Hyperactive Brain

No, it’s not insomnia. It’s not ADHD or whatever. One of the things my genealogy has taught me is that it’s inherent amongst particular family members….mainly those of us who have predominantly physical features of our Nichols line. Not only do our brains just don’t shut off , but there are seven thoughts (at least) running at one time. Sometimes a sentence or two and then the next subject and the next and then the next back to the second thought bounce over to the sixth thought and start all over again then write the stuff down so you can get it out of your head because it’s a good thought and you don’t want to lose it and this makes room for new thoughts. It makes sleeping not so easy. Sleeping pills don’t help because there you are stuck in all those oh so vivid dreams but too dang drugged to write the stuff down. We tend to be overly creative artistically speaking and for me, it’s not limited to one medium. Mine might be one thought clay then the next might be glass and then the next some metal sculpture and then the next paper or paint or fabric or basketry or a poem or cooking or genealogy or wood or polymer clay or paint or why something is the way it is or an epiphany. Sometimes the only way to describe it is etc, etc, etc, etc….and some more etc. Don’t get me wrong…most times I enjoy all this activity but it becomes exhausting.

Another thing that’s a scream is that those of us who have it, there is a special closeness or bond if you will…a sort of knowing. We can just barely describe something and the other person can totally visualize what we are saying and run with it…come back with 10 ways to do what we are describing and then the first person thinking of 10 ways to do the 10 ways. If on occasion we happen to be visiting each other for the night (heaven forbid a week….we become zombies), all this process becomes more rapid, vivid and unbelievably creative. If anyone listened in on our conversations, they couldn’t keep up with the lightening fast way we jump from one subject to the next…all the while being so easy for us to keep up with each other. It gets really bad when we get interrupted in the middle of interrupting the other person. One will find notebooks and notebooks and stacks of papers and files of all our writings and drawings.

We tend to be overly critical in our own artwork. We might come across as nitpicking but for us, it's only our own creations we're critical of. We see all the mistakes or the ways we would do it again if we were to make another. Helpful is to make about 10 things of each idea and let the process evolve. Series of creations are a good thing.

There are some things that will still the beast. Music for one running in the background helps….sometimes it has to be just a soft easy melody but sometimes it has to be fast and loud. Actually working on a project helps. Some describe it as ‘being in the zone’ and perhaps it is. I can put a two inch ball of clay in my hands and start pinching a pot and I’m gone. The whole world is gone and I’m at peace.

One revelation each of us has made is when we realize other people aren’t like us. From birth, it just comes so naturally that it never occurs to us that other people don’t have their brains directly in line with their hands. It never occurs to us to go buy an object…the first thought is how to make it. Making something is so much more satisfying. We don’t think of an object but rather the raw materials. We see some discarded piece of junk and instantly see it as useful. She/he who dies with the most art/craft/creative crap wins. Occasionally we will trade some of our treasures with the other but most likely not. Of course, when we see something particularly interesting that we think the other person might like, we scarf it up for them. Who in the world would want some pre-made gift when we can be given a bucket of clay or a particular piece of wood given to us? One of the nicest gifts given to me once was waking up one morning to a bucket of chickenshit on my front step. My brother Oren had been passing through and didn’t want to wake me so there’s this white plastic bucket with only the word ‘chickenshit’ on the lid. This material made some raku firings of some pots amazing! What a wonderful gift! Another time was a bucket of Arkansas clay….that made the nicest metallic brown glaze imaginable. My cousin Earl regularly gives me his scraps of fabric. Oren brings me these printer mats that are awesome for a work surface for clay. My daughter Rodina gave me all her polymer clay that she had lost interest in for my birthday a couple of years ago….I don’t think I ever want a ‘new’ present again. Being given something another person started an interest in and no longer intrigues them, recycled as a gift is of course only logical. It’s not some left over crap but rather some treasures for a springboard of an idea.

I woke up at 4:22 am to get some of my thoughts written down and out of my head this morning. And so it goes. We are the lucky ones.

Blood is thicker than water

This morning I wrote a distant cousin, Bev, who I haven't written in about six years. All this time, she has written me and never gave up on me. Holiday after holiday, she's sent me a card or a hello and I never could bring myself to write her back. I've had a new cousin, Nancy, come into my life (both Bev and Nancy through genealogy) and through her, I realized the value of their friendship and yes, love that helped me to write Bev.

I've slowly cut myself off from people in the last six years and even more so in the past six months to a year. I've just been unable to give any more of myself to anyone...not even in conversation. Hopefully in time I will be able to reach out again. I eliminated those friends and family from my daily/weekly/monthly contact when they no longer contacted me and it became easier to stay inside myself. There are those friends who haven't contacted me for whatever reason and I just disappeared so to speak. These friendships sustained me over the past several years and I don't owe them this kind of treatment. However, at this time, I can't bring myself to contact anyone other than forwarding jokes and the like to them. I'll get there....but right now, I have an empty heart and need to mend it.

Is it Real or is it Memorex?

Can the hurts and disappointments ever be healed to where we can truly love again? Do we always feel like the other shoe is going to fall? What does it take to let our guard down to the point of total trust in another person? Does something really die inside with each breakup or is it just a pillowcase of more baggage we carry around with us filling up our hearts that leaves no room for a new or more love? Do I even know what 'true love' is? Does another person really know what is inside our hearts? How do we know what true love is from one another instead of infatuation? If what I'm feeling towards another certain person is real, then it's evidentially the first time for me for these feelings. The peace of it all. The peace and tranquility is beyond anything I could have ever imagined. I almost had 'it' once and it didn't last but at least it gave me the window that it could happen. But even here, is it all what I'm feeling and not the reality of the person I feel these emotions for? Whatever this bus ride is about, I've never been at such peace before and I like it. It's not always perfect and there is still a huge amount of doubt for me. I could sure use a book to tell me what to do next. I'm a grown up woman and think I should know the answers by now....but I don't always.

"Ghost' Stories

I was discussing 'ghosts' with my cousin and she was telling me about some who have been at a house she's lived in. All of this is pretty well the norm for me. Visitations of family members who have died recently come 'visit' me after they've died. It usually slows down but then they show up again from time to time. I have a lot of others who aren't family members and I can't say I exactly recognize them. Some nights, when I close my eyes…I see faces and faces and faces and faces….I 'know' them...watch their faces until they fade...such interesting faces... Usually, I see them as a really bright light....a rememberance of a conversation along with an image in my head. I've had them put their hands on their hips and try to tell me something and get frustrated because I don't understand them. They talk WAY too fast for me most times. Sometimes they appear as sparkly little lights...a kajillion of them that hover around my feet up to about 12 inches above the ground...like I'm walking in a garden of them...lined up on each side. Those I usually figure are guardian angels. I've only had two who were evil and luckily I was protected and they were definitely NOT relatives. J, (JED) who died a year and a half ago who had lived with me for 3 years....he's come to me twice specifically for sure...has been hanging out here with me basically ever since but more and more he's going away...adjusting. There is one spirit who comes running out of my bedroom as I'm going to the restroom before I go to bed. I've never 'seen' him but at the same time, I see out of the corner of my eye 'whooshing' by so very fast....sort of like...well, it's time for Ruth to go to bed so I better get out of here. I live in an apartment.

Now here's what's odd. She mentioned one sitting on her bed.....well....last week, J (b/f...I call him J2 if I have to talk about both of them) and I had gone to bed...of course he was instantly asleep...always is....and I was getting comfortable and turned over and there was this tall slender GENTLE man sitting between us and laid down between us on our pillows...he wasn't a light...he had form...transparent...but a form....I got the feeling he wanted comfort and the comfortness of what J2 and I are together....like he was our child from another life. I don't know if I believe in other lives or not...but that was the closest thing I could think of. At first I thought it was J1 but I knew it wasn't but not sure. J1 was short and had a cute little belly...Irish man...so it couldn't have been him...besides...when J1 comes ...he's always on my other side as if I'm in between both Js....and J1's issues are being dead and and that he is sorry that he hurt me so badly and that death's not what he expected and that he is adjusting. Well...before I could catch myself..I told the spirit to go...leave....and it was instant...I was sorry I did that...I should have asked him who he was and what it was he wanted. It still bothers me that he was wanting comfort from being between J1 and I and I sent him packing. They ALWAYS leave instantly when you tell them to.

So that's it for the night. Got LOTS of more stories...

Megan and Mandyisms

Or...Other moments with Megan and Mandy to remember in my old age...

2006 conversations with their mother, Rodina:

Mandy has learned sarcasm. I just told her that she needs to move her stuff because my desk is for me to work on not for them to play on or for their pleasure and mandy said "yes your highness".

I told meg that her shirt says "spoiled" on it and asked her if she knew what that meant. She said no, so i told her that it means she is a rotten kid because someone lets her do whatever she wants. She said "that is papa. he lets me do whatever I want then I come home and act bad". I told her that she would be a good kid again in a few days. She said "good!"

Mandy knows what she wants for her cake for next birthday. She wants a white cake with white icing and 3 dinosaurs: a brachiosarus, a tyrannasaurs, and a teradactyl. She wants PRINCESS dinosaurs, so I guess that means we are going to have to sew little bitty tu-tus for the dinosaurs.

September 2006
Megan was just watching a commercial for a truck and told me that we really need that truck. I asked her why we needed a truck and she said if we need to carry something really heavy. I asked, and why would we want to do that. She said just because we need to carry heavy things sometimes. I said, how often do we actually need to do that? She said, well, we can get a trailer for the truck if we need to carry horses or cows around. I said that we don't have any horses or cows to carry around and she replied, well we will just buy a barn then we can have cows to carry around in the truck and trailor.

I dreamed

I dreamed I wrote a sonnet named ‘Be Sent Now My Love’. I remember writing it. I remember reading it. I just can't remember the words.

Questions

What do we do when we are alone? When no one sees what we do? What would we do if we truly believed we could do anything?

Ghosts on top of angels

Strange things have happened to me. But events did not flow toward a single momentous revelation, one blooming pyrotechnic end-- Enlightenment! --with chrysanthemum fireworks bursting in the night. No, it was a great jumble of facts, instead, with ghosts on top of angels, and dreams and serendipitous coincidences, intertwining with the normal everyday.
-Sophy Burnham,"A Book of Angels"

Keep what is worth keeping

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort, of feeling safe with a person having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out just as they are, chaff and grain together knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keeping what is worth keeping, and then, with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away"
Unknown

Enchantment

She found a quiet place in a low meadow far from the Shee. There she knelt and closed her eyes as she waited for the spell to end. The fires inside had burnt out. Now, she felt nothing save a gentle tingling in her fingertips, a slight trembling in her limbs, the last embers of the enchantment. Since daybreak, she had grown, now standing twice as tall. Soon, she would rise and stand again twice as tall. With a shrug, she would shed her wings and walk in the world of man where no one would be the wiser.
Creating Life-Like Figures in Polymer Clay

Honey and flies and other favorite quotes

They say you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar but I don't want a bunch of flies.
Ruth

They say a picture is worth a thousand words but sometimes I need to hear the words.
Ruth

Some things are 'neater than sliced bread', but they didn't want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Ruth

I want what I want when I want it and I want it now.
Ruth

Why would you want to be tickled with a feather when you can use the whole chicken?
Ruth

And in the end..the love you take..is equal to the love you make.
Unknown

Don't knock on death's door...ring the doorbell and run, he hates that.
Unknown

Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.
Babe Ruth

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
Mark Twain


Happiness is good health and a bad memory.
Ingrid Bergman

I know why families were created, with all their imperfections. They
humanize you. They are made to make you forget yourself occasionally, so that the beautiful balance of life is not destroyed.
Anais Nin

I see dumb people.
Unknown

If you don't remember us daughter, who will?
Unknown

If your life is free of failures, you're not taking enough risks.
Unknown

"Just living isn't enough," said the butterfly, "one must also have freedom, sunshine, and a little flower."
Hans Christian Anderson"

Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with
fervour.
Benjamin Disraeli

Live out of your imagination, not your history.
Stephen R. Covey

No one is worth your tears, and the one person who is worth them, will never make you cry.
Unknown

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
Albert Einstein

Nothin to do,but to do it.
Unknown

Show me what Thou wilt, Lord, and help me to remember and to understand.
Unknown

The nice thing about egotists is that they do not talk about everybody.
Unknown

The only questions that really matter are the ones you ask yourself.
Ursula K. LeGuin

There are a thousand yesterdays, one today and maybe a tomorrow.
Red Skelton

Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.
William Shakespeare

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it - for boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
Goethe

"Why not" is a slogan for an interesting life.
Mason Cooley

You wouldn't worry so much about what people thought of you, if you realized how seldom they do.
Unknown

Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions.
Unknown

Never miss an opportunity to shut up.
Unknown

I have not failed, I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
Unknown

You don't stop laughing because you grow old; You grow old because you stop laughing.
Unknown

It ain't pretty being easy.
Unknown

As you travel down the road of life remember...wherever you go,there you are.
Unknown

An eye for an eye eventually leaves everyone blind.
Unknown

A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song.
Maya Angelou

A man does not have to be an angel in order to be a saint.
Albert Schweitzer

A pleasure is not full grown until it is remembered.
C.S. Lewis

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Be absolutely determined to enjoy what you do.
Gerry Sikorski

Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.
George Eliot

Choices are the hinges of destiny.
Edwin Markham

Courage is being scared to death--and saddling up anyway.
John Wayne

Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.
Abraham Lincoln


Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for.
Epicurus

Do not wish to be anything but what you are, and try to be that perfectly.
St. Francis de Sales

Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.
Confucius

Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when dawn is still dark.
Unknown

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Matthew 6:21

Friendship is a promise of future loyalty, loyalty no matter what comes. Promises are the bricks of life and trust is the mortar.
Stephen Carter, "The Emperor of Ocean Park"

Growth in wisdom may be exactly measured by decrease in bitterness.
Friedrich Nietzsche

He who forgives ends the quarrel.
African proverb

Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.
Richard Bach

History never written is soon forgotten.
Unknown

Hope arouses, as nothing else can arouse, a passion for the possible.
William Sloane Coffin, Jr.

I am always doing things I can't do, that's how I get to do them.
Pablo Picasso

I can't write a book commensurate with Shakespeare, but I can write a book by me.
Sir Walter Raleigh

I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going but I'm on the way.
Carl Sandburg

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
Mother Teresa

If you yourself are at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world.
Thomas Merton

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
Mark Twain

Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.
Eleanor Roosevelt