Queen of Swords

Hi everyone -- I'm back!

I've been missing the experience of community I had back in the heyday of LiveJournal, and realized the only way to re-connect to is to start putting myself back out here. The general flight from FB, as well as ongoing loneliness and a need to start recovering depth in my sharing, have motivated me to start making personal blogging a habit again.

Last year was a huge one for me, involving multiple significant firsts: stage managing for a community theater for the first time (and getting paid for it -- even if it was just a $500 honorarium), taking the solo road trip from Seattle to Los Angeles and back that I've been dreaming about since 1977, getting involved with the Linking Your Thinking community (more on that later), and moving from the Seattle area (where I've been since 1988) fifty miles south to an area I've been driving past all my life but never explored.

The move was because my daughter -- the being formerly known as Wolfling in my LJ posts -- is now 29 years old and has started a career as a funeral director. We've been living together the past few years and when she got her first professional job I had the option of finding a new place by myself (completely doable) or moving with her and continuing to enjoy the company and mutual support. I decided to move with her, and have been glad I did. We have a significantly larger apartment for $400 a month less rent, overall lower cost of living, and less-densely urbanized neighborhood. I was very sorry to move away from the theater I'd connected with, but there are other community theater groups nearby.

There's also a fencing school only ten minutes away, and I took an intro class two weeks ago. I'm going to start going there regularly in February. There's also a very nice massage place nearby and between our lower rent and a "competitive scale" salary increase last month I can afford a membership there and get regular massages.

Three years ago I finally got a day job that's not being an admin and that helped my overall mental health a lot. I'm working for the same org that I've been with since 2010 (although we got acquired four or five years ago), but now I'm in a position that combines editing, process documentation, knowledge management, and communications, so I'm able to bring some of my favorite skills to work. I have a very sweet boss and a great group of co-workers. I work for a national function now; my boss lives in southern California and my teammates are scattered across the country, so I get to work from home, which I love.

So overall my personal material situation is good. But I'm still struggling to recover the spiritual practices and depth, as well as creative wellspring, that more than a dozen years of depression following Uncrowned_King's death wrenched from me. Those years were not entirely arid. I did accomplish some wonderful things, but I'm not living as deep a life as I want to.

I don't usually choose themes for my years, but this year is a Strength year according to Mary Greer's tarot year card numerology system, and I really like the idea of adopting the harmonization of primal instinct and higher functions, intellect and passion, and the other symbolism of the card. I also like the idea of focusing on the more ordinary meanings of strength: potency, capacity, etc. Being depressed is exhausting, and I developed a mental habit of "I can't" because I simply didn't have the spoons. I'm still working on convincing myself that I can.

My other word is Passion. Uncrowned_King took most of my passion with him when he passed, and I'm still working on getting back my creative and spiritual fires. My physical ones too. . . At age 60 there are some physical shifts that I can't ignore (although an estrogen patch has been a great help), and I'm trying to explore how much of my lack of physical desire is connected to age, how much to U_C, and how much just to not having met anyone who excites me in a very long time.

Wolfing came over a few nights ago and was playing some of her music as we hung out together. I was surprised by how much I liked some of the pieces, and got excited and volunteered to make a Spotify playlist for me. Not long after that I received a link to that playlist: 350 songs.

Love is making a very big playlist for your mom.
Love is also enjoying listening to your daughter's music.
So far I've saved roughly 30% of the songs to my own (new) Spotify.

Now that I'm blogging regularly again I've realized that I can't keep referring to my daughter as Wolfling. First she was my Baby Bear. Then she became Wolfling. Now (and for at least the past 5-6 years), she's a FoxGirl. When she was in high school, she came home one day and announced to me that she was a "Rainbow Foxicorn" -- and the mascot of the schools LGBTQ+ club.

So this is my new "daughter posts" icon. I still love "Bubblegum Zen," (by Joseph Corsentino) because it still reminds me of her, but she's no longer a teen.



The new icon is "Rainbow Splash Fox II" by Fab Funky.
(I just discovered it, and may need to get her a print.)

Hi Folks --

I've been blogging over at Tumblr for the past few months -- which essentially means that I've been posting and re-posting a lot of images and not being very word. (I know: Who are you and what have you done with QiA??)

Quickly:
1. Still in love with the guy from January. Things are going very nicely. He's not UncrownedKing, but no one ever will be. I'm content.

2. Going to graduate school for my MS in Health Communication. It's going well -- except for this paper that's going to be the death of me. I have a 24 hour, no penalty extension to finish it. Which probably explains why I'm on LJ for the first time in months!

3. Work is okay. Same old same old.

4. Wolfling continues to be an amazing, beautiful, creative, smart, and loving kid young woman. She's sixteen now. . . !!

5. Spiritual life has its ups and downs -- mostly in the consistency/discipline area. I feel like I'm in the process of pulling things together in a comprehensible way for the first time in a long time.

6. I've just re-started SparkPeople (www.sparkpeople.com) to get back to healthy eating and exercise habits. So far, so good.

I'm continuing to struggle with the same issues that I've been working on for the past couple of years. Each new insight seems to come slowly, with very little actual progress manifested in my external life. It's frustrating to the point of shame some days.

Today, despite my expectations of last night when I was tired and frustrated and wrung out after a week at the day job, I'm going to drive an hour to attend a study session of a Co-Masonic group I've been getting to know. I am desperate for adult, non-family contact outside of my work life, and I genuinely like these people. The fact that the lodge has a metaphysical focus is very important as well. I am lonely in my spiritual life, with the only friends who come close to being "co-religionists" living a very long way away.

I'm tired of feeling frustrated, trapped, isolated. . . but have yet to find the way out of the box.

Also looking forward to today's visit with Hob for a gaming session with him and Wolfling. But I'm even a bit afraid of that. I'm not sure I'll have the creative energy and juices to roleplay well. On the other hand, Wolfling is a brilliant rpg'er, and Hob is always inspiring. At worst, just hanging out with them will be fun.

One of the big blessings of my life is that I truly enjoy hanging out with my kid -- and she enjoys it too.

I've had a fairly serious addiction to Diet Coke -- caffeinated in the morning, decaf after 3pm -- for a number of years now. It's pretty much all I've been drinking, aside from a very small bit of water. Not healthy, I know, but I told myself that it was a minor vice, hitting my wallet more than anything. I was vaguely aware of reports about how unhealthy it was, but with the degree of grief and stress in my life I didn't care. What I was aware of was the psychological and oral comfort I got from consuming it, and I embraced it, given how little pleasure and comfort there's been in my life overall.

Then, sometime earlier this week, lovetakesyouin posted a link on Facebook to an article about the evils of aspartame.

Since then, my consumption of Diet Coke has gone from "way too much" to less than a can in the morning and less than one mini bottle during the course of the work day, and I'm working my way to "none at all." I'd already quadrupled (at least) my water intake, and that's been helping minimize the withdrawal symptoms. Actually, I've been surprised by how mild they've been.

I've picked up a case of Diet Rite, which I don't like nearly as well (too sweet for me) but it provides the bubbly sensation I like. (I have yet to meet a sparkling water that I like.)

It's been interesting to observe my own process with this. I'd certainly been aware of the dangers of aspartame previously -- and Wolfling, armed with her health class knowledge had been gently pestering me about it during the school year -- but I simply wasn't ready to release this crutch before. I'm taking it as a mark of the quiet but real improvement in the rest of my life: employed again in a non-stressful workplace, major progress on my big writing project, my grief pretty much over (I realized the other night that I no longer feel achingly aware of uncrowned_king's absence in bed next to me every night), and my not-as-frequent-as-they-should-be-but-overall-consistent qabalistic meditations which have been focusing on Malkuth (the Sphere of physical life) for the past couple of months.

It's not something I've done by suddenly developing stronger willpower, it's something that's become possible as I've healed emotionally and found healthier ways of making myself feel good. As I think about it, it's a very potent sign of how far I've come in the past few months. There's still a lot I want to change in my life, but I am much more stable and rooted than I have been.

I keep being amazed that someone I've known all her life, and who has been so deeply influenced by me and those closest to me, still manages to be so much her own unique person, someone who can still surprise me.

There's a lovely mystery in her becoming.

The older she gets, the more I become aware that my job is knowing when and how to try to "raise" her (teaching, providing good examples, setting appropriate boundaries, applying discipline when necessary) and knowing when I need to just get out of the way and give her space for her own unfolding.

Wolfling just asked me "Was Tolkien's elvish published before Ael [a Romulan character in the Star Trek novel My Enemy, My Ally] was created?"

"Yes, many years," I replied.

"Did you know that in elvish 'Ael' means knight, and [the rest of her name -- or at least a significant part of it] means 'noble'?"

No, I did not know that.


My daughter is comparing Tolkien's elvish and Romulan names.

Her geek-fu far outstrips my own.



I loves my Wolfling.

After starting out my SparkPeople program with great energy, I've been doing next to nothing for the last month and more: not weighing myself, not tracking my intake, not drinking 8 glasses of water per day, not exercising. That lack of focus and progress was not just in the area of health and fitness, however; I've been experiencing inertia pretty much everywhere in my life.

However, I was startled and pleased to get on the scale this morning and find out that I have not gained any weight back. This is a major accomplishment for me, and means that I've been making meaningful changes in my basic habits.

That was tested this afternoon when a very droopy Wolfling came home from her first day of school and my plans for the rest of the day went out the window. I engaged with her about her school day and helped her get started with good organizing habits, but it was like pulling teeth. She wasn't sullen, she was just listless and didn't seem engaged.

I ended up leaving her home to grocery shopping, having a headache and feeling hungry. I made a point of avoiding the McDonalds drivethrough that shares a parking lot with the grocery store. I stopped at a mailbox store to mail some important documents, but that didn't work out. While shopping, I had a phone call with my parents that added to my stress. The fact that part of the conversation was about the upcoming funeral of a dear friend of the family didn't help. The fact that the funeral is now scheduled opposite my many-times-delayed lunch with a_belletrist also didn't help. Then there were the back-and-forth emails with another friend about logistical details for this weekend that are up in the air.

By the time I left the grocery store my head was feeling even worse, and my non-rational brain was screaming at me that I deserved some fast comfort food because of the stress in my life, and that I would feel much better if I got some.

Somewhere I found the clarity to tell myself gently but firmly that drive-through would not actually make anything better, but only further delay my achieving my weight loss goals. I came home and had a Lean Cuisine meal instead. It didn't give me the emotional soothing that I know the fast food would have, but I feel better about myself.

Tomorrow we start our meal plan for the week, and I have the ingredients we need. (Pot roast! Veggies! Biscuits!) The older Wolfling gets, the more important it feels to me to try to do better at having dinner being something planned and deliberate. She's taking a "Food" course this semester, and I'm sure that will help as well.

I woke up this morning around 4:30am and could not get back to sleep. I was up until around 6:30, then went back to bed and finally fell asleep after some struggle.

It's now a little over two hours later, but I could have sworn I've been awakened multiple times since then:

One dream about my ex-husband, who had found my LJ, read it, and was (understandably) more than a little pissed at me. He had made a glossy brochure which illustrated the many ways our astrological dynamics were utterly out of synch and left it for me to read, but I hadn't seen it, and/or hadn't realized what it was and so had neither read it nor acknowledged it, which had made him even madder.

At least two dreams about Wolfling waking up, then waking me up, and both of us being so out of synch with our needs that we both ended up upset to the point of tears.

One dream in which the Spanish-speaking painting crew (who have been working around the complex for about a month in real-life) not only woke me by painting outside my bedroom, but then came into my bedroom and then started to stroll through the apartment intent on working on other projects, oblivious to my protests. I finally got one to speak directly to me, but the conversation was very difficult because he didn't speak much English, nor I much Spanish. (Having a bilingual dream was weird!) He finally got the message that no one had told me they would be working inside, we'd had no way to prepare, and that they had to leave immediately.

What finally, truly woke me up was the clatter of an actual ladder against the wall outside my bedroom and cheerful voices conversing in Spanish.

The fact three of these dreams follow very closely on two of the three LJ entries I made earlier today almost makes me wish I hadn't tried to write anything. At the very least my subconscious might have dredged up some pleasantly sexy dream to go with the "Writer's Block: Sexy" entry!

*grump

I seem to still have the headache I did when I first woke up, and I am *not* rested. The painters are continuing to bang ladders and supplies against the walls.

The school clothes shopping expedition scheduled for this morning is going to be pushed back a couple of hours. . .

ETA: Oh, and how could I forget the other dream -- the one about someone trying to mug me in a parking garage! I fought back, but utterly ineffectually. I blame this dream on reading a friend's LJ entry about stalkers around the same time I made my early morning posts today. (I do not blame my friend for writing about stalkers, I hasten to add.)

Like everyone else in the region, I'm melting in the ridiculously high heat.

However, I get to take Wolfling to see Othello in a couple of hours, and the air conditioned car and air conditioned theater ought to be a significant improvement over the oven of our apartment.

Afterwards, it's either a workshop for me and a visit with the Ex for her, or -- if I'm too flattened by the heat to want to go to the workshop space -- back to my parents' air conditioned home for the evening and possibly overnight.

I'm very curious about what Wolfling will think of Othello. She loves Shakespeare, but has a slightly cynical view of the high emotions that drive certain tragedies. She just wants to slap sense into the characters. Which gives me some hope for her teenage years, but kind of reduces the dramatic impact of certain texts.

That said: I'm very glad that she sees absolutely nothing romantic in dying for love.