Tacos and Tiaras

I'm just being all-zen-and-shit

Storytelling aka Blog

Truth Be Told…

Confessions, Simplifying My Life

…I started this post on 16 December 2019, and I have to keep coming back to it. After posting Gimme Three Weeks, I started working on drafts for the series I mentioned, but life kept happening.

“A light from the shadows shall spring”

Time doesn’t stop; therefore, just when I think I have the not only the time but also the space, energy, motivation, et cetera to focus, some shit pops up that I have to address. And I am in no way complaining… just statin’ the facts, ma’am. LOLz

I count myself fortunate to be able to take care of whatever whack-a-mole of life is going on at any time. Sometimes it’s like Lucy and Ethel working at the candy factory… … …and I get through it.

When everything is calmer, I take advantage of the downtime by regrouping, but then it feels like I plan more than I actually DO ANYTHING as planned. Who really wants their throttle to be a wheel spinner? I just want to get somewhere, maybe even more quickly than reasonable, but I guess then I would miss the sights along the journey. And I guess it’s hard to get to an undefined destination no matter how many maps I draw.

On top of that, any stillness that allows me to reflect also opens the door for me to get caught up in my head… I feel like I have some things to unload from this past year in order to make any progress, so here ya go with one of those truths:

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”

– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

I have yet to unpack since I packed my suitcase and toiletry kit on 5 December 2018.

Truth be told, I have never fully unpacked because I didn’t feel like it, and who knows, maybe that’s also metaphorical though I mean it literally. It’s a little bit laziness but mostly knowing that for a while, I was having to repack within a week or so; therefore, with the exception of washing laundry or the change-of-seasons switchout, pretty much everything else stays packed.

My mom was hospitalized the same night when I packed my suitcase and headed overseas on business, and the soonest I could go back home (Northern Virginia) was 14 December. After she died on 23 December, I took leave on a combination of bereavement, paid time off, and unpaid Family Medical Leave Act, so I could stay with Chief Daddy to help him adjust, take him to his appointments (which was also needed for FMLA approval), and help my family take care of my mom’s unfinished tasks. I had the same week’s-worth of clothes for two months.

In February 2019 I returned to MY home (central North Carolina) and resumed working my job in corporate America. I drove up to see Chief Daddy every Friday after work and stayed until Sunday afternoon following Mass and lunch. Yes, it was a lot of driving, but I enjoy the time to myself. (FOUR HOURS OF ME! LIVE IN CONCERT ON WHEELS! hahahaaha) By summer, I was able to space out the weekend visits to every other weekend and also enjoy visits with my fiance until he and I are able to live in one place together.

I had a three-week retreat/hiatus/sabbatical starting on Labor Day 2019, but a series of events pushed my return date to 10 November. Again I found myself getting through a couple of months with only minimal clothes packed, but I made it; and truth be told, AMAZON PRIME helped tremendously when I needed items for the arrival of cooler weather.

I was home in NC for three days before venturing to NoVA on 14 November where currently I am still hanging out with Chief Daddy. He had a non-life-threatening medical emergency that yielded three weeks hospitalized followed by two weeks of in-patient subacute rehabilitation. Once more I am in the position of having a minimal wardrobe, but finding humor in what 16-year-old me would do differently if she could see me now.

On my birthday, BFF-T treated me and Chief Daddy to an impromptu dinner. We made plans on short notice because as she put it, “We didn’t know if you where you were!” hee hee hee But as Tolkien wrote, “Not all who wander are lost…”

Truth be told, on Sunday, I felt lost. Very lost. I needed help finding my footing in the present, and I’m still working on it. I wander, yet I’m not lost; but where I’m lost, I have no map.

If home is where the heart is, then I need to quiet my mind and give it a listen… maybe then I’ll spring out of the shadows…

Luceat lux vestra.

In Media Res: Moved to Tears By Music

In Media Res, Music

Sodankyla Winter, photo by Mira Keppainen

Okay, lemme start with a thing that clicked in Leenie Brain just before I started writing this post (the topic has been on my mind since lunchtime), and I noticed how a few details tied together. Remember – coincidences do not exist.

After supper I was catching up on Facebook and ran across a friend’s post from a Nametests “game” – What does your name mean according to Buddhism? Most of these are rather silly and humorous because they’re so random… except when they speak to me like this one:

Eileen means Love’s Pure Light.

Eileen is beautiful inside and out and could brighten your day with her smile. She’s not afraid to feel it all. She lives, she laughs, and she cries, too. Eileen is a dreamer who is destined to achieve her goals.

I giggled over the game’s “accuracy” with “light”; I lit up from the memories of receiving compliments on my smile (thanks to Dr. Stern and 3+ years of orthodontics); I nodded in agreement about living, laughing, and crying, especially considering the intended topic of this post; and I smiled at the idea of my destiny. However, I may have activated that little wrinkle between my eyebrows while trying to remember what song lyrics include, “love’s pure light”.

Maybe it came to you more quickly than it did to me, but it’s in a verse of Silent Night: “Silent night, holy night, son of God, love’s pure light”. Now, I ain’t the son of God, but my goal to be a light in this world comes from a place of love. And yes, Silent Night is one of those songs that makes me cry.

Ta da!!! 😉

So yeah, this was not intended to be an In Media Res post, but it happens. lol

ANYWAY, today we were headed to lunch, and Sibelius’ Finlandia started playing on the radio. I forget how many times I played it during my high school years, but even then, I was so moved by this composition and in awe of how a composer could string together notes for a melody, decide what key and chords, pick which instruments would be best for putting it all together… One may be able to study theory and all the other shit that I wasn’t passionate about (therefore I didn’t follow my brothers’ footsteps in getting my degree in music), but composing music that moves the masses takes the innate talent of being able to translate your heart into an actual song.

When we arrived at a traffic light of a major intersection on the parkway, my eyes began to sting (6:09), and I fought it because 1. driving and crying is hazardous, and 2. I didn’t want Chief Daddy to ask me why I was crying. The same theme resumes and again, I try to pretend I’m a stoic because as the piece approaches the end, it always conjures feelings of… ugh… typing and crying is as bad as trying to drive! Let’s just say that the waterworks from Finlandia may be worse now than when I was a teen because the music not only moves me to tears but also carries me back to high school orchestra and all the totally awesome opportunities I had through music classes in public school.

…and those are stories for another night.

Luceat lux vestra.