hatred

“Bozos on the Bus”

Posted on by cdjcollings

Each person has history, much of which can seem to be unremarkable. Each day a new day but for the most part, very similar to the day before. But then suddenly, colliding with the synchronicities of someone else’s life, there is a meeting of souls. It is unprovoked, unexpected and out of sync with the rest of one’s current situation. But it is stunningly impactful and intense, taking the place of whatever either person imagined to encounter. Everything is the odd thing, but there seems to be familiarity, and things and experiences that are common to both. What is this? What does one do with this strange collision of souls? Well, there is only one way when it concerns love. Either one is all-in or one is not. There is no half way to have this experience.

But is it possible that this “connection” though is more simply be “the art” of a manipulator, a man who, on first encounter recognizes something in the other person and uses the gift of gab and charm as weapons to reflect the feelings of this other so that it passes as connection? Could he be someone who has learned how to turn every experience with another soul into food for sustenance for his ego? Things are rarely so perfect. Hmmm.

Ego distorts and self-directs all actions in love relationships. It consumes all of the energy from them. And the person behind the ego can never experience the love potential with another human being. Actions are not authentic but all trickery and strategy, which after so many years is well-honed for implementation on most of the people encountered, poor love-sick souls with no understanding of what it is to truly love someone. The circumstances of this meeting were unexpected and not result of an active search.

I had a very good friend who used to refer to people as “bozos on the bus”, which is the title of a 1971 comedy album by Firesign Theatre. When I complained about some senseless act that someone might have done, in response he would say, “Ah, we’re all just bozos on the bus.”; using this reference for everyone because it allows us to forgive our foibles and not to expect so much of each other.

Forgiveness, it is extremely powerful and one of the very best things that we can do for other people and for ourselves. So I forgive when I need to because after all, we are all “bozos on the bus”.

Truth is Beauty is Love is God

May this new year bring love and light to everyone,

Char

Dedicated to “M”.

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A few years ago, I was grappling with a health condition which defied understanding of several medical professionals. After extensive online research, I myself would come to discover what was keeping me ill. The process was draining and exhausting. One day, at my desk wondering where else to look for answers, I folded my arms and rested my head. I seemed to be falling asleep as a memory from my childhood, of a summer that I visited with my grandparents at their farm in Virginia drifted into my mind. It was a very clear recollection of what happened so long ago so I started to write everything that was coming to me.

Here is an excerpt of what turned out to be a 50-page novelette.

This is the 4th chapter where I tell of the night my grandfather picked up my mother and me from the train station in Fredericksburg, Va.

4

My grandfather’s forest green Buick was quite the automobile with plush seats that reminded me of our living room couch. It was round like cars were then, with huge chrome grill adorning the front of it. The doors closed with an impressive sound, firm and solid, and inside there was a slight scent of musk from having been parked for long periods of time, I imagined, in reserve for special occasions. Buffed to a high sheen and with the occasional scent possessed by new cars, we made our way through the dark night under a sky as I had never seen it; so filled with stars with practically no space at all between them. “We don’t get to see so many stars back home do we? Isn’t it beautiful?” she said. I turned to the rear window. The entire sky seemed to defy the passage of the vehicle as did the farmhouses, trees, and roadside mailboxes. I began to feel very small and insignificant as I turned back around and closer to my mother.

From the highway the tires ground onto a narrow dirt road. As we rumbled along the air became moist, cool; filled with the many unfamiliar scents of the countryside. The startling awareness of skunk was somewhat softened by the sweet surprise of wild honeysuckle that my mother said grew wildly along the length of a fence. The Buick’s headlamps captured husks growing low on towering cornstalks. The crop had grown out over the sides of the road threatening to swallow the car as well, but only the sound, reduced to a soft rumble was forfeited, as it flumped up and over the bumps in the road and in and out of the ditches. With yellow cones of light showing the way, the night was teeming with fluttering ethereal life forms darting in and out, and the relentless sound of a million crickets. 

Through the darkness we walked along a small path toward the light of the farmhouse to find my Grandmother waiting by the kitchen door. Her smiling eyes were mere crescents above cheeks like apples and her braid was coiled and pinned back. She was shorter than she seemed from the stories my mother had told about her. I remember never having been as completely hugged as I was that day within her full bosom, smelling of the coconut cake that was at the center of the table in the old country kitchen. I felt known and loved in the most reassuring way. And I thought that she must have heard many stories about me as well, and that eventually I would discover somewhere in this house without mantels, the baby-in-pink with-teddy picture that other seldom visited relatives all seemed to possess. After a glass of lemonade and a piece of the coconut cake, I was shuttled off to bed as the elders lingered over a pitcher of tea. I remember that the smokehouse hickory seemed to be everywhere, even in the sheets with the little red roses that I slept on that night.

Two Little Girls by Charon Diane

Available through my publisher, Booklocker. 

  http://booklocker.com/books/4718.html

and:

Barnes & Noble

https://barnesandnoble.com/w/two-little-girls-charon-diane/1022157163?ean=9781609101374

You are amazing!  Create something beautiful today!

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A Little Respect

Posted on by cdjcollings

What if we were to refrain from saying and doing things that we were taught were so wrong when we were children in grammar school…because by doing so, prevented us from getting along with each other? I speak specifically of:

1. Name calling and labeling people
2. Demeaning and degrading people

If these simple rules were valued and put into practice, most of the people in our current political environment and popular media outlets would have nothing

at all

to say!

Until the last few years, we could be confident and were able to rely upon public figures with access to us by way of television, radio, and the newspapers to be respectful of themselves and for us, and determined and cared to be known as such a person. And by extension, we as well felt that respect within ourselves. It was a pleasing, civil experience. So how was it all replaced with pervasive, mind-numbing, searing vitriol?

There seems an intent to energize consciousness at the lowest of levels; negativity that individually, we all do the work and gratefully succeed upon improving. And there are matters, do to personal experience, which require more effort. But we keep doing the work because we are not children, and we realize the rights of others, and simply because we know that we should; because we feel both personally and spiritually that it is the good thing. It becomes our guiding light and provides us the realization of our humanity at its higher level. It makes “the playground at recess” a pleasant time for all!
The difficulty I feel experiencing people with unbridled disrespect for anything that they don’t like; with that being the only criteria, and given access to all major media to deliver far and wide such poison is not easy to quantify; people who hate what they cannot control, because they cannot control, specifically when someone wants to discuss matters instead of simply falling into compliance.

And consider that there is an entire generation with no reference at all to the way the news was once presented. Our current environment is what they know.

Writing about this lack of respect is a little sickening but I dwell upon the what I consider a powerful fact, that respect is the most effective, and the easiest solution for our troubles.

What if we could make the effort to choose respect for ourselves and others, and give and feel it in all that we think, say, and do?

What if we could accept our limitations and the limitations of others and show compassion for both?

Image that…

Love!

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During a prolonged illness I was inspired to write this book.

Two Little Girls by Charon Diane

While struggling through a convergence of life-changing events and making little progress, I was suddenly presented with the most amazing gift.  A childhood memory suddenly emerged.   It seemed to have an urgency, pleasantly so, not at all like matters before me.  I began to write.  With every detail that I could recall, I was gifted another, until all of the shapes and colors were there within a my 50-page novelette.

It is a story from my childhood which took place in 1950’s on a farm in Virginia. As I wrote the words I felt warm and comforting support for a time that I spent with my grandparents, so very dear to me now.  Until the time of writing, I was unaware of how much meaning that summer with my grandparent’s had brought to my life, and somehow having remained safe in my heart all along.   It was written with love and a deep and ever-growing appreciation for my family.  It might well have been entitled , “The Gift”.

Here is an excerpt.

Two Little Girls

Chapter 1

As far as I was concerned, summer began with the day my father installed the screens in the windows. Early that morning, Mother would have taken the summer sheers from storage to the clothesline in our backyard. By the afternoon, she swooped up the freshened bundle and brought them back indoors to hang on the rods at the tops of the windows. When the transformation was complete, I’d run from room to room to see the curtains flying on the breeze that raced in through the windows of our big old house. Like a magical invitation to adventures possible only with summer, when one day melted into the next and no one asked about the time, I felt that I could fly too and that anything could happen.

There were 5 children in my family. My brother Lionel was the oldest; my sister Cecilia was next, followed by my sister Rose, then my brother Isaac, and me. We spent summertime totally absorbed in keeping pace with our friends as was our Mother in keeping up with us. She mended our scraped knees, our bruised egos, and the holes in my brothers’ dungarees. I remember lemonade and tuna sandwiches, cotton sun dresses and hair ribbons; the pennies I collected for the corner candy store, and my ankle socks that never stayed up. Summers seemed much longer then when hopscotch and jump rope, hide-and-seek and tag, dress-up and make believe, with my bicycle, my dolls and friends filled the days until supper time. When August finally came around, among the five of us someone would be chosen to vacation with our grandparents in the country. It was in the year 1957 that I was to spend my first summer there.

I’d thought so often about my first trip to the farm. But like the landing of a cascading boulder, my mother’s cheerful delivery of this summer’s plan completely shattered my vision of it. Leaving little room for the way that reality alters things but similar to most events concerning “the children”, I was quite certain of my unvarying reverie. It was always the same.  My brothers and sisters are running through a country field with me, very happily and as usual, following close behind. But everything had been arranged and I alone would spend two weeks on the farm that year.

My family had gathered in the living room when Mother made the announcement. But my frustrating lack of enthusiasm was like a call to dinner in emptying the room of everyone and I found myself alone, save for the dog. While I struggled with the concept of being on my own, Spiky jumped onto the couch next to me. Placing his head upon my foot he kept a concerned and watchful eye over my disposition until we both fell asleep.

Later that day, I listened to Dad’s recollections of farm life adventures while Mother prepared supper. As she filled in with the finer points and particulars she’d taken note of my mixed feelings with her knowing smile that always took the sharp edges off of things. “Don’t forget that your cousin Joanna is just about your age and lives close to Grandpa‘s”, she nearly whispered. Then I thought of the pocket inside the little green suitcase as the place where my Jacks would find a perfect fit.

                       ~~~~~~~ Truth is Beauty is Love ~~~~~~

You are amazing.  Create something beautiful today!

Two Little Girls by Charon Diane

Available through my publisher, Booklocker.   –   http://booklocker.com/books/4718.html

and:

https://barnesandnoble.com/w/two-little-girls-charon-diane/1022157163?ean=9781609101374

https://www.amazon.com/s?                                                                          k=two+little+girls+charon+diane&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

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