i hear the owl

you know, the indigo girls song i posted earlier? has a line..."i hear the owl, in the night. i realize that some things never are made right."

kind of funny side note...during creative journaling with the kids yesterday, i had them draw an imaginary friend...the prompt said it could be a person, or an animal, or whatever. so i drew this kind of rainbow colored owl. it was strange, but i felt compelled...i just didn't know where it was coming from. i thought maybe it was a bit of homage to hedwig in harry potter...she was so pretty and clean and white (uh, in my head)...so i just added some colors. but maybe it had to do with this line in this song?... i do not know...

so i'm going to write about my sister. about what a great person she is and about how through watching her, i learn lessons about how it's sometimes hard to do right. how sometimes it doesn't feel really good, but that it always takes you a better place for it (well, maybe it's a tad bit easier for me to see it's a better place than it is for her...i'll have to ask her about this). see, her girlfriend's on her fourth step in a twelve step program for alcohol and drugs. and my sister was with this person through a number of years before she ever realized she needed about twelve steps. and those were hard years...lots of praying years (for us), but lots of growing years (for her). anyway, now the girlfriend's on her fourth step. and my sister, i mean she's great, but she's not goofy....it hasn't been the same for them this time around, but my sister really cares deeply for those of us who make it onto her radar, and i don't think she ever gave up the belief that she and this person could still have a relationship with trust and, at this point, some wisdom. they certainly enjoy laughing together, so that was never a question. anyway...this person broke up with my sister last night.

so all this good will, hope, belief in the triumph of the spirit...i mean, it's not gone. the girlfriend (we all know she's the ex, but i'm just gonna call her this, because i'm sure they'll stay friends) just couldn't deal with seeing the hurt in my sister's eyes from the previous years. i mean, my sister's not actively hurting...well, not before the girlfriend broke up with her and even then, hurt's kind of the wrong word...but i'm sure the girlfriend can see the difference between what was there before and what's there now. although, i'd guess what's there now is more true, more wholly given, even though it might seem more guarded. oh blah...i suck at this.

all this to say...i'm proud of my sister. i'm proud of the life i see her moving forward with but i'm also proud because i know she's been who she is all along. and i'm proud that those she loves are loved well. she's a damned good person. (if she reads this, she'll probably barf) bahaha and just for the record, she's doing alright...

so back to some thing's never are made right... maybe they are made right, but it's just not hearts and flowers, sunshine and butterflies. and so it's a little harder to figure out that they're "right". i mean, maybe i'm looking too much for the gold stars and the big check marks, i don't know...

oh, here's the deal...(i wanted to write about this yesterday, but ran out of complete sentences...) i was watching pokemon. and there are these sort of bad guys in pokemon called team rocket. only, really they're more like kind of naughty clowns. they don't usually do anything of consequence and they do provide some comic relief. so i was watching them thinking, man, in today's action movies, ash (the hero) would just blow those guys away and that'd be the last of them. but they're (team rocket) in every episode. always there. and they usually end up helping out in some small way (usually to help themselves more than anything).

so that made me think of gollum in lord of the rings. how gandalf wouldn't agree with the idea that gollum should just be killed...that he pointed out that no one knew the role gollum played in the story. and then he subsequently becomes the one who truly destroys the ring in the end... way to go, gandalf!

so i was playing around with that buddhist idea...it was in "leaving alaska" by john green. (which is fiction, but that's all i really give a shit about right now....I JUST NEED A LITTLE FICTION) the idea about when we try to live as if things aren't going to go wrong, we create our own suffering. soooo.... pokemon, gollum, the owl, buddha.... i think sometimes i just imagine this perfect state. and i'm always trying to achieve it, keep things out of the way that will fuck with it, bla bla bla... a shepherd of cats, right hope? so it's always falling apart, and consequently, i'm always creating my own suffering. if i'd be real about it, let myself know the things i already know, then i wouldn't be setting myself up. embrace a little chaos, a little darkness, a few naughty clowns (n comes to mind...), then it would be a little smoother. maybe then things would get, uh, (forgive me for this one) CLOSER TO FINE.....

by the way, i know better than to go for perfection. i, personally, love the concept of "good enough" mothering...and completely ascribe to that goal...

in a lot of ways, it's not embracing the ideal that's a challenge for me. it's applying it to the parts of my life that are in conflict with the ideal. that requires a little more time and effort and concentration. (and with this damn walrus in my sinuses...well, you can imagine)

ok, i need to get back to good enough living... did someone hear a hoot?
peace