"What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from". - TS Eliot

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"The opera isn't over till the fat lady sings." - Dan Cook, "The Washington Post",June 13, 1978

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The last entry. This entry brings this blog to an end and clears the way for a new venture...a journey without a destination. This blog and the one before it have had a good run. As Eliot said, "the end is where we start from".

Madness vs. Being

"...too often with people who are programmed, or have an agenda, or guard their feelings. Nathaniel is a man unmasked, his life a public display. We connect in part because there is nothing false about him." - Steve Lopez

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I watched "The Soloist" last night. It was such a strange experience. When the movie was over, I had no idea what time it was or how long I had been watching the movie. It was as though I was surrounded by and totally absorbed in the story. Upon reflection, I became curious about the intensity of my absorption. What was that all about? Even more curious to me because of the difficulty I have been having with relaxing enough to meditate regularly. Interesting.

I was reminded, as I watched the work of "The Lamp" organization in Los Angeles, of some of the people I met when I used the handicapped transport system for three and a half years after my accident, before I was able to drive again and afford a vehicle for modification. I met so many people with physical and mental disabilities. I was amazed by their lives and stories, encounters that touched on even deeper places in my heart and reminded me of the strength and resilience of the human spirit.

Perhaps this story took me back to the little girl who gathered up homeless stray cats and put them under our house where she could give them food and water until her itchy, red eyes and midnight meows from beneath the floor exposed the secret. Or maybe it reminded me of the third grader who helped another student in my class with her reading and spelling, or of my sister, 18 months younger, who was not able to learn easily and was held back in kindergarten.

I know that this movie touched on a propensity for being a champion of the underdog, protector of the young, weak, and disadvantaged. The pearl of wisdom from the movie that is a true, but difficult to accept fact, is that sometimes things are as they are and regardless of how much we wish for or try to help change circumstances, the bitter truth is that we do not always know what is best for others. We each have our own lives to live.

Respect vs. Disregard

“Man must feel the earth to know himself and recognize his values.... God made life simple. It is man who complicates it.” -Charles A. Lindbergh

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The oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico has been in progress since April 20, a crisis that permeates every conversation here. It's the peak of beach vacation time in Alabama. Visitors to the gulf coast report in news interviews that, not only is the beach tainted with oily tar balls, but the petroleum smell is so strong that vacationers are retreating indoors It is hard to imagine the beach with noxious fumes overriding the hot, humid, salty breeze.

I haven't been to the beach, or as my grandson called it on his first visit as a toddler, "the BIG sandbox", since before my crash. I can't imagine going now and not being able to walk to the water's edge as the waves splash up over my feet. I am so glad to have experienced the gorgeous sugar white coastline before it became stained and littered with the oil covered bodies of wildlife victims.

This is what I consider a catastrophe. The impact of which will be felt for decades to come. I wonder when humans will hear the message and start taking responsibility for the way we are assaulting the earth? Will we ever learn to live more gently, more simply? The threat of a tropical storm, or worse, a hurricane, looms ominously near the gulf as the week ends and hurricane season begins.

Lindberg implies a connection between one's experience of the earth and personal values. He indicates that our connection with the earth is simple, but we are the one's who complicate it. I wonder how he arrived at this conclusion and if he would translate his viewpoint in the context of this human-made disaster?

Circumstance vs. Containment Leak

"What comes out of you when you are squeezed is what is inside of you." - Wayne Dyer

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As I rode home from the mailbox in my wheelchair with my little dachshund, Rebel, on his leash, I felt a wave of anger welling up as I rolled along, grabbing my attention away from the warm, summer night, the bright moon, sparse clouds, stars , and sound of crickets and locusts. I've noticed over the past few months that I feel angry over things that normally would just roll off my back.

My back was hurting from using my broken, new wheelchair and I had just discovered that my vendor's adjustments on my old wheelchair made it so slow that it took more than 30 minutes to pick up my mail and it would barely climb any incline. I used this wheelchair for my primary means of transportation for three years. It was never this slow! The smallest things are so frustrating. I find myself thinking, "can't anyone do things right the first time!" In the background, conversations from the day are adding fuel to the fire.

During the day, I spoke on the telephone with the financial aid departments of my youngest daughter's current school and the college she is transferring to in the Fall, only to find that both departments needed our signatures on our e-filed tax returns (government educational loan requirement). Wonder when they were going to contact me? They had tried to do so, through my daughter's current school email that she doesn't check when not in class in the summer and by mail which I hadn't been able to check since my chair was broken and back was so flared up.

Then, there was the company that I have been using for years to supply vitamins and supplements I use regularly. I have never had a shipment issue before this current order. I placed the order on June 8th and yesterday was June 22nd. I contacted the customer service department three times by email and once by telephone. No response by email in spite of their "policy" of responding within 24 hours. The telephone operator was young and inexperienced and rude, implying that the shipment issues were my problem.

So...Wayne Dyer's words ring true. The tipping point has been reached! I would like to believe that this well of angry feelings comes from the happenings of the day, but for crying out loud, this stuff happens to everyone! On some level, I recognize that the compartment that has contained my anger from lost dreams and hopes for this time in my life may have been protected by the covering of denial. Perhaps today's anger and tears are a mixed bagged as the containment cover slips away and circumstances squeeze.

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(NOTE: Discovered today, Friday, 6/25/2010, that my usual troubleshooting mentality was blocked by my lowered frustration set point. I simply forgot about the secondary control that affects speed - a small knob that when twisted clockwise, increases speed. My oversight, however, my little dog Rebel is probably secretly thankful! The walk to our mailbox is a pretty long one for his little minature dachshund legs.)

Challenge vs. Safety

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler." - Henry David Thoreau

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Maybe Thoreau had the right idea! As I have spent the last few days trying to sort out and simplify my living space so I can more easily navigate my wheelchair through the apartment, I realize how many unnecessary "things" I have collected over the years. For me, these things represent the past or "before the accident (BTA)". I am becoming acutely aware that I have to get down to the business of creating new dreams that fit with my "after the accident (ATA)" reality.

As I consider the past few years of adjustment, I realize that I am gradually leaving the landscape of denial. Two years after I was hurt, I took my youngest daughter to Chicago for her 18th birthday. Making the travel arrangements were a challenge, but I was so proud of myself for venturing out of my comfort zone. We had three days of fun, providing proof to me that the changes were no big deal. On our last day of the trip, we planned to try to try to do a couple of things before leaving for the airport.

I decided to get up early to start my two hour ritual of personal care before waking my daughter. Plans changed suddenly when I fell in the bathroom, twisting my ankle. "Perhaps my ankle is just sprained", I remember thinking as I called for my daughter. When I tried to get up from the floor, I felt a stab of pain somewhere in my body and decided that we needed to call for help. A trip to the emergency room confirmed that I had broken my ankle and two bones in my foot. So much for the "crammers"!

We made it back to the hotel and had just enough time to get packed and head to the airport.

I rationalized that this could have happened to anyone.

This past year, my pendulum has swung to the other extreme, staying safe and not even attempting activities that might lead to a fall. As the clutter in my life is cleared away and reality floats to the surface, I know that I have to create another journey. One with a mix of pushing my limits and staying safe. It seems to me that, while Thoreau might have the right idea about simplicity, arriving at that point makes my life more complex...at least for the moment.

I have to either dream new dreams or find a way to modify the old ones. Either path takes a lot more energy to navigate.

Present vs. Future

“Two roads diverged in a wood,
and I - I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
~Robert Frost

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The road less traveled...daring to choose the path meant only for one's self to travel. What will not be done unless I do it? That is the call to our individual journeys...It is as if we are given pieces to an obscure puzzle that only we can put together. Often the pieces do not make sense as we continue putting one foot before the other (or rolling along in a wheelchair), entertaining an ever ready curiosity about what our destiny is to be. Perhaps, as the mystery unfolds, while in waiting, we are simply to be as we are, wherever we are along the way. At every given moment, we are exactly where we are supposed to be. Easy to say, but more difficult to do! I can't help but wonder about what I am to do tomorrow.

Memory vs. Change

“Journeys bring power and love back into you. If you can’t go somewhere, move in the passageways of the self. They are like shafts of light, always changing, and you change when you explore them.” ~Rumi

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Today feels surreal. Awakened from a complex nightmare exhausted and tearful. The feeling has lasted all day. Wrote a summary of the content to look at later. Right now, it feels as rainy inside as it is outside. So strange that, even after four years, I still dream of myself as walking and I can still feel the movement of my legs and feet as though they work. Guess this is the mixed blessing of an incomplete spinal cord injury. Enough feeling left to remember, but not enough muscle and nerve power to simply walk. Today is today. Storms come and storms pass. Life goes on...