those rocks fly, barely touching the surface multiple times.

Water fascinates and soothes. Listening to waves, whether the quiet lapping on a pebbled lake shore, or the roar of wave crashing into rock and sand at the ocean, both lull and awe. Like watching the earth breathing, in and out, in and out, I find comfort in the rhythm and consistency.

Add water to the equation of a bored or stressed child and the sum is contentment and happiness. The ever-changing yet constant quality of  water makes it the perfect toy, the ultimate entertainment. Filling container after container, sloshing, splashing, pouring, dripping, diverting, puddling, spraying, flooding. Bath time could last for hours.

As opposite as night and day, hot and cold, rocks and water. Rocks resist movement and change. Rocks just sit there. Or so it seems. The change rock undergoes is slow, nearly invisible, requires eons. And yet there is evidence of change in the round smoothness of river rock, the zillions of grains of sand on a beach, the fissures and arches of sandstone, the worn down hill of a former mountain.

ENJOYING THE LAKE SHORE - NARA - 551571

Can’t say I’ve ever heard or seen a mom say, “here’s some rocks, have fun, kid.” Not likely. It takes some direction to know how to make a rock become a toy. Or a tool for contemplation. Or a form of competition.

Rock and water.

I could use a couple of hours sending some rocks skipping across the water. Glad I learned how. Extra happy that I understand the joy of such a simple, small action.

Categories: Gratitude, Gratituesday, Nature, Outdoors | Tags: , , , , , , | 7 Comments

If Only

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Kami

I often say

”if only”

and

“I wish”

Although

I lack

Regret

For the

What was

because

the “if only”

would make me

what I’m not

and the

“Oh well”

that I am

I like.

    -Kami Tilby
Categories: Poetry | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Without

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Kami

Pay attention to the without in the quotation below. Sometimes one word changes the meaning completely in a sentence. Sometimes one word can make all the difference in direction, focus and destination.

Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948), political and ...

“Seven Deadly Sins-

Wealth without work

Pleasure without conscience

Science without humanity

Knowledge without character

Politics without principle

Commerce without morality

Worship without sacrifice.” 

— Mahatma Gandhi

Look at that.

To the left of each without a list of good things. To the right of each without a list of good things.

Each devoid of the other loses its luster and some of its strength.

Each coupled with the other becomes a powerful force, a better thing.

Imagine a world like that.

 

Categories: The World | Tags: , , , , , | 1 Comment

Forgetting, Remembering, Wondering

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Kami
PortalPhilosophers

Some really smart thinkers.

Have you ever wondered why we can’t remember something incredibly important, like a close relative’s name when you need to introduce them to someone, but yet you can never forget some of the most hideous, stupid, inane, mind-squinching things?

The question circles around in my head constantly the past few days.

Why, why, why can’t I annihilate gross images, scary things, disgusting stuff from my memory banks?

Why, why, why can’t I remember wonderful people, details from a red-letter day, words that hover at the edge of my brain?

Is it the shock of a particular thought or word or image that embeds it more permanently? Does the vile and vulgar register on gray matter in a more potent formula of chemical reactions? Are happy, joyfilled, pleasant thoughts less powerful, less meaningful, less memorable for a reason?

The brain, the mind, and consciousness fascinate me.

I read a book once called Sophie’s World, which in story form explained many philosophies. It seems like it might have addressed this very question. But of course, now that I want to recall those details, I can’t.

Seems it covered Marx, Socrates, Kierkegaard, Kant, Democritus, Darwin, Plato, St. Augustine, Hume, Spinoza, Floyd, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley and a few others. It’s been at least fifteen years since I read it, so it’s miraculous I remember any of this.

I’ll have to scare up a copy of the book. I loaned my out and never got it back. When I’ve gotten through it and found an answer or two, I’ll get back to you.

Did, or will this book help me with my question? I have no idea. But it has come to mind as I’ve thought about the remembering and forgetting issue. So I’m kind of going with it. Seems like it might have opened my eyes to new ways of thinking about and viewing the world and life in general.  Somehow it feels like it might help me understand my remembering and forgetting. Who knows. Like I said, I’ll find a copy and dig in and see what I find.

head anatomy lateral view superficial details

head anatomy lateral view superficial details (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Most likely I need an anatomy book, or a neuroscience book. That’d probably be more helpful, but I’m less likely to understand what I’m reading.

In the meantime, I’ll keep wondering.

And remembering. Ack!

And forgetting. Eesh!

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Categories: Books, Wondering | Tags: , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Sleep and Happy Potatoes

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Kami
English: Different potato varieties. – The pot...

Happy Potatoes

Sleep has been on my mind. I want some, I try to get some, I try a little and I like it. Then it sneaks off into a corner and avoids me. I manage to wrangle the sleep back into bed. Not long after that my alarm jangles the sleep out of my grip and I’m alone there in the bed with my exhaustion.

Occasionally I toy with the idea of sleep meds. But I had a near disastrous relationship with one once. And another bad relationship with another one.

I mostly have to rely on what people told me about the second experience as I wasn’t really there for it. Ironic, yes?

Doc had given me a prescription for this lovely med which all but guaranteed a blissful night of ecstasy in complete and total slumber. I was sold. Bought it, brought it home, couldn’t wait for nightfall.

If I recall correctly the doctor’s words were, “you need to BE IN YOUR BED when you take this medication!” Exclamation point. His point: this stuff works into your system very quickly.

Okay. No problem.

The first time I took it, sleep and I hit it off quickly. No glitches. Perfect. Woke refreshed and not groggy. Wowser! The stars sang, the clouds danced, the sun broke out in a chorus of hallelujahs, as did I.

A month or two later I’d kind of forgotten the warning my doc had given me.

Sleep had been elusive once more. Sneaking off into unknown hiding places, avoiding me like I had bad breath and body odor. I felt drained, exhausted, desperately in need of sleep.

English: Potato variety Blue Swede Deutsch: Ka...

Blue Potato

So I told MSH that I’d be taking one of my magic sleep pills. Always a good idea to do if you’re planning on being all but comatose for eight hours.

He said, “Enjoy!” and went off for his nightly shower.

I dragged myself to the kitchen, popped the magical sleep potion into my mouth, downed it with a glass of water. Then I saw the mound of dishes in the sink. Figured I’d deal with those real quick before I traipsed off to Neverland.

Then I felt a bit light-headed.

Oh yeah…I remembered the doc’s warning.

I’d better go to bed. The dishes can wait.

I made it to my bed. Slid between the covers for a trip into Lalaville. I hollered a goodnight to MSH.

Then the bookshelf moved.

Correction. The bookshelf morphed. It became a large round bookshelf. Which then became a large elephant. I yelled at MSH to come see the really cool bookshelf trick. He yelled something back that I couldn’t hear over the shower water running. I insisted he needed to get out of the shower and see this amazing thing our bookshelf could do.

I remember the bookshelf then floated off the floor and hovered between the bed and the shower room. I vaguely remember my middle daughter talking to me and calling out for her dad.

She tells me that I talked about the happy elephant shelf  becoming a potato, a floating potato to be precise. The colors were so pretty apparently. Then the potato was sad. A sad, sad potato. According to my daughter I became fairly nonsensical after that. Finally, she says I let my head rest on the pillow and drifted off the sleep.

The next morning I woke refreshed, but nothing stellar happened. No sun, stars or clouds singing or dancing. I simply felt rested.

Then I heard the tale of my nighttime exploits. Hard to believe, but two people swore it really happened. It felt real, I almost remembered some of it and so I believed them.

We refer to this as “the happy potato incident.” Not sure why, since the potato was apparently very sad. Happy potatoes sound better, I suppose. Who wants to remember sad potatoes. Mushy, smelly, drippy, rotting potatoes. Yuck.

English: A Sleeping moon in a cap.

I wrote “HALLUCINATIONS” on the prescription bottle for this sleep inducing, hallucinogenic drug and have never taken it again.

I’ve since learned there are even more bizarre experiences documented in many places on the internet about this particular sleeping med. I was lucky I stayed in my bed and didn’t wander. I was fortunate not to eat anything inedible. I was grateful to be among family.

Sleep and I still have a tempestuous relationship. Sometimes we are fine bedfellows. Other times we fight and argue and disagree about how much time we should spend together.

More is usually better, if you ask me.

Isn’t that what everyone wants out of a relationship?

Categories: Humor | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

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