Well, we all know the answer to that. Lately it’s been harder and, to be honest, I really don’t understand. Sure, we get old and people change for one reason or another, but overall I just don’t get it. Maybe I never will. And honestly, I’m not okay with that.
And in truth, I really don’t want to be okay with it. I want to be wildly engaged in life. I want to do things, see thing, love life and relish every minute. Is that so hard? I really, really, don’t think that’s too hard for any of us.
It comes along with all those things we’ve always wanted to do with our lives — DO THEM.
It comes along with good days and bad — make it work for now and then make it better.
It comes with love. Real love — the smile you see on the face of everyone you pass.
I can do that.
I want to chat with my girlfriends weekly and make fabulous plans that may or may not come true, and that’s still okay.
I want to try everything, and I’m okay even if I don’t like it after all.
I want to be able to say what I mean — and have someone understand. And care.
Wait … Let me readjust that note … I FLY TO IRELAND ON MONDAY!!!
It’s not my first trip there, and in fact I’m on my TENTH visit now … because I just can’t get enough. And guess what? I’m 100% as excited as I was on the first trip.
As you can tell, Ireland will always have my heart.
And — oh yeah — we’re staying in a castle. A real-life, bells and whistles Castle. Seriously. And meals are included.
And it’s not just a Castle — aside from the monumental reality there — but a castle and quite a few other perks, and yes, I’m all atwitter and with good reason. Add in 200 acres of woodlands, and ohhh how that makes me swoon. Oh, and they feed us — and not just “food”, but a range of locally sourced delicacies like Spanish tapas, traditional Irish meals, Italian fire-cooked pizza, and vegetarian options. I won’t go hungry.
So back to those perks — We’ll have a class on Falconry (which would NEVER have occurred to me on my own), a Micro Mosaic Workshop with the fabulous and renowned Irish artist Olive Stack, a Group Collaboration on a Land-Art piece, traditional Irish music and story-telling, PLUS off-site excursions focusing on day-trips with Irish historian Ger Greaney to explore ancient Celtic sites, a stone circle, holy well, faery ring, and historic ruins; a full day in Listowel for exploring, shopping and exploring; and a day in beautiful Dingle to see artisan studios, galleries, ancient buildings, the Blasket Center, which preserves and honors the memories of the unique community that lived on the very remote Blasket Islands until their evacuation in 1953, and (of course) a bit of shopping.
FYI, we have TWO Spaces Available for Ireland (women only). We have a room with two twin beds that can be made into a King with a bathroom en suite, and two queen rooms with a hall bathroom. Our flights leave Monday, May 9 and return Sunday, May 16. Flights are not included. Let us know if you’d like details, and SEE YOU SOON!!!
Some say the purest death is to be ravaged alive by beasts — a final communion with creation and instinct. I could give myself to the lions as red men gave their flesh with joy to birds of prey, a feast laid high on offering altars of pine, their bodies rising bite by bite to fill the mouth and longing arms of god. And if I should die on African soil at the pawing of tigers or men, I pray the ants will piggyback my sun-pressed crumbs across each undulation of the ancient and bare breasted earth and leave me soul to soil, to nurse the hungry wild and mingle with the stars.
Don’t ask me why, but something popped into my head rather suddenly over the past month. And because our time on earth gets shorter by the day, I jumped on it. I’d love for you to jump in too.
I chose the name above because I want it to encompass the world. It won’t, of course, but that can still be my goal.
P.S. You do not need to be a woman to support women.
Details: My plan is to bring women of all ages, sizes, ethnicities and dreamers together. It seems to me that our lives as women are changing daily, and certainly our options are changing already. I won’t fixate on politics because I’ve never been that girl — though I’m beginning to realize that maybe I should be. We definitely have power, but can we control what’s going on now? — or what’s ahead?
What I do know is that we can always stand for peace and right.
Toward that end I hope to share these messages across the globe. And guess what — after one email blast and a couple of days, we already have women signed up from sea to sea in the the US, as well as multiple countries beyond. We need to use our strength. We need to be the women we are without keeping quiet. But most of all, we need to support and learn from each other. Nobody’s going to do this for us — especially now.
So far I’m mostly self-funding this women’s project because that’s my option, and that’s how much I want to bring us together. But as women, we’re inevitably strong, and our fierceness will get us farther into the future than we know.
So here’s what we need: Contact with each other; Appreciation for each other; Sharing with each other; Understanding and supporting each other as much as we can. And then movement: Saying yes, laughing together, brainstorming together, supporting each other. And yes, changing the world, even when it seems like what we do is the tiniest offering. We’re so much stronger than we know.
A Plan: We ALL need a plan, and so far we’re amazingly in sync. I’m good with a plan — I can do that — BUT I can also learn even more if I’m talking and brainstorming with others. Through this project, that’s exactly what we’re doing, no matter how closely or far apart we live, no matter our ethnicities, our shyness, or our uncertainties, we’re already doing it. It’s a pretty good start, and the most exciting part is that 99% of these women volunteered on the own.
Help We Can Use: Cutting templates from fiberglass mesh (perfect for you if you love cutting perfect 6-inch circles); mailing fiberglass mesh templates, talking up the project.
Mailing Templets: The cost to mail three 6″ circular fiberglass templates is variable but quite small across the US. Beyond the US, we’re currently working with women from Australia, Ireland, France, Italy, and Puerto Rico. I’d like to be able to help with the cost of mailing overseas.
Taking Part: If you’re interested, text me. We’ll be delighted to have you involved!
I may have mentioned a few or fifty-seven times that I’ve spent almost 100% of my time for the past five or six or seven weeks cleaning. And I don’t mean sweeping and dusting obsessively — that will never be my goal.
What I mean is that I’ve been digging deeper and deeper into the “I can pick them up and carry them around” bits of my life — memories from across the decades, moments of loss and moments of euphoria, talismans that helped me through various decades depending on my spiritual quest at the time, aches that I’ll carry forever because they were a critical part of my growth, and aches as well that scarred me deeply and took up residence in my soul for far too long.
And yet all in all, it’s been, and continues to be, one of the most healing times of my life, taking me from emotion to emotion as I try to place each into the part of me that will keep me moving forward with wonder and sharing and joy day by day.
It’s unusual for me to enter the hell of housework, but sure, every now and then it happens. And this is one of my favorite things about the holidays — the joy of family arriving makes everything fun — even cleaning. I mean, it isn’t raucously fun, but still. At any rate, my life of late has been a whirlwind of washing everything in the house, tossing anything that’s no longer usable, and donating the rest. And then comes the fun part — re-dreaming, re-arranging, re-hanging and, often enough, re-loving.
Yes, the wonderful, mind-altering, fabulous thing happened, and yes, I actually cleaned.
Mind you, when I say I cleaned, I mean I CLEANED — right through the nittiest gritty on the planet. And then another thing happened. A wonderful, magical, mystical thing.
I was hot into ripping off bed covers and sheets and pillows and the errant what IS that? when I saw it. Between the mattress and the box spring, between the feeling and the knowing, between the motion and the act (10 points if you recognize the reference), a small piece of folded paper poked herself out quite nonchalantly. Just a papery flutter minding it’s own papery business. So of course I immediately pulled it out, and with it flew a lilting passel of individually written 20-year-old memories spilled full out and joyously tumbling all over the floor. Some written to me; some written to each other.
And suddenly I was back in those joyous days of artists arriving from multiple states, laughing and creating non-stop, sharing food and ideas and sleeping exhaustedly on every flat-enough service of every room in the house.
Over those years, we made art together for hours and hours at a time, easily filling a day or two with each visit. New friends, old friends, come-and-go friends, love-you-forever friends.
“A security I cannot describe.” “Pure solace, as it always is.” “May you have an enchanted and marvelous time in this room.” “Rest and be refreshed.” “I find peace being in this bed and with those who live here.” “Sorry for the scraps — I don’t travel with paper!” “Rest and be refreshed.” “Is this bed comfy or what???” “Workshops, gardens, peace, contentment, beauty, and inspiring art.” “With each short visit, I’m reminded how it might be to stay with cherished family. Thank you for your friendship, humor, advice, and suggestions.”
And it was, again, bliss, no matter the distance.
Love you forever, indeed. Maybe cleaning isn’t so overrated after all.
* Image above by Pam Goode, taken one night in Ireland.
There are so many people walking in my neighborhood. They walk for relief, to exercise their pups, to grab at the sun, for a bit of human contact, to fill and empty and refill their lungs, to live, to be life, to embrace the simple and push aside the rest.
It seems so lovely, and yet …. sometimes I wonder at this other life we live.
I wonder why we can’t halt the world at its simplest and most pure — even for a moment — and revel in it enough to get us through until the next human-made catastrophe.
I don’t understand why some have the desire to overpower. Why the rush to war … or even the acceptance of war? I don’t understand how to turn a blind eye to madness just because it’s not on my turf.
I don’t understand why or how we move from “different” to “hate.”
I don’t understand the need to control, to subjugate. I don’t understand the ego boost of physically overpowering another human being just because you can.
We’re all capable of self control, even when some part of us struggles with it.
When I was young, I believed that if I looked closely at all the horror and pain that I saw around me and really felt it, then karma would be served and I wouldn’t have to live the horror myself. I’ve been lucky there.
And yet it isn’t unusual to see horror bestowed on the gentlest and most generous.
I don’t understand.
I don’t understand.
Why can’t we all look at a human being and see a human being?
It’s my favorite season of the year, and I’m speechless. I used to carry on in December with a twinkly grin and a ready, “Merry Christmas!”, one of the few times of the year when I didn’t have to depend on faulty hearing to know what people were saying, because everyone was simply wishing you happiness, family, and sharing. Now, older certainly and wiser mostly, I just smile and nod. I don’t like it. It doesn’t feel good.Continue reading →
I was sitting on the Duke quad quite a few years ago when a guy in a black trench coat walked up and sat down beside me. I recognized him from my Philosophy class, but we had never spoken and I didn’t know his name. He asked me out. Continue reading →
Love or hate The South, it just doesn’t get much lovelier (or haunting, haunted, seductive, or psychically altering) than this. I took the above photograph along a back road on Edisto Island. There’s no resort around the bend; in fact, Edisto Beach doesn’t boast a single hotel. Rent a cottage, a cabin in the woods, or snare a beachfront campsite and stare into these trees for an hour or a day, and tell me your soul hasn’t been abducted, pinned and wriggling to the wall.
Pam Goode Writes 