relationships

Day 109: Bear and the Green Fruit

| Aspergers Girls

Bear and the Green Fruit (A story of friendship)

There once was a big brown bear that lived in a lush green forest. This was a lovely place of songbird, of fresh streams of salmon, and strong trees hosting hives of dripping yummy honey. There was so much beauty about. But the bear spent his days worried.  He worried about the streams, and the trees, and even the yummy honey. He worried about the best passage way in which to enter the stream, the best of the trees to scratch, and the best technique in which to acquire the honey. He worried the stream would run dry, the trees would die, and the honey would disappear. He worried so much that soon he couldn’t even hear the streams, see the trees, or even taste the honey. This made him worry more, until in bear’s eyes everything vanished and in place of beauty only barren land remained.

With everything seemingly gone, the bear grew sadder. His roars shook the foundation. His paws beat at his fury chest. And his big sad eyes, they searched everywhere.

In his sadness, one tree was birthed. It grew tall and strong in the middle of the barren land—a tree with a strange green fruit.

The bear touched the tree in curiosity, patting the bark and peering up at the abundance of fruit. What interesting fruit he thought. He shrugged and moaned, and reached up to pull off a fruit. But his strength was so strong that the fruit instantly burst, sending out green goop in every direction. He watched as the inner seed of the fruit rolled away, and could swear he heard the seed weeping. Again he tried to take the fruit. This time he pulled the fruit with light hand, and the fruit remained whole, but as soon as he sliced the fruit open the seed spilled out, rolled away, and he could swear he heard the seed weeping. Next, he pulled another fruit and stomped on it to release the green inside. The green remained splattered at foot, but bear swore as seed rolled away, he heard seed weeping. At last, with patience, the bear opened fruit gently and lapped up the inside, tasting the sweetness. He was pleased. Except bear was certain that the seed of the fruit rolled away weeping.

Finally the bear took another fruit down, and before doing anything he asked: “Why do you weep so little friend? Were you not made to be eaten and be relished?”

The little green fruit answered: “Yes. It is true. I was made to be eaten and to be relished. But you have forgotten the soul of me. You take what is needed. You fret over how to have your needs met. But you forget that I am more than the sweetness. Inside of me is a seed that much like you is in search of home. Yet, I am continually opened, enjoyed, and then left to roll away unnoticed.”

Bear thought. He thought very hard. He tugged on the fur of his chin and then his deep brown eyes lit up. This time bear opened the fruit slowly, with gentle claw, and before he did anything else he lifted the seed out of the fruit and buried seed in fertile ground. This time the seed giggled and began to grow.

“Oh, thank you, kind Bear,” seed whispered at his side.

With that the bear was at last able to enjoy the fruit. A smile crossed his face. And with smile the sun returned, the forest reappeared, the streams came back, and the honey dripped down. And the one tall fruit tree vanished.

Bear was very thankful. As the bear smiled, he remembered his friend the seed. And with that small thought, a small green fruit sapling appeared at bear’s side.

“Hello, friend,” bear whispered, smiling with honey on his paws.

“Hello, friend,” sapling whispered back.

“You are growing!” Bear sang.

“Oh, yes. I am growing,” sapling said with a smile.

Bear roared in glee admiring all of the beauty around him.

Bear licked his paw and smiled. “Oh, dear friend,” bear said. “Thank you for teaching me happiness is far beyond the solving.”

Sapling whispered in return, “Thank you dear Bear for knowing my longing to be placed in fertile ground. So many have fed upon my sweetness and never had the heart to hear my weeping and know my longing. Because you have known sadness, you saw my truth and I grew. And now because I know happiness, I shall see your truth, and you shall grow.”

With those happy words, the honey dripped from the sky, and bear and sapling sang with the songbirds and danced together in the clear running stream.

© Everyday Aspergers, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. https://aspergersgirls.wordpress.com

Day 92: The Nest of Strings

| Aspergers Girls
henleyistherealfashioncapital.tumblr.com/

I think part of my condition on this earth is my utter fear of human beings.

I don’t mean this to sound negative or like a joke. I seriously think my main issue in my life is PEOPLE. This is a problem. People are everywhere.

It’s not that I dislike people. I love people.

I fear something I love. This love/fear dynamic can be compared to my love of food and fear of expanding the spare tire around my waist and/or my chin line. Though people do not  inflate me, they deflate me.

I’m a sponge of sorts, soaking up people’s troubles and holding troubles, and then releasing the troubles; only in the process I get weighed down, troubled myself, and depleted in energy reserves. I suppose part of this current sponge experience is a result of my previous learnings.

 

 

What I’ve Learned

I learned through observation that if I acted kind and carefully, people wouldn’t hurt me, usually.

I learned that if I didn’t act a certain way, I would be teased or ostracized.

I learned that some people could find me and affect me no matter how I acted.

I learned that if I shared from my heart, I would be misunderstood.

I learned that if I was me, I could become invisible.

I learned to play games.

I learned to blend in.

I learned better to blend in than to stand out.

But then I longed to stand out.

I longed to be noticed and I longed not to be noticed.

I didn’t know what place was in between my longing.

Where to stand?

Sometimes I became beautiful through others’ eyes.

Through my physical beauty, I gained attention.

Attention that never felt real or pure.

Attention I longed for nonetheless.

My physical beauty aged and youthfulness faded.

I learned that people notice what they want to notice and take what they want to take.

They like a piece or part of me and then when the section no longer serves them, they leave.

They leave the part, and in leaving, they leave the whole of me.

I learned I desperately wanted love, but I wasn’t supposed to ask for love.

I wasn’t supposed to appear weak.

If I wanted love, I needed to appear strong, as if I didn’t want love.

As if I was completely satisfied in being in isolation.

I never understood this illusion of strength in aloneness.

Why people pretended they were not frightened.

Why people pretended they were an entirety, when in truth they were only an ingredient.

 

 

I don’t know if there is anything else that permeates the depths of my soul like the fear of people. Beyond the pretending and questions, perhaps my depletion occurs is the energy I pick up. The health symptoms of others I take on, the friends and relatives, and sometimes strangers who visit me in my dreams. Perhaps my fear stems from the humiliation of my youth or the loss of loved ones. Whatever the cause, from wherever this fear was rooted, it remains a tall plant intertwined within my very being. I see sucker plants sticking, prickly burs stuck. I see small specks of blood. I see rough, sword-like leaves stabbing and cotton ball seeds blocking. These are the people stuck in and about me.

I don’t know why. I don’t think I want to know why. But I do wish to change this reality. I do wish to know without question that people are not to fear. I don’t want to think about how to do this. Don’t want a plan of action or a list. I don’t want to try to change things anymore. Trying doesn’t work. I just want to believe. I want to shift. This is my reality. Shifting the fear to love.

I took out a box today from my closet marked: Spectrum Intuitive Teachings, a small box that I’d shoved in the back of my daylight basement closet months ago, without second thought. I was done with my business, my successful business. I had to quit, so I thought, because, I wasn’t doing the right thing according to someone in the world. Just like that I changed my life, believing I should not do what I’m doing.

I shoulded on my self. My fear has led me to should on my self a lot.

I’m still processing my actions. What was I thinking? Why did I change my life to please a stranger I’ve never even met? Why did I compromise? Why did I change?

I have these chameleon tendencies. I was not born a lizard. But I act like one. I change colors adapting to my environment, change appearance in hopes of blending in and not being spotted.

What is so bad about being spotted?

The fear.

And so at the heart of me is fear.

At the core penetrating my every action is fear.

Today, I release this fear.

I choose to transform this fear.

I have no one to fear.

Even though the voices shout loudly: Fear You. Fear Them. Fear. Fear. Fear. I know these are untruths.

I know much of what I learned are untruths.

Today, I untangle the untruths—a giant ball of intertwined string.

I let the untruths spiral out down a long staircase, to disperse, to lessen, to unravel, until all that remains is a long string of blue.

And then, seeing clearly and easily, I snip away at the string.

I create little pieces of untruths.

In my hands I gather the clippings.

The tiny, tiny remains.

I blow with my spirit breath.

Disperse them into the air.

The angels come now.

Take the strings away to their nests in the sky.

Where the strings are used to house the young ones.

The innocent.

The newborn.

The strings  transform and serve as comfort and shelter.

I transform my giant core of fear into sheltering love.

This I see.

This I am.

And thusly, so are you.

© Everyday Aspergers, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. https://aspergersgirls.wordpress.com

The Wounded Healer

Day 77: Holding On

| Aspergers Girls
http://www.etsy.com/

If I was to turn back the pages of my life, to the first calm months at my stepfather’s house, my days would appear wonderfully simple and sweet, and in truth they were.  It was a time when a gentle thread of calm and security weaved through my days.  A brief moment I fondly remember and continually reflect back upon, perhaps in an attempt to regain some semblance of normalcy or to remind myself there was some good.

There weren’t any worries about money.  My stepfather Drake was an attorney and helped the city officials acquire land for approved projects, which sometimes meant property owners had to give up their homes.  It was rumored much later, when I was an adult, that Drake’s firm was actually responsible for my great-grandmother having to abandon her house in Monterey, California for demolition, to make way for a multi-level parking garage for tourists…

The rest of this story is in the book Everyday Aspergers

 

Day 68: Karmic Crumbs

| Aspergers Girls


I am fortunate to have married one of the most patient men on earth. I honestly do not think anyone else, besides my children and dog, whom all rely on me for food, could stand to live with me. I have a plethora of unique quirks and habits.  Too many to list, and as many know, I’m a good lister. (Lister should be a word.)

Prepare for digression.

Today I almost wrote on death terror (always on my mind), then moved onto the funny things about aging, and then landed on exploring raw food diets. My heart palpitations started up with the thought of switching to a raw food diet. I’ve tried the diet before. Moving from vegetarian to vegan (no cheese, no eggs) lasted four days. Trying to go from vegetarian to raw-food-vegan lasted about the time I take to walk to the fridge, open the fridge, and devour a slice of veggie-combo pizza.

I sure would like to rid myself of aches and pains, have more energy, and look like I’m 50, when I’m 70, but I’m thinking the heart attack and situational depression from the removal of Italian food from my life and stomach, would certainly kill me. I’m all for people finding something that works for them, be it diet, exercise, love, or faith, as long as the solution doesn’t harm another. Me, going raw vegan, would harm all the people who loved me. The radical mood shifts alone would cause mass destruction.

Which leads me back to my marriage. I am a moody gal. And the fact that my husband sticks around is a miracle. I got over myself, and my ego, in relation to my place in our marriage, about ten years ago, when for the hundredth time, I heard, from yet another woman: “You are so lucky to have a man like Bob.”

Gag! No one ever once, not once, not anyone from school functions, the workplace, the family gatherings, friendly circles, not one person ever said: “Bob, you are so lucky to have a woman like Sam.” (Insert my real name there; for all you logical souls concluding: Well, of course not. Her name isn’t really Sam.)

Not a one! I’m not chopped liver. And my brain is keen. So it’s got to be that whole “high maintenance” attribute I’ve got going on.

Poor, poor Bob. If you believe in the Buddha’s way of a person coming back in a life position based on previous karmic dealings, then I certainly wonder about my husband. For him to end up being my breadwinner, dishwasher, back and neck massager, psychologist, best friend, and emotional punching bag, I figure he must have done me mighty wrong in a past life!

Which logically means I have an obligation to even out the karmic relationship, I suppose. Speaking of such, accordingly, I must have done a whole lot of people wrong in my previous incarnations. Although when I was much younger, I had that whole “pretty girl” thing going on. So I must have done something right eons ago.

I think the biggest karmic wrong doing I ever did in this life was the time I stole the yellow spelling book, with the illustrated cat on the cover, from a girl in pigtails named Alice. She was a straw-haired blonde girl in second grade that sat two seats up in front of me, and she always, I mean always, got the right answers. While I was in the back hooting and hollering to be called on, Alice glided up a smooth arm and remained calm. One day, I couldn’t stand Alice anymore, and I did a terrible, terrible thing. I took her spelling book when no one was about, and hid the book in the back of the room. When Alice’s turn came, she couldn’t answer, and I could. Only, the plan backfired, because we spent the next twenty-minutes calming Alice down and searching relentlessly for her book. Well, everyone but me. Worst part of the whole spelling book fiasco, is that I still feel guilty. I remember thinking right then and there, in the company of a bunch of eight year olds, that I’d never ever purposely do wrong by anyone ever again. And I’ve tried my best to uphold that rule. Though I still fear I’ll be coming back as Alice’s gerbil in another life.

I can go on and make excuses about my home life at that time, but I’m not going there. I’m sorry, Alice, wherever you are! Please keep my cage clean!

Karma is a funny thing. What goes around comes around, so they say. But it seems to me the clueless people always get a better life, at least this time around, and the smart folks end up with all the misery. Which makes me wonder if I want to have brains in my next life.

This post was supposed to be about the high-tolerance level and total awesomeness of my husband. But somehow ended up being about gerbils. This is what Bob has to live with. If you are religious, you may want to stop and say a silent prayer for Bob.

click to see where image was found

Just to make sure I don’t have to be anyone’s gerbil, here is a list of I’m sorry:

  1. I’m sorry to that lady on the phone, whom I said this to: “Well, as long as you are more accepting of children with special needs. The last music instructor had zero tolerance of my son and her classes were boring.” Turns out I accidentally dialed the instructor I was speaking about.
  2. I’m sorry to T for lecturing you on my thoughts on God after I’d had one to many caffeinated beverages.
  3. I’m sorry to Mom for having a blog where I discussed everything horrible I thought you ever did to me.
  4. I’m sorry to my mother-in-law. You were right, when you stood up at the rehearsal dinner and announced loudly: “Are you sure you want to marry her?” But I think karmic wise we are more than even.
  5. I’m sorry to the university professor that I wrote about more than once, and called a “dumbass” to the world. (I’m sorry for the ass part.)
  6. I’m sorry to that Swan chick because I posted a big sign on my blog that directed readers to your website, because you were stealing my stories.
  7. I’m sorry to all the people who signed up to follow my posts, because you honestly had no idea what you were getting yourself into.
  8. I’m sorry to all the perfect-looking, skinny women at the gym that I stick my tongue out at, and for the teasing about your flat chests.
  9. I’m sorry to the drivers I yell at when I say: “Come on! Can you go any slower?”
  10. I’m sorry to my husband Bob for making you fetch me cleaner drinking glasses, for kicking you when you snore, for singing Daddy can’t rhyme, for saying, “You smell,” for asking, “What’s on your face. Can you die from that?”, for telling you more than once: It looks like your gaining weight, for making you move seats five times in the movie theater, for freaking out over the smell of taco meat, for screaming frantically over your driving, for calling you ten times in a row over the possibility of my heart exploding, for making you edit my writing and then critiquing your editing skills, for calling you various names based on the time of the month and the planetary positions, and for all the annoying things I do and say.

Okay. That just about covers me karmic wise until tomorrow.

Side note:  More evidence that Bob is a saint. I couldn’t fall asleep last night, so I made up stupid jokes in my head. Then I got out of bed, went into the bathroom, where my husband was, and told Bob the jokes. He told me I really needed to get some sleep.

Jokes:

Why did the Blue Jay cross the road? Because he was a jay-walker.

What did Jesus say when he looked in the toilet? Holy crap.

What do you call a slutty alcoholic living on the streets? A wine-hoe

I apologize to any jay-walking, Jesus-loving, homeless people. No offense intended.


A nice example of a clean Gerbil Cage