Special note to Megan and Angela

Good morning, ladies.
You were just the antidote to everything crazy and intense and alone last night.  I slept great, dreamed hard, and am waking up feeling unclenched, ready to face my day.  I'm not sure how you do that aside from the cake and laughs but you bring out the sane and self-aware and resilience in me.
I am very grateful.

Fealty and Brainwash

I've been reading some interesting book.
One book is called Brainwash and it's history of the last century of brainwashing.   I originally reserved it because I was curious about the psychological affects of abuse and torture.  I'm doing a lot of thinking about abuse and how it changes personality and will.

The other book is a fantasy book by Elizabeth Moon called Oath of Fealty.  The old Duke who was secretly involved in worship of Liart, the god of torture, was killed and another Duke who serves gods of healing comes to the land.  The Duke finds a pregnant kitchen maid who describes being ritualistically tortured and raped and then was told the child was Liart's.  They forced her to swear silence and in speaking is afraid she'll be cursed.  Here's the Duke's response:

Child, the gods forgive such oaths...you are not bound to Liart.  You can renounce that oath and take a better one....you can't undo what's done, or unsay what's said...you can say differently this time.

I've repeatedly thought of this quote since I read the book months ago.  For me this captures something essential in my healing process.

More reflections later.

The Joshua Tree

I never got into popular music when I was a teen- never much impressed.  A lot of it was vulgar or poor quality musicianship, and liking this or that was yet another status system I didn't care to play.  So I avoided it as much as possible.  I didn't listen to pop radio, didn't own cassette tapes except for a couple of Christian musicians, and in an unfortunately haughty twist of counter-status, secretly looked down on those who did- poor, tasteless lemmings.

When I recently heard people mention their top albums of all time and I had never listened to The Joshua Tree or Sergeant Pepper's,  I reserved both at the library out of curiosity and just got them this last week.  With all my solo driving around for home visits, I've had lots of time to listen.  So I pop Joshua Tree in on Saturday morning on my way to New Prague, not expecting much from U2.  With several back-up CD's ready for the probable ejection actually.

Wow- song 1, Where the Streets Have No Names knocked my socks off and then song 2, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For had tears running down my face.  I had never heard anyone articulate my own dissatisfaction and longing like this before.  Song 3, With or Without You perfectly captured my own dilemma of a couple years ago.

Then I came to a vista and saw my teen years from a different vantage point.  I had believed I had found what I was looking for and despised those who hadn't.  I had already put people into the piles of Living With You or Living Without You, no matter how miserable it made me.  I didn't want to tear down walls and I wasn't burning down love.  Not yet.  It would take a whole lot of suffering, functionality and honesty, and some compassion and genuine kindness- it would take another 25 years of life- for me to begin to honor this kind of life.

These are songs for grown-ups and I was not.
But now I am and I'm getting myself the CD.
Because I already got the life.

Quotes

I've been watching two sci-fi shows, Sanctuary and Stargate Atlantis, and several quotes struck me.  I wanted to type them here before I lose the paper I jotted them on.

The future is predetermined by the character of those who shape it.

Intriguing twist on the free will/fate question.  In the story, this plays out in an unexpected climax to a battle scene between the good guys and the bad guys each being true to their character.

What's bred in the bone can't be undone in the flesh.

In context this was a chilling quote by a murderer about his daughter.

And this quote I heard two different ways as I was listening, both of which I find thought-provoking.

Feeling love and inflicting pain are mutually exclusive.
Feeling love and inflicting pain aren't mutually exclusive.

The first feels either clear and healthy or over simplistic, depending on how I tilt my head.
The second I find chilling and I can't decide if I'm cold because it's a clever lie or a painful truth.