So many thoughts, so many of them spider webbing in different directions, but so closely forming a knitting pattern.

“Pretty paper, pretty ribbon of blue… wrap your presents to your darlin a few… pretty pencil to say I love you”… Loved this song by Willie – its always been one of my favorites. Its actually pretty easy for me to say this is one of my favorite holiday songs.

Then there is the song of the title of this post, Paper Moon – by Nat King Cole – another favorite of mine.

Belief is such a powerful thing. A powerful tool.

Went to acupuncture today, its one of my top 5 things I do to work on curing my cancer. Its a self care treatment that works on all of my symptoms, and helps me physically feel better. The particular place I go, and the therapist who does my treatments makes me mentally and emotionally feel better too, which makes it an extremely valuable tool in my arsenal.

I say we, because I haven’t been driving in the past year. Having agreed early in the year to relinquish this, due to where the cancer is currently taking up squatting rights in my brain. As an uninvited guest, its there, and I’m dealing with the mechanisms for evicting it, slowly. Giving up my freedom for driving is one of the things I have had to embrace gracefully. This has meant that every appointment I have to get to for labs, or doctors, or self care requires someone, one of my family, one of my support group to assist me in getting there.

I am blessed in some many respects, because the people in my support group have had the ability to do this with very little issues, and have been truly gracious in their assistance. This might not have been the case for many other people, but it is the case for me. Its one thing to love someone, its another thing to have to make adjustments to your work schedule every week, and shuttle them around from appointment to appointment. This is just a quick thank you to the universe for them being in my life and for the blessing of having been provided such a wonderful and gracious accomodation to help me with my needs.

We today, was me and my mum. She helps me when she can to get from point a to point b. When we go for the appointment, she is very kind and waits loyally and lovingly and never has negative things to say about the time or the wait or the drive – even when she gets stuck driving early or late, or in icky Austin Traffic.

Today after the treatment, we went to Kerbey Lane, for Brunch ish. We do this when we can, because Kerbey is one of my favorite places to be pampered and enjoy coffee and some seasonally tasty and healthy foods. Today we were talking and I was telling her stories of the experiences I had over the weekend.

This is a case where I’m going to relay something that was impactful, both for her, and for me… because there are as always with everything more than one side to ever story – perspective makes life such an interesting thing.

Anyone who knows me knows, that I am loud. I was classically voice trained, and I learned acting things as well as just generally showmanship things at a very young age, and they have stuck with me throughout my life. I also have a mouth like a sailor 🙂 – I learned cussing at a very young age, and while I learned there was a time and a place for it – my mothers company has always been one of those places where its always been comfortable and accepting of my use of profanity to accentuate a point.

I was telling my mother a story, and I cussed. I used an expression “They are so fucking annoying” – apparently my words were so loud, so as to interrupt or bother the person at the other table. This middle aged woman turned around and glared at me. We made eye contact, I nodded to her, as her look to “stop me in my tracks” did – it interrupted my trail of thought, and so I could nto recall where in my story I was, but I attempted to lower my voice, and I restarted my story, to my mother in a voice slightly lower – I thought it was lower, and started the story back with the cussing line, that had clearly been what caught this woman’s attention. I didn’t think anything over the interaction. In my life, it is not uncommon for people to pay attention when I speak, and not uncommon for people to lookylou into my conversation.

I continued my story, and my mom and I continued talking. We had ordered breakfast and generally I was feeling okay today, and we were talking about things for this weekend, and the holidays.

This woman, as she left her table, waited until her companion had left, and then she stopped at my table, and she made a point to direct her full force of attention at me and explain how I was effectively a horrible person. How she was out having a nice time with her son, who she never gets to see, and my loud lewd words had both offended her and she was sorry I was so rude to my breakfast guest. She further indicated she couldn’t believe I had continued talking when she had stared me down and had clearly made contact with her. I apologized to her, and expressed my sympathy for causing her to have a less than desirable time at her breakfast. I offered to pay for her meal. She indicated they had already paid, and she would NOT be taking my money as it wasn’t about money. I again apologized to her, and I asked her if there were any way I could correct the situation. She further went on to rail on me again from the beginning, repeating all of her accusations, and detailing how I was effectively the worst person in the world. I apologized again to her, looked her in the eye, and reached out to touch her arm with my apology. She snapped back and cringed back from me as if I were a viper, and again started her loud beratement of me for my rude behaviour. I again apologized, and asked her again if there were any way I could make reparations for ruining the enjoyment of her visit. She started again with her litany of insults about my rude behaviour, and again repeated her loud boisterous talking down to me. I sat silently, and allowed her to finish, and leave.

I sat a moment, and felt the weight of all of my energy sources bolster up to shield me and protect me from this army of toxicity. I felt my angels bolster and shelter me. I felt the weight of 10000 armies of light step in to wall and protect me, and the true humility that comes from being chastised for something to which you own, and the weight and the responsibility that goes with knowing what you have done, and being okay with the fact that you did it, but also allowing someone else to not be okay with it. The weight of this all hit me like a tidal wave as the emotional weight of the ocean cascaded over, around and thru me. I cried.

A waiter choice that moment to arrive with food at our table, having caught the lady tyraid he looked me humbled, and he apologized to me, he asked if I was okay, he asked if I needed anything. I told him it was okay, and it was perfectly okay.

I looked across the table at my mother, who was on the verge of crying. I told her it was okay. She nodded, and we talked about it. There have been many times in my life, that I would have been that woman. So profoundly offended by my right to have everything in life precisely as I felt it was deserving, that when someone else was just being themselves, I would have felt the obligation to scold them and tell them whats what about the fact that they ruined my time too. Probably, although I’m not usually one for feedback that is not actionable, but probably some or one of the time my feedback was also completely not actionable, and my “unintended intent” was just to drop a negative ball of hurtful emotion upon another human being too… I mean Misery does love company…. I hope her day improved. It was definitely a moment of life lesson for me.

So many thoughts about this – I talked to my psychologist about this, and I thought that maybe I needed to blog out a perspective for this lady, but I have since come to recognize, that not only do I not need this, it’s not really relevant. I took the lesson from the experience, and it’s done now. Blogging it in general has just allowed me to document my lessons so that hopefully I don’t need to repeat them.

Its been an interesting week all the way around, so many memories, so many thoughts and I get to have an exciting family time this weekend.

Christmas is not my favorite holiday, it would probably be number 4 of the annual ones, falling behind St. Patty’s day, Thanksgiving, Valentines day, my birthday – oh I guess that means it falls to 5. I think part of what I don’t care for about Christmas is the feeling of obligation around presents. I am all for presents, I love buying them, giving them and getting them. But I enjoy it so much more when its just random or when I see or find that thing that makes a person so joyful – or when they find a thing that is so joyful for me. I don’t enjoy the “well its that day” so we have to shop and have to settle and have to pay prices that are higher for the time of year – because its “expected” – so Please don’t take it personally if I don’t buy christmas presents anymore. If you aren’t a young child, too young to explain the concept of obligation vs fun – probably you won’t be getting anything from me…. Unless I randomly happen to see the perfect thing for you that strikes me as a thing I should get – and hopefully it won’t be around Dec 25th.

This is not to say I am a scrooge at all, I love the decorations, and the flashing lights – but I enjoy them for the spirit that they represent, not the presents.

I will say, I have always enjoyed christmas cards – the concept of sending and receiving them. Of hearing from friends I haven’t conversed with in a long time, or of family. The cute sayings and just the practice of writing them out and signing them. Something about mailing things has always seemed magic to me, and even more so this time of year. Somehow the mail carriers have always seemed like the best sort of Santa around, carrying a bag full of letters, with stamps and happy wishes to brighten up my day.

May your time with family always be memorable, may your moments of quiet be revitalizing, may your hopes for the rest of 2019 be heard, may your 2020 start with progress to your dreams for the year.