I destroyed my DVD player. Took it completely apart so I could finish watching a movie that quit playing, then wouldn’t open. 50 first dates with Adam Sandler. I just needed to finish it. I had seen it many times but today I needed to finish it again. It’s a beautiful story. I love that everyday feels like the first of everything. A first kiss, each day is still a first kiss but it gets so deeply planted into her conscious that she dreams of the man who gives her her first kiss. Then meets him for the first time every day. She wakes each day and meets her child for the first time, sees the outside world as beautiful everyday. If you haven’t seen this movie I’m sorry.
The inside looks like the inside of so many electronics. A flat disk of electricity and little pieces of paper full of electricity to make it spin. I have no idea how it actually works and taking it further apart won’t give me this answer. It will leave me with a mess of electricity parts. I have no idea how electricity works. It just does. I also now need a new DVD player, it was broke before I did this and is still broke, just more broke. I removed the broken plastic piece that was keeping it from opening but it just wasn’t enough. It died.
I was able to finish my movie with the dvd just spinning away exposed like it might take off in flight. It refused to cooperate when I took the disk off and tried to make it play another one. I have too many disks to consider not owning a DVD player.
When I was little I disassembled things that looked like they could be. Our Beta player, now giving away I am not a super young person, and the Texas instrument. I didn’t take them apart enough to break them, just removed all screws to expose the insides, to watch it work. They still work when they aren’t protected.
Do you remember the Texas instrument. I felt like a cool programmer when I followed the directions of programs that would then produce just a series of letters flowing to make a flashing star. It was the coolest thing ever. The Beta player we had for years after the VHS came out. We had too many tapes to think of changing. I’ve pulled the tape all the way out to see if I can see the movie on the tape. Tiny little images of stories. It looks like tape. Also, it still plays when you put the tape back in crinkled. But times kept changing, each week the video store held less and less new movies for our ancient minds. One wall slowly became just a row available to,Im sorry, we all changed and you didn’t.
As I think of all the things Ive taken apart to really not find any answer, I think: there has to be people like me, people who need to know things. Curious people. Otherwise we wouldn’t be eating fruit. Someone thought and said “see that hanging on that plant, I wonder if it’s full of anything important?” I wonder if it contains something that will kill me or heal me, can I even eat it? Will it make my skin itch? Will it smell good? People that took risks to nourish our bodies and minds. The coconut, it would have taken some work to get this open, people were desperate, we hadn’t learned to manufacture things to eat, they lived off the land, tested waters unknown, explored. You can eat acorns. They taste really bitter if you don’t leach the tannins out. I’ve tried various acorns, I know deer prefer white oak trees, they are less bitter, deer have a sweet tooth,like me. You can make flour with acorns. It takes days.
I am not a hunter, I just know this from years working a deer hunting station. I used to help inventory deer that died. By counting their teeth to see their age. I would slit their jaws open and expose their teeth. I have no idea how I stomached this. Some hunters wouldn’t let me. Some destroyed the face from not getting them in the heart. Some were so small. Some were moms. I was carrying my first child when I did this. I used to hold my baby protectively whenever I saw a female deer. Deer hunters love to tell you the things they know to kill and stalk animals. I’m sorry, to hunt animals. I eat animals, so I get it, but if I think too much about it I can not eat them. I also can’t if they look like what they did when alive. Like birds. They have to be shredded or in the form of a tender. Not wings and legs or whole. A whole cooked turkey makes me nauseous. Fish?With eyeballs staring at you? Why would someone cook something with eyeballs? Then I wondered why would someone remove eyeballs then cook? Then I wonder why would someone do any of this??? Then I eat lots of vegetables until my mental anguish over eating animals dissolves. Until I see a live turkey. Then it starts over. I just don’t like to eat birds for no other reason than they always look like a bird when cooked. Just without a head.
The world feels like it needs a wake up call. Everything feels out of control. It also feels like everyone is trying to gain control when nothing is in their control but themselves. It’s complete chaos. So many wrapped up in each other’s lives they don’t have room anymore for their own. I don’t want control of the world so much as I want everyone else to have control of themselves. It’s a terrible problem to have. It’s worse than being controlling of someone, I have to work hard to control myself, so I think everyone else should to. I want complete control by having zero control of anyone. I want everyone to go when it’s their turn, stop when they are supposed to, know how to change a tire, not need me to change it for them, I will stop and change the whole worlds tires if I had the time. Talk in turn, make good choices and be kind. It’s all I ask. But I do not make this world turn. I make my own world turn. I stop when I’m supposed to but if someone else doesn’t, I get hurt. So I avoid 4 way stops.
It’s a harsh reality to realize nothing is in our hands. My little anxious mind is constantly seeking the answers to questions it asks itself. I’ve tried just not asking the questions. What I found to work is changing the questions. Who and what is this force? This rhythm that so few are not listening to. If they would stop for a few minutes you can hear it.
It’s nothing and everything.
It’s the wind through the trees, the cool soil on your feet, the birds chattering, the creatures below the soil, the rocks worn from millions of years, warmed by the sun, the moon glowing. The leaves rustling, the tree moving, you can hear trees move if you try, it’s like squeaky wood.
If you listen closer. Close your eyes, no, not that tight. Relax your eyes, they are safe.
It is the heart beating in your chest, you can feel it in your neck if you hold in your breath, the sounds of the air moving in your ears, the way your eyelids feel when you close your eyes after the cool air is on your eyes, warming your eyeballs. I have always worried my eyeballs could freeze or melt. This is why we have eyelids, unless you don’t, then you may need to worry about irrational fears of eyeballs melting.
Listen closer lady! No, your eyes stay closed for this.
Can you feel the way it gets quieter? Yet you can hear everything so much clearer at the same time.
I call this getting grounded. Bringing myself back to me. Reeling it in. I start as big as I can think. From the sun and the moon down to my toes. Then I feel smaller. Not shrunk in size like that movie of that family who shrinks and gets lost in a lawn and nearly ran over by a mower, and they are covered head to toe in pollen…it’s more that I make everything else around me seem too big. I didn’t get physically smaller I’m recognizing everything is too big. Too much but not overwhelming. Just so much that I let it go. Let go of the string I’m holding too tight to. The one that was trying too hard to stay held onto. It’s too heavy even though it’s suspended in the air like a kite/ Open the hands and release it. See? It all weighs less. So I can hear my own heart beat again. Then I know I’m alive. I’m also lighter.
Now I can open my eyes and hear so much more. Because it is less.
Aspenleaf 