Not my circus, not my monkeys... Unless I'm a monkey's uncle

Part of my growth has been to identify what are my issues, what are other people's issues and what I really need to be involved in; particularly when it comes to my stress, emotions, and my time. We are raised to think that we should do anything and everything for our family. Family first. But in a day in age when family members could steal your Care Bear or dance costumes for some herion those ties that bind really get reevaluated by the younger generations, I think. I am Generation X and I do not think blood is thicker. I have seen shit behind peoples backs and it sickens me. Then again I have had friends old and new that have been truer to me than those with my same red life-force. What makes loyalty? What earns trust? Not a last name. Not blood. Not always.

It is the interactions each time you are with that person. We all have friends or family we can go years not seeing and pick right back up like no time has passed and no love has been lost, just time. Because most interactions with them are good, happy and not negative. So getting back to the title of this blog-- who do we count as our monkeys?

My monkeys first and foremost are my kids, then my siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins, parents, grandparents and Meena. She is like the Y. She counts in all categories. Friend, family. Consonant, vowel. Meena is all things. Then a few select friends and few select aunts and uncles, but not all. I have one cousin that has been loyal to me since he could talk, literally since he was a toddler he has been loyal, loving and one person I know I can call for anything. He would ask me when he was little, 'Sissy, can we talk?' And we would sit at the kitchen table and talk for hours. And we still do.

I realized in the last year that the drama and negativity of some family and friends do not have to be mine. That was hard to say no to. It is hard to separate yourself from family especially when you realize they are toxic to you and happy living. Now I am learning to find the happiness in everything which will help in dealing with these toxic people in new and happier ways that don't leave me reeling for hours later in their and my own negativity over the situation.

I thought the only way was to cut them out of my life, but that is not always possible. New ways, new life, new view.

The Humbling Nature of Failure...aka Growth

I have been a perfectionist, a pleaser since I can remember the happy feeling of making myself or someone else happy. That joy in your soul from happiness. From getting something right, completing a task, surprising someone with a balloon on their birthday, A's on a report card, being teacher's pet, a science report on solar panels-- it didn't matter. I wanted to make _____{fill in the Blank} happy.

I am not perfect by any means, I am overweight, I am a horrible housekeeper. The secret is I can shut off the perfectionism. But not completely, which is where the inner anxiety comes in. Thoughts or feeling come in my head caused by my failures or even sometimes things I have said or done when  I think I  did not live up to my expectation of what they should have been and this scene will loop until I can calm myself or meditate it away. This is my perfection, This is my anxiety. So I can clean to perfection and make my mind at ease or I can half-ass it and leave my mind to possible be exposed to the dreaded pressuring anxiety to be better.

There are larger scale things that we are expected to succeed in buying houses, marriage, career, having kids, etc. And what if you find yourself failing in one of these categories? How do you rebound? How do you stop and find the growth and feeling like for eighteen years you knew how to own a house or have a career but then poof? Failure. Or actual it's just perceived failure because all fails are actually a place to stop. Literally and take a breath and contemplate, Where am I ? Where Was I? Where do I want to be? How Can I get There? Because with the big stuff we rarely stop and reflect on our progress enough, do we?

But to know you failed, you the person who usually gets things right. The one people go to for answers about that thing. The person who at one time may have even criticized others who were in the position she now finds herself. It is humbling but it's the gift of growth. I am rarely wrong this big. To be wrong on a scale this big means for me to reevaluated on a scale of a real FBI investigation like Nixon years.  

Yet, I cannot ponder yesterday more than a moment in need for knowledge to mold decisions before reminding myself. That I have today. Tomorrow is not guaranteed.  I am happy today. My Failure has brought me back to me and I am happy. Now on to a new volume in Dany's life.

Resurrection of the Soul

RESURRECTION:
the revitalization or revival of something: Oxford Dictionary

Revival--restoration to life, consciousness, vigor, strength, etc.

For the last eleven years, I have celebrated Easter Sunday with the Catholic church. This year I celebrate the resurrection of my own soul. You do not realize you have buried yourself in another. I have seen others do it over the years whether it be their job, kids, or spouse. I did not think I had done that. I thought I know who I am. I am me. Then slowly I wasn't. I was in the same room at work and at home. I had boxed in literally everywhere I went.

It started with headaches in January that led into February migraines. Then I had the a-ha moment that I needed to start looking for a new job. The pain in my mind eased up once I admitted my work was a stressor. My soul felt better. I started watching the want ads and looking into the job market and assessing how I and my skills set could fit into the every changing market that I have been out of for so long. It could be a full-time job to find a job.

Once I started on that path, then the soul needed to go deeper down to what brings me joy. What hobbies, skills, things do I love in life that I can translate into a new path to make money for my family but also bring a new level to my soul. I want to come home fulfilled and not come home drained with nothing to give my family. I need to be able to get off work, and go do and be with my kids. I have missed too much. I am looking through life with a new lens. A new focus. I am not afraid.

So today is my revival, My resurrection. My life is back, More vigor, more strength through yoga, more consciousness through meditation, more vigor through the joy and mindfulness I find in all aspects of my day from start to finish. I was blind and now I can see. I was dead and now I am alive.

Thank You Dave Chappelle-- Synchronicity Part 3 aka my 250th BLOG!!!

Every day we have the opportunity to make a change we think and talk about without procrastination. Sounds cliche but these last few days and weeks I have been analyzing my life, not it in a whole but all aspects. Particularly thinking about the memories I make with my kids and the lessons I need them to take away from their time with me, which in turn makes me look back to my time with my own parents. I probably reflect on parenting more than most people because I am a social worker and I see how parental action affects children daily and in the long term. It actually is the main reason I started looking for other fields to work in. The stress is too much for my soul to bear.

Watching new Dave Chappelle comedy special he brings up Sunday Dinner, a whole spread of food almost like a small Thanksgiving or Easter.I instantly pictured a table covered with dishes of veggies, steaming mashed potatoes, meat as the centerpiece, and everyone passing this and that around while talking about this and that. So I did. I went to the grocery the next day bought a turkey and had a mini Thanksgiving invited my Cousin, daughter's boyfriend, a family friend and we had a great First Sunday meal. Since starting this blog, we have done a second one-- taco and fajitas dinner with another cousin's boys as the guests of honor along with my immediate family. Two weeks of success!

Dave Chappelle lives in Yellow Springs-- which is where I am applying to work. The only job I really want, Admission Counselor at Antioch College. On Saturday, I was cleaning out one of my sheds part of my lent/spring cleaning/minimalizing our junk from our lives that we don't need and I came across a postcard sent to me from the Assistant Director of Admissions when I was in High School. This is the position I am applying for. This could be something I do in my dream duties. Sending out positive vibes, I put the postcard in my wallet. The week before the Sunday dinner revolution, I had found one of my Antioch School Ids. Meaningful coincidences? I hope so.

Silly Dany, you didn't tell your readers how all this really ties together. My fourth year (senior) at Antioch either during finals or while I was finishing my Senior project on the Creation and Childhood of Serial Killers, Dave Chappelle came to visit on campus where he was friends with one of the dudes on my dorm. He had just released Half Baked and the grandness of it all had most people running to kiss some ass. I was the one trying to finish my thesis and was bothered by the "star's" dog running up and down the halls.I was unimpressed and may have been a little vocal about it. It was straight out of a movie like PCU. Overworked college student losing their mind over a dog barking trying to finish their senior thesis! So, my first meeting of Dave Chappelle was in 1999 at Antioch College when I yelled about his dog not being controlled...

This was the last person I ever expected to bring a family tradition back to my life. But Dave, Yellow Springs and Antioch are all saying yes. So thanks, Dave. We are enjoying Sunday Dinner and maybe we will meet for times two, three and four in Yellow Springs some day after I have published my books and have been hired by Antioch.

Do you experience Synchronicity in your life? Comment below I would love to hear from you. I would love to know how others experience this.

What do we want in life?

Warning-- adult language-- mom's mouth will slip past appropriate.

We tell our kids the letter A on a papers, will lead to a treasure map of colleges and eager to offer pretty colors to study at their square buildings for four to twelve years, all the while praying they figure out what they really want-- to work, achieve and choose their future and not let the future choose them. History has shown that not all successful people got great grades in school and some do not even graduate. And I am not even touching the issue of what a college education cost a student nowadays. Am I advocating for dropping out? No. Not in the least. But instead thinking about how we decide what is best for us in our lives and how we figure out those things.

I am figuring out how my happiness is internal, some external but not material.

We have all know sublimely happy people. They radiate sunshine out every orifice even when they have the flu. I love these people and have always wanted to add an ounce of this sublime happy to the cocktail that is Dany. But instead of seeking this liquor I have actively for over two years been trying to pick their brains to find out what it is that keeps them looking for the pot of gold and not seeing the muddy poop slosh their standing in.

Happy people don't make excuses.

Happy People are looking forward to everything because if you are always looking back you will probably be smacked in the face with a beam. (Where did that stage come from? Dang Easter Bunny.)

Copyright--VIEWASKEW; kEVINSMITH, mallrats


I want a clean house when I come home.
I want time to write and or create something every day.
I want to meditate.
I want to see or be part of the joy in my families lives.

My mind instantly went to a list of things I want to remove from my life. But to write them keeps them solid in reality and I would rather not give them any more life than the habits they are already in my psyche. '

I am thankful for if even one of you read my ramblings. They are helping me. And I don't just do them for my own selfish reasons. I think if I am thinking this way maybe one other person may also be like. Fuck this is hard.

Don't read this-- I'm on Steroids--- Dany in Wonderland

When you have been sick for more than a day or two it messes with your mind more than you realize. Days and nights mean nothing. The numbers on the calendar only mean something if Facebook reminds you it is that assigned astrological day or shows you events from your past of this day 365 days ago. But then if you seek treatment for your fevers and barrage of systems then you are now inducing chemicals into the equations. Since my local witch doctor was closed and not an Ayurveda practitioner who takes Anthem within a 100-mile radius and I had to settle on western medicine to cure my ails they undecidedly called flu with a chance of bronchitis. So an antibiotic, a steroid, and an inhaler walk into my mouth and three blogs, one completed job, two half jobs and a lot of unfolded laundry later I am exhausted. I would love to have the thoughts flowing that this steroid inhaler combination is giving me. Not saying you are reading the next Joy of Sex Manual. But when you take enough Epilepsy meds to sedate a small family a crisp mind wanting to write, create and keep going is the closest to joy I have had since Florida. And it's like stepping through the mirror and back into Wonderland. And I am so afraid it will stop when the meds are done.



My positive Dany says no. This is my new path and through meditation and perseverance, this is the new way. Day two with meditation. No more waiting for the right meds or the right situation or the kids to be older. Today is my day to find my hippie happy every day, my joy.

Part of my joy today was seeing my offspring dance. She competes, which I hate but I love to see her art in form. Her face on the stage but even better her face off stage as she has accomplished her goal her art in whole. I have to block out the fake reality of the stages, trophies, makeup, fake hair and glitter. I just wanna see my baby spin and twirl like a two-year-old joyfully in the rain. To do that I had to leave the house and purse filled with meds nauseated by the phlegm filled gut, but I did and I was never happier that I forced myself into Wonderland for my daughter. I was blessed doubly by lil sister being my White Rabbit for the day.

Standing on the edge of the precipice...

I have been blogging for a couple years now I think. I started the blog so that once I stopped writing my books that I would not lose writing skills even though I had stepped away from the typewriter so to speak. I wanted to keep my fingers nimble and my brain churning as much as possible. I started reviewing products because I love free shit and receiving packages even more. But then I got addicted to the process. Not the review writing which started to suck my soul and it filled my social media with the free stuff I was trying out but I think I was pissing off my friends with pics of pretty much adverts for these products that my friends may or may not wanted to see. I didn't and don't want to lose friends because of that. I barely have friends I consider real, to begin with.

So I have been contemplating so many aspects of my life recently-- this blog, my place in the world, religions, meditation, where I want to live, how to be the best me and best parent, and where do I go from here. And the one thing I have come up with is I am not content with where I am. Things much change to be better tomorrow.

My studies of Ayurveda was the starting point of learning more about my body and how every aspect of our lives affect every other aspect of our being. When we are stressed we get sick more. It seems so simple but it's a truth that in America we seem to forget and just medicate instead of looking at the heart of why illnesses and maladies begin. The real struggle is heading the stress off before it begins. I want to learn that skill, more important I want to teach those skills to my kids. Yoga and meditation are the keys. I know they are. I would love to learn from skilled teachers, but now I have to settle for youtube, Amazon Prime, and books.

This summer my best friend lost her father, he was one of the greatest men I knew and his death rocked all of our lives. Wolf's death has made me look at life every day and want to be and do better. My best friend started watching Twin Peaks again with her sister as a result of being home when her father passed on, which I in turned watched as well. David Lynch the director is an avid Transcendental Meditation advocate and is working to spread TM to schools and kids to help a new generation cope with life in a "new" way. I feel a pull to this in some way. If you would like more info on what he is doing here is the link https://www.davidlynchfoundation.org/. There is also a transcendental meditation page
http://www.tm.org/ I would love to be trained but that cost. And I am a broke social worker, frowns.


I know the precipice I am at is painful but one of growth and blessings in the long term. I just don't know whether to jump, stay put or how to get to the next there.