To Sci-Fi Live or Not to Sci-Fi Live?

Photo Credit - AMC

I’ve decided to write on a topic today that’s not too heavy. I know that a few of my topics can get pretty personal and hit some deep notes for people. Today’s post is not one of those, so prepare to have a bit of fun.

Before I get into the whole story let me explain about “Bubblews” This is an amazing social networking site. “What makes it so amazing,” you may ask? It’s different than any other site because it PAYS YOU for every post, of 40 CHARACTERS or more, which you make. It also pays you every time someone views and/or comments on one of your posts. Yes, you read that correctly. And yes, I wrote that correctly. We’re not talking 40 words, we’re talking 40 characters. Once your total income reaches $50.00 you can cash it out to your PayPal account. Pretty cool, huh? Oh, and it’s FREE to join. I’ve been on the site since February of 2014 and so far, I’ve found it to be all it’s claimed to be. So, what are you waiting for, go join already, but do it AFTER you finish reading this post, thanks. That said, I can now go on and finish today’s post.

I started a post on Bubblews this past week which I intentionally listed under the “Personal” category instead of the Sci-Fi category even though the post is strictly Sci-Fi. Why have I done this? I thought it would be fun to start a story that anyone, and everyone, could participate in. I’m calling it Sci-Fi Live. Here’s what I did.

I made the post appear to be a genuine conversation type topic but it’s not. The story began with an introduction to a strange night at my “boyfriend’s” house. The next post refers to his lost dog, and then finding his dog deceased. The intent behind this is to build a reader base where the reader can also become the writer/creator of the story through participation in the comment section of the posts. For example, in the first post I mention a loud boom that I heard, and then I ask if anyone else heard anything. I had hoped that people would catch on right away, as I included a disclaimer, but so far only one person has *shrug* What are you going to do? It’s for that reason that I decided to write about it here. This way I can explain my intentions without damaging the integrity of the story line.

I plan on leading the story into an alien/zombie apocalypse type scenario and I’m hoping that I can get people to play along. That’s where the whole “Live” portion of the Sci-Fi Live comes into play. I thought it would be a lot of fun to have various people describing their own part in the story. Perhaps they too heard the boom, or maybe they will eventually be fighting off zombie type creatures as they plead for assistance in the comments. Part of the disclaimer reads that any comment made will be utilized in the story line, so maybe John Doe will be telling Jane Smith that their house was over run today and they had to find a new location to hide, ect... I hope I’m making this clear. If not, please let me know and I’ll try to clarify it further.

My overall hope for this effort is that people will begin to start their own interactive stories on Bubblews. I think this could become an awesome medium for people’s creative well being. And, what’s best of all? You get paid to write it! How awesome is that? Every writer I’ve ever known wants to get paid to write and now we have an opportunity to do so, plus we aren’t leashed to a specific topic or condition. It’s all us! I’m really quite excited about this idea if you haven’t noticed and I hope that it takes off, primarily because it has the potential to be really fun. So, I’m going to go and write today’s post on Bubblews and I hope to see you there.

What Does Your Garden Grow?

Picture Courtesy of Lynn Greyling at Public Domain Pictures

http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=71091&picture=botanical-gardens-moscow

For years and years now I have gardened. I’ve always enjoyed the feeling of dirt on my feet and hands. I love watching a magnificent plant grow out of a tiny seed. I think it’s miraculous. My favorite things to garden are the vegetables. It gives me great pleasure to tend to the plants, watch them grow, and then reap the rewards of deliciousness.

When we lived in the Fort Wayne area we rented a house and couldn’t have a garden there. I managed to find a couple of community gardens where I planted and maintained a nice little crop. It wasn’t the best of circumstances, for sure, since I had to drive to get to them. It’s not like being able to step out your door and gather up some fresh herbs and veggies for the day’s meals. Things had to be planned, the weather had to cooperate, and that general sense of contentment wasn’t quite as strong. It did, however, deliver and I enjoyed it none-the-less.

Now that I have a home I can call my own, again I long to grow a new garden. There’s just one thing standing in the way, a serious lack of sunshine. If you’re a gardener then you know that vegetables require six to eight hours of direct sunlight each day. That means there needs to be a place in my small yard where the sun always shines. Alas, there is no such space. It’s unfortunate, yes, but not the end of all ends.

I plan to get a few five gallon buckets and, at the very least, plant a couple of tomato plants and perhaps a pepper plant. Certainly this is not comparable to the mounds of succulent summer squash, green beans, and cucumbers that I adore but it’s better than none at all. I figure I’ll be able to move the three plants easily enough and re-positioning them throughout the day should give them adequate sunlight. I shall wait and see.

There are other alternatives. Where there’s a will there’s a way. I know that I can certainly still garden. There are an abundance of shade and partial shade loving plants out there. Many of them are quite beautiful, and I don’t just mean hostas and ferns, although those are nice. I can think of Begonias, Coleus, Geraniums, and Impatiens off the top of my head. All of those will provide gorgeous color and texture. I’m certain there are tons more, so I will need to change the focus of my garden. That’s a very familiar life scenario for me and probably for you too. We need to learn to adapt to change; we need to be able to make something good out of a less than perfect situation. Personally, I know of no other way to live. How else can life remain good? I think that if your life isn’t good, then maybe you should be asking yourself if it’s time to change the way you garden. A person needs to work with what they have and be able to find satisfaction in it or else they’ll wither and die, much like a plant without its proper sun requirement. It’s seriously not a good thing. Life happens, we don’t always get our patch of sunshine but that shouldn’t keep us from blooming.

For now, my garden will be one of shade loving annuals and perennials. I will till the earth, plant the seed, and tend to it while it grows and becomes the beautiful plant it was meant to be. I may be able to squeeze out a tomato or two, I’ll keep my fingers crossed, but either way I’ll still be gardening and I’ll put my brain to work and set myself up a challenge to devise a way to harness that much craved sunshine. How about you? What will you grow?

Soul Searching

Picture courtesy of Joy Shrader at Public Domain Pictures

I was sorting through some papers the other day and came across a piece that I wrote several years back. It was a paper that examined ideas regarding the existence, or non-existence, of the human soul and the juxtaposition of oppositional characteristics of human actions and emotions. In addition, it presented the prospect of a collective soul existing within humanity itself. As I read over it I felt a particular relevance that reminded me of my own advice. Recently I have written about my alcohol and drug addiction which relies on a higher power. This piece calls me on that and gives food for thought. But, there’s something more in it. I found a deeper meaning when I read it. It related to me here and now as if, years ago, when I wrote it I had some link into my future. Maybe I knew that I would need a boost maybe that is why I kept it. I’m referring to the loss of my daughter in 2011 and how that deep soul pain is a part of what makes us who we are now and that there may be hope yet. So, today’s post is that article and maybe it can be the boost you need, too.

What’s the Big About a Soul Anyway?

We make it seem like it’s everything, we search for it. It’s what makes us human isn’t it? The rapid pulsing of life itself, the understanding that draws us into a world that touches other beings. It keeps us going, it cleanses the blood that flows within us. This blood that courses like hot molten steel, forcing us to be more than instinctual.

It drives some people over the brink of sanity and into a world where reality will never be the same. It causes us to love and hate, to bestow charity and to steal, to build and to destroy. It leads us by the nose wherever it thinks we should go. We die for its preservation. We kill for its purification. We justify a hundred thousand reasons of madness just to keep it from burning us to death from the inside out. Our actions are all based on what the soul desires, what it believes to be true. Yet, it leaves so many with an empty bottomless pit feeling in their bellies that their hearts swell like starving African children. It screams out for its own annihilation then begs forgiveness and respite. It knows us all too well.

It gives the ability to move forward while stopping us dead in our tracks. It holds us immovable in space and time when it’s injured and then suddenly flings us into a distant solar system when we least expect it. You know what I’m saying...we have all felt it. You know exactly what I’m talking about, it’s as if we share it, like maybe there’s only one soul to go around; one, which every person on the face of the earth has some part of. How else could we feel, experience, and even know the joys and sorrows of others as we do? How else could we be so cold and hateful in its absence, as if sometimes there just isn’t enough of it to go around? Like a bombed out building that is still hanging on, parts are missing but the structure remains. Some of us struggle to rebuild the monument of humanity, while those that linger in the empty space cling to an invisible thread of hope and desperation that maybe, one day, they’ll again experience what it’s like to be in the remaining I-Beams.

Soul sickness, it comes with the territory. It breaks us down into compost material and leaves us waiting to be fed to those who would thrive on our molecules. The soul spreads like this, into each one of us. Sometimes we’re consumed; sometimes we’re the consumer. Each time we put our soul into something, no matter what it is, we leave ourselves open, vulnerable to the compost heap. Our flowers and fruit spent, then tilled up and thrown out to await our rebirth through the tender sprout of another obsession. We blanket the winter months of our absence with depression, or anger, sometimes hate or just plain empty longing.

Broken and battered we pick up its pieces and attempt to put them back into our work, our thoughts, our feelings, and our lives. We try and try to rebuild the ornament of beauty that links us to life. We fear its loss more than anything but we rarely ever think about it. It delivers us from evil and allows us to think of bigger and better places for it to be than right here where we are. The call of humanity is our own pleading for a sense of connection. The very connection which we dismiss, without a second thought, as soon as the crazy guy in the corner of the restaurant makes eye contact with us. It’s that spark which ignites either yearning or repulsion. It’s what the Gods themselves have longed for. What it means to be human only a human can understand.

So what’s the big? It’s only humanity, our humanity, both individual and communal. It brings a sensation of existence into our world, the link in the missing chain. Still, we can’t even agree that it exists, or if it does, how? In what form? Where is it going to lead us? Does it even know or are we just spinning in a continuum of non-linear existence? Do we expand the collective soul when we become “enlightened”? Can the circular effect grow without end and send humanity beyond the imagination? How can we ignore so blatantly the driving force of our being?

I think, and this thought is coming from my very soul, that a conscious effort to recognize, relate to, and feel one’s soul will send out a vibration that causes the remaining soul to hear music. It’s the song that will echo into the void spaces of the collective and create the necessary expansion into the vacancies of humanity. People can feed their empty swollen hearts. The soul can grow. Somehow, there can be enough to go around. I think the secret lies in the consciousness of each individual. I don’t know how many people it will take to achieve a collective humanity, but I am sure that the more people who are willing to make the effort, the more successful we’ll be. The soul is unique. It is a big deal. We need to acknowledge this or we will all end up in the void, just as it is capable of expansion it is also capable of collapse. The structure of human kind could fold under the weight of emptiness, and vanish into a cloud of dust. It is a big deal. It’s our deal. Nourish the soul, feel it, don’t forget about it. Let it hurt, let it love, let it grow. Deliver us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So there you have it. My wake up call to myself. I’m going to try to let it hurt, to let it love and hopefully to watch it grow. Thanks for being here. Our journey may be long but I have hope because you’re here....so yeah, thanks.

Alcoholism and Drug Addiction - How Did I Get Here? - Part II

Before I begin telling my tale again, I’d just like to say thank you to those of you who have come back this week to hear the rest of my story.

To sum things up simply, I began drinking alcohol at age eight. By the time I was seventeen I was an addict to both drugs and alcohol. I had suffered an accidental overdose which didn’t deter me and so I continued on slowly drowning and never even realizing it.

At twenty eight I had been actively using for twenty years. I honestly don’t think that I knew any other way to live. Even though I knew other people didn’t live like me, I had no idea how to escape from what my life had become. I was involved with a man who was very abusive and thanks to my addictions his violence towards me was met with equal violence directed at him. When I was unable to hurt him (physically or emotionally) the way he had hurt me, I began turning that violence onto myself. It’s difficult to describe the depth of pain that is present when you get to a point in life and think that it would be better if you were dead. My entire being felt as though I were suffocating and being allowed to gasp for air just long enough to keep the agonizing torture ongoing. I had convinced myself that I was completely useless and that I was doing more harm than good to my kids. I was sick of being beat on and I was sick of beating on others, so I took a very large amount of valium and washed it down with the beer and whiskey I had already been drinking.

The only reason that I didn’t die that night was because of a friend, my best friend, who had spent the previous ten years constantly by my side. She knew what I had done and she called the EMS. I was out before they got there and, eventually, told that if she wouldn’t have called when she did I would certainly have died in a matter of minutes. When I regained consciousness in the ER I stormed out of the hospital, embarrassed with what I had done, angry with myself for failing, and still trapped in the endless insanity. I refused to go home to face anyone and since I knew of no other way to deal with such an epic failure I began partying harder than ever. I spent the next two weeks hanging out with some people who didn’t care that I was in such bad condition. I decided to go back home thinking that it had been long enough and that I would be welcomed with open arms, people should just be glad that I’m back. It hit me pretty darn hard when instead I was told to get out. My best friend, the only person I had left, the only one who had put up with all my crap over the years, had enough and today I thank God that she did.

So, I finally began to realize that there was a problem. Even after all of this I still wasn’t convinced that I was the problem, but I started to see that one really was there. I agreed to check myself into detox but I still had a long road ahead. The next few months are pretty fuzzy to me. I knew that I needed to get sober but I was still unsure just how to do that. I tried to control my drinking after I got out but my first trip to the bar ended up with me being in a functioning blackout for at least five or six hours. When I came to I was with a person I didn’t know and I had no idea how I had gotten there. The people I had been staying with told me to get out because I, “Really can’t handle drinking and [I] seriously needed some help.”

This is where I finally got to the turning point. As I walked out of that house with no where to go and no one to turn to, that suffocating feeling was pulled into my gut as if in a vacuum. The pain wrenched and twisted inside me until, in the middle of the street I looked up into the glowing lights of the night, and literally screamed out, releasing the agony, and putrid pain that I had kept tight inside me all these years, “I give up! What the fuck do you want from me?! I don’t know how to stop!” I sobbed aloud as I walked hunched holding my stomach and knowing that for some reason I was gong to be given a second chance.

I walked to a friend’s house, and I guess she must have seen something in me because she agreed to let me stay there. That week I began going to rehab and shortly after I also went to my first AA meeting. I worked the program the way it was meant to be worked and even though my idea of a higher power didn’t match up with the conventional ideas, I had come to believe that there was something in the unknown universe, out there somewhere, that had decided to pass a bit of grace onto me that night and give to me a new life.

I know that sobriety has been, and remains, the only path for my life. Without it I have no doubt that I would not be here today. I know that no matter what life hands me I remain only one drink away from a drunk and that I cannot, under any circumstances, entertain the thought, even for a minute, of having a drink. I thank the powers that be for my second chance and I hope that it is never regretted. I know the program works if you work the program. When my daughter died a couple of years ago, I knew that was a huge trigger, and even though I didn’t want a drink I knew I needed the program to be there for me...and it was.

I had recently moved so I didn’t know the area or anyone who lived there. I recall thinking that I need to go to a meeting that I can’t go through this alone, but I didn’t know where any were. As these thoughts were racing through my head along with the details of my daughter’s death, I was walking through the motions of every day life by going to pay the rent. I walked up to the front doors of the church, to whom we rented from, and I saw a sign on the door, “Tonight’s AA meeting has been moved to room XXX and will begin at 7:00PM” No, I am not making that up. I went to the meeting and found a small intimate group having a closed 12 Step meeting. I introduced myself and explained why I was there. The group chose to delay their discussion so that they could spend the hour talking to me and helping me to get through the worst pain I have ever experienced. Not a one of these people knew me from Adam and not a one of these people treated me any different that you would treat a loved one. That is what AA is about. And finding that meeting is what “The Grace of God” is about, and so it is that without them both I know beyond all doubt, I would not be here today writing this. Please, if you are struggling with alcohol or drug addiction let go of that pain. Cry out to the powers that be and let them know that you can’t do this anymore and maybe, if you sincerely work to get sober that grace and those AAs will be there for you too. Thank you, sincerely, from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to read this.