The Hitchhiker By Julianna Rowe

 Coming Soon:  

Is that Johnny Depp?

So this is Taos, New Mexico!  And this is son #4, who can't say he was ever a middle child. Well, sort of he was. Two families, three brothers, him being the "baby," until the finale came along, being a girl...the ONLY girl, which put him in some unknown category called "dumped by the only girl after four boys." Sad, yes....sadly, a Mom's hindsight...Oh yes! However, look at what all that neglect, middle child syndrome, lack of a father figure syndrome, and other issues produced. This twenty-seven-year-old man has got it all....

He buys all his clothes at Goodwill because he wants to. Check out his tan patent leather shoes, for God's sake. I am hooting by myself in my computer room.  He meditates and scrutinates (is that a word) everything he eats, thinks, and drinks.  He loves the world and everything in it, excepts no negativity in his earthy space, and is authentic. This picture of him is notable because it represents his "old ways" and traveling days. He reminds me of a James Dean of his time.  He has done commercials, TV extras, and a TV Reality Show in Beijing, China, he travels the country and world giving back to it, the world that is. That's not all.  That old truck he's leaning on represents his love for the mundane, un-corporate America, the real. Some people say he should "work" harder at a "real" job.  But I say he does, and he did. Honoring his path might be honorable because “one of these days Alice," this young man might outdo the "B-Pitt man."  Or the Johnny Depp man. Or be their double! 

He is now 38 and doing well.  I always knew he would.  

Need advice on the last chapter.

 Having trouble figuring out the address of my YouTube channel.

youtube@dogden49.com  

Google:   YouTube:  Diane E. Ogden NOT the SURVIVOR TV Diane Ogden

I love You.... By both of us.

 I Love you, both of you. I love you. 

Maybe others can, did, and will always find fault with you, but I love you and always will. 

You have weathered so many storms.  Mudslides, painful consequences of learning. The walls you banged your head on still bellow within hearing distance, trying to call you back into the abyss you once defeated.  Stand on, my love, because you shall never find a love so true as mine.  One that carries you through the flood waters you so profoundly fear.  One that moves the mountains the world has deposited in your presence like easy money.  The beasts that continue to try to eat you alive, yet you continue to push them into the recession of no existence.  You deserve so much more, yet what you have is already impressive, and you know it.  Your thankfulness will reap rewards beyond what you can imagine.  I know you doubt the truth I am sending you to write from within your own self. Yes, it does deserve a slight humph from your vocals.  I agree.  You are so unique, whatever name you go by.  Do not allow the underlings to rob you of your unique talents.  I love you.  Who can or could love you more than us, you and me.  Put your skills out there. Don't be shy. Wave yourself like a mighty flag of a vast country whose people fight for it.  Your own people may not, but many will. Many will fight for you, Diane and Julianna.  You are one, and you are mighty.  Let it flow, let it go, let it be so.  I am your strength.  I am your depth. I am your reason for being.  Use me. I am the energy within you. I am you.

$3,000 Tooth Implant by Julianna Rowe

This is a picture of Aretha Franklin, one of my client's cats who used to be an indoor cat and has now become an indoor/outdoor cat.  A fact I forgot I was told a month ago.  Yet, today when I arrived at my clients home and opened the door, Aretha ran out like a shot!  I freaked but attempted to remain calm. I quietly followed Aretha into the backyard where the legal city chicken coop also exists.

I am whining to Aretha....saying in a whinier voice, "OMG, Aretha, stop, please, you cannot get lost on my watch, okay? Wait, stop!" Obviously, my better half, called calm, had left the yard.  I caught her and picked her up all the time scared she would claw me like a crazed lion.  Well, she didn't and she was as scared of me as I was of her.  I got her back into the house, set her down, and went about my business.  I hear my phone ding as in, "you have a message." The client and owner of  Aretha were reminding me she could go outside as I had been told a month ago but forgot.  So, I let her back out!  About an hour later, my helper was taking a break outside in her car....   I was working in the kitchen when I heard the familiar loud sound of a horn honking in a continuous manner.  I knew I had not touched my keys which caused that sound.  I then thought maybe my helper had accidentally pushed the panic horn button while getting something out of my car...... but it wasn't stopping!   I ran outside and saw my helper walking back across the street from her car to my car with her arms in the air, saying, I don't know!

I got to my car, and there were my keys laying on the front seat undisturbed, and there was Aretha in the back seat scared nutz cause the horn was going off very loudly. I suspect that is why its called a PANIC BUTTON.  I opened the door and grabbed the keys.  I kept hitting the button but nothing was happening.  My helper took the keys and hit the proper button.  I had been hitting the trunk button, not the stop panic horn button.  I have anxiety issues, and loud noises make me goofy and nervous.  Obviously or I would have known the diff between a trunk and a horn button.  As for Aretha......she was back in my car lounging twice more before I left that day.  Imagine a black cat jumping in your car window and precisely stepping on that one tiny red panic button.  Had to have a meaning.  Right?

I will tell you a secret I do not share.  I mean I don't tell anyone this.  Before I saw Aretha in the back seat and realized she was the horn culprit, I thought it was my dad who passed away sending me a message......trying to tell me not to go to the dentist on Friday.  I am not kidding!  (I have to have a tooth extracted)  Dad gets blamed for a lot of strange things in my life such as bugs landing on me and so on.  I know better think.)  I guess I have to go to the dentist.  So until a black cat crosses my path or jumps in my car, or my Dad lands on my shoulder as a butterfly........be well, be safe, be happy, and get rich so you can have a $3,000 tooth implant (or not.) 

The Chameleon? or The Fairy God Sent? by Julianna Rowe

 Sunday Morning: The Chameleon? Or the Fairy God Sent?

The chameleon effect refers to nonconscious mimicry of the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of one's interaction, such that one's behavior passively and unintentionally changes to match that of others in one's current social environment.

When I was a child, I would pray with my hands vertically placed against the tender skin of each of the other of my innocent hands. While my praying hands pointed toward the heavens like the steeples rising above the trees during our boring country drives, the ones my mother insisted upon after church. Those rides, where I got awfully car sick at each turn. And while praying, I wouldn't throw up; my little nose would point down toward the hell I was fearing while my lips pursed gently on my hand-made steeple, just like when I prayed before breakfast, lunch, supper, and bedtime.

Fear of not praying led me to the center of the earth, where fire would burn me forever, so I was taught. God was supposed to protect me from hell, but instead, he or she scared the hell out of me, making it difficult to trust such an unseen magical person. So, I invented a friend. it seemed at my tender age that God was not my friend, mom was not my friend, and dad was always working. Not to say life was total hell. We had many good times as well. But still, my little brother was annoying, which is normal, and the cousin who was left in charge of me was a horrific soul. He shot me with a bb gun in my foot on purpose. He refused to play with me unless I let him pull my tooth. He and his buddies locked me in his dad's greenhouse, climbed up on its roof, and all those boys peed on me as I stood below, trying to get under a work table. At least they never put my tongue on a frozen metal pole. That narrative reminds me of the old movie The Christmas Story with the Red Ryder and BB gun. Well, maybe mine is a bit more truthfully cruel. I forgot the part where I got hit in the face with a rotten egg. I gagged and threw up all the way home.  I also tried walking to the neighbors and got stuck in the mud. I was four or five years old, but I remember one of the older neighbor boys pulling me up and out of my boots. One boot continued hanging onto me as though it would die if left behind. That boot screamed the loudest sucking noise as though a vacuum had entered the mud, trying to save me by sucking it and me free.

That mud was several inches deep, and I have no idea where my mother was during all these beautiful experiences.

The mean male cousin seemed to oversee me most of my off-school times. Yet he was never allowed to watch my little brother.

I was more like a doll to my mother, who was only sixteen years older than me. When I was not outside getting abused by my cousin, she was putting me in dresses always with an added stiff, scratchy petticoat that hurt when I sat down, walked, or moved. Or cutting my hair and giving me permanents, wrapping my hair around her fingers, making little ringlets to impress her neighbors and other lady friends.

At age five, I walked three-quarters of a mile to school, or was it a half mile? At that age, it seemed like two miles. On the right side of the road to school was a wooded area set in water.  The trees were all grey and dead. No leaves, no life, and I  always feared I was fall off the side of the road or a car would push me into what appeared to be an ocean, and I would go under and never come back.  I was always afraid. I never felt secure. 

The plastic God I saw hanging on a cross at the front of the church sure did not come to my aid. Thus, the birth of my imaginary magical friend came at the age of my intelligence level. "It" did not have a name, but I recall "it" was a tiny human. I have always loved fairies and enchanting forests and still do in my seventh decade on this planet. Steven Tyler wrote in his autobiography how he would sneak off to the woods behind his home in upper New York to play with imaginary fairies. "They" are gentle, kind, and loving, little mythical human birdlike creatures. 

In my mind, I was the only mortal being who knew about this tiny person, which meant I had to care for it. I had to find ways to keep "it" warm and safe. I had to find food for "it" and make "it" clothing. I recall mentally putting my little person in a coffee cup with some scraps from my mother's sewing material as makeshift blankets. Popsicle sticks formed a bed, and more material from mom's quilting stash helped. I suspect the tiny person was the part of me that felt unsafe and insecure. I always looked for someone to help me feel secure, but there never was anyone but myself for that honor, and as an adult and before, the fairy theory went out the window. Dolls helped for a few years. And then boys took over the fairy role. Then a husband or two or three. I continued choosing my mean cousin to marry. I have no idea why I am writing this today, the first day of what is supposed to be the new beginning of another year. Although I was impressed by the doll house miniatures people make that recently appeared on Facebook. Could that be what triggered this conglomerate of words today?

I did learn God is a good God. Not just a scary statue in front of the church, and he can be a friend who I do not have to figure out how to feed or cloth. And I can talk to him, and he will love me no matter what. Humm, he might have been my little fairy friend in disguise who came as a chameleon to help me through some tough times as a little child.

I reference the disciple Paul: I myself don't view Paul as changeable or two-faced. Nor do I think Paul's teachings contradict those of the OT writers or other NT writers.

Paul the chameleon?!

In his letters, it does seem that Paul changes colors, so to speak, depending on who or what issue he was addressing. (Chameleons change more for socializing than for camouflage.)

I'll call Paul the white/blue chameleon as he upheld the veracity of God's written word and moral laws/principles (for gentiles too). Yet…Paul became a red chameleon when confronting Jews who tried to push their oral law & temple sacrifices/rituals onto gentile converts and Christians.

Christians are justified by faith in Jesus' sacrifice for our sins…not by animal sacrifice, temple rituals, or oral law. Paul the red chameleon boldly stood against his countrymen who taught otherwise.

Paul the white chameleon upheld the veracity of God's written word & laws as a way of life for believers via the HS.

Peter loved our brother Paul (2Pe.3:15-17). Although some of Paul's writings are corrective and hard to understand, he held to God's moral principles as valid for mankind.

https://bibletopicexpo.wordpress.com/2015/03/15/paul-2-the-chameleon/

In other words, God can use an imaginary fairy or anything he chooses to come to us when we are in need. Whereas we must be alert and on guard for the mean cousins of life, they can unravel a child's mind that could take years to recover. Not to say God has not sent many different White Chameleons to me. (The good ones, not the puffed-up bad ones.) And then again, I have received some negative ones as well. It is a hit-and-miss world. Sometimes I rather think it's pure luck.

Nah, it can't be. This will probably be discussed at my next therapy session: "The fairy God sent for me to house, feed, and care for."

 Maybe I won't mention this after all.  Emoji laughing out loud.

Written 1-20-23

 

 

Dementia - by Julianna Rowe

 I wrote this upon waking up this morning. My mother has dementia)(

Locked Inside the Mind:

As I sit in your car where all the trails of painful thoughts were left behind I scream for you. For the fear of you, the need for you. Your pain is flailing through the silent red mist and drools over my trembling flesh. Who are you? Why do you leave such red blood of hate like a river spewing from your mind? You talk of God yet Satan’s blood in your brain is thicker than your words. The doors are locked. I kick and scream. I search for something sharp to break free. All the while the blood continues to rise. Am I going to suffocate in the blood of your mental incapacity? I see a key. I grab it with great anticipation it will bring freedom but it falls from my trembling hands into the river of blood. I scramble to find it reaching deep into the recesses of the evil river. Into the remains of what was stolen. My mind! I am startled by the sounds of horns. I jolt and see ahead of me a green light. The siren of the oncoming ambulance brought me back from your daydream. The blood and fear were gone. They whooshed out into oblivion and I was back until the next crashing cassondra of dementia came calling again.