I wrote this post before I was introduced to the #newbiesresteem initiative by lovely hostess #beeyou, where it seems you are supposed to promote other bloggers by giving them a mention. My motivations here are not exactly the same. I don’t think I am a fan of resteeming. It seems to pile on the noise for me, but if one has the time, that particular group can help you hop from one out-of-the- box person to the next increasing your serendipity to find what you like to follow. I am not sure this will help me much, however, until I discover what I am doing here. Below follows what may prove to be predominantly a memo-to-self, then, of the fat I chewed over with my muses, this past Sunday.
There are people who soar too high it leaves you gasping for air, people who climb very steadily and slowly get there, and people who just get in and drive off. #akashas, #thetrueyou and #alice-is respectively, captured my attention this weekend.
Sharing is Caring
I found myself assessing what had come on my virtual path, on my Sunday walk, in a temperature that feels too much like winter for being too close to spring. I suddenly thought I might use a line from #ginafraser’s sister’s poem on spring to pimp up my #kalamandra doodle-collage. I fancied the idea of keeping my inspiration in-house, but then, I hesitated, nervous about how Chinese Steemians might react to being “used”. Suppose I won a prize?! How much steam would I have to give her? Fifty-fifty seems a little steep. Then again if you see what stock-images are going for…. But I’m not writing for a magazine...
I obtained the Lithuanian-Irish #livinadream’s permission to use his birchtrees for an upcoming HCS post. I gave my permission to #reinhard-schmidt, to incorporate my comment with additional interpretations for his latest card, Temperance (14). Coming out of a Linux world, once upon a time, I like this free-ware policy applied to knowledge and creative products. However, with a patent lawyer for a father, I remain cautious.
Swamp cypress. Should be saving this one for #treetuesday. (I might still use it. Shhhh….)▼
On my walk, I realised what I like best about Steemit is its international vibe, which reminds me of language schools in foreign countries. People from all over, come to learn, say, Spanish in Sevilla, and you just hope you won’t only be surrounded by either your fellow countrymen or too many Japanese - who too seldom speak English, and too quickly pick up Spanish!
A fellow entrant of the #inspirationchallenge, #artizm who already submitted her fabulous re-creation reminds me how I almost moved to Izmir a few year back, when my (Turkish born) career’s adviser suggested it would be easier for me to find work there. He himself was moving back, after having been an immigrant for 25 years and he wouldn’t have minded to continue his English lessons with me on his home turf.
I even requested an interview with someone at the Turkish consulate for their advice and to ask questions about my chances of setting up a new life there. They were optimistic, but there was always my son with his special needs to consider.
▼Lime tree. As if God himself took out his bonsai scissors…. How does it know to grow so perfectly “lime-shaped”?
Children are not my cup of tea
This brought me to realise, I might as well address another taboo. How I really don’t like children. A couple of pink girls were yelling at me as I manouvered as nimbly as possible around their picnic on the pavement. I couldn’t really hear them (or tried very hard not to), since I was wearing my headphones as per usual. Got to get those classics read. They were trying to sell me lemonade. At below freezing temperatures. Didn’t their mothers ever tell them not to accept sweets from strangers? Why on earth would I drink their squash?
I never liked children; also not when I was a child. #anibas feels we romanticise childhood Nope. Not here. Notwithstanding, she put up a charming post with a photo even I find cute.
Pestering, moaning, bullying, boastful, loud and smug wretches. Sadistic, cruel, insensitive and thoughtless brats. I wasn’t even bullied. None too many kids ever knew my name, but they wouldn’t pick on me, either. I was very much left alone to observe and decide life was not going according to (divine) plan.
More Taboos
Then I had one myself. Kid that is. Plan went down the drain. Now the taboo comes into it. Not that I did not want this child, once I was having it, but I didn’t want to get pregnant. Didn’t think I could. Wasn’t even there when I did….
I am a rather responsible type of child (still that same child, it feels like. Can’t be right.) So, when I was pregnant with my son, I wanted to get everything just right.
That got off to a bad start when I had a scan to specifically check the sex. No mistake about it; and I flew into hysterical panic. What if he looked like the father? Nothing wrong with the man (well, that’s debatable, strictly speaking) but I wasn’t myself when I landed up with him. He’s perfectly happily married now (see, nothing wrong with him… with a woman whose language he doesn’t speak) and we fortunately have nihil dealings with the oaf, and my son couldn’t care less (he’s not into that type of human bonding). So, all’s well that ends well, only the fat lady hasn’t sung, yet….
I don’t have a maternal bone in my body, I toss up into the blue sky hoping it will land like a water balloon to splatter and splash me soaking wet, serves me right. But it drifts off like a feather with a smile, knowing better. Needless to say, it is never going to be easy if you did not make the baby in love and your life was not ready for motherhood.
I was left with the chicken and egg situation to torment me for many years. Had all this peri-natal trauma gone towards making my son reluctant to even try and incarnate better? More taboos.
Was my son unable to bond because of my own reluctancy towards motherhood (not facilitated by the embarassment I was made to feel by my family)? Or was I so hard on myself because his autism prevented natural bonding. He was 5 years old when he first hugged me. Now he won’t stop! What is this thing autism if not a lovelessness of sorts? What is my life if not a warning to sanctify love….
Oak with its stubby wrested arms. Always so hard to believe this genus (Quericus) is in the same family as the beech (Fagus). A lunar family (fertile and vibrant growers), with a Jupiter (expansive or contemplative) character - according to esoteric-cosmic indexing system of Usteri.
Taking the bus
Being on Steemit is like a ride on the bus for me, where the auras of fellow passengers stick around and come home with me. Here I have noone to blame but myself for inviting them into my home. I click and they enter. It shows how communication is all about taking an interest. If you clicked with your eyes closed…. Well, I suppose some do… we established that a couple of posts ago.
Then again, how reciprocal is any of it? I suppose the simpler you keep it the realer it stays. A hello is reciprocated sufficiently with another hello. Here is not the place to expect an Experiment, where we get thrown together to come up with ideas to save the world. It is curious how wrapped up we all become in something that is also but a passing trend. If we make it back out of social media, the surrogate for our tv addiction, in tact and have not be sold on as stocks to something worse yet.
We fill our lives with people who are all living their own lives entirely separate from the world in which we all meet - sometimes daily. We read these strangers more often than we do most of our children's homework. They are all strangers, really, don’t forget. Selling lemonade.
Happy bees
On a more positive note. Everybody is busy as a bee making the hive, tending the coccons that are the blogs. Specific work. But bees don’t build hives to make honey, you know. That’s just stocking up the larder. Their real job is far more tantric; to pollinate.
Man does well to study bees. They are a creative “Volk”, as the Germans say, as are we. The Jazz I found generously put up by #onnovocks helped to ease me back into the days when I most strongly knew and trusted that. It followed up the light mood #theblackcrow had already set by pulling musicians together for his private concert cum review of his week.
Worm Rescue
I always used to say, the world is one big playground full of play things. It made this fragile Aquarius on one of my language courses very cross to hear me say that. I am still not quite sure why. I think she wanted me to be more dignified about human suffering. I remember, once, how we almost got beaten senseless by a deranged man in the steeper parts of Granada, near where the Gypsies lived. He was hacking away at a worm on the stoney path infront of his house. She went up to defend this mutilated creature (a little too late, if you ask me) while I preferred we walked on. I love my worms and am eternally grateful to their services in my vegetable plot, but I also like to pick my battles wisely.
This concludes my musings for Monday.