Month: June 2004

Categories
Just Shelley

For Life

First published sometime in 1997, I believe, at the original YASD site.

Today, today, I have reconciled myself to dying. We all die, eventually. I will die … someday, hopefully far into the future. Now that I’ve got that out of the way, I might as well live, and stop being afraid of the inevitability of dying. The funny thing about inevitabilities is that you can’t run from them, hide from them, or push them off. So ignore them, and move on.

Who is this person who’s crawled into my skin? I used to be such a gutsy person who didn’t back away from any challenge. Now I sit in a chair surfing the Net – living vicariously through a wire: a pseudo peeping tom on the world. When I’m not online, I sit in a pub or library or park, listening to other people’s lives. Excuse me, but whatever happened to going out and creating my own? Since when did I become a miser, holding on to each day like it was a bright and shiny copper penny that I couldn’t let go?

Life was meant to go by in a blaze of experiences and events and sharing and caring and things done and places visited. You spend each day freely and with abandon, and you know you’ve lived successfully when you reach the end of your time and realize that your life has passed swiftly, in a blur–a kaleidoscope of memories, rich and colorful and warm.

Today I put on music and I danced around my living room as I used to long ago, way back in a time when I wore flowers in my hair. I danced for the sheer joy of dancing and I connected with that long ago younger daughter that was me and for a moment I was in a time machine in my own mind – a time warp between then and now. I danced not for work and not for exercise and not for socialization and not because I ought to or had to, but for the joy of the act, the love of the music. I danced because I wanted to.

There should be one rule in your life, one absolute: no regrets. Whatever you do or don’t decide, do so with an understanding that you’ve made a choice and don’t look back with regrets. Look forward…always look forward.

Follow your instincts about what’s best and right for yourself. Don’t say, “If I do this, I may regret it later.” That’s not the way to live. You have to grab life, and its experiences, with both hands and hold on for all its worth. It’s a wild ride at times, and a scary one, but you’ll get to where you’re going in the end. You’ll get to where you should be.

For me, I find joy in my writing. But somehow, somewhere, I stopped writing for myself, and started writing for others. I didn’t write what I wanted to say, I wrote what others wanted to hear. That’s not life; that’s just going through the motions.

I once told someone:

I love to write. Writing to me is a shield when I’m hurt and a weapon
when I’m angry. It is friend and lover, and a thief of time. It exposes
me and hides me. It is there in the morning, and there in the evening. Of all the chaos of life, writing is my one constant.

When I’m hurt or I’m afraid of hurting, I write and with my writing
heal or am healed. One in the same.

Take a moment, put on some music, and dance around your living room or your bedroom, or go dance in the street if you want. Or play a guitar, or run through the park, or fly a kite. Or write. For the joy of it. For life.

Categories
Just Shelley

Pleasing the masses

Another one from Dynamic Earth, edited for modern times.

One person somewhere in the Universe will really hate my (new web site design | photograph | writing | haircut | opinion). They’ll hate it with an almost overwhelming passion, and will be filled with a sense of loathing of it, and of me.

One person somewhere in the Universe will really love (my new web site design | photograph | writing | haircut | opinion). They’ll love it almost as much as sex, and more than chocolate, and think me a Goddess. I will be falling over them, as they kiss my feet.

The rest of the Universe will fall somewhere in between. I can live with this.

Categories
Critters

Walking among the dog people part 2

First published in summer, 2002 and moved to the now defunct Dynamic Earth

Yesterday I talked about my walk among the dog people, and my observations of the dogs as they enjoyed the beach, the water, and the company (canine and human).

I talked about the black lab that would bring me her ball to throw and then take it away before I could grasp it. In this process she was inviting me to share her wonder, her special moment, her fun, as we invite others to share ours, in our weblogs and in our lives. I tease the world to laugh with me, to play with me, as this dog teases her owner and willing participants such as myself with her ball.

The Jack Russell barked at the mighty ocean with all the confidence in the world that it could move those waters back and return his friends to him. There are no impossible challenges to a dog, just as there are no impossible challenges to those who are determined on a course that they must and will follow.

The moutain climber climbs the peaks because they are there. The singers sings because the melody must be heard. The writer writes because the words demand to be read. There is a need in our lives to find our unique challenge within each of us, and then meet it. When we are successful, when the waves roll back, then we throw our arms open and embrace the air. And it is fun – the highest peak of the roller coaster.

The Boxer would dash into the water again and again in its quest to capture the stick thrown by its master. Left unchecked the dog would literally drown in its drive to find what was thrown. A simple goal for the dog, but no less intense than the drive that leads us to find cures for illness, the secrets of the Rosetta stone, whether there is life on other planets, the meaning of God, the meaning of Life.

Is it too much of a stretch to call these purposeful and intense actions fun? Perhaps. But if the roller coaster’s intensity is one factor leading to the fun of the ride, than would I be wrong in equating the intensity of purpose and drive to one aspect of the fun of living? Is that a trivialization? Or is it really more of a simplification?

My favorite of the dogs was and will always be the red doberman. That she singled me out on the beach to approach. That she sat beside me. That she leaned into me with such open trust. When we reach out to others, in person, or via the threaded void that is the weblogging and the Internet, we also put a measure of trust in those who receive the message. Will they shy away? Will they reach back? Will real affection result, or is the contact as ephemeral as the medium used to transmit the message.

When I write this, I am very much like that red doberman, except that I’m approaching 2 people, 10 people, 100 people asking them to let me sit beside them at this moment, to lean against them, to share a moment together. And in that moment is companionship and contentment, perhaps the smoothest and most velvet form of fun there is.

Categories
Critters

Walking among the dog people part 1

First published in summer, 2002 and moved to the now defunct Dynamic Earth

I walk, almost daily, along the beach next to the Golden Gate Bridge. This beach also happens to be one of the few areas in San Francisco where dogs are allowed off their leashes, to run along the sand and play among the waves.

There’s a particular black lab I know that comes up to you and drops her ball just out of your reach. When you reach for it to throw it for her, she lunges in and grabs it out of your grasp and then dances around in delight at her own cleaverness. Then back again with the ball, dropping it down, expecting me to make another attempt.

One of the Jack Russell tries to keep up with the bigger dogs, running as hard as it can on its short stubby legs among the labs and the dobermans and the shepherds…until the other dogs run into the water.

The waves along the beach aren’t that small or that gentle and a small dog is not going to be able to swim in these waters. All that poor little Jack Russell can do when his larger friends jump into the water is to stand at the edge and bark for all its might. Wave rolls out, he runs forward; wave rolls in, he runs back. That cute little bugger barking at the ocean, in his mind having brief moments of triumph when the waves recede, setbacks when the waves return. He only stops when his friends exit the water, at this point having achieved a state of truce with the water.

One of my favorite dogs is a beautiful Boxer who loves to play in the water so much that his owner has to restrict him because the dog would exhaust himself and drown – the play means that much to him.

Once, a large red doberman came out of no where, walked right up to me, circled behind me, and then sat down beside me as if we were in a dog show demonstrating obedience. She then leaned for all she was worth against my leg, and just stayed there, looking out a the water. I was astonished at first, and then just started laughing. It was a moment of crystalline pure delight; the kind of moment you can’t buy, build, borrow, or create.

Absolute joy at simple gifts. I define this as fun, and it is my greatest meaning in life. And creating a little of that joy in others is my greatest purpose.

Categories
Stuff

End goal

I have some things I want to publish by the end of the month – long delayed LAMP essays, not to mention some older material on domains I’ve let lapse that I want to duplicate here so the work is not lost.

I am surrounded by half-started projects and half written essays and good intentions and now I’m choking on them. Now is the time to finish, and be done.

I want to end this month on a good note. If there are any comments to these new posts, they’ll be related to what I write, or they’ll be gone. And under no circumstances can my space be used by people wanting to get a message to someone else, or to fight battles that originated elsewhere–abusing the privilege I accord my readers, not to mention the hospitality of my home.

I would rather have comment spam then webloggers who use my space to hit and run. At least there is a form of honesty associated with the spam.

Additionally, I am taking great care in my writing to make sure there is no flint to spark against, no flames to fan–unless the flint is of imagination, and the resulting fire is the same flame I hoped to spark when I created my first weblog page, back in 1995. No battles will be fought, no dragons to be slain–all I see now are windmills.

Which means that my space will probably become very quiet.