The call of love sounds very hollow among these immobile rocks. -Gustav Mahler
I love rocks as much as I love seashells. I’m drawn to all shapes and sizes, colors and textures. Each one has a story to tell. They’re alive; warm from absorbing the sun, cool to the touch when it’s chilly, and shiny wet when it rains. They change but stay the same. I can trust them and that’s important to me.
Rocks are composed primarily of grains of minerals, crystalline solids formed from a chemical compound arranged in an orderly manner. The aggregate minerals forming the rock are held together by chemical bonds. Immutable bonds of love.
This is my very own dry river bed. I hauled each and every rock with my own two hands; thousands of them; a true labor of love.
This ash tree started out in 1985 in a five-gallon pot as a housewarming gift. As soon as the leaves begin to drop–in just a day or two– the branches will become bare and I’ll have a LOT of raking to do.
Abscission is the reason why leaves fall. Scientists believe that a reduction in sunlight leads to the reduction of chlorophyll in the leaf due to a reduction in photosynthesis and this may trigger the abscission of leaves. The actual process occurs when the weaker cells near the petiole are pushed off by the stronger cells beneath them.
I’m sure there’s an analogy or parallel to my LIFE but I’ve had a tough week and I’m tired of thinking and not able to direct my brain to untangle the profundities because right now all I want to do is quietly savor the stark, elegantly naked branches.
Like a ship that runs aground because of low tide or unseen rocks or fog or navigational errors, our beautiful heart can be damaged when blood flow is restricted or when it flows unregulated.
Heart/wrecked.
I grew up hearing the term, “Stress kills.”
I was never quite sure what that meant, but then I did when it happened to me.
After a seemingly nonstop barrage of a personal stressful situation–like a ship hitting the rocks over and over again–it all finally took an undeniable toll on my physical health.
One of my favorite places to live is in the state of Denial, but I’ve been forced to temporarily move to a new town called Reality. Hopefully, I’ll just visit there for a bit until I can come home again.
After experiencing some intermittent and strangely terrifying heart pains, I went to the doc who took my blood pressure and was concerned about the results. It was super high. I had always had enviably LOW blood pressure since I exercise regularly, am vegan and never smoked, so this raised concerns.
Over the course of a couple weeks, my BP was checked daily and it stayed consistently high; dangerously high, which only made me more anxious and more stressed, and at one of the office visits, I started hyperventilating and had a panic attack. (Super embarrassing for the doc and absolutely mortifying for me.)
This led to an order for an Echocardiogram along with all the other heart-focused tests. The echo was done at a local hospital–a definite trigger. No one wants to go to a hospital at any time, but especially during Covid. It seemed like I was being admitted, with a wrist band and lots of little stickers, and I was devastated.
I almost bolted out of the front door at that point, but I persevered. I can share with you that it’s a scary time when you have to figure out why you don’t feel great. I’ve been a medical advocate for several loved ones, but it’s radically more difficult when you have to care for yourself. Poor me.
The technician was amazing, especially considering I tormented her with a million questions. I know enough about medical stuff to see that she was concentrating on a certain area of my heart. I really appreciated her patience with me and her detailed explanations during the hour-long ordeal.
The results showed a dilated aortic root valve and regurgitation of the mitral valve.
What this means is that the accumulation of stress and panic attacks and PTSD that I’ve endured during the last four years manifested medically and physically and caused structural damage to my heart.
“Severe physical or emotional stress increases blood pressure to the point where the tensile limit of the aortic tissue is overwhelmed, causing the rupture.”
“Over time, certain conditions, such as high blood pressure, can cause your heart to work harder, gradually enlarging your heart’s left ventricle.”
“Mitral valve regurgitation can cause complications such as atrial fibrillation, in which the atria of the heart don’t contract well. This leads to increased risk of stroke. Also, elevated blood pressure in the lungs (pulmonary artery hypertension).”
Hypertension makes the blood push harder against the valve and causes it to dilate, enlarge, and that’s pretty much the same scenario for the mitral valve, which seems to be the cause of the intermittent chest pain.
I’ll need to be monitored regularly because if I can’t control the stress/blood pressure and the valves stretch to a dangerous size, the only solution is surgical intervention–or death.
Reducing stress and hypertension can possibly keep the valves from enlarging any further, but the damage is done–nothing will make them reduce in size back to normal, except surgery.
Let me tell you that it’s true. Stress kills.
Now I’m off to change course, take some magnesium, eat more beets, meditate, calm down and regulate my breathing so that I don’t have a stroke or an aneurysm.
That’s the question (with apologies to William Shakespeare).
Quick post:
There’s a lively discussion on NextDoor about a woman who was walking on a local trail with her nine-year-old son when he needed to relieve himself and did so a few feet off the trail in the bushes.
This is not a remote trail, it’s pretty much in the city, paved and well-traveled.
Apparently a woman stopped to stare and made the boy feel uncomfortable. There were quite a few negative comments directed toward the woman who (allegedly) was looking, comments like “mind your own business”…
Mine seems to be the ONLY comment that talked about the possibility that it might be inappropriate for a boy that age to urinate in public.
In my opinion, I think this would be a different story if it was a toddler in the middle of toilet training, but a nine-year-old is too old for that behavior.
Normally I don’t respond to NextDoor because it’s a dark hole like Facebook, but I felt compelled to share my thoughts.
What if it was a nine-year-old girl? Does that change anything?
Obviously, they were in plain sight. I wouldn’t want my son or my grandkids to see someone else’s body parts or something that should be private.
What if there was a predator around?
I’ve hiked a lot in many different wild places and had to find a secret spot myself, but this location isn’t a forest or a remote mountain trail. It’s a mile-long walkway paralleling the railroad tracks with houses and windows all around.
Everyone was out this Thursday evening with their cameras pointed up, taking photos of the cloud-dotted sky with amazingly intense colors.
That’s the Encina Power Plant undergoing demolition.You can see a tiny slice of the ocean off in the distance. A couple blocks away from Casa de Enchanted Seashells.
I love jewelry boxes. I love them so much that I wanted to pass on the sweet tradition and sent baby Char a ballerina musical jewelry box fit for a princess that plays a tune from Swan Lake. Char wore a rainbow colored tutu for Halloween, so it’s definitely this Grandma’s job to nurture an early appreciation for dance.
It turned out that she loved it so much (and so did Theo) that I had to send him one too, only his featured characters that twirl around from Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince and plays Mozart’s Eine Klene Nachtmusik. It’s about the right time for him to read that book, too.
I also found a new one for me (of course), and it’s better in real life than the photos portrayed on Amazon. The green is truly a beautiful background for the gold dragon. This one doesn’t play music but I have another one that does, so I’m content.
Now we’re all happily playing with our new boxes…a thousand miles away from each other.
We’re lucky here in SoCal to have had a couple days of cleansing rain and it’s supposed to continue all day, but there was a break in the storm so I took the opportunity to go for a walk in search of a rainbow.
I didn’t see one, but I’m not disappointed because the sky and the clouds were magnificent.
I’ve been listening to different versions of this song, Feeling Good. Which one do you like best? Sammy or Simone? I can’t choose.
From Dan Rather: “This is a win for decency and democracy. A new chapter in American history begins today.”
I’m writing this with tears in my eyes. It’s a very emotional time for us. We’ve been holding our breath for four years and can finally exhale.
We can breathe now.
The nightmare really is over. The planets have aligned.
Decency, integrity, and honor has been restored to the people’s White House.
The United States of America has been saved.
Democracy is back on track.
It’s OFFICIAL. They called it.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will take over the helm and repair the damage of the last four years.
We are finally seeing the healing light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
No fighting, no lawsuits, no rioting by his racist cultists can change the outcome. It’s a mathematical impossibility for them. In addition to winning the popular votes, at this time Electoral College votes are 284-214.
We have been led out of the heart of darkness.
I think we’re gonna shut down our street and have a socially distanced block party.
The nightmare of the last four years is almost over!
While the election hasn’t been officially called for Joe Biden as of 6:00 a.m. today, November 6, 2020, I have faith that it’s just a matter of time. The terrible black cloud we’ve been living under here in the United States for the last four years is dissipating, and there’s now HOPE on the horizon.
Democracy has been saved.
After we celebrate, we need to fix the Supreme Court and restore women’s right to choose what happens to our own bodies and hurry to repair the damage to our wildlife and our climate and our pristine wilderness. Get rid of the Electoral College!
Maybe the worst part of the last four years is the knowledge that there is still so much systemic racism here. It’s like a certain segment of society can’t get over the fact that the Civil War is over. Equal means EQUAL, no matter the color of our skin or religion, or whom you choose to love. It’s obvious there needs to be a lot more education. Racism and fascism shouldn’t be tolerated.
I’m here in California and we voted overwhelmingly for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, but I want to take the time to express my appreciation to Georgia’s Stacey Abrams for tirelessly working to uphold honor and decency and integrity and to fight the good fight for all of us.
My parting words for that failed reality show sociopath… “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Here’s a few words from the late great John Lewis that seem especially appropriate right about now:
“About fifteen of us children were outside my aunt Seneva’s house, playing in her dirt yard. The sky began clouding over, the wind started picking up, lightning flashed far off in the distance, and suddenly I wasn’t thinking about playing anymore; I was terrified…Aunt Seneva was the only adult around, and as the sky blackened and the wind grew stronger, she herded us all inside.Her house was not the biggest place around, and it seemed even smaller with so many children squeezed inside. Small and surprisingly quiet. All of the shouting and laughter that had been going on earlier, outside, had stopped. The wind was howling now, and the house was starting to shake. We were scared. Even Aunt Seneva was scared.And then it got worse. Now the house was beginning to sway. The wood plank flooring beneath us began to bend. And then, a corner of the room started lifting up.I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. None of us could. This storm was actually pulling the house toward the sky. With us inside it.That was when Aunt Seneva told us to clasp hands. Line up and hold hands, she said, and we did as we were told. Then she had us walk as a group toward the corner of the room that was rising. From the kitchen to the front of the house we walked, the wind screaming outside, sheets of rain beating on the tin roof. Then we walked back in the other direction, as another end of the house began to lift.And so it went, back and forth, fifteen children walking with the wind, holding that trembling house down with the weight of our small bodies.More than half a century has passed since that day, and it has struck me more than once over those many years that our society is not unlike the children in that house, rocked again and again by the winds of one storm or another, the walls around us seeming at times as if they might fly apart.It seemed that way in the 1960s, at the height of the civil rights movement, when America itself felt as if it might burst at the seams—so much tension, so many storms. But the people of conscience never left the house. They never ran away. They stayed, they came together and they did the best they could, clasping hands and moving toward the corner of the house that was the weakest.And then another corner would lift, and we would go there.And eventually, inevitably, the storm would settle, and the house would still stand.But we knew another storm would come, and we would have to do it all over again.And we did.And we still do, all of us. You and I. Children holding hands, walking with the wind. . . . “
Enchanted Seashells | Princess Rosebud 