Chaos In A Bottle

Live authentic.

I looked at those words, and the only thing I could think was “What the heck does that mean? Is this some new concept that, once again, I’m not going to grasp?” That happens to me a lot; for someone that people keep saying is intelligent, I feel REALLY dumb a lot of the time. It took me forever to not break out in a cold sweat ordering anything but black coffee.  True story.  One day, people are going to figure it out, and they’re going to revoke my adulting card. That might not be so bad, except they’ll probably take my coffee and driver’s license, and then things might get ugly. That’s how fights happen.

I’ll be honest with you; I don’t like that feeling. I’m no brain surgeon, but like I said, I’m generally thought of as a reasonably intelligent person. I have a degree, I have more academic work beyond that. I worked with juvenile sex-offenders in a locked psychiatric facility, and later I taught for many years in the classroom. I then went on to my most important and challenging work: rearing and homeschooling my daughters. I’m a voracious reader, and I write. I write all the time, even if I don’t share it. I write about not having anything to write about, for crying out loud. I write about everything, and yet a two-word philosophical phrase could put me right back in the rear of my college algebra class, struggling to wrap my brain around a concept that just didn’t seem like it wanted to be understood.

I looked at those words, and I was lost at sea, trying not to look like I was drowning.

Here I am, 48 years old, and it took watching my two daughters to help me understand what those words meant, and, even more important, to realize that I was, finally, living that meaning myself.

Perhaps the most precious gift we can be given in this lifetime is the opportunity to be a parent. I was given that gift nearly 22 years ago, and I have to say that I’ve learned far more from watching my children become the people that they are than I think I ever managed to teach them. You see – I’ve watched them live authentically.

I’ve been blessed to spend most of every single day with my children. I’ve been more attuned to who they are than I ever was to who I am, and now I see – so much more than I saw before they came. I’ve seen them become THEM. I watch, every day, as they struggle to find their bliss. Their fight. Their WHY. They may not have discovered it completely yet, but they go about it in a way that I wish I’d learned so much sooner.

You see, they know who they ARE. Not what they will do for the rest of their lives, not who they will marry, not things that we so often look at as being the benchmarks of a successful life. Rather, they know what they stand for. They know what they value. They know the things that make their hearts happy, and that, I think, is what it means to live authentically. They are true to themselves, true to God, and follow what makes their hearts HAPPY. Funnily enough, I think they might argue that with me, tell me that they don’t know what the heck they’re doing and what do I mean, I don’t either? But? I don’t think living authentically means you necessarily know what you’re doing. I think maybe it means remaining true to your core while you figure it out.

In the self-sacrifice that is parenthood, I have had the opportunity to learn what it means to live authentically. Not from some great work of literature, but because I’ve had the chance to live with two souls that are, perhaps, two of the most REAL I have ever known. In fumbling to help them grow, I learned what my fight was. My why. My bliss. I learned that, in order to help them live in a way that was true and right and real, I had to do the same thing myself. I had to discover the things that made my heart happy, and I had to put the effort into cultivating those things. I might not know exactly where I stood on everything, and I might not yet know exactly who I was, but when I put in effort to explore those things, every day? I was living authentically.

Maybe I’m learning to swim after all.

(the photography in the post is by both of my daughters; you can find them on Instagram at @celtaebri and @teacupukulele)

Ever have one of those days when you knew you needed to write but no words were applying for the position?

Yeah. That’s been me for – I lost count.

It would probably be easier if I had an actual exciting life, but that’s not a thing that I have. I LIKE my life, but I don’t know that anyone else finds the fact that in one week I got my dryer, dishwasher, AND stand mixer fixed as outstanding as I did. (Seriously, though, it’s so cool. It was like Christmas except it was March and I didn’t have to buy presents for anyone else, which kind of made it even better. Don’t judge me.)

I got my political ya-yas out writing a thing for unclesamsmisguidedchildren.com – you can read it if you want – and now I’m just staring at my own neglected blog going “but…but…yeah, I got nothing.” Which isn’t really true, because I do stuff ALL DAY LONG, but I don’t know that it’s interesting to anyone but me, and it doesn’t have to be, but I dunno that anyone is going to read about my stand mixer revival or the ghetto clothesline week I spent while the part for my dryer was on order, hanging clothes on my front porch and all over my dining room. I hung my underwear inside, I’m not a complete degenerate. Ain’t nobody wanna see that.

And yes, I know that only Faulkner can make a run-on sentence work. Fight me.

Oh! I got back in the gym. Yeah, I wasn’t really excited about it either, especially when I started trying to walk the day after leg day. I’m pretty sure someone lowered the toilet six inches, too. But, I do have to admit that I feel better about being me when I’m at least doing something there. It’s not pretty, and there’s still more of me than I’d like there to be, but I’m working on it. Now that it’s warming up and I can get back out hiking with the dog (I call it hiking, really it’s just walking, but it’s at the nature park so I call it hiking and you can’t stop me), I’ll feel even better. And Archer won’t be trying to eat my house. He’s 7 now, you’d think he’d slow down. I don’t even think he sleeps.

So, hopefully, I’ll be doing a few things this spring and summer – redecorating youngest’s room, painting the living room and redoing the floor – that might at least make for some pretty pictures, if not interesting stories of the epic fails I’m pretty sure are gonna happen. This is me, after all. In the meantime, here are a few links to some things I’ve enjoyed lately, and maybe you will, too.  Or not.  Embrace the possibilities.

My article at Unclesamesmisguidedchildren.com. Yes, it’s a shameless plug. No, I do not care.

My youngest’s Instagram, where she puts photography and YouTube, where she posts both original music and covers

My eldest’s Fitness and and Owl Pinterest boards, because – owls. Duh. And fitness.

Final thoughts:  If you’ve hacked me off, chances are you’ve already made your way into my novel.  Sorry not sorry.

This wormed its way into my brain yesterday, after I dropped child the youngest and her boyfriend off at the movies, and lucky you, you get to read it. Pat yourself on the back for being so fortunate.

Yesterday, as I drove past Buffalo Wild Wings, I got to thinking about their “no guns” policy. On many of their restaurants, when you go to the door, you’ll see a sign like this:

And I got to pondering – how do they enforce this?

Are there metal detectors?

Are they wanding people as they walk inside?

Are they searching bags?

The answer to the above is – no. They’re not. They’re relying on the honesty of their customers to honor management wishes and leave their firearms in the car or at home.

How many honest criminals do you know?

Yeah. Me, either.

You see, all that sign is doing is disarming LEGALLY CARRYING, LAW-ABIDING citizens. Citizens, like myself, who carry a gun for the protection of innocent life. You’ll never even know I had one, unless you threaten me or mine. I promise. You’ll never even see it.

So – here’s my decision, going out to allllll the business owners out there who think a sign is going to stop a criminal. If you disarm me, you’d better be willing to take the same care with my security, and that of my family, that I do. You’d better be willing to not only enforce that sign by MAKING SURE no guns enter the place, but to meet negative force with equal force.

Don’t you get it? You have disarmed me. You have willfully, knowingly removed my ability to protect myself and my family. You have left me, and everyone else in that restaurant, unable to defend ourselves. Are YOU going to step up and provide that security? Are your establishments staffed with armed guards? Are you searching every new patron to be sure they’re not bringing a weapon in? If you’re not, and something does happen to my family? I’m suing you for every penny you are worth – because it was YOUR asinine policy that was responsible for turning the building and everyone in it into a soft target. YOU did nothing but think that criminals obey rules. Surprise – they don’t. That’s why they’re criminals. You think your alarm system is going to save you, or someone calling the police? Police are reactionary. They’re not precognizant. They can’t see the future – and it takes TIME to trigger an alarm, or call, the officers to be dispatched, and to arrive on scene. According to American Police Beat, that response time averages 10 minutes. Do you know how much havoc can be wreaked in 10 minutes? How many lives can be lost? Are you really that willing to be a statistic – or to be the cause of someone else being a statistic?

Not every business is that idiotic. I recently attended a concert given by the Virginia Symphony. They, too, have a no guns policy; however, here’s where they did it right.  Every person who entered was wanded. Every bag was searched.  I counted at least three uniformed members of Norfolk’s finest on duty there that night. I’d like to thank the Symphony for recognizing that, if they remove their patrons’ ability to defend themselves, that they must then take over that responsibility, and they obviously took it seriously.

I hope you think about this. I hope you think about it very, very carefully indeed.

In the meantime? Buffalo Wild Wings won’t be seeing any of my money. I don’t feel safe there.

If you’ve known me for any length of time, you probably know that I’m an ardent supporter of the Second Amendment. You probably know that I carry a gun.  All the time. Everywhere. Legally. I’m fortunate enough to live in a state that doesn’t place too many restrictions on my constitutional right to protect myself, and I avail myself of that freedom. Every single day.

What you may not know is WHY. If you don’t care to find out, you can go back some, read about zombies or some crap. If you want to know why, either because you’re curious, you want to find out why I’m, in your opinion, cracked in the head, keep on reading.

In one aspect, I carry because I CAN.  Because it is MY RIGHT, guaranteed in the United States Constitution. Because the founding fathers, in their wisdom, realized a few things that I have come to understand as being just as valid today as they were in 1791.

…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, in The District of Columbia v. Heller:

Nor is the right involved in this discussion less comprehensive or valuable: “The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.” The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. Our opinion is, that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right, originally belonging to our forefathers, trampled under foot by Charles I. and his two wicked sons and successors, reestablished by the revolution of 1688, conveyed to this land of liberty by the colonists, and finally incorporated conspicuously in our own Magna Charta! And Lexington, Concord, Camden, River Raisin, Sandusky, and the laurel-crowned field of New Orleans, plead eloquently for this interpretation! And the acquisition of Texas may be considered the full fruits of this great constitutional right.

In addition, he writes:

Nowhere else in the Constitution does a “right” attributed to “the people” refer to anything other than an individual right. What is more, in all six other provisions of the Constitution that mention “the people,” the term unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset. This contrasts markedly with the phrase “the militia” in the prefatory clause. As we will describe below, the “militia” in colonial America consisted of a subset of “the people”— those who were male, able bodied, and within a certain age range. Reading the Second Amendment as protecting only the right to “keep and bear Arms” in an organized militia therefore fits poorly with the operative clause’s description of the holder of that right as “the people”.

I can’t help but feel that this is what our founding fathers would have said were they sitting there.  You see, they had just been through a war of REVOLUTION.  Of REBELLION against their own government, which had grown tyrannical in its dealings with its subjects across the sea. They had taken hold of their God-given right to govern themselves, to embrace their destinies as free men, to be subjects no longer but to be participants in a system of government that they would themselves create. No more would they bow to foreign kings who ruled through birthright and not worth. They would put into place a system that would allow THE PEOPLE to chose representatives to send to the halls of government. They would also codify as rights certain things that they believed vital to the continued success of this fledgling country – things that would guarantee those three things they’d spoken of when they first broke from Great Britain – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. No longer did people serve the government; in this new country, the government would serve the people.

The thing is – without the ability to DEFEND those rights, the Constitution is nothing more than words on paper. Your freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom from unwarranted search and seizure – WITHOUT THE TEETH OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT, THEY MEAN NOTHING. Without that, you’re a chained dog barking at the burglar breaking into the house you can’t reach to protect. Even worse, should that burglar decide to shut you up, you’ve got no teeth to bite him with, even if you could reach him.

Do you see my point?

Some of you may be having an apoplectic fit right now. I’m giving myself the credit, probably more than I deserve, of actually having a readership outside of my mom (Hi, Mom!). Thing is – I’m ok with that, because your offense or fear or whatever doesn’t trump my right.  My right to defend myself, and my family, from WHATEVER may be a threat. It might be that burglar breaking into my house. It might be someone deciding that the movie theater I’m at with my children would be a good time to release some of their pent-up psychotic rage. It might be the government that has grown so bloated, so concerned with Muslim appeasement and entitlement classes that it has decided it needs to redistribute my meager wealth to others. It might be the Islamic neighbors who yell at me for dressing like a whore (i.e. not in a burka), and believe based on the rantings of their pedophile prophet that I’m theirs for the taking.

I don’t know WHAT threats may come to bear on my family and myself. I do know that I will not, not now, not EVER, give up my RIGHT as a human being and citizen of this once-great country, to defend them or myself.

There’s more of this coming – so keep reading.  Or not.  Embrace the possibilities.

I don’t generally hit my friends and family up for stuff – but this is a big one, so if you’d give it a look, we’d appreciate it.

Next summer, Rhiannon will be heading to The Big Easy for the Crescent City Choral Festival.  The Virginia Children’s Chorus has provided the kids with several fundraising opportunities to help pay for the trip – I’ve put links here for all of them, and if you’d consider making a purchase (some nice Christmas gift type things here), we’d appreciate it. She’ll get roughly 40% of the purchase price added to her fundraising account with the chorus.  The fundraising campaigns are over on October 5th.

Innisbrook Gifts and Wrapping Paper (Includes Helen Grace chocolates) – please type in Rhiannon’s name when you check out.

FunPasta – When you check out, please choose “Rhiannon Murray” from the drop down menu of who you’re supporting.

Virginia Diner – when you check out, choose the Virginia Children’s Chorus in Norfolk, VA, and please type in Rhiannon’s name.  In addition, if you or your company need corporate Christmas gifts, this company offers a few nice ones.

Yankee Candle – Candles and all sorts of yummy smelling things.  I keep this in my house ALL the time.
Seller ID: Rhiannon52
(NOTE: in order for her to receive credit, please enter Seller ID as listed above.)
Group Number: 99819238

Thank you so much for taking a look at these, and maybe helping my girl out while you pick up some things for yourself or for gifts!

I watch people. It’s true – I don’t necessarily LIKE them a lot, but I watch them. In person, online, on television. And sure shooting, they’ve ended up in my novel. And my blog.

I’ve written a ton of non-fiction in my time, because that’s what I got paid for. Ever read a blog post on choosing an RV refrigerator? I probably wrote that. How about the history of cufflinks? I probably wrote that, too. I wrote a lot of boring, boring stuff. Really boring. Like – falling asleep over my keyboard after a pot of coffee boring.

Seriously. It was hard, ya’ll. You don’t even know.

But I switched the focus to fiction, even though it pays less (as in nada till I get it sold), and I’m a lot happier. And more awake. And I’m finding that the people watching I do is paying off in terms of fodder for the keyboard. Sad for you if you were one of them, but chances are you don’t know me or read this, so it’s probably cool.

Surprisingly in this day and time, my own life is fairly devoid of drama. I like it like that. I get up, I throw words at paper, I school my kiddo, I pick up heavy things and put them down, and at night, I get to curl up next to the Big Guy. He occasionally kicks and snores, but I love him so much I just don’t care. And he’s really warm. I think I’ll keep him. The thing is, when your life is devoid of drama, you get a nice, clear view of all the drama AROUND you, and then your writer brain kicks in if you’re a writer, and boom. And since I do this blogging thing basically to keep my gears lubricated, there you go.

The funny stuff you read, yeah, that happened. ‘Cause I’m not good at writing funny stuff and I can’t make that crap up to save my life. My political statements, and posts on things like Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day? You should take those seriously, because I can do serious if I try really hard and fortify myself with chocolate. The rest of it? I’ve got notes on drama that would keep me writing till mid-2087. Ya’ll need Jesus. I’m not even joking.

The Virginia Children’s Chorus Chamber Singers – “Tell My Father”

I feel like it’s been a long time since I’ve written a funny post. This isn’t one, either, but it is an important one, I think, and I hope you’ll bear with me to the end.

This Monday is Memorial Day. It’s not Barbeque Day, or Pool Opening Day, or Buy A Lot of Crud Day.

It’s not a day that you wish someone a “happy” one of.

Does that mean that you shouldn’t have a cookout, or go to the pool, or buy a lot of crud? No. It doesn’t. In fact, you probably SHOULD do those things, at least the first two, but I want you to remember WHY you’re able to do those things, and I want you to spare a thought for those to whom this day strikes nerves still raw.

This is the day that we, as a country, have set aside to honor those who died while in service to the United States. That we as a people NEED to stop and reflect on those who paid the price for the freedoms that we enjoy, and to remember that those freedoms aren’t free; we are just so fortunate that someone else paid what was due. We need to remember the pain of every parent who has buried a son or daughter, every spouse who buried a husband or wife, every child who lost a mother or father. Every Soldier, Sailor, Airman, Marine, and Coast Guardsman who has lost brothers and sisters in arms, for those bonds run deep.

I want you to enjoy your day. I want you to eat with your family, play games with your children, laugh with your friends. I want you to do these things because brave, brave souls gave all their tomorrows so you COULD have this day.

I just want us all to be grateful.

May your Memorial Day be one of honor, of remembrance, of gratitude, and of love.

In Flanders Fields – John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

A fairy tale for you. Like all fairy tales, it offers a lesson…

Once upon a time, there was a woman who was neither beautiful nor daring. She kept her home and tended her children, and she longed for someone to share the quiet things.

One day, while walking the strange place where people shared pictures, she found a beast. He’d been wounded, and her heart hurt for him, because she’d felt those same arrows of betrayal herself in the past. So, she ignored the claws and offered herself, and pulled out little pieces of her own heart to bandage his wounds. She held him close, heedless of the blood that soaked her clothing, unafraid of the demons that never strayed far from his side.

For many months, she petted his soul and tried as best as she could to heal his hurts. His smiles made her laugh, and sometimes, when alcohol or exhaustion had loosened his tongue, he told her things that made her shiver. How he craved her touch, how amazed he was that she not only didn’t fear his demons, but danced with them. How he wanted to protect her. Those rare times kept her going when he ignored her, put up a wall against her in the picture place, didn’t answer when she called out for help because of her own hurts. He was a beast, after all, and it would take time for him to open. Surely he’d grow to value her love more than the likes and catcalls from random strangers at the picture place – after all, wouldn’t any sane beast realize that those fed his ego, but she offered to satiate his soul?

So she kept pulling out little pieces of her heart to give him when he hurt, even though it became more and more painful to do so, because she received nothing in return with which to patch up her own wounds. She hid her scars from her children and tried to go on, because her beast said he needed her. And because she loved him.

Finally, though, she broke. Wounded and bleeding, she reached out to him. He looked at her, and told her it was too messy. That he wasn’t ready to give her back any of what she’d given him. He valued her, he said, just not enough to brave the blood.

And he left her to patch her own wounds and defend her own dying heart.

It’d be way too easy to say the moral here was to be careful where you give your heart. I think, though, that perhaps there is a different one.

You see, if you wait until you’re “ready” for happiness, you’ll never actually find it. In reality, it comes when you’re willing to wade through the gore to snatch it from the mess that is life. Grab it when it comes, not when you think you’re ready. It’s the fight that MAKES you ready.

I don’t know how the above story will end. I don’t know if the beast will realize what he lost. I do know that the woman, who was neither beautiful nor daring, is in fact very brave.

And the beast is a complete and utter idiot.

So, I’ve noticed that there’s a movement, at least on YouTube, called #DearMe, where people write a letter to their younger selves.  Some of it’s funny, some of it’s poignant, and while I’ve done it myself recently, I thought I might revisit the idea.

Dear Me:

I’m writing this to the me-in-the-past (I’m not saying how far in the past, because it really doesn’t matter, and I have some vanity left) to tell you something about relationships. In particular, a relationship you’re going to get involved in, and what me-in-the-present needs you to know so that, maybe, you think twice.

See, there’s a big, BIG difference between boys-with-beards and men. You’re going to find this out, because you’re going to think a boy-with-beard is actually a man, and you’re going to find out differently.  I thought I’d point out a few of the differences to you, and maybe it’ll help you along the way.

A BWB (boy with beard, yanno) will talk a big game, but a man will put action to words.  Oh, that BWB is going to say lots of pretty words, like “I’ll keep you till there’s nothing left in our future but sunsets and rocking chairs”, but he’s not going to DO anything about it.  It’s too much trouble. He’ll tell you how he was burned, how he’s been hurt and can’t love, but the cold fact of the matter is he doesn’t want to put in the effort to love YOU. Harsh, but true.

A BWB will talk about his ambitions. A lot. He’ll give you all sorts of reasons why he’s not there YET, but he’s gonna be. A man doesn’t talk about his ambitions.  He chases them. If he tries and fails, he doesn’t tell you that it didn’t work out because of politics, or economics, or the powers that be upstairs that dislike him.  He will simply fall back, adapt, and overcome, and he won’t tell everyone along the way.

A BWB will tell you that he wants to protect you, take care of you, that you won’t want for anything – except, apparently, loyalty or someone with the courage to fight for you, because those things he won’t provide.  A man will protect your heart like it is the most precious treasure he’s ever been given – because it is. He won’t play games with it. He won’t lean on you for support and then fade away when YOU need HIM. He’ll be the rock you always needed. He’ll be your safe place to land.

That’s the bad news.  The good news? After that BWB has torn a big hole in you, a MAN will come along who will be with you while you put yourself back together. He’ll tell you you’re beautiful, and his eyes will tell you he MEANS it. He’ll hold you when you’re falling apart, and it’s because he sticks with you when you’re at your worst that he deserves you at your best. He’ll make you feel beautiful, desirable, and most of all VALUABLE, and you’ll never feel safer than you do in his arms. He’ll have a natural dominance that calls to your submission, he’ll make you laugh, and he’ll make you so grateful that the BWB is out of the way, because if he hadn’t been, you wouldn’t have seen this. And this – this is so much more than you ever thought it could be.

Oh – he’s exponentially hotter than the other guy, too.  Just so you know. Like – whoa.

So hang in there, me-in-the-past. It’s about to get a whole lot better.

I know you’ve heard it.  The “new year, new me” stuff that everyone starts spouting come January 1st. You know what? I’m not going to do that, because, really? I’m not at all interested in being a new me. I’ve worked really hard to get the me I have now – why would I want to chuck that all out the window and start over again?? Seems like throwing effort after foolishness, if you ask me.

I ain’t about that life.

Does that mean there aren’t some things I want to change, or do better? Heck no! But I don’t think it’s because I want a new me – it’s because I like the road I’m on, and want to continue to go down it. I hope that makes sense. If it doesn’t, well, I don’t know what to tell ya.

This year, I intend to continue writing. Writing, and writing, and writing, and I’m not shying away from things that might be “offensive” to some.  Truth is truth, and while I can do my best to speak it in love, and I do, I won’t water it down because someone doesn’t want to hear it.

I intend to continue being a gym rat. If you haven’t been in touch with me this past year, you might have just spit your drink all over your screen.  Have your laugh, wipe off your monitor, but it’s true. I don’t miss workouts. I get CRANKY if I think I might. I lift heavy. I sweat. Who am I??

I intend to keep decluttering my home and my life. The past few months have seen me tossing the debris, physical and emotional,  that comes with holding on too much and looking backwards, not forwards. I ain’t about THAT life any more, either, and it feels pretty darn good. I want more of it.

So – for me, the “new year, new me” isn’t something I’m even remotely interested in chasing. I think I’ll just keep on being the me I’ve been becoming for 46 years.  I kind of like her.

Same me, and I’m ok with that.