T Minus 8 Hours & Counting...

OK Life, Universe, the Meaning of It All...

TODAY, before 5pm, would be a good time for the next step to show up...

Man of the house has just reminded me that today's the day we agreed boy and I would leave by, and said that if I didn't follow through by 5pm, there will be an "ugly scene" and "consequences"...

$$$$$ and next shelter required NOW...

I know there are millions in the same or worse boats AND...

AND I will not cry and panic in front of the boy...

Change of scenery will be good and distance is the great refresher...

Where is that 'change-of-scene' place and how to get there by 5pm today?

$3.00 in the bank, boy, 2 cats, two van-fulls worth of stuff, no gas in the van...

My brain so fried.... stay out of victim mode.... stay open for/to what's coming...

AND I'm not angry at him...

We have had a long time here and he and his wife have been very generous and accepting...

AND he and she have their own dance to work out in this...

AND we did have an agreement...

AND I have been making choices/holding out for something he has a judgement about, in that he thinks beggars ought not to be choosers...

AND and I see and accept that from him, seeing it's his (and his wife's) energy that has sheltered and fed us...

AND I HAVE contributed to the household (sharing what I have had in cash/food AND mostly in ways he doesn't recognise and value)...

AND he has a son he can't influence to make better choices...

AND he can't/won't put the hard word on his son's friend's who have crashed here long term...

AND he's worried about his job security and his wife changing jobs...

AND they have their own money worries...

AND I have been dragging my feet in dealing with having to take the next step - fear, overwhelm, confusion, burn-out, inner-child fear, hurt, anger and stubbornness, wanting to hide, wanting to be rescued...

AND this is wrapped up in my stuff around getting boy's father to honour and respect me and to show that by supporting me in raising the boy, to stop playing the power-and-control with-holding money and resources game...

AND he doesn't/won't realise that he's hurting his own son in this...

AND this must be what my mother faced/felt as she slowly killed herself through overwork walking this path, raising my sister and me through our teenage years without our father meeting any of his parental obligations, taking whatever low-paid menial work she could get to keep a roof over our heads, food on the table, clothes on our backs...

AND she died when she was 60, sick and sore, still working her arse off to pay a mortgage on a tiny home that reminded her of the houses in Holland...

AND I'm almost 54 and have turned my back on realities (relationships, life paths) in which I/we had secure housing and our physical needs met...

AND boy's father hasn't healed from his relationship with his (now dead) abusive mother...

... just as my father never healed from his relationship with his abusive mother... 

... ... just as the husband in this house hasn't healed from his dysfunctional relationship with his mother...

... ... ... just as the boy's father's lawyer hasn't healed from his dysfunctional relationship with his mother - he barked at me in court that "you're just like my mother"...

AND, AND, AND...

 

Seasonal Sense & Sensibility...

We've been having a snow "event" in Seattle over the past couple of days, and it will continue for one or two more...

This city is more used to rain - lots of it, falling relatively gently over an extended period of time ...

So when snow falls - around six inches worth over 24 hours - it's something of an "event"...

And watching the goings-on has left me with the question:

What is wrong with the American people?

They appear to think the sky will fall and earth will stop spinning on its axis if they stay home from work in a snow storm...

What programming propels people to take sleeping bags to the office, so they won't miss the next day's work if the snow storm arrives over night, as one female manager here in Seattle told a reporter she would be doing...

What huge reward or threat persuades wage slaves to leave their families to cope alone in the storm, while they don snow gear and trot, slide, crawl, off to the office to save the bottom line...

Isn't it time we got back in sync with the rhythms of the seasons?

Snow - quiet, isolating, dangerous... time to stay inside, to protect and nurture the self, to be with the people we love...

It's what our ancestors did...

Isn't it bad enough that homeless people have to survive out in the snow, without choosing to ignore the gifts and comfort given to us, and to endanger ourselves unnecessarily?

 

I guess the oligarchs really have got it all sewn up, really do rule when we turn our backs so thoroughly on nature and good sense...

Haven't Disappeared...

...off the face of the earth...

Rather, we are staying with lovely people on Vashon Island - quiet, green, 270 degree view of water, Seattle, sky, birds, boats, night lights and stars; 

Overnight we finally caught/trapped our recalcitrant, extra-toed, tuxedo cat who had been hiding in the ceiling of the West Seattle house we stayed at for 10 days; we went to retrieve him this evening - $20 ferry ride there and back; 

Missed the Protection Order Renewal hearing this past Wednesday - thought it was scheduled for Friday; now renewal application is to be heard on December 21; 

Court hearing on December 16 to determine whether I can take the boy back to Australia to live;  met the Friday noon deadline to file my response to boy's father's lie-filled motion to stop us leaving...

Am exhausted but OK...

Not so sure about this country though...

Lady Liberty suffered some serious attacks this past week or so... with the US now basically a fascist police state, living under undeclared martial law, thanks to the passing of Bill S. 1867 in the Senate, which declares the entire United States of America a battleground.

Section 1031 of the National Defense Authorization Act allows the US military to now operate with impunity; the Bill grants the military the unchecked power to arrest, detain, interrogate, and even assassinate United States citizens both within the US and abroad...

Then there's the militarisation of the police, exemplified most graphically these past weeks by their brutal response to peaceful Occupy protesters all over this country...

And then there's Halliburton subsidiary KBR, currently seeking sub-contractors to staff, outfit, activate “emergency environment” camps built across the US for FEMA and the US Army Corps of Engineers, to deal with the kind of riots that have already spread throughout Europe, North Africa and the Middle East...

Guess we are living in "interesting times"...


Post Script:
"Today, (Nobel Prize-winning economist) Paul Krugman decreed that the U.S. and Europe are suffering not a recession but a “depression,” and highlighted the social unrest and anti-democratic forces growing in Europe.

Economic - and austerity - fuelled riots have already struck London and Athens. Police in England have formally labeled the Occupy movement a “Terrorist threat” alongside Al Qaeda and FARC and, of course, excessive police force has been repeatedly used against Occupy protesters on U.S. soil.

And U.S. Terrorism officials now routinely emphasize the supposedly domestic nature of the Terrorist threat, with greater powers constantly being seized in its name for domestic uses."

~ Glenn Greenwald

I've been shouting that we are in a Depression for the past two years... 

And it will be a permanent 'depression' - the oligarchs need a larger permanent underclass to enable them to siphon off the last of the earth's resources etc for themselves...

What Was That About...

... "a warrior accepts that she can never know what will happen to her next"!?... 

Weird two days...

Thought I had the housing situation covered for at least another week... ah, no, wrong... 

Apparently the fairies got together overnight, whispered in the building owner's ears and nixed that plan - shades of Robbie Burns' "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley."

So, we got evicted on Thursday... guess no lifetime is complete without that experience...

Horrible on the one hand (harsh building owner who wouldn't abide by the agreement I had come to with building manager - his son), and heart-warming on the other (with people offering and giving help when I reached out)...

AND we're staying with friends for the weekend and will tackle the issue of housing on Monday...

AND I missed a court filing deadline yesterday (Friday) - couldn't get into town on time and then couldn't get the Court's e-filing system to upload my documents! -  but ex's attorney has agreed to a continuation, without me having to fight for it...

AND we had a civil conversation that was quite informative...

So...

While he is very anxious about all of this change, boy is pleased to be where we're at physically - he has a real live human playmate in the house and the Wii to spend hours and hours on! 

AND the cats are just doing their usual thing, including Mork getting himself stuck up in the ceiling between two floors of this house...  The offer of food finally convinced him (reluctantly) to let me get him down...

AND many kind people showed they care about us and said/wrote lovely things about me in their character references - THANK YOU...

AND, I guess I'm being shown/am living the truth of what I profess/preach/am focused on teaching my son about being in the NOW... where, in this MOMENT - which is all we have - Life Is Beautiful

Namaste

Sahila

PS... trying to be subtle(!) in this post - let me know if you get what ideas the "mice and men" quote also refers to... AND if you can, please watch the movie at the link - it's worth every moment...

Practising What I Preach...

@11am Thursday 17th November 2011, I sent out this message:

"To my Seattle friends... Please - I need help NOW.... thought I had the housing thing sorted out yesterday with the building manager, but the OWNER of the building doesn't want to wait for the money that was promised to hit my bank account so he can cash his cheque, and he won't accept a cash payment and says we have to leave by 12 noon... (and this is a week-to-week to arrangement so there is no lease and no recourse - he calls the shots)... 

He's adamant... says he'll call the police and impound our van if we are not out by 12... Boy is beside himself, as I am...

I need help moving us, the cats and stuff out and somewhere to "be" for a couple of hours to regroup... to find a place to stay and a place where I can write this court response which is due in tomorrow... if you can help in any way, can you please call me on ............."

Update - 1.05pm: Panic over, sort of... still have to move out today, but friend called owner and negotiated (how come men who bully women, back down when faced with another male?) that we have until this afternoon, when friend can come with truck to help us move our stuff/cats... 

And we have been offered a place to stay for a couple of days over in West Seattle...

And there I can work on this court response tonight, and caravan around the city to collect character references tonight and tomorrow morning...

There are unkind people in the world, like this man who would not live up to the agreement we had made with his son, who said he didn't care about our situation, that he was running a business and he wasn't interested in our problems...

AND as I said to the seriously freaked out boy - look how lucky we are that we have friends who care about us and are there to give whatever help they can.... see, WE ARE, AND WILL BE, OK...

Off now to shower and pack up... I am tired!

Exhausted Maenides on the Steps of the Temple of Amphissa (After the Dance), circa 1874 - Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

and the thing to know in all of this,

is that what's happening in our lives,

is happening for billions of people around the world,

every single day... 

we are not alone... 

we are part of the 99%

 PS: this just landed on my FB page, from Michael Meade: 

"Through the exact twists of fate we find our own unique soul. 

Our true goal in life is to become that self."

 

 

How Low Can You Go?

I'm asking for prayers and good vibes... 

Son's father is fighting our proposed move to Australia in court... not only that, but he wants custody of him, claiming I am an unfit mother...

This from the man who has been kicked off five different domestic violence perpetrator programmes in five years... whose visitation access to our son is determined by how much progress he is making on said programmes...

And he's playing really, really dirty - I can't even read the court documents he filed in their entirety yet, they are so horrible...

I picked up the documents this evening - they were improperly served at the previous house we had lived in...

And leaving the house, the car in front of me had a bumper sticker in Yiddish, with English translation... it said "Have courage, be strong"... I hadn't even read the documents yet!!!

I  need to focus on filing a response to this crap - one of the hearings is on the 28th, I think, and I have 20 days to reply to the other motion he filed... and I have to file a request for the renewal of the Protection Order this week...

It's kinda hard to do the forgiveness thing when, just when I think I am there, more of this crap comes - but I guess that's the challenge...

And after tomorrow, I don't know where we'll be living.... the boy and I, two cats and some of our "stuff"... and our van with the window that was shot out September 2010 that's still covered in clear plastic sheeting and dragon-patterned duct tape!

The rent for the week-to-week motel we're staying at was due three days ago - the landlord is asking for it...

Son's dad owes me $1,500 and two clients owe me around $3,000; have been asking for them to cough up - no reply yet...  

I guess I now understand something about what life was like for the people who went through the Great Depression and World War 2... 

Though I still probably haven't got a clue what life is like for the millions in the third world, starving to death...

Well - I guess this all goes on tomorrow's agenda...

I have just enough gas left to get to my therapy appointment (lovely women who doesn't ask me to front up with the co-pays!); will use the hour with her to get my head around all of this...

PS:   As above, so below, as within, so without... the macro reflects the micro and vice versa...

It's 11.30pm Pacific Time here in Seattle, and I am watching the New York Police Department completely destroy the OccupyWallStreet camp... pepper spraying, hurting, arresting protestors and trashing absolutely everything...

It seems to me to be synchronistic that I got those horrible, hurting, trashing documents tonight and that we are facing homelessness tomorrow, in the same manner as OccupyWallStreet - which is standing up to governmental and corporate abuse - is being attacked/evicted by police...

As a Facebook friend said: "the empathic principal in action... seems to me that the line being drawn is spreading like wildfire... much violence is up, which is the sign of weakness and fear...sigh"...

Semi-random Thoughts...

Once upon a time... 

there was a woman called Michelle Obama, who opened a homeless shelter, food bank and soup kitchen in OUR great big empty White House...

and all state capitol buildings around the country did the same... housing in OUR houses for the homeless...

And Michelle served organic, White House garden-grown fruit and vegetables to the poor and homeless... 

... because she thought that if it was good enough for her children to eat healthy food, surely it was good enough for the homeless and hungry?...

 

 

 

 

 And at the same time, she insisted that all children have free access to the best in health care.   As a mother, she knew what it was like when her children were sick or hurt and she couldn't bear the thought that other children were unwell and in pain...

And her husband Barack made sure that all children in the US get the same level of quality education his daughters got at Sidwell Friends School - rich curriculum, small classes, fully-qualified, experienced teachers, no standardised testing etc... 

 

See, he agreed that all of America's children deserved the same quality of life his girls were enjoying... despite what the oligarchs were whispering in his ear...

 

And they all lived happily ever after...

THE END