Look out for me

Not sure whether womazzle will continue.  Google seems bent on making access to it difficult.  

I will try to keep the site open, but this might just be my last post for now.   

I will be around though.  Somewhere.  

Look out for far out bits and pieces about this world and the one to come...

... IF.

Nei-ei-ei-eigh !

We have entered an age of religious warfare once more.

Or should we maybe say, the political war between the former colonizers and the colonized has moved from dirty politics to mighty religion. 

Even if the West is not fighting in these terms (yet), it has been engaged in battle.  The God of the West (is it God or Capital?) has become the declared enemy.

And indeed what a sad culture it is where capital erodes community and the losers are many. 

But I have yet to see a culture where community is not sacrificed to the questionable short term benefit of a few. 

So, off your stumbling horse!!

Aestival

I believe that each summer we crave to relive the mad exhilaration of childhood. 

Stampsized

People habitually reduce others to small, manageable quantities with a certain amount of value attached to them.  

Instead of either trying to understand the many layers of experience, principles and sensitivities which among other facets make up a human being, they reduce them to a simpler format. 

XX is really caring but she tends to get very caught up in little things (meaning: she is nice but kind of annoying and best not to be taken too seriously).

XY is great fun to hang out with, but he tends to be a bit superficial (meaning: although good for a one off he is not somebody to invest much time and energy in).

Just like stereotyping, this kind of reductionist activity helps the one who is “stampsizing” to make decisions on future actions even if they are based on a minimum of information.  

Even if in the short term the plan of action might turn out to be favourable, in the long term, this kind of relationship is bound to fail because it is not built on curiosity but determinism.

The question is what do to do, when people around you have transferred the world into a neat grid pattern with an assigned spot for everyone, including you.  Is it time to revisit what one thinks, feels and communicates or is it maybe time to change the kind of people one hangs out with?

So Lost

If you come to think about it, it is a strange thing to know that in the moment of one’s birth the life of at least one person was permanently changed. 

That’s a big impact for a first time entrance.

Whether she had been pining for the day to arrive or dreading it, that day would have had the greatest impact on her future life.  

The mere fact that one enters the scene so completely oblivious of that is almost comical.  

I am here.  Take care of me.

When will we ever assert our needs with such irreproachable forcefulness?  When will we ever care so little about who is providing us with food and protection? 

We don’t choose our parents and they don’t choose us – often they don’t really choose whether to have us either.  The family unit usually is an arrangement forged entirely by chance.

Growing up, we may come to realize the many challenges our arrival once posed on our parent(s).  We may also eventually come to see our once almighty life givers in a more realistic light as we come to resemble them if only by entering adulthood.

Usually we end up loving them for all their humanity, their flaws, ticks, and annoying antics and for how hard they tried, being just that human and yet, so lost. 

After all

When I initially set down to write the last post a few minutes ago, I had a story in mind.  Some string of thoughts and events that tie twenty-one years of marriage together.  

But then, all of a sudden, twenty-one years of life, kids, countries and all the challenges and triumphs, that propelled us along the way, seemed to merge into a tiny speck, a minuscule singular event, called Matt and I.  

One more year.  

'tis

The other day, J. told me that he overheard someone at a family reunion last summer say that it was good that I did not come.  

It hadn’t been easy to let M. and J. go off by themselves and the departure had been rather tearful, but the flights were expensive and so the girls and I spent the summer riding bikes up and down the Rhine while M. and J. flew off to the States.

The memory of that strange remark must have been on J.’s mind for a while, gnawing at him and now that  summer has arrived and we are all going back to Michigan together, he felt he had to share it with me. 

Maybe it was out of a sense of loyalty, but maybe it was also out of a sense of grief.  Something had been lost that he could not replace, something had been taken from him and he was sad about that.

I consoled him and told him that he was not alone, Z. had gone through a similar experience. 

I also told him that every time something gets taken, you also gain something.  

I am not sure whether he treasures insight as much as trust, however.