Crying in the chapel

You saw me crying in the chapel
The tears I shed were tears of joy.....

I wish mine were
Mine are tears of hopelessness, despair, totally joyless
Tears of shame and humiliation
Tears of self pity
And a feeling so chronically empty and useless that I have no idea if it will go

I know it will
I know feelings do not last
But the last few days have taught me how fragile my mental state actually is and how I should be taking more care of it....
I am but a fool

I can't wait for M to come home.....

Another bad day

It all started badly. Woke at 5.30, with that horrible early morning down in the depths feeling. I put on the radio and waited till 6 in the hope I might get back to sleep, but no avail.
Up I got, did my early morning ablutions and then sat and checked email and and listened to some soft music. Next woke the kids. T had been difficult, his dad being away on Lourdes, the last few days haven't been easy. I noticed that he seemed to be going to the loo frequently, but as he didn't say anything thought nothing of it.
Then the bus was late.
And 5 minutes after it should have left, T announced he had tummy ache, felt sick and had a headache.
I couldn't risk it, cancelled the bus, got Mw to walk to school and called in the Cavalry (Mgu) who arrived at 8.45. I flew into work, arriving just before the Tuesday meeting was due to start to face numerous difficulties and hazards all day.
Arriving home, discovered T had been fine all day and the terrible two wanted me to do this that and the other all evening.
Now I have finally sat down, will have a bath now and try and relax.

Just hope this day doesn't repeat.

In other news, I have learnt more about myself recently and am waiting to have a pulling together in my head of the newly discovered traits and drives. Once more what I find about myself surprises me, amuses me, terrifies me. Here's hoping for a more tranquil drawing together and coming back into focus than the last time!

Once upon a time...(an odd dream, told in story fashion)

Once upon a time in a far off land there lived a small person. She was small and fat and spotty, and she knew no one would ever really love her like that. There were some people who would say that they loved small fat people, even ones who were spotty, and hairy, but she knew they were only joking. She hated herself and wanted to change but was too weak and unbalanced.
One day though, she met a grand magician. He said he could make people like her and even say she was pretty and even possibly love her! She was amazed! He gave her a magic looking glass and a magic camera to take pictures of the mirror with and she gazed into it, wondering what she might see....

And there she saw a small pretty woman, with sparkling eyes and laughing mouth and beautiful shining hair. And whenever she showed people her face in the mirror, they suddenly saw that she could be beautiful too and she actually started to believe in herself. She took lots of pretty pictures that people told her were wonderful and she believed them.

But then along came a Joker, who loved to make people laugh. And he pointed at the small person and started to laugh at her hair and her size and her spots. And he tore up her pictures and spat on them on the floor. And he called her names and followed her round and wouldn't leave her alone. And he laughed so loudly he made everyone laugh at her and forget what they had seen in the mirror. She looked once more at her reflection and realised she was still the same small fat spotty person that she had always been. And she started to cry because she hated herself and her weak will and her lack of balance.

Then I woke up.
And I started to cry...

Birthday beckons

Tomorrow is my birthday and I shall celebrate it- strange word for the way it makes me feel- in the bosum of my family. Not friends though, as son2 cruelly likes to point out to me, I don't have many of them. Well, I do, but none of them celebrate my birthday with me as I have studiously avoided that over the years. So much so, they all forget until 2 weeks later....
Anyways, I am one year on from this and today feeling no better. It is odd how anniversaries bring out the sorrowful in me. Maybe as I look back over the 48 years (not that I can remember all of them) and think of how many of them started with a prayer, or thoughts of the Lord. Now they start with nothingness, just thoughts of me and how terribly low I have sunk. Like my bread crumbs...
Which, incidentally, stood for my tetchiness, my bitchiness, my naughtiness and my wounding of self.
The latter of which I am doing now, by pondering all the negative and pushing anything positive firmly out my mind. And the first I did earlier, as I got up and realised I would have to tidy my bedroom as hubbie's mother will be sleeping in it tonight and will no doubt make some comment about how unkempt it all is even after I tidy it. (That's the bitchiness done...)
Now all I have to do is be naughty....


I digress....
I am just filled with a overwhelming sorrow this morning. If I stop to think, I just cry, if I listen to music, similar. But grief is unstoppable, everlasting, this I know, and it also eases if it is allowed to act, so I shall have my half hour of tears and hopefully be ready to dry my eyes, put on my false face and smile as the postman brings no cards but bills and magazines for me to read and inwardly digest so I can continue in the job I hate....

Uh oh....
Self pity mode
I shall give my self a kick in ten minutes and get on with it.
Should have thrown that in the pond too.....
Happy Birthday for tomorrow to me, may the next year be a less sorrowful one again.

Tomorrow

I miss ritual
Easter vigil
The symbolism
Light, water, fire, rebirth
I am going to take a bit back tomorrow
Sunday is my birthday
I plan tomorrow to celebrate my rebirthing day!
By casting crumbs into the water
By thinking of what within me has been good and that works well and that loves and rejoices
Of what has been bad and mean and vindictive and thoughtless
Of what could do with increasing
And what could be decreased
And I shall cast my faults upon the water
And let them swim round
Naked in the clear bubbling stream
Let them be purified
Watered
Washed
Cleaned
And returned to me, because they are mine!
My faults
That I should own
Accept
Be responsible for
Work on, one by one, but always see as part of the whole
That is me....

Amd sometimes I am mean
Thoughtless
Vindictive
Bitchy
Ever so slightly naughty...........

It is part of me
And I need to say sorry when that part of me hurts others
Offer reparation
Move on
And try again......but not get so down if I fail......

Have a good day tomorrow
Find some joy in something you pass unexpectedly
And smile as you think of the mad mother casting her bread upon the water
Smiling as she thinks back over a truly adventurous year...

Casting out

I look back on a year of change.
Starting with tears and deep sorrow as with a crash my birthday came
And I realised that things would never be the same
I would never celebrate the whole of it
Raise my hands with joy to the Lord again
And I wept

Then I moved on
In pain and despair
With a heavy heart, walking as far as I could
Till the going got too much
And I faltered

So time and space were given
And gratefully received
And answers sketched out
In multicoloured hues
Some so clear they screamed out in red
Others a dull lifeless beige
Some seemed to be answers but were more questions
Pushing me along
With the aid of guides in disguise
Angels dressed in strange clothing

Then back up
To face the threats
The gripped muscles, the tightened throat
To stand firm against the tide
Not to allow a tear to fall or a heart to ache
But to relieve it all in idle play later
But even that turned against me
And left me wandering out in the cavern
Wondering how to find light
How to move out
And when

So now, at my feet I have my life
My love, my family, my friends
Those who like me, those who do not
But mainly at my feet I have what will be my choice...
Of what my life shall be
Laid out in its fullness
All of it there

What to keep?
What to let go?
How to decide?
What to chose?

Tomorrow shall be a day of thinking....

Rosh Hashanah

"In another long-standing tradition, called Tashlikh ("casting off"), worshippers walk to a creek or a river and empty their pockets or cast bread crumbs into it, symbolizing the casting off of their sins of the previous year. This is usually done on the afternoon of the first day of Rosh Hashanah"
I think I need to do a bit of casting off myself
A touch of reflection
About current habits and ways of living
And think about what I actually want
And if I actually know that

So Wed will find me down the allotment with some bread crumbs and hopefully an idea of what I am casting away, standing by the bridge looking into the brook
I have 48 hours or so to meditate and decide what needs to stay and what should go......
Watch this space!

Faith

it's just not the same faith I used to have....

Poem by Mary Oliver

Music Every December Sky, Beth Nielsen Chapman

I can't be with him...

"I can't be with him..."
Son2 whispered frantically to me.
We had driven to Ogmore, a rocky and sandy beach, where the wind was blowing and children were running and screaming up and down the beach and on the rocks, waving their arms, pretending they were planes, birds, butterflies, monsters. Dogs bounced through the water, spraying the salty scent wherever they bounded, shaking their wet coats on the children, who doubled their shouts. And son1 viewed the scene and joined in, in his usual style, bouncing, waving his arms, shouting and shrieking, louder than any toddler could.

But he is not physically a child of 5, in whom this behaviour would be tolerated and expected. He is a tall 18 year old.
And son2 looked on aghast...

"You don't have to stay here with him" I spoke the words and with a look, he flew himself, over the rocks, as far and as fast as he could into the distance. Until just a little stick figure could be seen, running along the horizon, looking in the pools as he got to them, inhaling the clear air and the sheer joy of the day.

It didn't take son1 to notice the absent party and he started off running into the distance. It soon became a game, son2 leaping from rock to rock, son1 in hot pursuit. And while they amused themselves, I sat (in a puddle, but that wasn't intentional) and thought of how hard sometimes living with son1 can be.

Later, son2 tried to explain why he wants him to stop "if he lives with someone else they won't put up with it" he argued and I tried to reassure him that some of the purpose of his brother going to college was to help him learn what can and cannot be done. Right at this moment, I told son2, I didn't see why he shouldn't seem to be a little different every now and then......

But in talking about it all, my worries about the future returned. We hadn't heard from the college and will have to wait for September to see if he even has a chance of going there.....

But at least this morning the cobwebs were blasted away.
From all of us, one way or another.

Breaking bad news

You can go on courses now, to learn how to break bad news to people. Websites exist dedicated to it, managers learn how to do it, doctors practise in role playing to ensure they can do it well. But human to human, bad news doesn't break, it falls and spreads, rapidly transmitting through the population. As we found this morning, with the news that our colleague's son had died in Greece after a tragic accident. She has started work with us all Friday morning, to be called home by an urgent phone call from her husband. Two of the team took her, packed her bags as she and her husband sped off to Greece, to where their 19 year old lay critically ill.

So this morning, talking to the team from the ward, I heard that the previous evening, his life support machine had been switched off and he was dead. We shared the news then amongst us, the sorrow and grief of this extroverted wonderful nurse, much loved in the team, cast a shadow over the business meeting. From time to time one or other would sigh as something, a word, an image, a memory would bring us back to a hot Greek day where tears were surely falling.

Then my turn to break bad news.
And I wondered after, as I walked back to my car, shaking from the fallout, whether I had managed it as best as I could. Could I have looked more sympathetic? Used different words? Followed the planned "script" more carefully? Our ever supportive psychologist, who had been privvy to the before discussions, listened attentively as I poured it out and felt that yes, I'd done OK and that sometimes, however it is broken, bad news cannot be dressed up in anything other than it is.

Then home again to son2, now trusted to look after the house alone while his big but less responsible brother goes elsewhere. I look at him and think of the boy whose life has been ended far too soon in Greece and want to hug him, hold him tight, stop him growing and walking out into a world where boys ride bikes with no helmets, and jump into seas from rocks, and drive high powered jet skis and drink and take drugs and risks and think they will live forever.
But I don't.
I just smile and eat grapes as I continue to sort over running work things out, and go upstairs and put this computer on and play my music.
And as Kate Rusby sings about who will sing her a lullaby, I weep inwardly for the boy who now will not be singing anymore, and for the mother in Greece with a heart that will never be whole again.

Sleep softly...rest in peace.

Thoughts and feelings

Having one of those watery days.
Comes of a far from perfect week at work, (bed crisis? What bed crisis!) the onset of six weeks of horror aka summer holidays and pain in my right arm which has settled in for the duration. Or so it has appeared. Plus that time of the month all ladies love...

So when a minor thing happened elsewhere (though not ~elsewhere~) it opened the flood gates. And as the tears flowed and the misery sat heavily on me, I tried my best to turn those negative thoughts that were piling on me to positive ones:-"Now, what evidence do you have for believing that?" I asked myself while sobbing into my coffee.
But in the throes of an emotional flood, nothing will hold back the irrationality.
Especially when it is the most vulnerable point that has been hit.

But I have to take much of the blame myself. I am like Achilles, who in my view should have shown a bit more common sense in the type of armour he wore. Some sort of clever anti poisoned arrow heel device, for instance...

My lack of common sense in exposing myself to things that only prick and wound has been round for a long time, my persistence at CF, for example when I would nightly leave the forum and cry myself to sleep. Now the exposure is in a different place and a slightly different way, but the same principals apply. And still I cannot let go, cannot stop, keep setting myself up for the put downs.

Maybe there is something in me that wants to expose that vulnerable spot, to test it, to risk a wound. To hear the insults, be they truthful or not, to listen to all the views that others have of me, be they good or bad. Maybe I need it to grow, to allow limited damage and hurt to occur, to understand how painful it is, in order for me to see how I can sometimes pain others. And experience what so many others feel, day in, day out.

So as long as I don't end up in the same place as Achilles, perhaps it is not lack of common sense at all, but tolerance of hurt I am learning, so that I base my views on who and how I am on me, not on other's views of me....

And now, I've even stopped crying.
And look, the sun is put and there's a rainbow!




Ok, no sun, no rainbow, but at least a new way to think next time it happens.

End of another week

Another Friday comes and goes.
This one goes and brings with it those long school holidays.
Good for you teachers out there, but torture for us poor parents.
Starts off well, with Son2 ordering the family taxi service for first 6pm, then 6.30, then 7 then 9pm.
Problem was hubbie had left to provide the pick up so I was busy relaying messages to him via the mobile, until he returned, exasperated at 7pm. Well, he was not that exasperated, he just popped to see Grandma instead and used their time productively, talking of church and church gossip.
Son1 meantime was already fed up, as one of the grand schemes he had thought of didn't work out.
And it is not really even Day 1 of the holidays....

The rain continues to fall and while taking out our excellent junior staff to say thank you and good luck, I left my raincoat in the hotel. So as I walked out to the car in the one bit of dry weather all day, I didn't notice, till it was time to leave the base and I looked out at the water cascading out of the sky and remembered.

But otherwise much achieved in terms of paperwork and seeking out other opinions about things we are pondering, even though the opinions I received were not what I wanted....

So this weekend will be a chill one. Nothing booked, no grand schemes, just time and space and freedom to rest and think and muse on the way my life has gone over the past two years and where it could possibly go next, given the frenzy of activity I am facing.

Or maybe I'll just be a cat stretching out on the bed, hoping for some sun to warm my weary limbs.
While listening to music and dreaming of less frenetic times than these....

To go gentle or not....

Do not go gentle...
Words that echo in me.
I do not plan to go gently, I plan to rage against the dying of the light.
But now, before the light dies, there are other calls on me.
To lie underneath the stars and to gaze into the awesome cavern of space and wonder if what I plan to do will be the making of me or the undoing...
And wonder if indeed the risk I plan on taking is worth the heartache it could produce if all goes wrong.
But life lived without risk is dry, dust like, empty and without joy and I want the stars to grab me and fill me with the spirit that day in day out I do not have.

And I am doing this of my own free will
Go gently, as Kate Rusby says...

"Underneath the stars I'll meet you
Underneath the stars I'll greet you
And there beneath the stars I'll leave you
Before you go of your own free will
Go gently"

Or am I just pretending?
Wait and see.

Rain...

Something very strange happened today.
It stopped raining and got a bit warm.
There was blue stuff in the sky, and people were out of doors.... smiling!
Very odd.
And son2 or Mw as he is otherwise called, was busy learning Welsh.
It's an odd thing, him learning this Welsh, as I have to listen to it and ask him the questions while being totally unable to undertsand what I am saying or hearing. He mutters things about my pronounciation but is slowly but surely working his way through the passage he will need to know to sit his GCSE oral module in less than a week.
And elsewhere, on CF, the forum I once posted on freely before I was banished to the edges for not believing, plans are afoot to allow people to post where they will.....

Very strange but welcome at last.
So I popped in and said hi.......and was saddened by how many people expressed fear that these atheists will descend and try to stop them believing in God. I just want to chat with my friends, wish them happy birthday, laugh with their jokes, commiserate with their sorrows.....

I hope his plan will come to fruition.
Maybe, if it had back then, things would have been oh so different........

Animals

I took this video clip today from which the above photo is taken. While wandering around in my usual somewhat aimless fashion, I happened upon several damselflies up to no good in our garden pond. One wonders what sort of moral and ethical dilemmas damselflies have to cope with, they are apparently inclined to homosexual sex on occasions and the male holds on to the female firmly after mating so she doesn't go off and do anything untoward, like mating with another male. Anyway, they held me rapt for ages, until son1 yelled at me to get back in the house as he wanted me for something important. To tell me he was tired. He was bored. And he wanted something to eat.

So I left them to it, and when I next went back to our little pond, they were nowhere to be seen. I must watch out for the larvae, I think I saw them last year or the year before, but this year there may be more....

And I wondered what is it exactly that separates us from these beautiful damselflies? At times, as a species, we hold ourselves up, put ourselves on a pedestal, but often, like the animals we are, we are driven not by higher ideals, but by the same instincts that caused those delightful creatures to hold firm to each other.

And often, daily, in my job, I learn of those who suffer as the result of others acting on their instincts, their desires, their wants. Who have been receptacles for the other and now cannot survive with the knowledge of their past, which is deeply written on every fibre of their being.

And I don't have the answer for them.

The answer to their "Why?"

The answer to how to wipe it out.

The answer to how to live from day to day without this shadow over everything and anything that happens.

I turn to others, but they don't have answers either.

Sometimes it is all we can do, protect and wait and hope.

And offer hope to them, that one day, the knowledge might be a dagger rather than a case full of swords, a lighted match rather than an all consuming flame.

I can only hope....

one dog, one cat

"Mother of two boys, one dog, one cat..."

All profiles generally and names have something to do with Cat- partly because it's part of my name, partly because my beloved cat is so important to me.

And sitting in the car, being picked up from a solitary two day break in London, to try and invigorate me ready for work again, I received the news that all pet owners dread.

Jj was no more, run over by a car, her dead body being found by a caring woman, who took the time and trouble to trace us.

The boys, learning this while I was away were all devastated, all (including hubbie) cried.

Hubbie, who never liked animals, who didn't want the dog, let alone the cat, cried.

And they buried her down at the allotment, under one of the trees.

So no more Jj, waking me up in the morning, purring at me, closing her eyes at me, treading her paws softly on my bed.

No more Jj, wrapping herself around my legs as I walk or sit, saying hi to me in her way.

No more Jj bopping Sandy with a soft velvet paw, claws in, rolling on the warm patio, no more gentle cuddles with the supremely relaxed and loving cat, who never scrammed me once.

I'm still in stun mode, keep thinking she'll be coming back.

But she will not.

My life, our lives, were all made more cheerful and joyful, more blissful, by the presence of this small, dark, loving creature.

She will be missed.

Greatly missed.....

Teddy Bears

Yesterday I was chatting to someone on one of the many sites I browse in and out of, and I was asked about my children.
I gave my standard reply.
"I have two boys aged 15 and 18, and the 18 year old is disabled."
I've found it is a good idea to add this as it stops difficult questions, for example about how I get on with his girlfriends as that just makes me miserable.
Sometimes, as yesterday, people ask what the disability is, and after trial and error I give learning difficulties and mild autism as a standard reply again.
Yesterday, however, this met with a different response..
"Come on, that's not really disabled, is it?"
I was a little stunned, only afterwards wondering if it was a misunderstadning of the word learning disabled. I usually add "more like 8" to give an idea of his level of functioning, but neglected to yesterday. So that comment burned on me last night and into today and came back to haunt me at lunch time.

We had gone round to see my brother and his family, staying at my mother's house. Their delightful 5 year old was, as ever, star of the show, running round like a mad thing before becoming enthralled, as many children are, by Son1's little dances.
Son1 loves standing in his grandmother's hall, in front of her mirror, doing strange movements, while making equally strange noises. His cousin watched and then by some ruse, probably by throwing teddies at him, got Son1 involved in a game.
It seemed to be a complicated one, with rules designed by Son1, who loves making up games with rules which involved shrieking, throwing teddies up stairs and through the hall until both were exhausted. I filmed some of it with my new cam and all said how sweet it was to see them playing together so well.
At one point they sat on the floor together, mentally ages so similar, physically oceans apart. One small and compact and cute, big black eyes, dark hair and cheeky little face, the other tall and chunky and covered in eczema, awkwardly stooping down to be small like his companion.
I watched as cousin put out a friendly hand to son1 who patted him on the back. "Well done, you won" he said.
And my heart broke, as it often does in moments like this.
Son1, 18, "not disabled" but happy to play a 5 year olds game.
Because he is at a 5 year olds level, in many ways.
Seeing nothing strange about it, seeing it as natural, relating to his cousin as an equal.
And in the meantime, son2 his in the front room, so he wouldn't get drawn in.
Acting like a teenager should and would.
And I thought once more of what could have been, should have been, if only those medics had taken more care....

The pain never goes.
It just becomes more naturally a part of life with son1.
Something to be expected and accepted.
To be borne till it goes, till it fades into the background again.
To emerge once more when the next challenge comes along.........

The Three Graces

"The Three Graces illustrates Canova's outstanding ability to transform cold hard marble into soft lustrous skin."

I stood and wondered at it.

White hard stone.

Cold, dead, no form to attract, no wonder at how beautiful it was.

Then the hands of the master.

Taking away what was not needed.

Smoothing out, chiselling away, till finally laid bare the wonder that we see.

Gently touching, hand to face, cheek to forehead, skin to skin.

Head resting softly, serenely, full of contentment and peace.

Legs bent slightly, backs twisted but smooth and inviting

Inviting touch, taste, smell, kisses, worship.

All this from stone and chisel and the eye of a master.

Put this in my inner eye, carry the feeling of tranquillity and solace, of sensual beauty and gentle love away from the room where silent feet tread to the heart of a busy disturbing world.

And let the disturbance settle, let it be ridden over by the image of those beautiful three women embracing for eternity....

I still haven't found (2)

I have climbed the highest mountain, run through the fields,
I have sailed into storms, lain on sands of gold,
Ventured into dark caverns, without even a light,
Ran back out
Then in again.....

And I still haven't found what I'm looking for!

Perhaps I never will, because, I think, the time for thinking of myself as an explorer in this strange world is nearly over.
There is much that needs to be done that is being side tracked in my fun but time consuming explorations
For example, I really do want to learn to play the violin.
And play the mandolin a bit better
I want to listen to my music loudly while lying on my bed and reading books that take me further into my imagination than I ever thought I could go.
I want to do a diploma in teaching, perhaps even an MSc, though the cost is somewhat prohibitive!
I want to join a choir and sing my heart out once more, like I used to, when I believed.
I want to watch my children more and more, as they sit together chatting, as son2 tries to instruct son1 in the ways of the world.
I want to sit in the garden and lie back on the bed and stare at the sky and watch the birds swoop round and round, heading for the trees.
I want to go to town on Sundays with the boys, laughing and joking and teasing and smiling, as we go from games shop to fantasy mag shop to book shop and mum's knicker shop and on....

And when I was ill, I stopped doing so much of that, because I couldn't.
But now I can again, and I am not going to let this job keep me cowed in a corner, fearful of what may come next.
My life is for living, and because I have loved life, I shall live it and not be afraid to die...

So as I go to Scotland with dear sweet sister (is it morning yet, shall i get up, shall I put this here, what time is it, shall I wash my face, shall I have a drink...) I go as me, as I used to be before all this stupid faith loss stuff started, before the delightful threats that started my old blog, as I walked fearful every day of what might happen.
It's me and I'm back and I am no longer afraid.

Another not so good day...

But let's not talk about that.
I'll just get on with this peg figure model of my boss and look for the hat pins I used to have...
(*hums tunelessly...)

I've just finished reading Madame Bovary by Flaubert. My father, when I spoke to him about this, muttered about how long ago he had read it (in the original French, of course) but was far more impressed by a book called Flaubert's parrot, which he promised to look out for me...
I digress.
Some of the characters amused- the emotionless chemist, secular and scientific to the nth degree, superior to the hapless Bovary, finally awarded the Legion of Honour (as Flaubert was himself.)
The lovers, a succession of men who were bewitched by Madame Bovary initially, but grew tired of her emotional excesses and moved on to other things...
And Madame Bovary herself. For me, the most striking moments in the book were almost the last, as dying at her own hand from the arsenic she crammed in her mouth, she receives the last rites from the Cure of the villager who as he did:
"..dipped his right thumb in the oil and began to give extreme unction. First, upon the eyes, that had so coveted all worldly pomp; then upon the nostrils, that had been greedy of the warm breeze and amorous odours; then upon the mouth that had uttered lies, that had been curled with pride and cried out in lewdness; then upon the hands, that had delighted in sensual touches; and finally upon the soles of the feet, so swift of yore, when she was running to satisfy her desires, and that would now walk no more."

Such earthly pleasures, so intently searched for by Madame Bovary, but no ultimate satisfaction, for in the end, deceit and lies and the superficial nature of what she found overtook her and led her to her death. And not only her, her husband, who finds how false a woman she was, but still continues to love, cannot live with the grief that surrounds him. And their little daughter, Berthe, placed in the hands of an aunt, to work her life out in a cotton mill lives a million miles away from the life that her mother once sought to lead.

Will I, as Madame Bovary did, at my last, turn back in despair to a faith that I once had? Seek anointing, blessing, to turn back to the God I do not now see?

I do not know. But I somehow doubt it.

The book has other messages for me too, that I am pondering and playing with in my mind, about earthly pleasures and the reality of life. How many people do I see whose unhappiness centres on their desires, unrealistic or not, going unfulfilled? How often is my unhappiness caused by the same? Yet the answer does not lie in merely striving at all costs to satisfy, but maybe in addressing and exploring the roots of the desires and channelling them consciously in other ways.
Maybe.
For who wishes to travel the path of the lady who died to the song of a blind man?
" "The wind it blew so hard one day
Her little petticoat flew away!"
She was no more...."