Plinky Prompt

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  Talking malamute (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  You’re in the middle of a terrible argument, and everyone turns to you to help resolve it. How do you respond? How do you react to conflict? See all answers

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• November 16, 2013 by hibernationnow

• Talk It Out

• Calmly.

• I learned it late but I know it instinctively now: there are always two sides to a story. The truth is generally somewhere in the middle. Let each person talk, one at a time, no interruptions. After they finish, the other person has their turn, again, no interruptions, the rest is mediation. COMPROMISE. Point out the things they have in common or what they are both frustrated about. Sometimes it’s just a misunderstanding or hurt feelings. Always, talk it out. Peace is better than being “right.” But, you have to grow-up to know that. You will, eventually, Life will make you. Good Luck.

Somewhere Birds Are Singing

English: Red-headed Woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus). Canada Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada. Image collected at the feeders behind the Visitor Centre. Français : Pic à tête rouge. Parc provincial Rondeau, Ontario, Canada. Cliché pris aux mangeoires situées derrière le centre d’accueuil des visiteurs. 日本語: ズアカキツツキ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don’t see leaves on the branches through my windows anymore. I miss the lush colors of red, orange and yellow that greeted me in the daytime, gleaming from the sun. As Winter approaches and I tend to recede indoors I know that some of my winter friends are rejoicing at the prospect of snow in the near future. Honestly, I cannot relate to that one bit. I hate being cold and the fact that “you can always put on more layers” does nothing for me.  When I am cold, it goes right through my body to my bones probably because I have Fibromyalgia. Cold not only hurts, it stabs repeatedly.

I drink a mug of tea, with milk and a spoonful of glistening, amber honey.  It’s nice as long as the tea lasts which is probably five or six minutes. My stomach is warm and I relish the flavor but after, nothing of the warmth or the taste remains. Cold air seeps through our brand new windows.

This is the worst time of year for me, the end of Autumn, when we turn the clocks back an hour. Sure, it’s nice for that one day to get that “extra” hour of sleep ( a concept that I will never understand ) but one we pay for dearly. Winter lasts much too long for me.

I admire the skiers, snow boarders, ice skaters, I think if I had a hobby outside in the freezing temperatures it would make me happier. The only thing I enjoy in the winter at a ski lodge is drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows from a ceramic mug. I was never athletic and having “loose” bones all I need to do is trip,  anywhere, and an ankle or wrist breaks and is in a cast for weeks, I’ve been in that black boot way too many times.

The only thing I like about this season is watching and listening to the birds and their songs. I fill the bird feeders regularly, that is my outdoor hobby. I sit inside and watch them play and fly and eat. I listen to the birds’ sweet songs, watch the cardinal couples flying back and forth through the trees to feed each other and to sing happily. I love that they come in couples. They bring me the only piece of joy in the long winter months. At least I have that.

Carry on Tuesday: I have wiped the slate clean

Description unavailable (Photo credit: wakingphotolife:)

There was so much anger and resentment in my past, in my youth, it piled up like a bloody automobile accident on an icy winter day. Black ice that you can’t even see, like feelings that you didn’t know you still had. They snuck up from deep inside me and burst, like popped balloons. Years and years of self-teaching and negotiating and drawing lines and speaking up and creating boundaries had finally come. There had been teachers and books and confrontation to arrive at this peaceful place now, a place of breathing and thinking, forgiving and living in the present. It took a lot of work but I was proud of myself, finally.

I had wiped the slate clean and all the baggage of my past was behind me. However, I look across at you, my lover of five years and I fear it is still in you. I begged you for years to come to therapy with me, to work on our relationship but you refused. Does it mean anything to you that I have done all this work for our relationship? You shake your head back and forth and say in a low tone: “Not really.” You scratch your beard and stroke it, a habit that I have come to detest. I shudder from the cold temperatures in the room and in your answer which is void of emotions. You do not like change, I know, why would you like change; you haven’t noticed anything was wrong to begin with. I sigh deeply. I don’t know what to do, how to respond to you, you are a creature of habit and you annoy me now, this highly predictable presence in MY artist’s cottage. I don’t know if you belong here anymore, I mutter that under my breath but you don’t listen to me, even if I had shouted it out loud. You never listen to me, do you? You just hear what you want to hear, as if you were a five-year old boy, plugging his ears with his fingers and screeching some vile noises, getting louder and louder by the minute. I want to slap you but I have to control myself because that would be getting nowhere and I abhor physical violence in every form. Look what you have almost made me think of doing!!

I get up from our scratched wooden kitchen table, I feel sick to my stomach and head to the sink and heave into it, my long brown hair falling far into the sink. I am trying to vomit the destruction out of my body but nothing comes out. I want to look at the decay, describe it, name it, show it, but I can’t. I can’t even do that right. Nothing comes out of my body except the decaying dry heaves of a woman starting to become undone. No, I will not let myself do this. I stop myself and breathe. Slowly.

I lay on the sofa, with a red and blue crocheted blanket tucked around me that my mom made for me years ago. I’m tired, confused and feel very much alone. I don’t know what to do right now. I know in my heart and deep inside me, just one thing, we need to separate.  I need to be free, he is stifling me and I feel I can’t breathe anymore. “He had” no idea, he will wail, I’m sure, when I would later say this a mere week later. But, it was in the room with us for a very long time. He just wasn’t paying attention.