Sweet, succulent FREEDOM!!

It is amazing what a gift time and perspective can be.  On this gorgeous winter solstice night...and just a few short days before Christmas, I can say with utter conviction and clarity that I am the happiest and the most at peace that I have ever been. 

You see, for the first time in several years, I will experience an angst and drama free holiday season that does not involve walking around on egg shells made of barbed wire.  I have the faintest memory of numerous such seasons that have gone by and only found myself reminded by them when I noticed that I was just completely enjoying the hell out of myself and looking more forward to the season of merry and resolutions than I can ever remember. 

I'm finding that life, my life, while wrought with plenty of perils and certain disappointments from time to time, is simply quite amazing.  I have made amazing connections with myself, the world and the people in it that have at times surprised me, delighted and even bewildered me.  Some have enlightened me, others disappointed me, but the simple act of just being and feeling free is, as cliche as it will sound - just so damned liberating!!

I have less than 52 days left in Kuwait (16 of which will be spent in the US!) and do not have a job waiting for me on the other end and I am not tense nor filled with doubt or fear.  I do not have any romantic prospects on the horizon (at least that I am aware of)...I do not have a giant nest egg stashed away, nor do I have a lot of the things that generally tend to make people feel secure and safe. 

But I feel good.  Really good.  About myself, my abilities, my perspective, my life, about everything.  It's been an incredible evolution and it definitely feels like Stella has got her groove back, ya'll. 

The life I live is unconventional.  It is moral, it causes no harm, it makes me whole, it gives me pleasure and it is what I make it.  But it is not the life for everyone.  Not everyone's cup of tea, one might say.  Just as I am not everyone's cup of tea.  And I have not only become OK with that, but I kind of dig it in an almost prideful way. 

I've done some pretty neat stuff over the past couple of years.  I left a toxic marriage...and left it knowing it was the right thing to do, but turned inside out and upside down from the pain of it.  Today, it is so far removed from where and who I am that I remember little of it and feel nothing but relief and gratitude for the release from its rollercoaster, bipolar, and oh so dark madness.

I left all my friends and family behind to set out on an adventure in a foreign country...a muslim country...a country where women are thought of and treated as property...a country where one's nationality dictates how you are viewed and treated in all circumstances.  And what an adventure it has been.  It didn't turn out as planned, but nothing really ever does, but it was what I needed and I have learned as much about myself in 5 months as I have in a lifetime.  Maybe it is more accurate to say I have remembered more... not sure.

I traveled to foreign countries alone.  Costa Rica, Kuwait, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain...and loved every minute of it, even the crappy ones. I felt brave, fearless, kind of cool, and definitely confident.  That translated into other areas of life and it was / is a welcome addition to my life.  I've faced demons and fears, and helped a few people overcome theirs along the way and ultimately, I believe that is what it is all about. 

I've learned that we are all afraid.  All alone.  All hiding behind masks at times.  I've learned, over and over again, as my friend Jake so aptly puts it that "fear is a motherfucker" and sometimes, all the time, you just have to stare it in the face and tell it to shut up and sit down, because I've got things to do. 

I've made some leaps...done a few impulsive things that didn't necessarily end the way they were envisioned, but again - if everything was a sure thing, it really wouldn't be that interesting and I believe we'd all get pretty complacent.  As it stands, I've learned that I still believe in myself and others.  And that I still have hope and despite any setbacks, I'm pretty sure I will keep on operating that way and am living a life without regrets. 

You live, you love, you learn, you leap, sometimes you miss, sometimes you land on your feet, sometimes you end up with your ass in the air and your knickers in a knot...but EVERYTIME you have an EXPERIENCE and you FEEL and you KNOW that something in  your soul stirred and sought for something extraordinary or educational or just plain adventuresome and you walked away forever grateful for the lesson. 

That's where I am today.  Grateful for the lesson.  For the lessons.  All of them.  And free.  Free to be whatever me I want to be.  Maybe it's just me...

From another planet...

When I was a kid, I used to pretend I was from another planet.   I'm betting a lot of kids have done and do this.  I guess we all have our reasons.  I wonder if we grow out of it.  I wonder if I have.  We are all so different and all so alike. 

I think we all think we are more different and alien than we are.  We think that maybe noone can understand us.  Maybe it is because we don't understand ourselves.  Or maybe I just think too much about it...Likely...I think regardless of our individual experiences, the human in us is and longs to be connected to everyone else.  And I have found that when we let go of our agendas, prejudices, fears, to do lists, self doubts, and all the other noise that clouds our souls - then we are all much more alike than different.

For me, I was born with a need to understand, to know people, to know myself, to figure out what makes us all tick, what moves or motivates us, opens us up and alternately what shuts us down.  What makes us feel like we belong and what makes us feel like we don't.  I think we are all hard wired to want to belong to something or someone.

My earliest childhood memory is one that I always thought was a dream, or a nightmare for the longest time.  I think I was about 2 or 3 years old in the dream. I had just walked into the kitchen because I could hear my mother and my father shouting at each other and I wanted to help them.  I don't remember the words, not at all.  I just remember the anger and the fear.  My mother had just started mopping the kitchen. We had one of those old formica tables with the vinyl covered chairs.  She used to turn the chairs upside down so the seats rested on the table so she could sweep and mop the area under the table.  As I walked in, my dad saw me and instantly picked me up and dropped me in between the bars of one of those upside down chairs.   I was terrified.  I thought I would fall and couldn't do anything but shake. My dad just kept yelling and gesturing at my mom.  Like I said, I don't remember the words...I just remember the energy - the fear - the pain - the danger.  He hit her.  She fell to the floor.  She was hysterical.  He was still shouting.  I thought my world had ended.  I thought he was going to kill her and then kill me. I think they divorced shortly after that.

When I was in college, I had a conversation with my dad on the phone.  We didn't spend much time together, ever really.  His choice.  He told me that he had lived with this one big regret and shame all of his life since this thing happened.  He told me the story that I just told you.  Almost verbatim. I was shocked.  To me, it had been a recurring nightmare that I had almost nightly all my life...until my dad told me this story.  It wasn't a dream.  It happened.  I was there.  I never had the dream again. Ever. I gained some understanding in its place. 

I understood why I wanted to be from another planet.  Because that was so much more agreeable than believing that I was supposed to belong to these people.  If I was from another planet, then there was still a chance someone would come and rescue me someday, right?  Isn't that how all the movies and fictional stories end?  Well, as real life goes - noone ever rescued me.  But I did learn to rescue myself. 

Sound romantic and noble and like something to hang your hat on?  Trust me, it isn't.  But it's mine.  And I have learned to own it and embrace it and to be grateful for the intellect that saved me from the path that many of my brothers and cousins chose.  You see, my family's dysfunction wasn't limited to my parents.

Each has their own story which isn't mine to tell since I really don't know what is inside their hearts or what has driven their choices.  Suffice it to say there were and are drug addictions, prostitution, drug dealing, petty and not so petty theft.  Everyone escaping and coping in their own way.  My escape was more literal.  It was actual escape.  And a search for something better.  Something beautiful.  Theirs, more metaphorical, personally and socially harmful.

My youngest brother was a multiple time convicted felon by the time he was 14.  I remember spending one Christmas visiting him in juvenile jail.   I spent the next couple of decades trying to save him and his older (my other younger) brother. I did not succeed.  I felt enormous guilt for this for the longest time.  Until I realized, their lives weren't mine to save.  I could only save myself. 

I pretty much abandonded them both when they were 4 and 7 to go away to college and escape to make a new life for myself.  The youngest, now almost thirty,  still can't get a good job because of his criminal record and he seems to lack belief in himself.  I wish I could help him see that the choice is his to make a better world for himself.  The oldest, mid-thirties now, has never had a relationship that we know of...he manages to have a job, but doesn't have a drivers license.  His dad, my step dad still drives him to work every day.  And he still lives at home, as does the youngest brother. 

The day I left them, I left to save my own life...I was 17.  I did.  I saved my life. But I didn't save theirs.  I don't think I could have, I don't really know.  It was the hardest thing I ever did and I've only in the past couple of years or so been able to let go of that guilt. 

I only knew I had to get out, to do something more with my life and to find people who were looking for truth and beauty and who burned for something.   I am still looking for that to this day.  And finding it. And loving it.  Those are the people I find and I attract.  The people whose very existence has enriched my life and who I could go a day or twenty years without speaking to, and know we could pick right up where we left off and remain connected. 

I've discovered that while I wouldn't recommend that my parent's write a "how to" book on raising children, that I am really glad they had me.  Because I can't tell you how happy I am to be here.  I've come to believe that the fantasy of being from another planet was my tiny old soul telling me that I was better and could do anything I wanted and could create a life that was entirely different than that which I was brought up in.  And I have.  Mind you, I haven't cured cancer or developed safe alternative energy sources or even contributed that much to society.  But my life IS different and it is good. 

Along the way, I have witnessed the way choice manifests itself in my life and in others lives.  We can choose to let the pain go.  To recognize it and to even befriend it.  To say hello to it and to put it gently away in an unlocked box...no need for locks.  No shame. No fault.  Just pain we learn from and can choose to be a prisoner of and lock ourselves up with it, or to let it go. 

I finally realized I had been successful when I realized I could simply choose to be better.  In time, it just became a way of life.  With letting go comes forgiveness. 

My father reads my blog.  He still doesn't know how to relate to me, doesn't want to see me in person and wonders where the hell I came from, but he reaches out to me in his own way through email from time to time.  I think he loves me the way he knows how.  If he is still reading this far, he may be feeling shame.  He may be angry with me for telling the story.  I don't know the details or why it happened or if it happened daily or if it was a one time thing.  That's their story.  My story is forgiveness.  And gratitude.  Because I am happy.  And I am at peace.  And I still have hope - for myself, for love, for mankind, for possibilities.  And because I still have a lot of living, learning, loving and discovering to do.

So, if you are still reading, Daddy, here's the deal...you and my mother created and gave birth to a spirit who is curious and passionate and although often misunderstood, is wildly in love with life. Who sees things deeper than many and consequently also feels things a little too deeply sometimes, but who is resilient and who knows life wasn't easy for you either and you did the best you were able to do.  Thank you for having me. I'm delighted, truly, to be here.  And even if you can't forgive yourself, I forgive you.  You've opened up your soul to me a little.  I've noticed.

And for the rest of you, parents already or someday parents to be, I'll close with a quote (because you all know how much I love quotes...)

"Sometimes we forget that children have just arrived on the earth. They are a little like aliens, coming into beings as bundles of energy and pure potential, here on some exploratory mission and they are just trying to learn what it means to be human."  (from the movie "Martian Child")

Treat them with honor, love, responsibility and wonder.  Don't forget the discipline.  It's your job to teach them how to be human.  How to be men.  How to be women.  How to be students, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, friends, members of society. Right. Wrong. Consequences. Forgiveness.  Love yourselves, people.  And you will in turn teach your children to love themselves. That love is what connects us all and can heal a universe.

Oh, and forgive yourselves.  For anything.  For everything. Stop dwelling on whatever it is and just do better next time. This is your life. Really LIVE it. You're worth it.

No bueno....Iraq, Kuwait dust may carry dangerous elements

Add to list of why it is vitally imperative to vacate this sandbox with a quickness....

Army Times

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer

Posted : Tuesday Dec 7, 2010 22:04:18 EST

Researchers studying dust in Iraq and Kuwait say tiny particles of potentially hazardous material could be causing a host of problems in humans, from respiratory ailments to heart disease to neurological conditions.

After taking samples, scientists found fungi, bacteria and heavy metals — including uranium — that could all cause long-term health effects.

“You can see the dust,” said Dale Griffin, an environmental public health microbiologist with the U.S. Geologic Survey. “It’s what we can’t see that will get you.”

Three recent reports detail the problems, and Griffin said there are more to come.

Capt. Mark Lyles, who chairs the medical sciences and biotechnology department at the Center for Naval Warfare Studies, part of the Naval War College, co-authored with Griffin a report that they presented last year at the International Seminars on Planetary Emergencies in Italy.

The paper summarized their analysis of sand samples taken in 2004 in Iraq and Kuwait, which revealed a “significant biodiversity of bacterial, fungi and viruses of which 25 percent are known pathogens.”

Just as troubling, according to the paper, was the presence of 37 elements — including 15 bioactive metals, including uranium, known to cause serious, long-term health effects in humans.

Some of the toxins may occur naturally in the soil in the Middle East, and some may come from refineries or factories in industrial areas, Griffin said. He also said the toxins could have been exposed or loosened as U.S. Humvees and tanks churned up the hardened desert top layer that has held dust down for centuries.

In a separate study, Griffin researched dust in Kuwait and around the world, and reviewed other studies, and found that bacteria can be carried by the wind. He said that finding contradicts military researchers during the 1991 Persian Gulf War era who did no microbiological research because they incorrectly concluded the region was too hot for anything to live in the desert sand.

A recent Military Times analysis of military health data from 2001 to 2009 showed the rate of respiratory issues among active-duty troops rose by 32 percent; cardiovascular disease rose 30 percent; pregnancy and birth complications were up 47 percent; and neurological conditions, such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease, were up nearly 200 percent.

The National Research Council of the National Academies released a report this year that said the Defense Department’s Enhanced Particulate Matter Surveillance Program needs to be reworked, and that the military lacked sufficient data to properly study the health effects of particulate matter exposure.

That report came in the wake of two other military studies — one that looked at various health concerns, and another that looked specifically at heart and respiratory issues. Neither had found any connection to exposure to particulate matter.

But the National Academies report stated that “a large body of epidemiologic research has shown associations between short- and long-term exposures to particulate matter and a broad array of respiratory and cardiovascular effects in the general population and in susceptible people.”

The tiniest particles — up to 1,000 of which can sit on the head of a pin — embed deeply in the lungs along with whatever matter they carry. Griffin said he worries that the combination of bacteria, fungi and metal found in Iraq and Afghanistan can further complicate the health risks to U.S. combat troops.

Noting the rise in respiratory and heart problems over the past decade, Griffin said, “If you look at the [civilian] population, you don’t see these numbers.”

Service members are generally “a healthy group, too,” he added. “You would think they’d be less susceptible.”

Heavy metals

Microbiologists Dale Griffin of the U.S. Geologic Survey and Capt. Mark Lyles of the Naval War College analyzed dust samples taken in Iraq and Kuwait in 2004 and found a wide range of heavy metals at rates in excess of World Health Organization maximum safe exposure guidelines. Some don’t even have maximum exposure guidelines because they are not expected to be present in airborne dust. The elements of “greatest concern” and the proportions found in dust samples:

• Arsenic at 10 parts per million: poisonous and can cause long-term health effects or death.

• Chromium at 52 parts per million: linked to lung cancer and respiratory ailments.

• Lead at 138 parts per million: can lead to headaches, nausea, muscle weakness and fatigue.

• Nickel at 562 parts per million: can lead to lung cancer, respiratory issues, birth defects and heart disorders.

• Cobalt at 10 parts per million: can lead to asthma and pneumonia.

• Strontium at 2,700 parts per million: linked to cancer.

• Tin at 8 parts per million: can cause depression, liver damage, immune system and chromosomal disorders, a shortage of red blood cells, and brain damage that can lead to anger, sleeping disorders, forgetfulness and headaches.

• Vanadium at 49 parts per million: can cause lung and eye irritation, damage to the nervous system, behavioral changes and nervousness.

• Zinc at 206 parts per million: can cause anemia and nervous system disorders.

• Manganese at 352 parts per million: linked to metabolic issues, Parkinson’s disease and bronchitis.

• Barium at 463 parts per million: can cause breathing problems, heart palpitations, muscle weakness and heart and liver damage.

• Aluminum at 7,521 parts per million. Aluminum was of particular concern to Lyles and Griffin because the metal has recently been linked to “multiple sclerosis and other neurological diseases.”

My love letter to the universe (dear universe, you rock!)

Based on this fun little "app" from Facebook, of all places, I can look back at the past year according to my Facebook statuses and it seems to have been a great 2010! I look forward to more adventure, love, discoveries and growth.  As my Mimi used to always say, "It's a great life if you don't weaken"... I do believe she was right. Although, I believe life really is what you make it.  I'm doin' my best!
 

The journey of a conversation and evolution of a life...another hodgepodge rambling of mine~

...or fasten your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen...it's gonna be a bumpy ride!
(But you know what always comes at the end of a bumpy ride, dontcha??)

No? 
Well, neither do I, come to think of it.   

My guess is it must be something of a cross between a complete stop or super smooth sailing...  and as we all know, life doesn't usually work at a standstill or without bumps and bruises, so I'll settle in to the proverbial journey and keep my eyes, my mind, my heart and my options open.

Five months ago, I set out on this journey into the unknown and exotic Middle East to have an adventure.  To do work that I love.  To see the this side of the world.   My promise to myself was that I would stay a year, see if I liked it, and if I did - stay longer...if not, return home.  And it has been an adventure, to say the least. I wouldn't trade it. 

And as things go with the "best laid plans" and whatnot, the fulfillment of that year is not to be.  If you've read any earlier blogs, you are aware that I live in Gubment Contractland and that, to put it bluntly, "ain't perty."  Contracts end early. Promises are made.  Then broken.  Words are NOT bonds. Words are not even words, they are a means with which to trap, be trapped, cover your ass or to dance and confuse with ambiguosity.  People are placated, misled, coerced, bullied, threatened, kept in the dark, asked to do things that cause them to question their own personal integrity.... this list could go on for AGES. 

Through all of this, I have managed to remain relatively unscathed and actually be promoted without compromising my ethics or character.  And through it all, I have learned some very specific yet simple things...many of which I knew on some level already, but perhaps hadn't had the chance to really challenge or prove or give them a name. 

For starters, traveling the world is still a personal goal of mine and is an incredibly enlightening way to explore your personal nature and intestinal fortitude (in more ways than one).  Of course, it is culturally mind expanding, awe inspiring, eye opening and sometimes disheartening.  It can make you into a staunch activist for humanitarian rights or women's global rights, or animal rights, or environmental conservation and change.  It can teach you a fear that you have never had the opportunity to know because you grew up in such a vastly different land that you simply cannot fathom things that go on (or don't go on) in other countries.  It can make you thankful.  It can make you angry.   It can make you feel empowered and it can make you helpless. (There is so much I haven't written about while here because I feel it might be more prudent to write about it when no longer here, when I am out of reach of anyone who may not like what I have to say about these same activism inspiring observations.) Just like everything else, travel is a six headed dragon or a gently flowing river and everything in between.

I'll tell you what this journey has done for me (and mind you, I am not finished).  It has taught me, or reminded me really, that the world is a marvelous, beautiful and terrible place. 

I have learned how very self reliant I am and can be and that I truly can survive just about anything.  Adversity, fear, danger, the great unknown - these do not daunt me. They challenge me...help keep my mind sharp at times and at this point, maybe even bore me a little, as they have become commonplace and I find myself ready to leave.  Because it is time.

But the most important thing I have learned on a deep personal, and soul level, is that all the beauty in the world, all the experiences in the world, all the wine in the world, all the sunshine, rainforests, exotic camels, monkeys, rainbows, butterflies, etc...while all truly beautiful and inspirational on their own---they cannot take the place of having someone with whom you are connected to share it all with.  To see it with.  To discuss and share. To dream of the next adventure with.  To gain mutual inspiration and understanding and maybe even disagree about some of it.  This is what we are here for. 

Even a book, or music...while rich and deeply layered when traveled alone, take on new depth and dimension when shared.

Life really is what you make of it.  Location doesn't matter (no disrespect to you realtors out there preaching the virtues of the perfect address).  And there are many ways to travel the world. 

I have traveled it alone.  All my life, I have done this, really.  And the thing I have learned after all is that I would like nothing more than to travel with someone. Not just anyone, mind you.  Pick your travel partners WISELY.  You will see the best and worst in yourself and others depending on your choice.

Travel is in the eye of the beholder too.  Travel can be as simple as a trip to the market, a ride in the country, a concert, a basketball game, a run, a fishing trip, a swim, a flight to NYC, a walk down a favorite path...or travel together can simply be four feet resting on the same deck while each reads their book of choice. 

Further...travel is a conversation.  It is exploration of oneself and another and turning over the dusty machinations of the mind and our motivations, or our beliefs, or patterns of behavior and reaction. Travel is growth.  Travel is evolution from your past self to your present self and eventually into your future self.  I believe if you do it right, and with the right travel partner, well there's just not much more worthwhile you can ask for in this great big wide world. 

There are many ways to travel and I believe you will gain and take different things away from each trip.  You may travel alone.  You may travel with a group.  You may travel for leisure.  For business.  For education. To find something.  To lose something. Or you may travel with another, who speaks your language and is as curious about how your mind ticks as you are about how theirs works. Equal parts fascination and discovery, occasionally mixed with the mundane, of course, but always with the dream of togetherness... I have a dream, of togetherness.  I think that will be quite grand. I think I am ready for that maybe for the first time in my life.  It is a companion that warms me, this dream. 

"The simple lack of "him" is more to me than others' presence." ~Edward Thomas
(slightly modified with a "her" to "him" by me...because, well... I prefer dudes )

Whomever he turns out to be, I just hope he brings chocolate sauce and champagne.