Sci-fi Book Trailer for Detours in Time

A Bright New School Year

Where is that purpose I felt
when I first entered this job?
Has it been stomped on by policies
and politicians,
by lack of appreciation
from those I serve?

Is it ever to return?
Will there be a springtime
in my heart
reawakening to my
joy in teaching, nurturing, leading....
Is there hope?

Dusty barren deserted land
of my mind
Just like the writer's block
on which I lay fatigued...
the ground cracks
for a seedling to sprout forth!

I feel it poke its way through
my heart,
nourished by one little raindrop
of hope....
I know it will one day bloom and
dance for joy!

For after the withering and dying winter,
regeneration returns....
and I am curious
to see what flower
comes forward this time,
as we give it another try.

A New Friend

Octogenerian......
A label some might dislike
But I think it a title with pride

With reference to a history,
Many splendid tales to tell,
Exotic places visited
A life lived well.

To make it so far,
you must be so strong
Maybe made some mistakes,
but always moved on.

You are alive, with electric eyes.
Hazel? Green?  Blue? Wide awake,
beautiful electric eyes
that have seen so much.

Many of this age
wears scars of proof.
I don't see any on you,
maybe not today.

Today there is a bright
cheerful attitude,
loving the sky, loving life.
A humor, and a wide smile.

Though we just met recently,
please know that you
have had an affect on me.
Your smile, your wit, your outlook.

I think of it when my days are hard.
When I feel I'm losing my youth,
Wishing I was someone else.
I will still be me, just smiling, like you.  

 

Shrinking Violet

"There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
   people won't feel insecure around you."  Marianne Williamson

     The dream goes like this:  I am sick.  I cannot speak or make a single sound with my mouth.  I hear beautiful music and it frustrates me, yet pleases me at the same time.  I open my mouth and feel pain, but cannot produce any expressive noise or words. I move closer to a plant that is growing beautiful flowers; they are orchids or lilies.  I take the outer petals of the flowers and eat them.  Suddenly, I am singing beautifully.  I am growing, and I am life.

      In a training session for elder duty at my church I was asked to look at this poem in relation to my faith.  The first thing this line reminds me of is the term "shrinking violet."  While my reasons for being a "shrinking violet" were probably not to protect others feelings, my role as shrinking violet certainly was not enlightened.  Digging deeper into my faith has caused me to dig up a lot that I haven't thought about in a long time. There are dark spaces inside, but there are also places that filter in the light.


     Among the dark spots on my faith journey are the many times I stuck to being a shrinking violet, not to prevent others from feeling insecure, but to avoid conflict.  Avoiding conflict was a constant goal of mine, or perhaps we should say it became more of an instinct.  Needless to say when avoiding conflict is your ultimate goal, one is not living fully to their potential. There is also a saying "Don't squander your talents", "Don't hide and your light under a bushel." Evidently people do this all the time, and I'm not so unusual. But when we were singing that song about this little light of mine in Sunday school, I suppose I didn't get the metaphor. Or maybe survival was more important to me.

     My upbringing in a household with one alcoholic parent and the other frustrated and constantly the peacemaker taught me  that I should be the person to avoid conflict. Maybe because the peacemaker was the woman? Perhaps that's how I learned my role ? Maybe I took the role of man to be "rules the house with anger." To this day I can't stand sitting at a table when someone pounds it in excitement, anger, or frustration. Fortunately, my dad went on to rehab when I was 20, and was no longer a drinker. By that point, my habits and misconceptions were set.  However, I must give my dad thanks for strongly encouraging me to go to college, because when I went through high school, my life was not geared towards that. The only honors class I took was English, because I just love that subject and wanted to see if I could do it. It seems that drying out helped him become more supportive and encouraging, even if it was through long-distance.  So I have to say, I went to college and excelled because he told me I could do it, so I wanted to prove him right.  He even funded my first two years.

     Flash forward to age 25.  I am about to get married to an attractive guy I met at a party.  He blew me away with his ownership of me.  How he could not live without me or bear to see me with another guy.  I actually did have second thoughts the day o f the wedding.  I did not heed them.  I am a sort who usually sticks with a choice I have made.  Abandoning the relationship would have hurt him.  Calling off the wedding would as well.  Everything seemed to hinge on preserving his feelings.  What about mine?  They were on the back-burner.  I had to be the peace-maker.  His heavy drinking did not help matters.  But I was still the peace-maker.  I had earned a college degree and a professional job in management,  but he overshadowed and made me second guess every decision I made.  Saying certain things at a party could set him off as well.  I obviously wasn't growing as a person.  My spiritual growth was stunted.  Sunday morning would be a hung-over day just as much as Saturday.  Then came my pregnancy, and the birth of our perfect baby.  Keeping the peace was more important now.

     Let me tell you, that only lasted so long.  Knowing my son would one day understand all the horrible things my husband was saying to me, the accusations, the name-calling, even thinly veiled threats, made me fear the way his perception of a mother's role or even a wife's role might turn out.  Would he one day believe all those things his dad was saying TO MY FACE and I would just try to go into the other room, being a survivor, never a fighter.  My only way to fight back was to preserve my dignity and my sanity and leave.  Looking back, it is apparent that I was forever shrinking so that he wouldn't be insecure around me, or because of me.  But this was also motivated by fear.  Insecure people grow angry, they manipulate, they try to cut you down to size.  I would allow that so his anger would JUST STOP.  I did not want my son to grow up in that household.  Sadly, he later came to see his dad as the outcast family member, cut-off.  For years, he would fight to defend this perceived "underdog." But that is an entirely different battle.

     For the most part, I have raised my son as a single parent.  There were some relationships.  They grew stale or were revealed to be the wrong situation, for one reason or the other.  I pride myself on the fact that I did not get married prematurely again.  I did not jump into another family situation or have another child,  thus making myself dependent on a man.  I can't see how some women go through pregnancy alone, my hat's off to you.  I have often used my gifts as self-therapy, not always to help others.  But I would like to share them with the world.  It still purges my spirit to produce something with my gifts, words, a song, prose or poems.  The world may take it or leave it.  And I still have my voice.  I am feeling an increasing need to speak out with this voice.     I want to speak and plant seeds with my words.  Ideas will grow, and there will be no more shrinking.     
    

Words

Oh what a tangled web, these words,
That once spoken, can't be unheard.

But, what a prison, words unspoken,
allowing the chains to stay unbroken.




copyright 2015,  Pamela Schloesser

My untraditional Christmas

      Sometimes it's okay to give yourself a break from tradition.  It may even start some new traditions. 

     So, we didn't do a tree this year.  I one day realized it was December 20th, and my mom, who is always the one excited about Christmas decorations, hadn't gotten my son to bring the tree out of storage.  Is Mom alright?  She's just fine, but this year, she and I have been faced with many days of having to beg, bargain or manipulate to get my son out of bed.  You see, on top of some emotional issues, there have been a few alcohol and drug incidents with him, and since the last very serious incident, he has not been the same.   He has even been given a mental health diagnosis.  So, I figured that it just became impossible to get his help and neither of us wants to do it on our own.  When one member of the family suffers, it affects the whole family.
      In a published article from BBC News, a writer stated that anyone would give a person suffering a broken leg a free pass at Christmas time, and that we should be able to give ourselves a free pass in the cases of inner suffering.  Those in their first holiday after losing a loved one, those struggling with their own mental illness and depression, or that of a loved one.  Inner suffering is not always visible.  The retail and capitalistic pressures of the season are a bit much, even for those who are completely healthy.  I have been silently boycotting the mall at Christmas time for years, having had more than my share in my former 15 year retail career.  So, I decided, it was our right to forgo the tree.  I had even asked my son if he wanted the tree up.  He said no.  I think our alternate decorations were quite beautiful. 
     I even succeeded at staying out of the mall,  until my son got a Christmas check to spend.  He said he needed sunglasses and requested to go to the mall.  Funny thing is,  when we were there, we found that the sunglasses shop was upstairs.  He told me adamantly that he would not go upstairs.  I don't know what was behind that; he doesn't always share what's in his mind.  So, suffice it to say,  nothing was bought at the mall and I was not happy.  I will chalk it up to his own mall anxiety, but I really wish he hadn't asked to go there in the first place, because it sealed some bitterness I was already feeling about that money.
     Believe me, I have felt guilty enough about feeling that bitterness.  (Quaint, isn't it, the way one negative feeling leads to another...).  However, my son is not prepared to go to work.  Finances are strained because of Christmas shopping, because he turned 18 this year and because I decided to stop seeking court-ordered support from his father, and any promised offer of help is always deferred.  It's an issue in itself and I just need to stop worrying.  At any rate,  I had taken my son to get a filling, the price being around $100 even after insurance.  I paid for said filling.  Then, I, gritting my teeth, took him to cash a Christmas check from his dad. I informed him he should buy lunch; it would cost much less than that filling. He did not argue but looked at me funny. I said, "You got this nice check and aren't really "sure" what you need. Well, you "needed" that filling, and I paid for it. You "need" lunch and you can pay..." So, he bought lunch and got his Grandma a gift. After all, I braved the mall so he could look and decide what he "needed." It's never too late to learn, money is not one sided.  Yet, why did I feel so guilty and bitter at reacting this way?  Obviously, there is too much that I do lately simply because I HAVE to.  I feel responsible for everything, yet I control nothing.  Not a great feeling.
     In short, I excused myself from doing all of the Christmas rituals that we have "always done" just because we have "always done" them.  For that truly would have been my main purpose.  Some people may tell me that is not how I am supposed to feel.  Please don't tell me how I am supposed to feel.    I felt that this was one more thing I would do because no one else in the house had the stamina to care if it was done.  Would I suddenly feel Christmas cheer during the task of putting up and decorating a tree?  No doubt, my son would have jumped in, right?  In my mind, I came up with a resounding "No."  Instead, I felt the joy of stringing up those lights, and being done in 15 minutes.  That is the extent of decorating that I could handle this year, and I was alright with that.
     Instead of hearing the expected "Bah, humbug" from me, what you would hear about this Christmas from my mouth is:  I spent time with family.  I attended church service, and even though Christmas Eve dinner was un-traditionally enjoyed at Golden Corral instead of in our home, it was enjoyed and shared with family.  This Christmas,  I reflected on how thankful I am for my boyfriend of 5 years, who has suffered his own family losses in the last year, how thankful I am that my son is alive and not using substances, and how glad I am that my mom is still with us and quite healthy.  Not to mention the shelter dog who came into our lives over a month ago, that furry toddler bringing joy, unconditional love, and energy when we didn't think we had any left.
     Christmas presents were left untouched until after dinner Christmas day.  Traditionally, we would open them after church Christmas Eve.  But I go to a different church than Mom now, and she went to her service after attending ours.  On Christmas Eve,  my son and I rode past some beautifully decorated homes.  Then, he went to bed early, like usual, and I read a book in the "decorated" living room, snuggled next to my dog.  I didn't feel the need to dig into presents.    I already had received many presents, and I didn't go nuts trying to shop wisely or decorate perfectly.  I gave myself a little break this year.  After all, there is a lot of self-doubt and self-derision going on within me on how I have handled my son's situation this year,  but I can see the sunrise scattering the darkness.  I shared love and joy with my family this Christmas.   I am blessed, and I am thankful.                

Puppy Love

by Pamela Schloesser, copyright 2014

He's cute, he's cuddly

not afraid to touch me

always loves Mommy.  

My son as a toddler.

Lays his head on my chest.

Nothing inappropriate.

Gives sticky hugs without warning,

loves sitting in my lap.

One day that became unaccepted.

 

He grows afraid to hug me.

Is full of smells and dirt;

That doesn't bother him.

I still hug my 12 year old.   

He shrugs. Closeness?  No thanks.

He grew troubled with the years.

I call him to me and he balks.

Years of awkward hesitant hugs,

distant in family photos.  

He's cute and cuddly,

jumps in my lap.

Forever a toddler,

never to grow up.

Loves being touched.

Always will.  Never unaccepted.

His puppy head rests on my chest,

always cute, never outgrown.

Onlookers, they just smile. 

My forever toddler,

the canine family member;

he finds him troublesome.  

It wants and gives affection.

I just eat it up.

He stays distant.

Until that long car ride.

Both tired and napping,

Dog's head resting on his lap.  

 

Canine love.   Bridges the gulf between us.

Doggone!  I knew he had it in him. Love.