I Know ... It's Been Forever ...

But life has a funny way of taking over when you aren't waching. I've been unemployed since last May and seeking work diligently, but nothing has come of my efforts. I'm not complaining, just stating the facts.

Response to my applications has been so tepid, in fact, that I'm ready to splurge and try something totally different. I've established an ID on Red Bubble, at deviant Art, and on Web Shots all doing with my views on my artworks. I'll post separate blogs with the details for each site in coming weeks, I swear I will. I need separate ones because I've uploaded so much to each of the sites.

Meanwhile, I must tread the realms of the mundane and resculpt my resume to fit in with a more modern approach. I haven't much hope it will work, since it hasn't yet, but I must try. I'll be uploading more photos to Red Bubble and the other sites in the hopes that they'll take wing and fly, with me along for the ride. I've always believed in the modern proverb, "If you can't find a job that exists, create one!"

Petie

What to Say...Finding My Emotional Center

Unhappy doesn't quite cut it. Depressed fits but is too...well...deflating. Life is a beach and I'm here for a dynamite tan, but the clouds covered the sun some time ago.

Now I struggle to get out of bed every morning and everything just seems so set in stone it won't budge. For a summer day this is one of the worst ones I've had lately. Hot, muggy, and stifling in all ways but especially spiritually.

I feel cramped, trapped, and frustrated. I know I must move on but can't seem to manage even the simplest tasks to achieve that goal. Don't worry, for me suicide isn't a viable option, never has been never will be.

Instead, I languish wishing I had the courage I needed to 'just do it' as so many have urged of me. You ask me for my honesty and you're getting it. Life isn't a bowl of cherries; or if it is I got the pits without the fruit.

I'm bright, funny, and very sweet according to those that know me. Inwardly, it's an entirely other set of words, cold, broken, and unfair to name just three. Which set do I believe?

Grief overwhelms me; not just losing Happy Cat or Chris lies at the bottom of it, but a long string of losses of those closest to me. Great granddad, followed years later by grandpa and then his wife my gran, shortly after her my beloved mother-in-law (yes we actually got along very well and I adored her); now lately my beloved younger brother Christopher and my favorite cat Happy.

Left to me are the shreds of the life I tried to be successful at...and failed utterly. No ready cash, no working car, and no job to speak of. I sound a bum and feel that way too. Have felt it since I was very small.

Distance between me and my mother and surviving siblings doesn't help, yet I'm unwilling to bend in the ways each wishes that I would. I can't for doing so would scald my spirit past recovery. I WISH they understood me and accepted me as I am, but they don't.

Ditto for a spouse turned rancid and dangerous because I no longer feel for him as I once did. No passion left after fighting to overcome poverty for almost 30 years; no desire remaining because his words killed it; no wish to resume that life because I long ago outgrew the cage containing it.

Here instead is my therapy and release. Here also is the hope that lives outside of Christ. I grasp this straw and strangle the rope it makes as I strive mightily to exit the pit that my emotions dug long

Life's Twists and Turns

I've been through a lot in the past year or so. I lost a beloved younger brother to melanoma in March 2010 and my favorite feline this past May (2011). I've been threatened with my job and laid off much earlier than expected, both this year.

Now I'm exploring my options online in the hopes of garnering support for my pre-existing stores. I share Sunshine's ambition of being totally self-supporting by the end of the year, as most jobs in my area aren't what I need to earn a living that sustains my body while it nourishes my mind. Some would say I'm too fussy but I recently passed the half century mark, so I feel I'm entitled to pick the right job and go for that over settling for what's out there.

I've settled for what I could get for most of my life, therefore I won't any longer. If that makes me crazy, so be it.

If I didn't have my friend Sunny I'd be a very lost individual, as she's encouraged me to branch into landscape photography and using what I've done thus far to create stunning greeting cards at Greeting Card Universe (GCU). My link is http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/katiesclevercardstore; hers is http://www.greetingcardunivers.com/sunshinescreativeendeavors.

We collaborate on many of the cards using her images and my verse or her version of my image with my verse. If you have anything in mind that you'd like to see and don't, contact me at PKTaylor365@gmail.com and specify what you want and with your contact information and a rough deadline for the project.

We also have stores at Red Bubble, deviant Art, and Web Shots, so pop in there if you haven't found what you want at GCU.

Petra

MISSING CHRIS

A quiet place for reflection drew me in today

A calm place to contemplate why you went away

The reflections in the still water soothed my aching heart

Made thus by nature's insistence that we part;

You were my dancing jester, in life for the thrills

You grinned like a mischievous pixie, and sometimes gave me chills

You sat quietly beside me, when you knew I was in pain

How I wish you were still here with me, so we could chat again!

I know you're in a better place, where no pain or agony prevails

It makes things no easier, as my wound heart bewails

I see you laughing merrily as you play your saxophone

Sitting by the Master's side, as you issue my call to come home;

I have yet many missions here, assigned by the Father at birth

To dance while in agony upon His sainted earth

To bring others to His throne, to seek His benevolence

To give the gift of compassion, so scarce in the modern world;

But mostly to remember you to those you never met.

You were special then, you're special now, and will ever so remain

It's time for me to finish this, my continuing mournful refrain

Because you wouldn't want me suffering, you'd want my joy instead;

So here I take a pause to turn my pain upon its head!

@2010 by P.K. Taylor (Flora Belle Jardiniere)

Wandering Amidst the Wounded

SOARING HIGH & FREE

He seeks his sustenance, soaring over stubble

We seek ours, running over others

Heedless of our damages as we rout

Our nightmares and dump our dreams

Working ceaseless tears, wounds unbound

Festering in our loved ones while

We dance amidst their scars wondering

Why they persist in ignoring us

Oh, to soar as the vulture after some purpose

Removing eyesores instead of making them

Cleansing our earth preferred to further

Filthifying it with our offal and discards

Whether of flesh, bone, or other materiel

Freshly cast off for another to find

Heave a plenty upon discovering our

Worst days' labors, heavy into autumn's

Rising tides, sunbeams, and clouds

Attempting eternity and falling far short

Riding high on our puny egos' delusions

Whilst we sink another's truest dreams

All in aid of our self-absorption

And to our peril, for we are not islands

Rather bastions of hope for those

Wounded in service of our liberty.

@ 2010 by P.K. Taylor (Flora Belle Jardiniere)

Saying Good-Bye

Petra & Her Brother Chris in 1963

How does an older sister bid adieu to a beloved younger brother? How does anyone send off someone who by all things natural should have buried her?  There are no simple answers to help heal my wounded heart, nor are there pat responses to ease my guilty conscience.  These will only come with time and acceptance of how things turned out in the end.

I could choose to wallow in self-pity and thus join him in spiritual death, but I'm not made that way.  Instead, I will celebrate the life he lived and the man my brother was while he walked the earth with me.  I will do that with joyous melancholy, as is my privilege as mother's oldest child.  I will not wail, lament his loss, or curse God for taking him so soon, because that curtailment was a merciful end to his suffering.  (He died of melanoma.)

I will praise our Maker for His mercy, for my remaining family members, and for all the new friends I met at his memorial because it is the healthy and right thing to do.  While it might seem more than a little odd to you, my readers, it is in proper tune and cadence with the woman I have become; for I choose not to rage and rant, thus prolonging my agony, but to rejoice in the memories I share with my family and friends.

I strongly believe that it is also what he wishes for us, because he was an ebullient and mischievous person while he shared our lives.  He loved fiercely and clung tightly to us, thought I did not realize this until I began my rambling thought piece about him.

He stood quietly by our sides, waiting patiently for us to realize that he needed us and mostly we did; although I suspect not as soon as or quite in the way he hoped we would.  He never left my heart for a moment, though he ofted left my mind for days.  Then, in a burst of sisterly intuition, I would call or voicemail him, knowing he needed to hear from me.

I'd say something prosaic, like, "Hey, lil bro, it's me, big sis.  Just checking in to let you know I'm okay."  I let him know that I was okay, so he could stop worrying about me for at least a few more weeks.

I most enjoyed calling him on his birthday because he was always upbeat and almost always answered his phone.  I'd sing him happy birthday, we'd chat for a while, and then go our merry ways.  This last August 30th I didn't want to hang up because I sensed there was something seriously wrong with him.  As usual, my intuition was correct.

They diagnosed him with melanoma of the lung in late October and removed the affected organ in early November, hoping that they got all of it.  They didn't.  Instead, he felt a bit off still and had them do an MRI of his brain; where they found 15 additional masses, three of them quite large.  It only took three further months for the disease to claim him and no one was ready for the phone call announcing his death.

I'll never forget his last two-word text message, a simple "Thank You," that gave me hope we'd chat again.  I returned with this answer, "4 What," little knowing it was his kind good-bye.  I again only realized this later as I reflected on him and his way of dealing with pain.  He cared so much for us, his family and friends, that he seldom let us know he was in pain.  This time he had to, because it wrinkled his normally placid brow and turned a usually placid man into a blob on the couch.

I must find a way to save that message, for it said everything about who he was.

Discipline vs Punishment

Discipline encourages change, while punishment inhibits it. It accounts for an individual child's emotional maturity while gently, firmly, giving her the tools she needs to obey your commands. It rewards positive actions while correcting negative ones without crushing the child's spirit and sense of wellbeing.

Punishment is a bigger person forcing a smaller one to do as directed, whether the little one can do as ordered or not. It teaches children how to bully their smaller peers, siblings, and others long before it teaches them how to lovingly correct another's aberrant behavior. There is NEVER good reason to hit a child, so spanking is definitely out.

Discipline is the consistent, firm, and loving enforcement of previously established boundaries. It consists of helping a child understand why a rule is necessary, proving that you will always enforce it, and that the restrictions increase with each repeat of the offense that engenders them. It begins in your heart, as you recall how badly you felt when your parents grounded you, removed a treasured toy from your toybox until your restriction ended, and how overjoyed you were when they returned it.

It ends when the child learns her lesson and not before then, lest you confuse her. It persists in spite of temper tantrums, through attempts to avoid it, and until you are certain your baby has learned the lesson the discipline was intended to impart to her.

Punishment, contrarily, is an arbitrary act usually inspired by a parent's anger with a child for overstepping a boundary unawares or for committing a known infraction repeatedly. It does not account for a child's seeking your affection in a negative fashion because she is not getting it any other way. It does not permit an occasional lapse or episode of forgetfulness.

It implies that you are a perfect person, which your child already knows you are not. It robs a child of choices, personal responsibility for her actions, and otherwise discourages change. If you could not keep the rule for which you punish your child, then you have no business issuing edicts and insisting that she obey it either.

Discipline pulls a child back from rushing traffic and gently scolds her for scaring you, whereas punishment permits the child into the flow and risks her death just to prove that playing with fast-moving cars is dangerous. Discipline insists that a child do as instructed, but punishment torments her into tractibility. Discipline teaches listening skills, whereas punishment encourages a child to ignore you.