I pulled a grey hair from my head. Or a white one? It could have been just really blond. It could have just gotten my attention because it was short and standing at attention. But I pulled it, root and all. I could even see what I believed to be the root which looked like a little plug of skin, or brain matter? I don’t want my head to age. I don’t want a grey hair. Will it stop them? Where do hairs come from if you pull them out by the root? Shouldn’t it? I’ve been told more than one come back? How? Does hair grow from the roots or the ends, the roots right? If it grows from the ends why does the root change colors, showing the growth? If it comes from the root, where in my head is it coming from? Is it coiled around my brain? Do they have to move hair to scalp you before brain surgery? Do they even scalp you? That seemed a little dramatic of a thought. Do they open your head up and go? “Oh there’s the problem she has too much hair in here? “An inside the head haircut. It’s all been tangled in hair. Like a messy yarn ball. Clean it up, maybe use some de-tangler, then put her skin back on.

Why don’t arm hairs grow longer? They grow back but not longer?

I’m sure a good chat with a hair person would solve this, or maybe my therapist.

I just saw one tiny hair standing up a little lighter in color wondering why my age is determined by my hair color? Maybe I’ll color my hair silver? Why does it even change to grey? What makes it change? Why do some and some not? Are bald people clearer thinkers as they age from all the hair loss? Does grey hair mean you still have hair and chaos in the noggin it’s just getting old, worn. Rusty but not turning rusty? Why don’t we turn rusty? Like old cars.

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.

Yoga.

Once I burst into tears over this supposedly calming, mind channeling calm through the veins that millions of people snap beautiful poses of themselves in.

I sat there in this perfect pose held so tight and for so long that I thought I had mastered it. Yet I was nervous I was failing because I wasn’t calm, I also wasn’t ”present” as she spoke calmly at the beginning. She said, Be present.

My mind first went to presents. Like gifts. She didn’t say it right? Did she mean to say this? Why would she say presents?

I wasn’t listening because I can’t.

I was there, did this count as present, I almost raised my hand to show my eager attendance.

To be seen. To be counted as there.

I came, but so did my over active uncalmed, fearful mind. I was in the past and sometimes in the future, thinking out the worst case scenario so I could be prepared.

Where was the exit? What if something happens with one of my kids? What will it be? Death? A car crash? Her feeding tube? Her heart? Who will buckle them? Will they do it right? Why would they even leave? I am only going to be gone a couple hours.

Please don’t leave, I begged to no one.

I said it out loud I realized when someone heard, she said nothing.

I often think I think things when they are actually softly said out loud. That’s when I know my fearful thoughts are too loud, when they leak out as words.

In general, I’m a loud talker. Ask anyone who has heard me from across a department store. So a soft spoken voice is just my thoughts running into a space I can’t control sometimes.

This is a really old building, who let them decide this is a calming place? Why isn’t the fire extinguisher near her? It’s by the door. Where you have to leave in a fire. Why would you run for an extinguisher by an exit then go back? Maybe she plans to save her building? Is there more? Why would a yoga studio even burn down? Would the mirrors melt or shatter? Would I try to save her building or myself, I knew the answer.

I was crying over the thought that there is no such thing as being right in the moment, I couldn’t listen to my body or think about it let alone listen to her. I was busy listening to myself.

I felt dressed wrong, I didn’t have proper yoga clothes. What are proper yoga clothes? Ask Target? It’s a yoga mom clothes trap. Even fancier, Athleta. Fancy to me anyway, they do make really cute tennis skirts. Don’t ask. I buy my clothes second hand. Because they have already shrunk in the wash or dryer and are ready to go, they have a little story behind them, they are cheaper, they can just go right back to the thrift store for someone else to try on calm when I fail at yoga after one class… one hour.

My shiny new mat squeaked(a gift that came with this yoga class gift certificate). It wouldn’t lay flat yet. Everyone else rolled theirs out like it was a magic carpet ready to take off to a far away land. Maybe that’s what will happen? Was I supposed to oil it? Like you do a baseball glove? What is it even made of? Is it flammable? Will it melt or burn? It feels like neoprene, like scuba gear? Why would it be made with this? What about sweat? Will it get absorbed? Did this come with more instructions than just the cute carry bag? I don’t think I remember.

My anticipation was too much. I felt already like I was not good enough simply because I didn’t know what to expect or how to do it. If I know I can’t do something new well I tend to just avoid it.

I could hold the poses. I watched as others moved fluidly and in a beautiful transitional manner. No one had spoken for like 11 minutes and I was afraid I had been forgotten. I wanted to…to what? Scream is what I wanted to do. Be heard.

I could hear my mat, my sobbing and my leaky brain words. Could everyone else hear these things?

Eventually my eyes were clenched so hard from trying to concentrate on being there, when what I wanted was to be anywhere else. Maybe even nowhere. Where do people go in their heads when they can’t escape what’s in their heads?

I never went back.

Today, I think of all the photos you see of these perfect captured moments. I see them on f’n Pinterest, who’s only goal is to make us all look like we suck. Or to steal our time.

Pinterest is sneaky, and I hope will die a slow painful death someday. For me anyway. It watches what you view then overwhelms you with things un achievable. You viewed that specific recipe last week so here are one million that you might love but will never make or will buy the required 14 rare spices to make then will throw away because your kids like chicken nuggets and spaghetti. I prefer my Betty Crocker and my grandmas cookbooks…

Anyway, Are they really present in these moments? If you pose and take this photo it was planned and thought out? Your intent is to share? You’ve already become not present. You are thinking of the steps it took to get it set up. Timed it with a worthy view or sunset. Planned either someone to be there to take it or set a timer then ran like a banchée too get to your pose? Nearly missing catapulting off a cliff edge of the Grand Canyon. Can I turn my phone backwards and get in place in ten seconds? The phone falls over. You view the photo. You don’t like it. It’s not worth sharing to show what you should look like being present, you missed the amazing sunset in the background to share yourself sitting in front of it.

The best way to show being present is to not show you are present? Then who will believe it happened? Why does that matter to so many?

I’ve decided it’s a very personal feeling and moment for me. I can do it as long as I focus on my purpose. Why am I here to watch this sunset? For me. I walked miles to get up here and it’s all mine. Most people that view photos rarely leave the comfort of their home. It’s likely not inspiring them in any way. It’s actually likely making them doubt themselves.

I sat and counted that it took this many seconds for night to come and day to leave. Just to be certain it happens. But, I sat. No one bothered me including me.

Yes my dinner looks good. For me. No the recipe is not online.

I cheat on apps that are stalkers, Apps that count steps, and miles and calories. I have downloaded them only to feel the desire to leave without them so it won’t know I walked so far. it’s liberating.

I did get new shoes. I’ll show you someday when I see you in real life.

I am a terrible tax preparer and have a terrible desire to be a traffic controller at 4 way stops. I take routes to avoid these stops. I avoid 2 lane drive thrus for the same reason.

Wait till you see my new hair color! It’s better in person.

I am in the bathtub right now, I let my water out and am sitting in it with no water. I forgot for a minute where I was. No one will ever know.

Yes, it’s snowing. Look out the window. Or go out. We forget how much we love something when we don’t worry about what everyone else is doing, thinking or not thinking.

Let it hit your tongue. Feel it slowly melt. See how long it takes to catch 2. Make your snow angels, remember when you made them and your goal was to not leave foot prints? Showing a real angel flew and flapped her angel wings in the freezing cold snow. Why would she? It’s also not something you can do. I used to throw snow back to my foot prints covering my tracks.

Yes I’m actually sad right now and am writing about my irrational fears to read them back. I can’t sleep when my kids aren’t here unless Friends is playing in the background and my daughters blanket is safely next to me. She talks to her blanket and I have to talk to it while when she doesn’t or she thinks her blanket is sad. Her blanket is a person to her. She gets buckled and everything, fed and comforted when she is sad. She is also this to me. It’s absurd.

I can do a few yoga poses for approximately 49 seconds. But I’m likely crying, likely cussing, falling…anything but calm, but I am present and connected to the me I know. My mind is finally on that pose. I am pulling in places I never have, waking and stretching muscles In my body and my mind, and relaxing places that haven’t since I was in the womb. I have a very strong or maybe weak? core because I’ve held stress and tensed for so long. I can hold still from years of knowing I shouldn’t move or speak.

Being present might not always mean being calm. Finding calm. It could just mean being aware. Just because I have these rampant thoughts doesn’t mean I can’t also stop them or keep them from controlling me or attempt yoga. Maybe in a tense situation calm shown is not the same as what is thought. Or is that calm? Maybe the busiest most active, chaotic people are actually very calm inside? It’s all situational.

I was typing and thinking of sharing this. But with who? And why? I’m trying to get to a place my thoughts are not running back and forth from what I believe I am worth and what others believe. Maybe someday I will.

Why?

Because I suck at yoga, And millions of people can do it and I can not. I also think millions can not do it.

I am uncalmable? Or maybe I am what is really present? Yes I said present not presents.

I also would love a magic carpet, flame resistant and already used. That’s a whole other story…

Someday is here.

I started my day worried about my iPad. Actually it started in my dreams. It’s one of the first ever to be made. First models, not first ever. I was actually behind the times and by the time I got mine a second was what everyone wanted. The iPad2. Mine was bigger. I wrote in it, had music and books. But it’s from another life. Not a past life. Yes, a past life. A place I once was and am not anymore. The place that got me to here.

I don’t remember if I loaded books, will they be there with no internet or will my music still be there. I don’t even remember what books I would have liked then. Is it the same as now? Will my pictures be there? Will I be able to handle seeing them? I can google these questions. Will I be able to have enough control of myself to seek the single answer I need? Should I ask someone? It’s fun to see others use their minds? Or do they also just google it?

I don’t know about clouds and drives and places to back up things. So they could be floating around lost between here and there. I have things not stored in too many places. And stored in too many places. Photos in so many places that aren’t a Tupperware container or shoe box they feel lost and in between two places. Lost between what was and what is. My photos. My memories. My life.

I know the feeling, photos. I’ve been stuck between what’s here and there. Not properly backed up and stored in a place. I lack my own cloud my own google drive, all neat and tidy of files. Mine was messy. Is messy? It’s less messy. Some of the drawers are closed. But they are closed like a file cabinet stuffed too full and not quite holding papers stacked neatly. Some are giant papers. Folded up kindergarten posters and cut out flowers and things from kids. Some are too small and stuck below the stacks. Drawer shut, it is bent, from trying to be kicked closed for years.

I can hear this noise all day long. Banging around of memories being tumbled uselessly trying to soften the edges. Trying to solve them, remember them.

for me, letting go, means forgetting.

If you are anything like me you have tumbled rocks. When I was little I tumbled rocks. Mostly driveway gravel. Driveway gravel makes the weirdest smooth rocks. Some of it just tumbled to nothing. I still have a rock tumbler. I haven’t tumbled rocks for years. I have no driveway gravel anymore. I could tumble rocks I’ve found but I love the feel of the rough edges and character of them being naturally moved around in the world. Holes all the way through from water pushing through something so tough. If I tumbled these rocks what would happen to these holes?

That’s how my mind works. It tumbles.That’s why I can’t listen. I can hear but I have so much background noise I can’t listen. The quieter I can get this the more I can listen. That’s as calm as I can get. A rock tumbler on the smooth grit. Softened edges, but still tumbling.

I can talk to myself with more clarity. I talk to to myself anyway I just can hear it finally.

Maybe for the first time? Or I’m remembering?

I would love to go back in time and tell my algebra teacher this news. Tell her I wasn’t ignoring her, daydreaming. Staring into space. Dreaming of being outside. I didn’t watch you because all you did was talk. While I was. It’s rude. To interrupt. I was listening to myself. I was busy telling myself not move, not to talk, not to cry, not to be upset I couldn’t understand you because you would not draw on the board behind you to show me what you meant. You talked about numbers I couldn’t keep still inside my head. 2+2=4. Yes but mine are busy moving. My numbers danced around.

If I were really going to go back in time I wouldn’t actually waste it on someone who didn’t understand someone who didn’t understand themselves. Or maybe all along I did and what I see now is that’s what matters. I would go back and ask some serious questions to some serious people who invented seriously cool things. Like electricity. Or maybe even the person who decided to create algebra. Explorers and scientists and inventors and famous musicians. Or Eleanor Roosevelt. Or maybe where I put my iPad.

I couldn’t find my iPad. Then I couldn’t find the cord. It’s the flat longer one with two sensitive prongs that quit sending power when dirty and wet. I always worried about snapping the prongs off in it, which would force me to need to see if I could remove this stuck prong, making me likely to have an iPad torn open somehow. A very very disabled iPad. I’m not even sure if you can buy this one anymore unless found at an antique mall. Someday our antique stores will be full of gadgets and our home will be full of love again. Worn crates and doilies, Plants and puzzles and magazines. Memories.

Then when I find my iPad and charger it says. “iPad Disabled.”

What? Now I want to take it apart.

Why? When did this happen? Did I once power it up and do this? I will have to do a process to able it? I’ll have to now google how to able it? Can it be? No way I have passwords remembered? Did Apple disable it or me? Why would they? Lack of use? Is there someone who sits and monitors iPad use? I was an activer curser and then went lost out into space? Lost in translation? Lost in the woods? Lost inside my head? They needed more room for other users? More active, in control users. People who know how to be able users.

I wish a blog could be handwritten. That I could use all the flowing fluid movements that come from handwriting. From cursive, keeping the letters all together to make one. It requires some thought to spell, to connect, to form thoughtful sentences. It slows down the chaos of what to say. You can erase. You can get very little lead that makes really nice writing. You can carry a pencil. Always have something to write with. It needs no power. You can sharpen them with knives.

When I type I can type so fast it is broken thoughts. I was a speed typer. I took too many years of typing in school because it was easier than Spanish and English. Easier than math. Easier than thinking through anything to make it come out solved.

My typing teacher loved shower curtains and shower curtain shopping. She walked around saying “asdfjkl:” “Aaa space, lll space.DDD space kkk space.” I just typed kkk and for no reason other than it’s opposite from the location of the d on the keyboard when properly holding your hands on the row. Now I typed it twice in fear of needing to explain why i typed it and could easily backspace the entire thing and no one would know I was so afraid.

I’m worried the google drives and clouds will run out of space. Who manages them? Who will decide what’s important to store for all the people who don’t want to or can’t or have no time to store things for themselves. The people who leave memories floating on clouds and not deep inside their minds. The memories that when I close my eyes I see playing out for me on the insides of my eyelids. Like a movie. I store them. I don’t not trust other places to do this for me. I want to trust myself to be able to first.

Like love? How can I expect someone to know how to love me if I didn’t know first. What I don’t like, do like.Trust myself. Love myself. Accept myself.

I’m slowing realizing trusting myself is trusting the universe. They are one and the same. It’s new. This concept. I’m not religious. I’ve been looking for a very close relationship to something. That something. What is it? Who is it? Where is it? I wonder and wonder and wander? Yes that’s spelled correct the third time. I’ve looked and looked and walked and walked and then I wore myself out. So I quit. Quit looking. I thought I was giving up.

I think I was looking for something to hold onto. To feel with my hands. Like my rocks I look for. Something to touch. So I can see with my eyes. So I can feel with my heart. I say it a lot. Let me touch it, hold it, pet it, so I can feel it. Let me see it so I can hear it.

Like when the waiter says “would you like to hear the specials?”

I say.”Yup, do you have any pictures?”

My senses are either all disconnected or extremely connected. They depend on each other to make each other work.

I was looking for a specific artifact to say “here it is!! That thing you were looking for to make it all make sense. It was right there all along.”

“Right where?” I would say confused. Looking for it.

Here. You can’t see it. You can’t hear it. You can’t touch it.

You feel it.

Trust it.

Trust you. You are right here.

Oh, here I am.

This had so little to do with my iPad. Other than it is what motivated me to begin a new kind of journey into self discovery.

My iPad is just another artifact I own that is no longer of use. I’ll get a new one. Or I won’t. I write free style, that’s code for not typing. I can’t dictate that writing into a format to share. It’s unsharable. I have writings I’ve buried underground. They are safe. I don’t need to go find them. Somethings don’t need to be shared or found. Just felt. And remembered.

I can’t get the old things from my iPad for a solid reason. They are stored there. Safe in my disabled iPad.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton