"A New World Came Into View..."

"Either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn't. What was our choice to be?" Page 53, The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

"But without Faith, it is impossible to please Him: for he cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." Hebrews 11:6

Have you ever noticed how important we suddenly find the notion of growing closer to God when we're scared, confused, uncertain and basically more clueless than usual? I know I have. When I think of how many "God thoughts" I've had in the past two weeks, how often and urgently my mind has chased after my Higher Power, (even though I've always been the one doing the running away), I can't help but compare it to sidling up next to someone that's always been around, but has kind of gone unnoticed, until it is determined that the formerly overlooked person can do me a huge favor. I think it's one of my less endearing human traits. You know, the kind of person who says, "You are my new best friend!". Mostly because they want something.

I can't make the claim that everyone I know operates like me, because I know many people who keep the connection to God open and, unlike my Road Runner Internet Connection, these folks seem to stay "online" with God, regardless of what's going on in their lives. I want to be more like those people.

I wonder if God looks at me like that? Does He notice how much more attentive I am to His Will, His direction, when things get a little too rough for me to handle? And if He does notice this and, why wouldn't He, He is God, after all, it only stands to reason that God surely must notice how I slink away when the events of my life start going my way and I don't find myself in dire straits or uncomfortably tight spots. If that doesn't escape my attention, I'm quite sure it doesn't fly over God's head. From what I can tell, He has a reputation for being pretty sharp.

These past two weeks have been among the most challenging of my entire life. Challenging must not be confused with horrible or unbearable. There have been moments when I have felt both of those things, but there have been just as many, if not more, moments when I have felt myself stronger than I previously believed myself capable. I am walking through something that is testing me, and if I turn the control of the outcome where it belongs, which is in God's Hands, I will most certainly emerge on the other side intact. The funniest thing is that all of the previous times when I have worked so hard to "control" things, to be so "hands on", it was all such wasted energy because I have never had the power to honestly control anything or anyone, other than my own behavior. God truly knows I have my hands full simply keeping me in check.

These past two weeks have found me working very hard at "letting go" and giving the outcome up to "a power much greater than myself". I have felt pain and there's a reason for that. Pain is such a dependable motivator and it's a very effective way of eliciting my attention. I do feel as if I am growing and growth, by it's very definition, involves change and stretching; stretching sometimes hurts, but it is necessary because this human being/Single Mom/daughter/recovering alcoholic is very obstinate (kinder, gentler way of saying stubborn).

One of the most amazing things to me is that, even in the midst of personal turmoil and chaos, life does go on and when the self-centered part of me thinks that unexpected and unwelcome events in my life should trigger a sudden halt in the rotation of the earth, thankfully, it does not. The world keeps right on spinning and I have to spin right along with it. I must remember that I can't fight gravity or potent centrifugal forces, and I certainly can't stop the passage of time. If I remember my limits, there is a comfort to be found in the fact that I have those limits and constraints and that my power is nil. As I have witnessed both personally and through observation in AA, the admission of powerlessness invites protection.

Children need the protection of limits and boundaries set forth by their parents. As a child of God, I know for a fact that I need the same protection and boundaries. When I give thanks for the gifts God gives me, I need to remember to say extra thanks for not granting many of the requests that I "think" I need. If I had been given everything I asked for or wanted, I would be in terrible shape.

This past Easter Sunday, I had the immense honor of chairing my very first AA meeting which was held at the Wilmington Hilton as part of the week-end long conference of EACYPAA (Eastern Area Conference of Young People in AA). I had made a commitment to chair the final meeting of the conference and the final meeting was to be held at 7:00 AM, Sunday Morning. I woke up at 6:24 AM. YIKES! I tossed on some clothes, ran my hands through my hair, managed to brush my teeth and off we ran, arriving at about 4 minutes past 7:00.

I immediately bumped into the very kind man who had enlisted me to take on this duty, and then I did what I do best - well, that is to say that I tried to do what I used to do best; I told him my friend would be taking over for me because I just didn't think I was ready. This gentleman, for whom I was already nursing a resentment because he had just returned from skiing (and a business trip) to Italy, would have none of my protestations. He just squeezed my hand and said, "Susie, we'll be here for you - we're your support group!". I know that his intention was to make me feel more confident, but I felt hopelessly inept. What I wanted to do was shake some sense into him by telling him that I make a GREAT audience, but I'm a really lousy leader.

Can you feel how overwhelmed and underprepared I was? What was with this guy? He looked intelligent and was pretty wide awake for such an obscene hour of the morning, but he didn't quite get it. So what if I changed my mind about chairing a meeting? No worries, I was offering up a very seasoned pinch hitter. It's not like this was any skin off his nose.

I forgot the one thing I noticed back in January 2004 when I joined this elite organization; AA people are an extremely hard-headed lot. This must be why I immediately felt at home when I walked into my first AA meeting. These were MY people, and I love them, except when they don't take "No, I changed my mind" for an answer. Totally exasperating.

As I was making what I personally thought was a fairly strong case for post-poning my first chairpersonship, I was being lead by the hand to the front table by the nice man who had just returned from Italy under the thinly-veiled guise of "business trip", and basically told to sit down and start the Serenity Prayer already. I realized that, either way, I was screwed. I could stay up there and clumsily lead an Open Discussion meeting, in front of people from several different states, or I could just stand up and walk out which wasn't really a good choice at all because, though I might never see most of the folks in that meeting again, I would still have to face the people I see at practically every meeting I attend and the thing of it is, I really respect and care a lot about them' Then, of course, the whole "you should never decline a request made for the good of AA" thing kept playing in my subconscious and, well, I reluctantly made the only viable choice I could. I invited everyone to join me in saying The Serenity Prayer.

I don't know why I thought I might not be able to handle this because I can practically recite every component of an AA meeting in my sleep by rote. Every meeting begins the same way and ends the same way, the only difference being what happens in between those two points, and what usually occurs in the "body" of any given AA meeting can only be labeled magic. Even when I am distracted and only passively listening, I usually manage to come away feeling much stronger than I felt when I went in. It never fails.

Being the last-minute, fly by the seat of my pants, messy haired blond that I am, I hadn't given the first thought to a topic because I was sure I wouldn't need one, given that I was supposed to back out of fulfilling this obligation in the first place. Now I was front and center and I needed a TOPIC! I hadn't even had a sip of coffee, which meant I was running on fumes. My friend, the one I planned to cajole into taking my turn at chairing, had taken off down the hall to fetch us a cup and he certainly was taking his time to return.

I looked around the room at these young men and one young lady and couldn't believe they were attending a meeting at 7 in the morning, and looked quite happy to be there, completely unaware that they were part of my extremely shaky AA chairing debut, so I figured someone in this rather Zen looking group might have something in mind in terms of a topic. At least I was hoping.

Of course, I got an immediate offering and it was so dead-on perfect, delivered in a sweet Boston accent belonging to a young man I had chatted with briefly before things got started and I was still fighting to get out of chairing. He had heard this was my first "at bat" and he must have felt my pain, so he posed a topic and asked us to share what our Higher Power had done for us in the past year? OK, so my first thought was - My Higher Power sure didn't help me get out of this situation so I won't be sharing about that little miracle that didn't take place, but to be honest, the question hit intimately close to home.

I've been to a few meetings where the clock is the only sound to be heard as we have waited for someone to share something. I hate those long, awkward silences and while it's never been my business to fill them, I dearly hoped we wouldn't spend the next 50 minutes looking at each other and shifting nervously in our seats, minds racing for something to offer that might touch the topic. As it turned out, I had nothing to fear at all.

I wasn't the only one who loved the topic and just like a prairie fire spreading across the beautiful High Plains of West Texas, folks began speaking of their own "experience, strength and hope...". I don't think more than five seconds passed between voices and then I made the most astonishing realization; It wasn't about me at all. It never was. Once again, those well-oiled AA gears started turning and something wonderful and inexplicable was being presented to me. Another offering of unmerited grace.

I listened intently, most of the time with genuine wide-eyed interest and awe, as each person spoke of how the "God of their understanding" had done for him/her what s/he couldn't do for him/herself. I heard so much wisdom, openness and most of all gratitude, as each and every single participant reconfirmed for me what I inherently knew to be true, but so easily forget, about God truly being the only One with anything resembling control. Though each story was different, the same thread was present and so easily discernible. I love thinking of it as "uniquely universal experiences" which may sound like an oxymoron, but it isn't really at all.

Story after story, I quietly realized that each of us had traveled a different path to arrive at a 7:00 AM AA meeting, in downtown Wilmington, on a very rainy, gray Easter Morning drinking really rancid coffee. I'd be willing to say that most of us felt profoundly blessed to have had some defining moment that changed our course and gave us the opportunity to head in a much better direction and last Sunday Morning, for me, that direction lead me to a conference room with a group of young strangers that I had more in common with than many of the friends I have who I have known for years.

Not only did these conference attendees give me the gift of their experiences, but they reminded me of something I desperately needed to understand; Not one person in that room just woke-up one day and decided to become spiritually-centered and live a different, more positive life; We had to walk (sometimes crawl) through some pretty scary situations, literally get brought to our knees and pretty much out of options, in order to focus on the ONE that would offer us a course correction toward a much better destination. Maybe we just needed to find the path to our own personal "Ithaka". Fortunately, Bill W. discovered the map and blazed that trail back in 1935, shared it with Dr. Bob in Akron, who refined it and helped keep it real, and 69 years later, over 2 million of us are all the better for it.

After recovering from the terror of chairing a meeting to being a small part of a wonderful experience among some very special people, I felt a lot of peace and so much optimism. I wondered how many of those kids' parents knew where their offspring were that morning. I hope they did and I hope they were somehow able to let them know how very proud they were of the way these people from all over the East Coast, had turned things around and who they were growing into being. I know I felt quite honored to be in their company.

I even managed to clear up that resentment toward my AA buddy who talked me into chairing that meeting in the first place, but I'm still working on the Italy resentment. Time takes time...

One time I heard my sponsor share at a meeting, that when she sees people, particularly young adults, drinking way too much, she tries to find comfort in thet fact that it took every drink she tossed back to get to the point that she asked for divine assistance (and the phone number for Intergroup). When I worry about my own kids, I try and remember that thought. I hear people share that if they had been introduced to AA and sobriety one week before coming in, they wouldn't have been ready, and if they had waited one more week, they would probably have been dead. It's all about timing. You can't talk anyone into accepting this gift if they aren't at a place where they have made the realization that they not only need it, but are ready to admit the powerlessness I wrote of earlier which, by no coincidence, happens to be the first of the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

My Latest Column - Published March 23, 2005

Single With Children: Whittle down problems a day at a time Susie Parker Opinion Publication Date: 03/23/05 I thought I understood the notion that parenting isn't for wimps, but until this past week, I had no real clue. I've learned a few mothering techniques over the past 21 years. I know to apply kisses to skinned knees and elbows, lie in bed with a feverish youngster and watch the same video at least 17 times. I learned other things too. I respect my kids, but I am one of those parents who launches the occasional search of my kids' rooms. I am the Mom, and that affords me a lot of latitude. If my instincts tell me something isn't right, I have learned to heed those feelings. Last Friday, my instincts told me something was amiss. My son was out with his friends, so I took the opportunity to look around his room. It didn't take a lot of detective work to find some things that made my heart sink. It was one of those experiences where your eyes are delivering a report to your brain, but your heart is screaming, "REJECT!" I realize teenage years are the most tumultuous period of life any of us ever have to navigate, and I don't know too many people who would care to revisit that period. Hardly any of us breeze through those years without making a few mistakes, and sometimes mistakes can cross an invisible line and become life-threatening. I never expected my kids to whiz through post adolescence without making a few bad choices. Obviously, my son had done a little experimenting and made a questionable choice. What I found wasn't earth-shattering, nor atypical for someone his age. But it rocked my world. I gathered up the evidence and took the time to carry out six bags of trash, put fresh sheets on the bed and dust. When I get stressed or upset, I can't be still. What to do? It was apparent to my son by the condition of his room that I had made more than a passing inspection, and this was not welcome news. After his initial expression of outrage came a flood of excuses. I listened. When it was my turn to talk, I told him I appreciated the fact that this didn't disqualify him to run for president, but it was a very serious matter. "Please don't tell Dad," he said. Of course I had to tell Dad. I dreaded making the call, but I did. I didn't know how the news would be received. Would it be the perfect time to list the ways I have failed as a parent? Maybe charge me with not paying enough attention? Would he blame me for years of overindulging the kids? Fortunately, he did none of that. He expressed concern, offered no blame and within 48 hours, he flew 2,000 miles to check out the situation. I invited my kids for dinner at a specific restaurant and when we walked in, I spotted our out-of-town visitor. After the kids recovered from the shock, my former husband's impromptu visit let my son know that this was serious business. The four of us talked for an hour before ordering. We laughed and we cried. Though initially reticent, my son looked relieved. The jig was up and a lot of walls were instantly dismantled, along with the bravado. It was a productive, honest and warm dinner. Serious decisions were made because serious situations require them. Nothing was easy. A couple of people said we over-reacted to what is nothing more than a youthful rite of passage. If we did, that's just fine. Though it was a long, uncomfortable evening from where my son sat, he had to know he is loved. Everything said, every action taken, came from a deep, shared love for our son's safety and well-being. Divorce and distance didn't change our focus and devotion as parents. He wasn't pleased with the changes and reduction of privileges. He feels as if he's under a microscope. That's because he is, and will continue to be, for quite some time. Trust and credibility can be lost in a second, and it takes a long time to earn those things back, but everything is possible on the "one day at a time" plan and knowing that you are loved, even when you make those inevitable wrong turns. Readers can e-mail Susie Parker at SusieWrites@ec.rr.com or write to her c/o Amarillo Globe-News, Features Dept., P.O. Box 2091, Amarillo, TX 79166. Click here to return to story: http://www.amarillo.com/stories/032305/fri_1526204.shtml © The Amarillo Globe-News Online

Single...With Children - Publication Date: 9 March 2005

Single With Children: Growing up can be fearful business for 'Twixters' Susie Parker Opinion Publication Date: 03/09/05 There are five new babies in my home. I have a new aviary, and just days after introducing two pair of zebra finches, they went forth, laid eggs and multiplied. And within the abbreviated span of 21 days, Mom and Dad Finch are pushing all of those juniors out of the nest! Amazing, finches accomplish in about 21 days what takes parents increasingly longer to achieve: Independent offspring who actually go out and do what they're supposed to do on a rather predictable schedule. Watching the progression from hatchling to full fledging is fascinating, and perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this avian circle of life is that around day 21, the parents begin to introduce the concept of flying and nudge those babies to try out their wings. Mom and Dad still keep an eye on things and deliver the occasional meal, but by sheer instinct, these new finches catch on to the idea that independence is not a choice, but a matter of course. Apparently they didn't catch the recent cover story in Time magazine, "They Just Won't Grow Up!" The article discusses the puzzling phenomenon of "Twixters," the term coined to describe young adults who seem to be mired in permanent adolescence and confused as to how to move forward and become full-blown adults. Perhaps these "Twixters" aren't as confused as they are reluctant to embrace all that being an adult entails. The prospect of growing up, which looks so deliciously enticing at 12 or 14 years of age, evolves into something more ominous when one reaches 21. New studies reveal that the process of leaving the human nest can take a few years and is a rubbery sort of affair with the "Twixters" bouncing back and forth between short bursts of independence and retreating to the comfort and lesser responsibilities of living at home. This transitional stage between age 18 and the late 20s isn't so transitional. Researchers cite such factors as prematurely incurred debt, courtesy of credit cards and student loans, a stiffer job market, fear of divorce, having lived through one as a child, and "so many options, so little time." Basically, it reminds me of the time I was 12 years old and wanted more than anything in the world to jump off the diving board into the scary deep end of the pool. My dad nearly sank from treading water for more than an hour, coaxing, encouraging, cajoling and promising me, if I just made that leap, I would pop up and remember how to swim, even though the water was very deep. I wanted to dive so bad that I could taste it. I could also taste the fear, and it took a lot of patience, understanding and support before I finally trusted my dad. Just like he said, I bobbed right back up and swam effortlessly to the side. He had to drag me out of the water well after dark. The thing I remember most about that small milestone is Dad never gave up on me. No matter how many times I needed to hear it, he promised me I would be just fine. Thirty-three years later, I never forget who believed in me and loved me through that scary first time. I've seen some symptoms of this "Twixter" phenomenon in my own kids. My 21-year-old daughter sometimes moves back in for a few weeks at a time and hasn't the first clue about what she wants to be "when she grows up." My 18-year-old son doesn't seem any too eager to graduate from high school and make the serious decisions that will affect a future that is getting closer by the minute. There are days when I have to remember the patience my own father demonstrated that hot, summer day back in 1972. I find this period of life my kids are navigating to be just a little confusing. Every now and then I study those finches, trying to glean some kind of feathery wisdom, wondering why my kids are so reluctant to choose a direction and try out their wings. Whether it's 21 days or 21 years, growing up is a flighty, often fearful, frustrating business, but in the end, love, encouragement and patience will carry the day. Readers can e-mail Susie Parker at SusieWrites@ec.rr.com, write to her c/o Amarillo Globe-News, Features Dept., P.O. Box 2091, Amarillo, TX 79166 or visit her diary at www.susiewrites.blogspot.com. Click here to return to story: http://www.amarillo.com/stories/030905/fri_single.shtml

"The Child Is In Me Still...And Sometimes Not So Still." - Fred Rogers

"All my life I've been harassed by questions: Why is something that way and not another? How do you account for that? This rage to understand, to fill in the flanks, only makes life more banal. If we could only find the courage to leave our destiny to chance, to accept the fundamental mystery of our lives, then we might be closer to the sort of happiness that comes with innocence." Luis Bunuel, (1900 - 1983)

Can I ever relate to the above quote! Questions, questions and more questions! I seem to be brimming with them and even when I don't want them, wish they would just go away, leave my head alone and let me find some peace, they obstinately remain and niggle at my psyche. I have questions about everything. What I don't seem to have in abundance are answers. Those are so much more difficult to come by than queries. Curiosity may not have killed the cat, but I bet it drove him a little crazy.

I'll probably never unearth the answer to all of the questions that fight for space in this organ I affectionately refer to, on more lofty days, as my brain. Are all of my questions the sign of a healthy, active, fertile mind or are they symptomatic of a fetid, lonely and slightly troubled soul? I choose to think that it's just part of being human. Sometimes, it seems I question everything and flatly refuse to accept "I don't know" or the very Clinton-esque, "I can't recall". You know, former President Clinton seemed to be troubled by a question himself which, on the surface, seems pretty obvious to a few of us; "What is the definition of is?". At least I can take solace that I am in pretty heady company!

Of course, these never-ending questions tie into the concept of "trust", and I can be very anemic in the trust department, both of a bank and between human beings. I look at people who have trusted and have suffered emotionally disfiguring burns, more than a few times, and yet they find some way to walk through it and somehow manage to trust again. I'm not sure if I pity or envy those people. Maybe I feel a little of both?

I know that the amazing poet, Ranier Marie Rilke, advised us to "Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart, and learn to love the questions themselves." When I read words like that, wisdom wrapped in such beautiful, simple eloquence, I just can't help but wonder if the esteemed Rilke ever grew tired of a dearth of questions and did he ever find it difficult to muster the ability to trust? What mechanism, or magic, did he use to discern who merited his trust? Did he have a set of parameters or perhaps a super secret formula? Did Rilke have a finely-tuned "BS/Snow job" detector and, if he did, what brand was it and is this something I can find on eBay or Radio Shack? I really do have a Pay Pal Account, but it's pretty useless because I'm a little on the broke side.

I've noticed something, well, a few things in fact. I guess you don't get to be 45 years old without catching onto a thing or two. It seems as if the hardest people for me to trust are the ones who exhibit the same qualities and as me. What I find suspect in one person is usually something that I wrestle with myself. Things I abhor in others are usually characteristics I possess. So what does THAT say for me? That I hate myself? Am I caught up in some mangled mess of self-loathing? I don't think so. I have vast room for huge quantities of self-improvement and I'd be the first person to admit it, followed by a chorus of folks who know me well, vigorously nodding their head in agreement. But I don't hate myself, even though I find it harder to forgive me than I do just about anyone else. I'm very gifted at building walls. It's learning how to tear them down that I find so daunting. Is it the same for everyone?

I'm not sure where these walls come from. I'm the love child of Ward and June Cleaver. I had the obnoxious great fortune to have never heard my parents have the slightest heated argument. Voices were rarely raised in my home and when they were, it usually invoked my full name and was wholly due to something I knew better than to do, but did anyway.

My divorce wasn't particularly nasty or uncivilized, as divorces go. I mean, the term "friendly divorce" strikes me as such an oxymoron, but if you're into oxymorons, I guess you could use that one in categorizing the break-up of my marriage. The phrase "friendly divorce" always reminds me of "friendly fire". "Ooopssss, we have some collateral damage here. Sorry about that! I'm sure you'll be just fine - years from now. If the planets are in a rare alignment, the cow jumps over the moon and pigs begin to take to the sky." Friendly fire always seems to come with just such an apology.

Maybe this interpersonal relationship stuff just has to be learned, but I wonder where the classes are offered? What are the pre-requisites? Probably, it's one of those irritatingly slow and arduous "experience" deals where you just have to learn as you go through it, and mistakes will be made. Don't you just hate those things? I think the Internet has made me an "instant gratification" junkie. I want it and I want it the second I become aware that I want it. As usual, it seems like the really important lessons don't offer rapid returns, unlike suspect voting machines and H & R Block. In "The World According to Mister Rogers", he shares this story which seems to apply to just about any situation in life where trial and error are the order of the day;

"A young apprentice applied to a master carpenter for a job. The older man asked him, "Do you know your trade?" "Yes, sir!" the young man replied proudly. "Have you ever made a mistake?" the older man inquired. "No sir!" the young man answered, feeling certain eh would get the job. "There there's no way I'm going to hire you," said the master carpenter, "because when you make one, you won't know how to fix it."

There's just something about reading the above selection that gives me a lot of hope. For me and the rest of us. I'm a very "human" human being. I stumble and sometimes, I fall, but I have bootstraps and I do know what they are for and how to use them. Even on days I'd prefer not to. Here's to not making so many mistakes that things become inextricably tangled up, but making just enough mistakes to know how to make things right that invariably go wrong. Filling in all of those pesky blanks that punctuate the landscape of our lives is highly overrated. Luis Bunuel suggested that we "leave our destiny to chance, to accept the fundamental mystery of our lives, then we might be closer to the sort of happiness that comes with innocence."

Bunuel acknowledged that such a decision requires courage, and indeed I believe that it does, along with faith and a very durable trust. It does take courage to trust someone because you're essentially making yourself vulnerable. Its seems that when I am confronted with the invitation to trust, it never fails to reverberate back to me and I am forced to wonder if I merit the very trust I am requested to extend. Am I trustworthy? It takes courage, not simply to "entrust" someone else, but maybe even more courage to consider the question and examination of my own merit. Introspection can be a necessary and sometimes painful evil, a mirror reflecting an image I am intimately acquainted with and from which I cannot hide.

I wish I had known what a precious and valuable commodity innocence truly was and losing it is a lot like walking through the looking glass. It's hard to go back the other way and it's difficult to regain innocence once life has had it's way with you a few times but, even given those stiff odds, I still believe that striving for something close to lost innocence is a very worthy pursuit. I'm trusting that it is.

Susie in slanted sunlight - February 12, 2005

Susie in slatted sunlight - February 12, 2005
Originally uploaded by susiewrites.

Clawson's Restaurant - Beaufort, NC February 12, 2005.

Online Dating and Your Entry Into It - Personal Ads - A Personal Perspective

"The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it."

- George Bernard Shaw

I love statistics. No wait, can I amend that? I hated Statistics in college and worked more assiduously on trying to find reasons to skip the class, and I came up with some great reasons, than I ever devoted to my Statistics homework. In retrospect, I have a feeling that simply doing the homework would have involved much less effort. I don't have any hard and fast statistics on that claim, but...

I get E-mail reports from a couple of websites that track information with regard to how people find my website. According to Alta vista and Yahoo, my site pops up when people are searching the topics of "dating" and "relationships".

I sat here looking at that, sure there had to be a punch line, a joke, some kind of tease or maybe even a hidden camera watching my reaction at such a nonsensical notion, but no, apparently it is what it is. I have no vast vault of wisdom on the topic, but I have tons of personal experience and "too weird to be true" stories.

I've been divorced, officially, since October 1997. I've been single, unofficially, since January 1995. This is February 2005. In ten years and one month, I am still single - admittedly by choice. In the past ten years and one month, I wouldn't even begin to guestimate the number of first dates, fifth dates, or bad dates I have been on. It's much easier to estimate the number of outstanding dates I've been on because I'm pretty certain that figure would require no more than ten fingers. My toes wouldn't have to worry about being enlisted for the count.

Interesting dates? I've had quite a few of those, but one must be careful not to confuse "interesting" with "good", "outstanding" or "OH MY GOSH - WHAT A GUY!" dates. Interesting dates can still be disastrous, but at least they're never boring. Boring dates are the ones where you start thinking, ten minutes into it, that you would be having a lot more fun bathing the one cat you have that still has it's claws and hates water with the fire of a thousand suns, than sitting across from someone who makes Ronald McDonald look attractive and seem fascinating. Boring is bad. Very, very bad.

I have a lot of single friends of both the male and female persuasion. I don't know if it's because this time of year finds many of us still trying to get the taste of Valentine's Day out of our system, or maybe people are simply getting bored with winter and ready for an across the board change, or perhaps it's because we all feel the seductive promise of longer, warmer days. The adage that "In spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love", as Lord Tennyson observed, probably has a similar effect on females. I don't think such thoughts are gender specific in nature.

Who doesn't like to entertain the thought of falling in love? It's a great idea and it really doesn't sound like such an imposing proposition. I mean, how difficult can it be? Have you ever noticed how it feels as if everyone in the whole world is coupled up, how there seems to be some unspoken law of nature that there is someone for everyone and maybe even more than one for a few, but it never feels more apparent than when you are alone and without any kind of companionship? Never mind being in love, sometimes it's nearly impossible to be "in like". There are days when "in like" would feel like a huge step up.

There's no way around it. The very term "falling in love", by the inclusion of the verb "falling" tells you things are quite apt to get messy. Why else would they use a term that typically describes a negative event? Can you think of any other case where "falling" is a good thing? A misstep in the right direction? I don't know how YOU feel about it, but I have never looked forward to falling anywhere, or on anything, other than falling into bed when I'm really tired.

Falling implies that there is eventually going to be a "stop" - and those "stops", be it concrete, asphalt, or frozen ground, usually cause some bruising and sometimes even a little blood is spilled. Band-aids are almost always required. If there is an open flesh wound, the direct result of a nasty bump, it will have to be cleaned out and the stuff they use to clean out wounds, even if it's nothing more than benign peroxide, can burn to the point of inciting tears. Be even more afraid if someone tells you "now this won't hurt...much.". You know you're in for lip-biting pain if they feel a disclaimer is in order.

Falling in love is supposed to be a great and wonderful experience but, remembering Sir Newton's Third Law from basic chemistry that states, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, there is also the part of the "fall" associated with love where the invisible, but oh so painful, bruises and wounds can potentially come into play and all of the hydrogen peroxide and ibuprofen in the world won't dull that unique brand of searing, flame-broiled pain. It may be metaphorical, but it can truly bring you to your knees, usually surrounded by a puddle of your own tears.

Who in the world would sign on for such a possibility? The odds are highly in favor, or so it seems, that we're all going to wind up in that puddle - sometimes more than once or twice. (But I'm not bitter!) If you're divorced, you KNOW that pain and you've been swimming in that pool and it can take a very long time to find the strength, or even the desire, to come up for air. Eventually, most all of us do. We shake off the water, we nurse those wounds and the recovery time can take anywhere from five minutes to fifty years, but most of us march right back into the ring and see if we can finally get it right.

The fact that any of us would be resilient enough to subject ourselves to the potential for such heartache again and again, never fails to render me in awe of the dynamic power of the human spirit in all of us. It's pretty amazing when you think about it. By some invisible, but potent, spiritual magic, we climb up from the lowest bottom any human can hit and, just like childbirth, we seem able to forget the pain, the tears, the grief, the keen and palpable sense of loss, and we determine and steel ourselves to give it another chance. Most of us want so desperately to get it right.

In my estimation, nothing speaks more of the power of love, than the fact that those of us out of it keep trying to get back into it. It is undeniably magnetic and it is, without question, a mystery.

After we make a decision to get back in the game, that's when we have to give some thought to our portal of entry. Most of us know what we're likely to find hanging out in bars, and it's not the kind of material you really want to bring home to meet the family. When you look in low places, you find low things and the idea, as far as I can tell, is to make higher choices, this time around. So what does that leave in terms of choice venues to meet the first, second or next, hopefully last, love of your life? The workplace? Frowned upon and not usually a good idea. Church? That might be a possibility. Joining civic organizations simply for the opportunity to meet someone isn't generally a good idea, but it definitely beats hanging around bars. Self-help or recovery groups just naturally seem to breed a little pairing up, but not without potential risk. As a good friend of mine recently remarked on the subject of dating within such a group, "one of the big reasons I haven't dated anyone in _____ (other than not wanting to see a collection of exes in the room) is that the guys I meet come across as needy, clingy- whatever." She makes a great point, but still it happens all the time and the results aren't always negative, but when they don't pan out, there is a stilted awkwardness attached.

And then God, or was it Al Gore, created the Internet...

...and with it, personal ads took on a whole new meaning. I remember when I used to consider anyone who advertised for dates as being the very epitome of a desperate loser. And even if you did have the raw courage to actually post an ad, and the remote possibility of it ever panning out, how no one in their right mind would ever own up to it. I know I wouldn't have! How did we meet? Oh, ummm...a mutual friend. Yeah, that was it. So the mutual friend had an organ called a modem and spoke and kept announcing that "You've Got Mail!". Anything was better than the truth.

How things have changed. Online dating sites are not only a convenient place to look for Mr./Ms. Right, or something close to it, but it's now widely accepted and doesn't even seem strange or unseemly and hardly unique. It's so successful that people have met, fallen in love, fallen out of love, divorced and met their next mate all courtesy of the Internet.

Those who still protest that it's not the best place to shop, are probably still trying to push their grocery carts into attractive people in the frozen food section of the more upscale markets, but I have yet to hear a "happily ever after" story that started in Harris-Teeter, Publix, Kroger or Safe-way. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I just haven't seen any hard evidence. I can't even imagine going to the store with "potential mate" on my shopping list. I don't even make a shopping list. I hate shopping and, for me, it's usually something I do ONLY when there is absolutely nothing edible in my pantry and I am sick of eating Chinese take-out or they start recognizing my voice at Pizza Hut. That a guy could be loitering by the lettuce feels a bit implausible to me. Maybe I'm missing something...

Match.com. Yahoo Personals. E-harmony. American Singles. Heart Detectives. Great Expectations. (and no, not the one written by Dickens). Senior Friendfinder. iMatchup. Web Date. And that's just a few of the online services that provide a way to meet someone new. And it doesn't have to be a service catering to the mainstream. Men seeking Women. Women seeking Men. Men seeking Men. Women seeking Women. Men seeking Women seeking Women. Geek seeking Geek. Loser seeking Loser. Whatever your persuasion, they've got you covered and it usually comes with an acronym attached along with a netiquette all it's own. There's even a website that reviews all of the online dating sites.

Chances are you are NOT alone and there's someone just as strange and odd and weird out there in cyberland waiting for an E-mail from you or giddy at the possibility of writing you one after reading your dazzling, detailed personal ad.

Hard to believe, but even in the year 2005, some of my friends still think it the oddest notion to join an online dating service. I know people who toy with the idea and then shelve it, unable to imagine what might pop into their E-mail box. These folks just can't imagine how anyone could "connect" over the Internet. What I find hard to believe is that anyone would find it hard to believe that it can, and many times does, actually work. Why wouldn't it? Then again, I love computers...and I'm a completely detached Aquarian. In every sense of the word.

This is an area that I have more than a little experience with and I have no problem admitting it. I have posted ads on Match.com, Yahoo, and American Singles and I have corresponded, chatted online with, had phone conversations, and yes, even met lots of people using these services. The fact that I'm not married doesn't mean it isn't successful. It simply means that I am a little skittish and I still have "runaway" tendencies and, what my son delicately describes as "commitment issues". Some people are so quick to label others. Simply because I've been engaged a few times and backed out, broken dates without a courtesy call, stopped answering my phone for a few weeks, he draws the conclusion that I have problems committing. Whatever. Besides, if my Aquarius profile is to be believed, "the ideal Aquarius soulmate is an Einstein with lots of soul." Do you have any idea how hard it is to find an Einstein with lots of soul? The odds are disproportionately stacked against me by sheer virtue of my SIGN! Talk about a tall order...

I have actually met some amazing people courtesy of online personals and a few of them have even remained friends following an unfortunate break-up. Most all of them have been extremely interesting, of above average intelligence, professionals in almost all disciplines including writers, computer software designers, business owners, physicians of several specialties, university professors, researchers, bank presidents, attorneys and artists, just to name a few. None of them could ever be accurately labeled desperate or loser, even if they did want to date me! Questionable judgment? Perhaps... :-)

I've learned a lot about human nature, different regions of the country and have visited England and France, courtesy of computer generated encounters. I honestly can think of only two or three I would have preferred just skipping the experience of meeting.

Of course, there is a vetting process and this is very important. What does one look for when considering a potential online match-up? That's what profiles are for! This is an area that can cover as little or as much as you deem appropriate. In my opinion, the more detailed, the better. If it looks long, that's OK. It only means that whoever contacts you obviously has the ability to read. If they contact you - this usually tells you that they can write, as well. I generally look for people who I have quite a bit in common with but I've never been out to find my clone. Important areas of compatibility, for me at least, have always included religion, education, some degree of success, as few failed marriages as possible - and I've never honestly been interested in correspondence with anyone with more than two divorces under their belt. A love for the ocean is pretty important and someone who enjoys books and reading is nice and provides instant and pleasant common ground. A great smile and nice eyes doesn't hurt.

That's just for starters. Online matching has evolved with it's popularity and you can actually hone in on very specific likes and dislikes. If you're a cat person and someone who despises the idea of ever being within 50 feet of a feline answers your ad, it's probably a good bet that this is not worth pursuing. You can detail all manner of likes, dislikes, hobbies, pursuits, proclivities and desires. There's no such thing as TMI (too much information) when examining an online personal profile. If the mere idea of spending 3 hours every night with a take-out pizza and a remote control drives you crazy, skip that profile. That's what the delete button is for and if this Pizza-bingeing, television addict continues to write, simply utilize the "block this profile" function that most online services conveniently provide.

I know what you're thinking - "But can't some people be dishonest with their profiles? What if that photo they have posted is ten years old or, even worse, their next door neighbor? What if the person isn't really best friends with Bill Gates and hasn't read a book since 11th grade, which he repeated 3 times before attempting 12th? What if he doesn't simply hate cats but actually juggles them? What if he embellished his annual income by a couple of importantly placed zeroes and, rather than earning $700,000, actually takes in $7,000 a year? What if he professes to have brown hair but fails to mention it's all on his back, rather than on top of his head? What if his stated height of 6'2" is actually in heels because he forgot to mention he has a shoe fetish and, in reality, is only 5'8"? What if says he's been married twice but has children with 7 different women, none of whom were ever his wife? What if he counts taco bell as international cuisine and thinks of "making a run for the border" as satisfying his passion for world travel? What if he brags of being a private pilot and declares that he has several planes in his hangar, but fails to disclose these are only models and a few of them aren't even remote control? What if he doesn't believe that "The Jerk" is Steve Martin's best piece of work and a comedy for the ages?

Believe me, you will eventually figure all of these things out and if someone is bent on that much dishonesty, they will trip up long before you ever take it to the next level which may be a phone call, an online chat or an actual visit. Some people argue that the Internet Dating scene is filled with nothing but nutcases and liars? I won't argue there are more than a few of them out there, but I don't have to log onto a computer to meet a nut or a liar. Real life offers ample opportunity to meet all kinds of them. At least the nuts and liars online have the wherewithal to know how to turn on a computer and understand that a mouse can involve a cursor, can be used to point and click and isn't always a rodent with a long tail and beady eyes. At the very least, you have to respect that, right?

I've been out with a few crazy people and online dating doesn't have the market cornered on eccentrics. Real-life, the "in person" sort of real life, is just as saturated with low-lifes and folks best left on locked units. If you're going to try online dating, first and foremost, you have to ditch the preconceptions and give it a fair chance. You don't have to be stupid to be open. It's perfectly fine to be cautious and maybe even a little wary, and it's never a good idea to meet someone after a few e-mails and a handful of chats. Be prudent. If things get to the point of an actual in person, real time, real life meeting, make it in a very public place and even take a friend along with you, if it makes you feel safer. If this person protests, you don't need to meet him or her. That's a huge red flag and understand it for what it is. Never allow yourself to be talked into something that gives you a negative or uneasy feeling. Trust your gut instincts. Listen to that voice of reason that is telling you that something about this isn't quite right. If it feels wrong, it most probably is. You don't even owe the person an explanation.

Having said that, if you have exchanged several e-mails with someone who reads and writes well, have yet to catch him or her in the tiniest lie, doesn't come across as pushy or makes wild claims of being one of the founders Simon and Schuster Publishing or swears that President Bush often calls for advice before every big decision he makes, and if there aren't an inordinate number of misspellings, no desperate push to meet in a secret location under a bridge down by the river, and if s/he sounds genuine and knowledgeable on the telephone, doesn't find any of your questions too probing or personal and, finally, if you have GOOGLED this person, who's full name should be given, and no extended FBI profile has surfaced or you haven't seen them as a featured "guest" on "America's Most Wanted", it's OK to consider the possibility of a very public meeting. Check and recheck your gut. If you lose your nerve and this person, though disappointed, understands your angst and is willing to try again, that's a good sign.

In what has to be too many to count dates that were spawned by online encounters, I can honestly say that, though a few people have been misleading in their appearance and underestimated their weight by 20 - 30 lbs., I have never met anyone who truly scared me and appeared downright dangerous. That doesn't mean I never will. However, though there are few things I can claim to having done a lot of thorough research on and collected a vast volume of data, I do consider this to be something I have more than a little experience with and, after so many dates with so many different people, none of which have yet to have turned out to be "the one", I wouldn't hesitate to recommend online dating as a perfectly acceptable, reasonable means of meeting people and, though whoever you find may not turn out to be the love of your life, there's a very good chance you could make a nice friend. As far as I can tell, you can't have too many of those.

If you are reading this and you have had some interesting online dating experiences, I would LOVE to hear about them. I still find this medium fascinating and it's always interesting to hear other perspectives and I love it when people share.

If you happen to be someone I have dated and it didn't end all that well, again, I'm so sorry. :-) Better luck next time!

Hot Off The Press! My latest column - 2/23/05

Single with Children: Mom tries to nip son's behavior in bud By Susie Parker Opinion Publication Date: 02/23/05 I must admit I was impressed. My son had been going off to school every morning without his usual litany of complaints and protestations. His daily "Top Ten Reasons I Don't Need To Be In School Today" had been forsaken and finally, finally I thought, after 12 years of school, he finally gets it. You can imagine my shock and surprise when I received a phone call one morning a few weeks ago from his second-period teacher inquiring to why my son hadn't been in class in well over a week. "Of course he's been in school. I've seen him leave here every morning. "I've even heard him go into detail about how much he enjoys his broadcasting class and doing the camera work for the morning announcements. Please tell me you're kidding," though by this point my heart began a descent, and my stomach started knitting a knot. "Well, Ms. Parker, I don't know what has been going on between first and third period, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that Justin has not been in his computer applications class. I take the roll every day." If you're a parent, you know the feelings. Anger, frustration, disappointment and concern all swirled around to create the brand of angst I work so hard to avoid. I didn't know this man, this instructor who identified himself as "Mr. G," but given that he sounded reasonable and worried, I could hardly dismiss his question. I told him I would most certainly find out what was going on and call him back as soon as I had some answers. When Justin ambled in later that afternoon, I asked how his day had gone. "Fine. Same old stuff. Nothing too exciting." As he was walking out of the kitchen, I asked him how his classes were going. He paused and looked at me, detecting that this was more than an idle question. When Justin's eyes met mine, it didn't require a flashing neon sign to confirm why Mr. G had called. One word: BUSTED! I filled him in on the phone call, then cut to the chase and asked for some honest answers. I told him the truth would be nice. His excuses were lame and empty and not even particularly creative, which led me to realize that this was a case of senioritis run riot. Just like my hero Barney Fife, I had to nip this in the bud and nip it good. My son is 18, and I know there aren't too many dangling carrots left in my crisper, but two of the ones I do possess are pretty powerful: Both of them have speakers and an antenna and they work in tandem. One of them helps decide where to go and the other one says, "I have arrived." Until further notice, both of these things, along with their user, are grounded. I may not be able to make the horse drink the water, but I can keep the saddle locked up, hide the keys and turn off the transmission of both the cell phone and the Mustang. I also handed Justin a copy of the bus schedule, which conveniently stops right around the corner from our home. This didn't result in immediate success and a couple more second-period classes were skipped. My son isn't naturally confrontational and has never been involved in any incidents of risky pursuits, but I know that doesn't mean he never will. As painful as it has been to impose such severe restrictions, the risks and potential for disaster to my son by not taking such action scares me even more. This is just one area where being a single parent can be a lonely, confusing and difficult business. I will openly admit to feeling overwhelmed. As my children have grown, so have the stakes. Business is a lot more serious these days. Fortunately, I am not alone. I have my parents, who remain amazing role models, and an adult male friend who generously shares his time with Justin. I have also come to rely on and give sincere thanks for teachers and school professionals, like my son's principal and the ever-vigilant Mr. G, who go beyond what is required and care enough to alert me when things aren't going as they should. They receive no additional pay for noticing whether my son is where he is supposed to be, when he is supposed to be there. When I see my son walk across that stage later this spring to pick up his diploma, and yes, I'm being optimistic, it will be the result of a collective effort and a day I will spend leaking a few tears and spreading a lot of thanks. Hopefully, I'll still have some hair left that I haven't managed to pull out, and if some of it is gray, I will have earned every single strand of it. Readers can e-mail Susie Parker at SusieWrites@ec.rr.com, write to her c/o Amarillo Globe-News, Features Dept., P.O. Box 2091, Amarillo, TX 79166 or visit her diary at www.susiewrites.blogspot.com. Click here to return to story: http://www.amarillo.com/stories/022305/fri_singlefn.shtml

"Letters Never Sent"

"The greatest give you ever give is your honest self." ~ Fred Rogers - "The World According to Mister Rogers"

This week has been completely strange. My son has been sick for several days with what has evolved into a nasty case of bronchitis. No, that's not the diagnosis of Dr. Mom, I took him to an actual doctor, the kind with the letters "MD" after his name, and he made the initial diagnosis. I simply concurred.

It's funny, but even though my son is at the advanced age of 18, when he is sick and it's quite obvious he's not feeling anything close to well, I instantly switch into hyper-vigilant, "Stick-this-thermometer-in-your mouth, and you need to drink 32 ounces of fluids every hour. Is your throat sore? DON'T TALK WITH A THERMOMETER IN YOUR MOUTH! Are you going to answer me? Does your throat hurt? Shhhhhh - one more minute - close your lips! Would you like me to help you blow your nose?" mode.

Naturally, this annoys Justin to absolutely no end, as well it should, but try though I might, I just can't seem to contain those overly protective maternal tendencies. Somewhere deep inside, as much as it irritates him, I think he knows I mean well. I really don't take all of the eye-rolling too personally. We both have a job to do. I'm supposed to be way too attentive and he's supposed to wish I'd take a trip overseas until he's feeling better.

This week has been very much like that. We went to the doctor's office Monday afternoon, and as we were registering at the front desk, it was crystal clear that my role was different now. The first clue was when the appointment secretary, upon noticing that Justin was now 18, handed HIM the forms to fill out, requesting HIS signature on the HIPPA Form, handing HIM the yellow copy to keep for HIS files. Ha! Crazy woman doesn't know he has absolutely NO filing system nor does he possess a filing cabinet to house these "files" that don't exist. I think this made him feel instantly better and about 30 years old, and I started to feel instantly superfluous and an inanimate prop. I was now an accessory without a great deal to contribute.

When "we" were invited into the suite of examination rooms by the nurse, once again, my role consisted of sitting in the corner and remaining quiet. The nurse's questions were directed at HIM; what were HIS symptoms? How long had HE felt this way? Anything peculiar happening that the doctor should be aware of and had HE taken any medicine today? HE can't remember homework assignments or even what HE had for dinner yesterday, and HE'S supposed to be able to answer such a complex set of questions?

Wait a minute, is this all about him? I guess it is. Turns out that he has become his own person. An individual. Legal, in fact. He is someone I adore.

She took his temperature and I asked if he had one. Both of them looked at me as if noticing, for the first time, that someone else was in the room. What was his blood pressure? Again, my query seemed almost too probing and I was eyed suspiciously as I was reluctantly informed that his BP was 122/80. What was it to me?

It's everything to me. It's my son. I don't care if he's taller than me, outweighs me and that he now shaves and has a deep voice. It was my little boy being checked, the one that offered two days of really hard back labor to occupy me until he FINALLY deemed it appropriate to make his entrance into this world, way back on the night of November 21st, in that ancient year of 1986. Even after the passage of all this time, it still matters to me if he's running a fever or if his lungs sound a bit congested. I make no apologies for that, no matter how many annoyed glances are cast my way. I wasn't asking for etiquette, I wanted numbers and I was going to get them, even if I had to pry that chart out of Nurse Ratchett's claw. It's my place to be interested and maybe even a little pushy and I'd hate to disappoint everyone by not assuming the role I was meant to play.

The doctor, fortunately, was much more gracious and actually shook my hand when he entered the exam room. I had been elevated from an accessory to a real, live, actual person. This doctor obviously understood that "Mother Angst" is hopelessly terminal and apparently he learned to make peace with it long ago. My questions were now answered without the glare and a couple of his questions were kindly directed toward me. I must have appeared like Amy Sedaris' character "Jerrie Blank" in "Strangers With Candy" - "I'VE GOT SOMETHING TO SAY!" And someone listened. I love this doctor.

Apparently, he's not only kind and respectful of my position as overprotective mother, but he's a pretty sharp cookie in his own right. He detected that my voice sounded a little on the raspy side, and ordered me on the table for a quick "look see". I protested, reminding him that we were here for my son, but he just ignored that completely. Before I could say "this isn't really necessary", he had his icy cold stethoscope attached to my chest and was asking me to breathe in such a way as to encourage dizziness and hyperventilation. Bottom line, we both left out of there with prescriptions for potent antibiotics and really strong cough syrup. He didn't even charge me for the impromptu exam. What a guy!

So I came home and pushed fluids and dispensed medicine. His, not mine. I haven't taken mine yet, preferring to save it for a day when I'm really sick. I'm still just popping the occasional actifed and I don't feel all that bad.

This whole bacterial/viral induced illness has left me a little bit RID (restless, irritable and discontent). I haven't been the nicest person in the world, and to be sure, in my interpersonal dealings of late, I could have chosen a few of my words a bit more carefully, but it seems as though when someone I care deeply for is sick, I can get downright surly to the rest of the world or, at least, the people in my immediate sphere. It's not that I am apologizing for having some of the conversations and discussions I've had in the past 48 hours, because I'm not. I've even found myself calling a few people on their behavior and incongruities and taking THEIR inventory, something that Stuart Smalley would surely frown upon. Never mind that I often display the same attributes and character defects. In retrospect, and who doesn't enjoy retrospection, I'm pretty certain that I could have been a little more pleasant in my delivery, especially if I was going to poke around in areas that were basically none of my business.

When I have a sick child, even if that child is 18, I tend to narrow my focus into something very tunnel-esque and my peripheral vision mysteriously disappears. I trip over anyone other than the immediate patient, and I pay very little heed to other people I care about, and their feelings. I dispense with my usual tact, and common courtesy can take a real beating. I'm sure I owe a few amends, but to be perfectly honest, I just don't feel ready to make them. It may not be right, but it's exactly how I feel and I am owning it, thank you very much. I should probably have a warning label stamped on my forehead that says "Interact at your own risk...no filter on board", right below the one that says "SUCKER", which is visible only to my offspring - and you know who you are.

February is not my favorite time of year. It's the month I grow older and am required to add another year to my age. It's the month that winter begins wearing out a welcome I never extended in the first place. I am tired of evenings that grow dark long before I am ready. I become impatient for spring and warmth and new life. Winter torpor does not suit me.

I miss extended daylight.

I miss warm sand, ocean waves with civilized temperatures just begging me to wade into them on long beach walks.

I miss having the luxury of swimming, no matter the hour of the day or night, in water so warm it could be mistaken for a bathtub. Even in the deep end.

I miss turning flips in the water and stretching all of my muscles in my most favorite element. I still enjoy pretending I'm floating in space when I'm doing underwater spins.

I miss laying on my back on the beach in the evening, waves crashing just a few feet away, and staring up at the stars on late spring and summer evenings, almost always catching the glimpse of a twinkling light arcing across the sky, inviting me to make a wish or two. I always oblige. It's not that I put any real stock in wishes made on stars, it's just way too much fun an exercise to let pass by. I never let the opportunity to make a wish slip away.

I miss the smell of honeysuckle and lilac scenting the air as fireflies dart around in the low lights of dusk. I no longer chase them, but I do still love their light show. Memories of mason jars and piercing holes into tin lids so the bugs can breathe, always flood my mind, every single time I see those yellow tail lights.

I miss sitting in my back yard with friends, drinking iced tea and dangling our feet in the warm chlorinated water, talking about things as mundane as shopping and traffic and as existential as finding one's purpose and how best to utilize individual talents. Basically just bouncing ideas about anything and everything. Conversations that have the freedom and flexibility to go anywhere, and often do. I love two and three-way mental excavations.

"In a suitcase tied with string, on the highest shelf.
In a closet down the hall, hidden from myself.
Fits of madness, pools of grief, fevers of desire.
How peculiar these remained salvaged the fire.
Some I've crumpled, some I've burned, some I've torn to shreds
Lifetimes later here they are, the ones I saved instead..."

Finding one's purpose creeps into a lot of my thought these days. I know I have one and I have a hunch as to what it is, but I just need to find a way to get from Point A to Point B and, more importantly, I need to extinguish all of the reasons I can find to avoid facing my challenge. Procrastination can be crippling and downright lethal. I realize more and more that my time on this planet is finite, and all of those seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years are becoming so much more precious and isn't it just a shame that some of us are so slow to grasp this realization until we have more than a couple of years under our belt? I must have been too busy wasting time to understand that it is not a thing to be squandered.

I was talking to a friend the other evening and it suddenly dawned on me (remember, I am blond) that in turning 45, my life is more than likely half over. That's such a chilling thought at times. I have to tell you that, though some moments have felt more like months, for the most part, 45 years has gone by pretty darn fast. I have no reason to believe that 45 more years, particularly given that they are my LAST ones, will only gather more momentum and swoosh by at an exponential rate of speed. I wish I could locate the brakes or slow down the second hand on the clock of life, but I'm sure I'd have just as much luck trying to lasso a tornado. A most impossible task.

I think about what I want to do, what I feel in my heart lead to pursue, and it both frightens and excites me all at the same time. It can be a very scary proposition, this setting out on a new track, a new topic, a new genre of writing - nonfiction in nature, but in a completely different area of real life. I know that if I don't give it my best shot, I will only beat myself up and make my next 45 years completely miserable, courtesy of my own self-inflicted punishment and disappointment. I can't allow that. Wasting time feels obscene.

Where does one find a nice, large crate of courage?

"Never reached their destination.
Mostly borne of pain.
They surface with the purpose of a trip down memory lane.
Broken hearted, breaking hearts, all the ways it went.
Evidence of what I saw in my experiments..."

Perhaps setting out on a scavenger hunt for courage is simply one more form of procrastination and I can no longer afford to do that. The writing I am working on is steeped in self-exposure. It's one thing to share deep secrets with a friend or two or three, but writing about deeply personal experiences, the kind of life-altering stuff that most folks work assiduously to keep under wraps, is intimidating and yet, it's also very freeing. We don't really get to decide all of the truth, but we do get to choose most of the secrets and revelation brings with it a certain vulnerability, lots of unknowns, questionable judgment and begs the question, how will it all be received?

It's so trite to tell someone not to worry about what other people think - it's a lot like saying to a worried Mom with a very sick child, "Don't be silly! A 105 degree fever isn't anything to be alarmed about - these things just have to run their course.". Such advice is easy to dole out when it's not YOUR kid with the "off the thermometer" fever. When it's your child spiking that temp, it's a whole other ballgame. When it's your reality, it becomes a crisis.

Of course, we worry what people think, even when we swear we don't. It's part of being human. It's nice to be unique to a degree, but we're taught that being "too unique" isn't always a good thing.

"Life's a riddle, life's a dream, life's an accident.
Now I'm going to set them free.
Letters never sent..."

The next few weeks are going to test my mettle and I will find out exactly what I am made of and just how bold I am. It's time to get honest with myself. Writing, in and of itself, is a solitary business. It doesn't coexist very easily with distraction and, speaking only for myself, it doesn't take a great many distractions to entice me to slack off. I can't afford many distractions in the next few weeks. It's crunch time and everything else is going to be scaled back. People will either understand or they will move on. I have to stay on task and staying on task means that I won't have the time to obsess about how those close to me are handling my self-imposed silence and non-participation in things I enjoy. I know me and I know how I get when I am set on a course like this. I become consumed and that's just how it works for me. Before this is over, I might wind up taking surly to a whole new level. I'm thinking that I might want to appoint someone to be my "amends" keeper. I'm sure I'll have a few apologies to make on the other side of this. But if I am to have a prayer of being successful and producing an honest body of work that I can be proud of and stand behind, I have to be willing to risk ruffling a few feathers - finches notwithstanding. I am willing to take that risk.

These days I find myself going back to a passage in "Letters to a Young Poet" by the ever so eloquent Ranier Marie Rilke; "This above all - ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple, "I must," then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it."

The answer to that question reminds me, quite often, why I am doing this. Its both my rudder and my compass. Digging into this past I am writing about, the one that has brought me to this present that I am living, sometimes feels like a sea that will swallow up my little boat with one tall wave. Believing in the durability of my vessel, secure that it can take a few knocks from a sometimes confused ocean, is the key. I think of the advice I give friends who are just starting to write, to explore everything going on around them and to trust their selection of words, and then I must remember to apply such advice to myself. And I must also invite myself to trust it.

Beneath the self-doubt, the insecurities, the "what ifs", I recall some of the lessons Anne Lamott speaks of in "Bird by Bird", which isn't about birds at all. I'm pretty certain it's a book everyone should read, even if writing is of absolutely no interest to you. Anne Lamott's treasure of a book is more about living life and less about writing of it. Make no mistake about it, writing a book is a tricky business, but living a life with purpose and meaning is a much more formidable pursuit. Both are worth the effort and occasional angst. Both require courage and no small measure of faith.

"Life is a riddle, life's a dream, life's an accident.
So glad I saved them, here they are.
Letters never sent..." ~ "Letters Never Sent" by Carly Simon

Let us hope the end result will more than justify the means. I'm grateful for this medium, this chance to put things out there and write for fun release and decompressing catharsis. To my friends and family, please accept my most humble apologies for all the times you are going to get annoyed with me in the next few weeks. We'll catch up on the flip side, that is if we're still speaking. Promise.

Good Sunday Morning...or Afternoon

Happy Sunday! Everyone in my house is now very sick with whatever this stuff is that is robbing us of the ability to breathe and causing my house to sound like a TB Ward in a really dirty British Hospital. We are popping benadryl, benadryl decongestant, Robitussin, Mucinex, Actifed, Actifed Plus, Advil, Afrin, Vick's Nasal Spray and using Halls and Listerine like it is going out of style. If you own or are considering buying stock in any of the companies that manufacture those drugs, this would be the time to possibly increase your stock portfolio. Act fast. I am not sure how long this stuff lasts, but we are keeping CVS in business.

The birds are coming along nicely. Two sets of Zebra Finch parents are busy feeding their young and fighting over some cotton I placed in the aviary last night, because apparently it's the latest craze in nesting material. It's been so funny watching the two male finches play "mid-air" tug of war, in an effort to secure more cotton. We watched the aviary last night for well over an hour and it's rather like having a live episode of "Animal Planet" right in our own house.

The parents are very generous in letting me take baby portraits and haven't pecked my eyes out yet. I would estimate we probably have, out of two nests, at least seven hatchlings which are probably about ten days old. They still look scrawny but have more than doubled in size and in another ten days, Mom and Dad will be conducting flight lessons and pushing them out of the nest. It is a fascinating and beautiful thing to watch.

Someone in this house cautioned me about breathing on the birds, given the sorry state of my health right now.

Give me a break! I've raised two human babies and while they didn't turn out to be the "Gap Kids" (always dressed in a white tucked-in Oxford shirts and smartly pressed khaki pants) I'd envisioned, they do the holey t-shirt, multi-colored hair thing pretty well and, I'll admit the tattoos took a little getting used to. I am grateful they were tattoos of a nice little bird and an Irish-inspired shamrock - something I hope their father (Hi Tim!) takes into consideration when he sees them for the first time - Justin, in particular, is keeping his 18th birthday "shamrock" tattoo a big secret until after he receives his graduation (fingers crossed!) presents.

On second thought, maybe I have no business parenting these finches. I guess I could eventually propose a "Finch fledgling" column. I don't know though, I'd hate to compromise the finches anonymity the way I have my kids. Every now and then, something will happen to Katie and/or Justin, and they will look up at me in mock horror and say, "For the love of everything holy, please don't let what just happened here wind up in a newspaper column!" When this happens, I look at them empathetically and run right to the nearest computer so that I can describe the situation in all it's gory detail, before it slips my mind. And then I wonder why they cop an attitude with me sometimes or talk in hushed tones when I enter a room.

"When you're a celebrity, it's adios reality. No matter what you do, people think you're cool, just 'cause you're on TV..."

It's not often that I actually admit to being from West Virginia. Even though I lived there for the first 25 years of my life, more times than not, I claim to be from Texas. Of course, the fact that I just made the admission that I was, in fact, hatched in the small town of Madison in West "By God" Virginia, means I most probably can never use Texas as my point of origin. There goes THAT ruse.

Having said that, West Virginia isn't completely without a few charms.

OK, so nothing immediately came to mind, I took a few minutes and composed a small list.

Fun-filled Facts About West Virginia...

West Virginia is considered the southernmost northern state and the northernmost southern state. In other words, neither the north or south particularly wants to accept blame for... er, rather, wants to boast about claiming WV as part of their region. One could look on the positive side and say, "Wow, those WV'ians are nonconformists - how cool!", and that's a very nice spin, but it's like my saying I'm from West Texas - it's not quite true. This may also explain why West Virginia's State Motto is "Mountaineers Are Always Free". No one is fighting for possession. I guess it's a lot like being a wall flower, or maybe just a wild, wonderful dandelion.

Mother's Day was first observed in Grafton, WV on May 10, 1908. If you're reading this, you obviously have or have had a mother. You may even be a mother yourself. I'm all for celebrating mothers so I think this is a good thing, especially when my kids have cash and are feeling a rare sense of sentimentality and generosity right around the 2nd Sunday in May. Just because my kids have never felt a particular sense of sentimentality and/or generosity does not mean it can't happen. One must never lose hope.

The New River Gorge Bridge is the second highest steel arch bridge in the US. The bridge is also the longest steel arch bridge (1,700 feet) in the world. Every October on Bridge Day, the bridge is open for bungee jumpers (i.e., folks not particularly thrilled with celebrating their next birthday), and insane people who are allowed to own parachutes, to jump 876 feet off the bridge. This event usually attracts about 100,000 people each year from around the world, which is proof that WV does not have the market cornered on "eccentrics". And we'll just leave it at that.

Over 75% of West Virginia is covered by forests, which probably explains why I fell in love with the unobstructed horizon of West Texas and the magic of seeing for miles in every direction without ever having to look up. For years, I thought the sun slipped behind a mountain EVERYWHERE. I had no idea that a horizon was actually a flat line. I'd heard rumors but...The first time I flew into Amarillo, Texas in August, 1985, I had never seen such a huge sky. In fact, I used to refer to it as "skies" because to me, at least, it looked so massive that it almost demanded to be referred to in the plural tense of the word. I still say "West Texas Skies" and rarely apologize for it. I love wide open spaces. Forests make me feel claustrophobic.

On July 1, 1921, West Virginia became the first state to implement a sales tax. Why they haven't made bumper stickers boasting of this I have no idea. Who wouldn't want to proudly, and rightfully, brag about such a trail-blazing (pot holes notwithstanding) first? Maybe something along the lines of, "WV - First State Sales Tax - Worst State Roads". Nah, probably not an idea that would catch on.

The mean altitude of WV is 1,500 feet making it the highest average altitude east of the Mississippi and this probably accounts for the reason that I have such a huge fear of heights. What better place to find heights? MOUNTAINS! I think I'm seeing a pattern here...I have no hard data on this, but I can't help but wonder if it also leads the nation in per capita sales of Dramamine?

On September 8, 1798, Daniel Boone made his last survey of Charleston and in 1799, he left the state. What did he discover in his survey and what made him leave? If you thought about this long enough, it could prove troubling.

According to the crime index for 1997, West Virginia actually had the lowest crime index of any state in the country. You may get car sick and heights may make you queasy, but you'll feel safe when you're tossing your cookies.

Martha Stewart is currently serving her sentence at the first federal prison established exclusively for women. That's noteworthy, but I'm not sure if it's something to brag about or deny?

West Virginia has the oldest population of any state with a median age of 40. I'm five years over the median age so I suppose one could extrapolate that I would be in good company if I were again a resident of The Mountain State, but I have changed my ways, I now try and live a balanced life, commit several random acts of kindness a year and I keep hoping that if I strive to do "the next right thing", I will not find myself living there again. It's a nice place to visit and I have some interesting relatives who wouldn't consider residing anywhere else.

The most dangerous hobby any West Virginia Native can pursue is Genealogy. I regret to report that my father loves adding twigs to our family tree, but every now and then when his preternatural sunny disposition seems a bit off, it's a clear sign that he has stumbled upon something that really would best be left buried. This usually results in a day or two of his walking around trying to make sense of the unimaginable, softly repeating the name of individuals listed as brothers, uncles, cousins and fathers who are, quite sadly, all the same person. After a couple of days spent tending the garden or devoting his time to alphabetizing his filing cabinet, he shakes off the shock and gets right back in the root cellar. He is a wonderful man, but I fear his tenacity may someday get the best of him.

On a more positive and less painful note, some famous folks got their beginnings in "The Mountain State". Deputy Barney Fife aka Don Knotts, author Pearl S. Buck, pioneering test pilot Chuck Yeager and Olympic Gold Medalist Mary Lou Retton are all natives who, through death or good sense, no longer reside in the state.

One really famous mountaineer is currently making waves and, though I never thought of myself as some kind of Country Music Fan, I do appreciate a sardonic sense of humor and this guy has it going on...

Of course, I am talking about none other than Brad Paisley...

He's talented, plays a mean guitar and he's very easy to look at...

Check this video out - it has it all...Reality Show References, Jason Alexander throwing a fit in Starbucks, Little Jimmy Dickens (also from WV - now that might make it onto a bumper sticker), American Idol spoof, William Shatner - not over-acting for once in his life, Rehab References, hope for everyone working at the Dairy Queen and last, but by no means least, Brad Paisley living large and looking fine. I think I almost have a lump in my throat and I do believe I might be feeling just the tiniest bit proud to be from West Virginia. That might be stretching it, but I'm going to go with it for now.

NOTE: Viewing this file does NOT necessarily make you a fan of this particular genre of music, but for some strange reason, this video can make me laugh when nothing else will and lately, I have needed a few giggles...

Now if you will excuse me, I am going to see if I can find a MOCHA SOY LATTE. And then I'm going to settle down and watch Brad Paisley hop around with that fine looking...guitar of his. :-)

I have been politely asked to make the Brad Paisley Video "Celebrity" a link rather than just assume you want to see and hear it. Apparently it is lingering in the head of a few people who, quite frankly, should be pleased to at least have SOMETHING up there to take up the space but, being the nice person that I am, I will make this into a link.

Happy now? Click here to see Brad Paisley hop around with his BAD guitar!