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.

The Final Fraud: An excerpt from a novel and property of Julianna Rowe

  

                                                    Chapter Thirty-Five:  The Final Fraud

My wedding ring was very special to me because it represented prosperity and happiness, et al security ever after. My warped, misunderstood perspective.   

Cowboy rarely wore his ring, if ever. Me, every night, I took it off along with a little gold band my son had given me. But this time the routine turned out different.  When morning came, I went to put my rings back on, but, they were gone.  I searched everywhere, asking Cowboy to help me find them, but he simply sat at the breakfast table reading the newspaper like nothing had happened. He never flinched while I tore up the house searching like I was an FBI agent looking for a lost child. A woman always knows where she puts her large diamond ring.  The thought fleeted heavily through my mind, he may have taken it since I had heard tales he had been known to have done some illegal fires and such to gain insurance money.  And that is exactly what he had done time went on to tell! 

He sold it. I do not know to who, but he confessed because I confronted him about how I found out he never made so much as one payment on that ring, not to mention I found out the high monthly interest before any payments on the loan was over one hundred dollars.  Next, he put an insurance claim on it and I blew an almighty mental gasket and made him pay me out of his own money! Cowboy fought me on that but no way did I give in. Did that make me an accessory?  I didn't care at that point. I didn't steal it illegally for gain.  He did.  Damned if he was going to profit off my pain.

He also said he was paying for my car insurance but stopped without telling me.

He moved out, put the house on the market, and again tried to give me nothing which did not work out so well for him.  I had appreciated the house by twenty thousand in one year, and damned if I was going to go out broke.  I only got seven thousand but I got seven thousand!

Forward a week, I am notified he was in a bad accident and acquired another DUI.  The fourth of the total of seven he ended up with before the state of Virginia finally put one of those” blow before you go” deals on his steering wheel.  But then he just got someone else to blow.  

I finally agreed to a divorce so I wouldn’t be held financially responsible for his mistakes in life and because, as the old saying goes. 

“Never sheath your sword once you’ve drawn it!”

And I had drawn it too many times already.

Cowboy had a different set of rules than the rest of the world. Cowboy thought if he married me, it would correct all his inadequacies, but it never works out that way.  He was so full of pride, anger, fear, stubbornness, and rebellion it covered up and stopped any hope for him to have a working relationship with anyone.   All the things I had worked so many years to get away from and correct in myself, I walked right back into unconsciously trying to save the part of myself that had already been saved.  I needed to seek out a good reflection of myself and hold my own but instead, I dove into Cowboy’s water and I couldn’t swim.  I nearly drowned emotionally trying to bypass my own reflection for fear I might see the true failure of that marriage.  If you have never been through narcissistic abuse, you’ll never understand it.  If you have, you’ve been to hell.

Cowboy never paid for the wedding, or the ring, only the house payment.  All his money went to pay lawyers to keep him out of jail. He sold the house before it could be repossessed.  I ended up paying for the divorce.

When you’re in the boxing ring and you keep getting knocked out, stay down for the count so you can start a new somewhere else where you can be the last one standing.  I eventually was and am still standing, leaving in my wake a slew of men who believed my kindness to be a weakness. Who thought they could control me, and who I allowed to do such for a time until they fell into the ravaging waters behind my ship as it sailed on without them?  

Even after he was gone, I would see him standing in the doorway of my office.  It was his spirit tormenting me day after day.  One day I held up my finger, pretending it was a pistol.  I looked at his imaginary person though almost real self, standing in the doorway, and I pulled the trigger once, twice, thrice!  I watched him fall in a heap and be lifeless as the nerve in a dead body.  He was no longer going to persecute me. I had spiritually killed him. Yet I sobbed uncontrollably because even pretending to shoot him was not something of my world.  I should have stuck to pretending to cut our spiritual imaginary cord.

I was not well yet.  I had developed the very thing that he had used against me. Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome with passive-aggressive and narcissistic add-ons. Once again, as in years past, I had to find my way back to my true self.  I, the woman who wrote the blog called “The Happy News Lady.”  The woman who loved animals hated hate, loved children, loved life, and loved giving to others! The person with the super sense of humor. The Humanitarian me.  That was the authentic me unless I allowed the wrong men into my life. Had I finally learned to fuck Crestview Manor and its satin (satan) bedspreads, money, prestige, who's who in politics, and who didn’t really know what love was? And contrary to mummy dearest and a few other gossips, I had only been with one penis in the past twenty-one years.   Cowboy #3. And believe me, I had wished bad things upon “it,” be that right or wrong.  As well as I had regretted being ashamed of my mistakes, so I stayed hidden for a large part of what should have been beautiful life on earth.  I figured I had my chances and blew them, so I wallowed in bat-shitty pity for years. A slew of covert narcissists in the spiritual wake of my entire life had followed me in a grey mist that allowed each of them to materialize with my permission. The crowning blow and final swoop to my lost brain were from what would be the last covert psychopath who poisoned my cats and tried to poison me, came. It was no longer about tangible diamond rings but about my life. 

The crusts over my eyes had been cleansed.

My reflection in the pure calm waters was of hope and happiness. I had left the mud behind. Our reflection comes from above and is cast on the waters for us to see.  Many do not see for fear. Some do not see because they have their own warped image of themselves from the mirrors on the wall. 

“Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who is the greatest of them all!”

Some are very willing to look but are lazy and take no action.  And then there are those who pretend to be so busy as to not have time to see themselves. Those are the people dependent upon excuses.  Some run along the bank of the water’s edge, searching, running back and forth, but do not stop to look. Some stop to look but feel they are being controlled and refuse to be controlled by anyone even themselves.  Many are not on firm foundations, only the foundations they have constructed in life on their own.  Like the three little pigs. Many people lack wisdom, for instance when they eat the wrong food that is not good for them. The same goes for the reflection of thy self.  These people pay no attention to fats and calories, nor do they know about the spirit either.  No one can make another look into their own reflection to gain wisdom.  It is a choice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Miracle of the Penis and Vagina, Generations Past..... An excerpt from a novel by Julianna Rowe

Chapter Thirty Five:  The Miracle of the Penis and Vagina, Generations Past

I created an entire living room wall of family photos, his and mine.  What a damn joke that was.  His children hated me based on fear of losing the money they thought he had but didn’t.

We never had photographs taken at the wedding, so I made an appointment at the local portrait studio. I told him I would pay for the session considering money had now become a wedge between us.  The narcissistic son of a bitch showed up in his suit but told the photographer slash owner he didn’t have time for this nonsense and showed his ass to the place the owner stopped and told him if he didn’t want to be there to stop wasting our time.  Cowboy straightened up for a minute, that would be sixty seconds and then struck again, saying he didn’t have time to wait for my daughter and me to have our photos taken before him. He had other “girls” waiting for him.  He meant he had cows waiting to be loaded and moved.  He left us, walked out, and we took a cab home in our beautiful wedding dresses. I never ordered any of the photos that included him because his face was not the face of the man I thought I had married.

He complained continuously.  The children couldn’t do anything right.  No one could.  Lights left on too long, refrigerator door open too long, garbage cans in the wrong place. Suddenly he wanted money from me to help him pay his bills.  He had so much anger inside him it was overflowing onto us.  He was especially unkind to my young daughter. There were no more flowers, no birthday cards, and no Christmas gifts. 

He had the nerve to ask me to answer his business phone. I was then cleaning a four thousand square foot home, doing laundry for seven people, meals, dishes, running my own business, and then asked to be his secretary.  I told him I couldn’t do anymore, and his response was why I thought I didn’t have to work much anymore or if I was just lazy.   I usually ignored such narcissistic comments because I didn’t have a clue what a narcissist was or how they manipulated people, especially kind, caring people. He was slowly methodically putting me down, shaking all my confidence, and killing any hopes for our future.

People with narcissistic personality disorder along with PTSD:  Their tendency is to turn the blame onto others. What’s more, they are extremely sensitive and react badly to even the slightest criticisms, disagreements, or perceived slights, which they view as personal attacks. For the people in the narcissist’s life, it’s often easier to go along with their demands to avoid the coldness and rages. However, by understanding more about narcissistic personality disorder, you can spot the narcissists in your life, protect yourself from their power plays, and establish healthier boundaries.

https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-disorders/narcissistic-personality-disorder.htm

One day while I was meditating, which I didn’t get to do very often anymore, I heard either from my own mind or from outside my mind, I knew not which and whichever it has stayed with me for decades.  Not that I practiced it religiously, but I kept it in a journal, I believe for this day. 

Life is full of surprises, some good and some bad. You or I can choose which to come against and which to let go, even as hard as that is.  Sometimes we want to fight.  Look at Cowboy.  He was in a daily fight with himself, causing a domino effect on others. But fighting draws in fighting, and troubled people cause trouble.  Not joining in his belligerence didn’t mean I lost, in fact, it meant I won.  There was no chance of me becoming his victim, or so I thought, but I already was.  Now I am not saying if someone is trying to murder or harm you or your child that, you should allow such. But peace is gained by giving peace in most cases, and whenever it can, it needs to be.  If you are so busy trying to save yourself through hostility, there can be no blessings. They simply do not mix.  One cannot call the other in. Turn away from such, and rise above it, as life is too short to allow such “carp” in.  I originally accidentally wrote the word carp in my journal, realizing carp and crap are the same thing. Carp eat garbage.  We are not carp, so do not partake in the fighting crap because you nor I want crap inside us. 

I began to practice the words I heard.  My fretting ceased, and it felt as though I had some sort of spiritual fountain within me.  An analogy would be when you prime an outdoor water pump, you must continue to pump until the old stagnant rusty water comes out first to clear the way for the fresh, pure water to flow. When we sit too long in a slump or fighting position, our waters become stagnant and breed all sorts of nastiness.  Fighting inhabits your well-being.  Keep it free and flowing because you are not the muddy Mississippi, nor do you want to be. When I was accosted by Cowboy’s or anyone’s manipulative words, I would mentally hide and or become defensive, which in turn would close off the gates to my cerebral well-being.  I hadn’t learned to keep the gates open and turn off the defensive dam so my fresh mental waters could flow freely.

As time passed, I began to dislike my husband intensely.  He decided to stop making love and would go so far as to entice me and then turn over and ignore me. He told me I was ruining his sanctification with Christ.  “Christ,” he didn’t even know Christ or wish to partake in any sort of religion or Jesus or church. Nevertheless, sex was withheld also. 

He told his family my responsibilities were making him crazy; he was drinking because of me, and the third DUI he got was my fault as well.  He had overextended himself financially and had to blame someone.

I had to buy my own groceries for my children.  I would purchase the off-brands to save money, and he would buy his son the finer foods, so my children would have to watch Cowboy’s son eat the best pizzas and macaroni and cheese in front of them.  He would take his son out for breakfast and dinner and leave us at home.  He would go to his family parties to which we were not invited.  He would say he was bringing home Friday night fish dinner but got drunk and never show up. I shall never forget one time we waited for two or more hours when finally, my daughter said.

“Mama, I’m hungry. Where’s “Bubba?” 

I never allowed that to happen again and shouldn’t have accepted it even one time.

And then, one fateful day, the cells within my body began to change, to rebel, or rather mutate in a sacred part of my body, the precious part that sustained my life.  Not my heart, although it was inadvertently affected.  It wasn’t a shotgun, a mafia madman, or even a tornado. It silently crept inside me where, as before, I had always kept it at bay. Some men (and or women) are like a silent killer to us.  Like cancer.  You think you are fine until the true diagnosis is revealed.

One lovely sunny day I went to the clinic for vein ablation. When I was walking into the clinic, I felt dizzy as well as my vision was quite blurry.  When inside I asked the technician to check my blood pressure which on occasion had spiked to unreasonable heights due to the stress of Cowboy #3.  They directed me to drive to our local hospital immediately considering the numbers on the BP machine.  And to call 911 if I felt I couldn’t make it.  I made it as I always did in life but upon arriving, it had some difficulty breathing also.  That meant an electrocardiogram, a chest x-ray, a brain scan, blood work, and so on.  They medicated me and after a few hours of laying around in total boredom as well as I was all calmed down due to the sweet drugs injected into my IV. The doctors came in and sat down.  Humm, they sat down.  Odd I thought, but this wasn’t my playground it was theirs so I sat quietly waiting.

Mrs. Cowboy #3, we have inadvertently, through your chest x-ray discovered a small mass in your right lung that needs immediate attention.  It may be nothing but appears to be something that needs further investigation. 

 I was unusually calm, considering they were telling me I probably had lung cancer.  And so, it was with further testing, bronchoscopies, removal of questionable lymph nodes, and biopsies, by God I did have stage one lung cancer.  Date gets set for partial lung lobectomy.  The day arrives and I am prepped.  I wasn’t as frightened as I should have been.  Must have been the years of near-death experiences I had lived through. No really!  

The last recall I have is the preppers (no not those that think the world is ending) but the ones preparing me for the knife slash staples. They asked me to lean as far forward as I could to tighten up the skin where they placed a medicated patch.  Well, that was it!  I must have fallen over or off or out I do not know.  And after the fact I now know it was fentanyl.  I don’t do that drugvery well for the record. Then they gave me (according to my records) more killer drugs before even getting me into the operating room.  My God in holy heaven.  When I woke up after surgery, number one I couldn’t breathe, number two I told them if I fall asleep which I wanted badly to do I would never wake up again.  For some reason, they believed me as they should have because it was found that I had been overdosed.  I was given two shots of Narcan.  That dandy drug they use on heroin addicts to bring them back from the brink of death.  Yes indeed!  Cowboy had been there watching, and you know what else he had been doing?  He woke me up to tell me to push the flippin button for more drugs considering he loved his drugs and thought I should as well.  He was playing Elvis and Priscilla right there in the West Cardiac Wing while I am dying with no red velvet curtains as in Graceland.  Gawd, what a guy.  Well, they saved me, but then they wouldn’t give me anything for pain. Sometimes that darn pendulum swings too far to the right or left before it finds its way home. I was not okay.  Then my heart went into arrythmia.  I was given a lifesaving drug that I had to continue for two months. Scary drug, Amiodarone. It is only given in life-saving situations of heart failure. 

In the meantime, Cowboy was in the room with me bitching when he wasn’t sleeping.   The second night after lung removal he woke me up at one a.m. telling me he was leaving the building.  That he was sick of me because I had never learned to listen to him.  That he had called a cab.  I spoke.

“Fine, goodbye.”

But he didn’t go. He just tormented me.  Why?  Because I was at my weakest point and that is when he could maintain total control.  Hateful man he was. A bully.  The nurses would come in to walk me and, on our walks, they would ask me if I were safe.  They could all see his issues.  I would laugh and speak.

“Nawh, I am okay, he is just a cranky old Viet Nam Veteran with C-PTSD.”

They would let it go until one day a different nurse came in and Cowboy pushed her too far.  She by God, wasn’t going to let him push her around like he did me and she did not.  He badgered slash bullied her up one side and down the other.  She stood her ground with him to the place he walked out. But not before she told him he needed to go get the car as I was being released and she would be the one bringing me to the hospital exit.  She gave him a sheet of instructions, and she left the room for a few minutes.

 “No one makes that BULLY sit in the corner?”

So, he thought! Cowboy stood up, never said boo to me, walked to the door and left.   When I say left, I mean exited the building and went home.  He discarded me at that hospital like a sack of trash, after a lobectomy. I called him and he verbally told me to call one of my kids.  Typical narcissistic response.  Me-i-tis!

My son had just landed at the airport and I called him. He was “fit to be tied” as I was.  He had to call a a cab, drive to his friends’ to borrow his vehicle to take me home. 

Upon arrival of course he was not around, rather gone for the next couple weeks.  He decided to hide at his sister’s house.  He should have had a weight tied to his ass and sent to the deep with the fishes!  Oh Lord had I been around the Mafioso too much?? I never forgave him for leaving me alone at the worst time in my life. 

But I let him come back home again several months later. Somebody must have beat me bad in a past life for me to put up with such behavior.  Maybe it was mummy dearest and Granddaddy. Hell, I was used to nothing better, but I was learning too slow! I thought my pain wasn’t real because he was in pain which made it understandable which made it acceptable. I was not able to separate the pain. I couldn’t hate him nor could I go back and love him unconditionally like I had.

Then in the middle of all that dark energy, Cowboy’s best man who partied hard had a fiancé everyone loved. She spread sunshine everywhere.  There is an old saying that reminds me of her:

“Have nothing to do with a fool.” 

And she did as I did but she wasn’t as lucky as me because she followed her fool and his demons until one drunken night, he left her out on the frozen lake on a snowmobile with a couple other people.  While trying to get back to him on shore she misjudged where she was and drove right into open water and her death.  Sometimes we let too much of ourselves go and take too much of the other person in.  Especiallly when the other person is a fool making it is a dangerous place to be.

The months passed on and I found myself not doing what I heard when I meditated.  I had allowed the muddy Mississippi and the “carp” back into my body and mind therefore I developed a thyroid condition where my heart was racing at one hundred and thirty beats a minute. My life was an endless supply of mind-fuckery from Cowboy. He was like a gosh darn octopus whose tenacles individually had a separate brain and name that enabled them to out to me at every opportunity. They were my steady diet as I progressed and deteriorated. My nerves were raw, I was always on edge, and if I spoke up for myself it was used against me. I was told I was unstable, unworthy, shameful, and pathetic. I couldn’t forget because he continued to remind me like mummy dearest used to. 

I was given nuclear medicine in the form of radioactive therapy which normalized my health situation. It appeared the negativity from my marriage had caused my thyroid gland to react accordingly considering it "blew up" where I should have and did not.  My brain was not taking up for me as it should have so a different body part stepped in.  The thyroid gland governs just about everything in your body you can think of and mine had been on a marriage merry-go-round. The thyroid regulates:

Anxiety, breathing, heart rate, central and peripheral nervous systems, body weight, muscle strength, menstrual cycles, body temperature, cholesterol levels, irritability or moodiness, nervousness, hyperactivity, sweating or sensitivity to high temperatures, hair loss, trouble sleeping, tiredness and fatigue, difficulty concentrating, dry skin and hair, depression, sensitivity to cold temperature, joint and muscle pain, and more.

As I said before and may have to say again after the next chapter I am an intelligent woman although that may be in question thereof.  We all evolve at different paces depending on various factors.  That was my only defense besides of course the Ghosts of Crestview Manor.  Those danged traveling cells that move on through the miracle of the penis and vagina generation after generation. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

$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 (Not an excerpt from the novel) 1-1-23

 Sunday Morning: January 1, 2023 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 wouldnt 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.

 

 

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.

The Ghost of Mindfuckery: An excerpt from The Ghosts of Crestview Manor by Julianna Rowe

 Chapter Thirty-Four:   The Ghosts Named “Narc,” An Endless Supply of “Mindfuckery”

They can come with clean boots or dirty boots, big ones, little ones, and in-between ones but I always loved a cowboy.

“These violent delights have violent ends,

And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,

Which, as they kiss, consume. The sweetest honey

Is loathsome in his own deliciousness

And in the taste, confounds the appetite.

Therefore, love moderately. Long love doth so.

Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.” Friar Lawrence from Romeo and Juliet.

I laughed with him like I’d never laughed before. I hugged him like I’d never hugged before, and his kiss was mind-altering as well as life-changing. But then, it always feels that way in the beginning.  Me, I was on my way to “Shitstown” again.

He was a Viet Nam Veteran who fought on the front lines.  Who screamed inside a CT scanner due to his time in small underground tunnels during the war. Who was wounded in the chest and left to die in a field hospital in Nam.  Whose mother was the town pin cushion and whose father was very harsh. Who turned to alcohol as his medication to deal with life.

If you have never experienced narcissistic abuse, you may never understand it, and if you have, you have been to hell and hopefully made it back.

What is it?

It is like a slow-working poison; you don’t feel quite right but you can’t put your finger on it.  It starts out slow, you don’t even recognize it as abuse. But it takes little bites out of you, and you’re not quite sure why you feel uncomfortable. But you’re in a safe place, so your defenses are down, getting ready once again for the golden relationship you have always dreamed of.

Eventually, you are demeaned, shamed, put down, and vented on. After it has gone on way too long and your self-esteem is gone, emotional stability is in question, depression setting in and God knows what else, they begin their acts of love bombing just to keep you hoping and back in their mental game called torture.

They destroy a part of you bits and pieces at a time always pushing buttons and triggering you. It’s a form of brainwashing.

Parts of that from: Jeffrey L. Holland/Quora.com 

You will be so pissed that he didn’t understand your emotions about his abuse.

You will be sick over his complete disregard for your feelings. He will cheat and lie and not care.

You will experience sorrow trying to figure out what happened.

You will have bouts of anger, questioning your sanity.

And, he will never understand the emotional torture he inflicted or care. That Ghost named Narc!

Granddaddy was a real cowboy, and he was my idol even though he deserted me, was kind to me, then unkind to me. Mixed messages prevailed from him until he died at eighty-seven.  He was another Narcissist, the biggest ghost of my generation's past! I learned later he had mommy issues with Ida, my Great Grandmother.  Heard through the family grapevine, she was a mean one. 

Thus, my forever trying to redo the old fix the Grandfather idol relationship scenario.

And so, I did it again as Brittany Spears sang. I must have had the thickest mental blinders on.  Heck, I had taken courses in Psychology at the local trade college after the first marriage to the physical abuser trying to learn how to rise above the raising, as Dr. Phil said. Guess my retention levels had left the building, or maybe I should have taken those continuing education classes because death by men was chasing me all my life. Not to leave out my own weaknesses and vulnerabilities that made me a target for the octopus with his invisible tentacles.

It appeared my personal lifelong ghosts were all narcissistic abusers with added PA slash passive-aggressive behaviors as well. Most with mommy issues and PTSD. 

#1 Grandaddy, my idol Cowboy, and Ghost #1 who led the pack.

#2 Ronnie Lee, Husband and Ghost who tried to physically beat me to death.

#3 Murder and Gunfire in the Orange Grove,

#4 Rich Cowboy #2 broke my heart was the love of my life.

#5 Gangsters and Guns in Key Biscayne.

#6 The mafia man who hated flies and had ties to Jimmy Hoffa.

#7 The bipolar strutting, stalking, crazy athlete.

#8 The devil in the five-piece suit.

#9 Cowboy #3 C-PTSD; Viet Name Veteran, The finale!

 Lest we not leave out Mummy dearest and her burning barrel. Where the life photos of me found their destination.

One day all that came to me in a crashing cassandra of truth was that I had failed on a huge level and had been living my life blindly. Something that could not be corrected quickly. And so, I carried on partially disassociating slash ignoring for how else was I to survive?

One night I ventured out to hear a local band at the bowling alley.  Yes, that was the big time in Farmville.  I told Marla I would meet her there and I dressed all up in fancy urban cowgirl clothes.  I wore a black western shirt with rose-colored sequins about the yoke, and black wrangler jeans with raspberry-colored western boots. This was all back when I could still tuck in my shirt and wear a belt.  I looked very good and I knew it. I pulled into the familiar parking lot and noticed very bright lights in my rear-view mirror.  I am not sure why those lights caught my eyes so intently but they did.  I put my car in park as I watched the big black dually truck pull into a spot, not thinking anymore of it. Just another patron. But it seemed like that moment with the calf in the grassy front yard. Anyway, I finished parking, got out, looked up, and there stood Marla’s cousin who looked very handsome. He donned a black Stetson, jeans, and nice boots. Crestview was standing before me, but of course, I didn’t know it. It was a spiritual image within me of my Grandfather, who told me he rode with Poncho Via!  I responded.

“Hi, what are you doing here?” 

Then he said in a voice likened Sam Elliot….

“Waitin’ for you darlin’.”

And then, out of the blue, he put his arms around me and kissed me in the gentlest way and I wasn’t even shocked. I cannot explain it except to say there was a connection between the spirits or maybe the flesh. I didn’t know how bad those spirits were at the time or that they were the very ones I had nearly overcome at that time in my life! We walked into the dance hall together and stayed together from that day on.  We played, we danced, and we laughed.  He appeared at first to have had the most wonderful smile and gentle heart behind it.  He would look through women’s magazines with me.  He sent me flowers. He loved my children.  We went camping up north with his family, he took my daughter to horseback riding classes, and he took the boys shooting as well as bought them expensive bow and arrow sets.  He bought us a lot of very nice things.  I was the happiest I had been in years. I was at the “Edge of Crestview.” Or what I always thought Crestview was, a secure home and family. Okay, not the G D Brady Bunch. But it was the road toward the opposite.

He asked me to marry him, and of course, I said yes.  That is called wanting the result, unconsciously ignoring the method to get it. That being red flags.

My belief in God over the years was fulfilling itself through the manifestation of this love or so I thought. I knew I had it right this time.  This was the forever one, and I had put it all into the relationship.  All the giving I loved to do, and the nurturing spirit I was born with kicked into high gear and he came with a family to add to mine.  Sunday dinners at the long table, Christmas, and other holidays, new babies, and so on. My Dad liked him and wanted to be his friend.  Cowboy used the family barn for cattle he had to keep overnight before slaughter.  Dad, being retired from farming, felt like he was home again being around cows, even for just an overnight.  A million dollars couldn’t have made life better.

Cowboy #3 owned a meat packing plant in a nearby city.  It appeared to be a good business from what I had lived through already with Cowboy #2, the cattleman from Oklahoma. This was a prosperous business.  Although at that time, money was not the issue, because I was in love.

Cowboy came home one day rather late.  He found me in the laundry room where he set some papers on top of the dryer for me to read, then he dramatically slumped to the floor.  The Federal Government had caught him illegally reducing the weights of cows; therefore, the farmers were not being compensated fully. He was cheating. Of course, this was not his fault, so he was on the floor in terror, right?  And, of course, I bought his lame story.  After that, he started disappearing at least one to two days a week saying he had a sick friend up north where he was originally from. Or he had business to take care of or a funeral to attend.  Red flags were up and waving vigorously. Might as well have been a State Trooper trying to pull me over red, blue, and white lights blazing and me oblivious, racing at 100 mph full speed ahead on a mission toward Crestview, and I wouldn’t turn back for anything. I still thought Crestview was a good thing to strive for.  God help me I needed it. In those parts, Virginia, the term used for my thinking, was called.

“She has a case of the dumb ass!”

I had come to the other side of the world.  I used to work with men that wore suits and beautiful leather shoes! They smelled like Obsession, not cow shit.

He came home one night to pick me up to go meet up with Marla and go dancing. He was drunk and should not have been driving, but I went anyway.  Why not? As a teenager, I traveled all over the Western United States with a bottle of Canadian Club Whiskey lying next to my Grandfather in the front seat as he drove. And that is why I felt so comfortable at my cousin's Red Neck funeral?  I was used to this shit in some far recess of my mind.  But my spirit knew better. A stupid fly is smart enough not to land on a hot stove, but I did it anyway, setting aside every lesson the Universe diligently had set before me so many times. 

So, this stupid fly married him anyway.  He bought us a beautiful Frank Lloyd Wright home in a nice neighborhood previously owned by a local doctor. I believed I was finally approaching my beloved Crestview, or what I thought was my Disney dream come true.  The truth was I was getting closer to the real ghost demons.  We went to church, and Cowboy loved the love he was receiving from the congregation.  He had never experienced such before.  But that was short-lived, as everything good he did was.

We went shopping for rings.  He bought, wait, he charged for me, wait, for himself to look good, a ring appraised at twelve thousand dollars. It had twelve diamond-cut baguettes surrounding a carat emerald-cut diamond in the center.  I was so proud of it as I blindly thought it represented our forever love when in fact, it was all show.   He liked for people to think he had money. In fact, he always carried a large roll of hundreds in his pocket all the time.  

Cowboy was having trouble financing the new home, but he didn’t tell me.  Same as when I asked him how much life insurance he carried on himself and his business, considering I would be liable if anything happened to him.  He assured me it was all taken care of, and I believed him when in fact, he had no insurance on anything but his truck and what the bank insisted upon for his business.  I never asked to see papers, nor did I do a background check on this man.  After all, he was my good friend’s cousin.  What I didn’t know is that Marla didn’t know him very well at all.  He had always lived far enough north of Farmville as well as he didn’t do family functions, probably in an effort to hide his alcohol consumption which she was not aware of.  She wanted her cousin to be happy and told me if anyone could make him happy, it would be me.  Thus, there entered a sense of pride for me, and we know, pride goeth before the fall.

He controlled his drinking except for the one incident to the place I never knew there was a problem until we got married.  Do you recall the “dumb fly?”

He also charged the dress, cake, flowers, and banquet food.  He had led me to believe he was a well-to-do man when in fact, he still had his x wife’s name on the credit card he used to pay for our wedding. I should have been taking notes for Metro Goldwin Meyer filmmakers. 

On the day of the wedding, he removed all the pretty paraphernalia from his fancy navy-blue truck mirror.  The tiny white wedding bells that would have advertised our nuptials for all his friends and employees to see as well as my photograph from the speedometer cove, which he didn’t use when driving under the influence anyway I found out many DUIs later. And may I mention:  I found a photo of his x wife in his wallet??  Why? 

Wikipedia:  In the context of narcissism, triangulation occurs when the narcissist attempts to control the flow, interpretation, and nuances of communication ensuring communications flow through, and constantly relate back to the narcissist, providing a feeling of importance. Triangulation is a manipulation tactic where one person will not communicate directly with another person, instead using a third person to relay communication to the second, thus forming a triangle.

Within one long miserable year, the marriage was over.  He left us emotionally, and the only time we saw him anymore was in the driveway at two or three, or four in the morning, slumped over his steering wheel.  His son would have to go out and get him and bring him inside, so the locals didn’t come and arrest him.  That was tough for a sixteen-year-old young man-boy who, by the way, turned out to be an amazing human being, adult, and a scientist for NASA.

I had taken the vows and figured “God” would handle the rest.  That was the other lesson I had to learn. God helps those who help themselves. But then, I was trying to love him, and he was running away. The more I loved him, the faster he ran.  He had conquered, and the chase was over, but the game had just begun.  A game I was familiar with yet never learned to play. I might as well have been a hundred-pound quarterback in the middle of a Forty Niner’s football game.  

Foster Care

  

 Chapter Thirty-Four:  My Three Foster Children:

 During the fourteen years I was celibate due to the stress of abandonment over and over, as well as life hitting me in the head with its proverbial two-by-four, I receded into hiding.  So how does one live when in recedement?  (Going underground, somewhat out of sight) I am sure that is not a word, but it is now my word meaning not wanting to deal with humans any more than necessary. Especially men.  That said, I went from a successful insurance salesperson to a daycare Mommie.  Had a full-blown business within one week of advertising.  I guess the "good guides" were trying to help me get back to living one way or another. This was after the big dick and the devil in the five-piece suit. I did two daycare shifts to support my family. I was up at 5 am to do daytime care and then at 5 pm to do the night shift.  Illegal as hell, but we do what we must do to support our children. I could not handle that for very long and went back to regular daytime care.

 We had then moved to a larger duplex, and I did something I had always dreamed of doing.  I applied to be a Foster Care Parent for children and went to classes given by the state of Virginia, where I received a certificate and waited.  Nothing happened.  There were no children that fit my family's living situation.  Then one day, I got a call from social services telling me one of my daycare moms would not be picking up her daughters.  Like what does that mean?  I was asked if I would like to be a Foster Mom to two little girls I had been caring for at my daycare for some time.  Interesting how the Universe works.  I did not hesitate to say, of course, I will.  But I had to tell the girls their mother would not be coming for them.  That she had decided to stay with the man who molested the older girl.  Of course, I did not relay it to them in that fashion.  I left the last part out.  But yes, that mother left her children with me and never returned for them ever.

We sat together in my living room and I carefully told them they would not be going back to the apartment where their mom and her boyfriend (I will leave Peter nameless) lived.  That he had been arrested for what he did to Mary Katherine.  She hung her head, and I hugged her, assuring her he would never touch her again in her life.  Her little sister had no idea what we were talking about.  Then I told them there would be living with me full time. They both jumped up and started singing and dancing and screaming in happiness. I was shocked at two children being so happy at never having to go home again.

 They attended school, got new clothes, ate well, and became a part of our family for two years.  Then one day, another call came in telling me Mandy’s grandma was traveling from Texas to take her back to live with her.  I shall never forget when they drove away. Mandy was waving at us out the back window until they were out of sight.  We stood there lost.  She was gone forever. I keep the little pink beaded bracelet she made me in my jewel box alongside the gold and silver.  That is how precious it is to me.

 Next came court papers saying the State of Virginia had found Mary Katherine’s father in Florida.  He was coming to get her.  I said no, no way, she does not even know this man.  She has been sexually abused for over a year by her mother’s boyfriend, and you, the State, are sending her off with a strange man.  In fact, they did just that.  Mary Katherine told me later that five giant men, friends of her dad, met her at the airport and took her home to his drug-infected apartment. She went on drug runs with him.  The State of Virginia did not give a rat’s ass.  All they cared about was not having to pay for her care anymore.

 After a couple years, Mary Katherine was old enough to find herself a new home with a high school friend. She remained there for many years. She settled in with a fellow upon graduation and had a little boy.  They stayed together for five years, and after that, she moved on to someone that treated her better and now has another little boy.  She is doing well and is a very strong woman with good moral character.

 Mandy was doing well for some time.  She was also with a man and had a little boy.  Mandy somehow got into heroin and lost her way for a few years.  She is now back and in a positive relationship where she just had another little boy as well.  Mandy is close to family. Her father lives near, and her Nana checks on her regularly.

 They were and are an integral part of my life.  Not long ago, I received the following letter from Mary Katherine.

 “You were and always will be a big part of my life ❤ thank you for all u did for me and my siblings. You are still a role model to me ❤ I love you ❤ and thank you, you are strong too. I saw u go through stuff. and it was hard, but u did the best you could, you are an inspiration ❤ Thank you so much☺❤❤❤ I love you too the moon and back! You saved me as a child and gave me a great role model! You and grandma are literally my only 2 role models. You both were so organized and classy and funny yet stern and took care of your homes and made them beautiful. I've always been inspired by you and I've always been appreciative of you. Me and Kim still talk about how messed up we would be if we had a chance to stay with mom. We were blessed with you❤ things were really tough on us emotionally and you always made us feel better and helped us thru it ya know? After all the mess you were our rock😭❤ I truly couldn't be me today if I never had you! ❌⭕❌⭕❌⭕❤”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I will be back.  I had my thyroid removed a few days ago, and a reaction to the medication.  Just need a little time to get back to normal.  

No singing for a while for sure!  

Will try to get the next chapter up soon.  

New Years Eve.... " Its A Wonderful World " By Julianna Rowe aka Diane Ogden

 

As some of you know I had lung cancer/partial lobectomy in March of 2019.  I am still lung cancer free.  I do have a contained cancer in my thyroid which will be removed on January 11, 2022.  

I love to sing.  I am by no means an Adele singer or even Karaoke-worthy unless I were to be drunk and I do not drink to the state of mind.  That leaves singing in the car and at home.  I AM CONCERNED my voice will change with the removal of the thyroid which is common as the vocal cords are very near the incision to remove the thyroid.  So, I was sitting around singing to the words of Its a Wonderful Life on my computer and decided to record it.  My microphone was static so I went to YouTube and hit the LIVE button.  I really should practice the meaning of the word LIVE because I thought I would have to approve before it was LIVE.  Guess not.  So this is my song with my jammies on and all the errors including my inability to hit certain high notes from the first half of my thyroid being removed in 1982.  

The song is fun and full of LOVE!  Happy New Year 

"Marla" an excerpt from an novel by Julianna Rowe.

 Chapter Thirty-Three: “Marla”

At the new duplex just past the drunken landlord issue, I made a lifelong friend, an unlikely link to another disaster she knew nothing of, as she introduced me to her cousin.  Yup Cowboy # 3!  He was a wounded Viet Nam veteran with double whammy mommy and daddy issues.  But then apparently, I had my own set of issues following me through life so shutteth my mouth!  What else would life bring me in a box with a bow?  Don’t ask!! The cells were in control.  No, I mean it. If you don’t learn where you came from and how you got there, life will take control. There is tremendous energy that flows in and around us. My human unawareness and frailness had allowed much and it wasn’t finished yet.

But before I tell you one more man “TAIL.”   Allow me to share the new neighbor's story.  P.S. It has a happy ending.  Whoever reading this deserves that.  One of my friends read my first version of Ghosts of Crestview Manor and told me she wanted to slit her wrists as in plural. That being said, I have deleted some of the drama and tried to add a bit of humor to keep us going to the end.  Who knows, I might have met a Prince, or written a New York Times best seller.

Marla was Cowboy #3’s cousin.  Marla, as in one of past President Trump's wives lived next door.  No not Marla Maples, although her name was and is Marla. She was and is a dear kind woman who at the time had two daughters and a teenage son.  When we moved in, we discovered our dogs were not allowed at the duplex.  A friend of Marla's, a local veterinarian found both our precious pets the same new home.   I had tried everything to find a place that would take my large loving wonderful amazing yellow lab to no avail. I either had to stay under the control of a narcissistic parent from birth or move and lose my best friend Bailey. The new owner promised we could come to visit him but she lied. We never got to see him again and he died of cancer.  I will never forget him looking at me through the back window of that van.  I could see the sadness of abandonment in his eyes as it drove him away.  It’s hard to even write about.  I hope he forgives me for abandoning him and once again being betrayed and believing another human being that lied.

Approximately two months after we moved in, I noticed some strange things happening.  People coming and going next door. An occasional fight.  The lady of the house standing in the driveway crying. I felt the need to walk out and support her.  That was on a Thursday afternoon when she told me her beautiful husband of many years had and was having an affair with Marla’s twenty-year-old cousin. Even though Marla was aware of the affair for over a year she attempted to maintain her marriage but her handsome husband seemed to be going through some midlife crisis issues.   Marla shared with me photos of the husband that had adored her for so many years.  He was a heavier man who she farmed with for all those years as well and helped him entertain his passion of horse pulling contests. And then she said something happened to him and he changed.   He lost thirty-five pounds and started running around, not coming home, entertaining at bars with younger men and women.  She told me all she wanted was her chubby husband back who worked so hard and made her “howl at the moon” when he made love to her.  She wanted him back but that was not to happen. 

The day they told the children was devastating for everyone.  Handsome cowboy held each child on his lap even at their older ages and rocked them as he told them through tears while Marla sat on the other side of the room and cried.   And then he left that day like twenty years had never happened.

The following day Marla received a call from her internal medical doctor giving her the news she had breast cancer. She was alone and her handsome husband never returned to care for her.  She entered surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, alone.  I am sure the stress of her husband’s affairs and the loss of her marriage caused cancer to manifest itself. 

Marla was and is a beautiful woman inside and out, tall and lean with long dark auburn hair most men could only dream of being with such a lady. She drove his truck and trailer, hauled his horses, did his books, danced like Jennifer Lopez, cooked, cleaned, went to school affairs, and whatever else was needed to maintain the family unit.  And he, the handsome husband leaned on her for everything until he discovered a younger woman would make him feel like he would never die. Like he would never lose another day.  His family had a history of mental disorders that affected each one at or around the age of forty.  And now he had the same disease that ruined his and their lives because of his refusal to take the prescribed medication that would have possibly helped.

While Marla was going thru chemotherapy, she lost all her beautiful long hair.  But she maintained her regular job and the raising of her children. And she started going out dancing again wearing a long soft auburn wig under her fine black western hat.  Those were the days of Urban Cowboy attire and dance halls, line dancing, and bar hopping.  All the while x husband was out and about with his teeny-bopper groupies.  One night he was arrested for taking all his clothes off and laying down in a booth at a local dance hall.  Marla was forever embarrassed for knowing him.  He had become a full-blown alcoholic.

One day before Marla moved away a man drove up to the front of our duplexes in a fancy black truck trailed by a shiny silver trailer.  He carefully took a baby calf out of his trailer and laid it on the grassy front yard to show Marla’s daughters and his nieces.  My daughter was thrilled as well as I was.  When I leaned down to pet the soft black and white Holstein calf I looked up and saw his face very close to mine.  He had on a western hat and dark glasses.  Yet his eyes met mine that day.  It was a moment in time I really can’t explain, a connection of some sort.  Marla came bouncing out of her side of the duplex and introduced me to her cousin.  Cowboy #3, Bradley Porter.

For the next few months, he would come to visit her and she would invite me over for a few of her homemade potent tequila margaritas!  Cowboy #3 would sit quietly drinking his beer and laughing at Marla and me.  After one or two of her toddies, we went into hilarious comedy routines.  Once he told her I might be a bit too wild for him.  I was so far from wild that the comment was stupid.  All I did was raise my children, pray, and visit Marla every two weeks for “toddies.”

Marla remained strong after losing her long dark hair and her husband. She felt she had lost it all but through it all, she regained every bit of it back and then some.  She met and married someone that loved to dance as much as she did and they became very well known on the local and statewide dance circuit and moved into a gorgeous mansion in the best part of Farmville.

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Eve The Year is 2022

 

Blessed by Loving Others 

Writings by Tommye Allen, inspired by the Holy Spirit

Narrated by Julianna Rowe, aka. Diane Ogden

Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year.....

Part V: EVOLVING

 PART V:  THE LAST CHAPTERs, EVOLVING: 

Life is like a garden. Some of the flowers flourish, and some die away. There are many reasons, but mostly it is just life. Life is given, and life is taken. It is a gift that many misuse and take for granted. Listen to your spirit's lead as a horse listens and reacts to the guiding hand of his rider. To live life on your own without the spirit/heart's lead is like pulling teeth without Novocain. Your light becomes brighter when life lessons are learned and you believe in yourself. Your wishes come true because they are merely little desires of the heart your Angels bring to you. See yourself as a pure reflection sent from the Universe above, and do not waiver from that vision of yourself. Then you can walk tall, walk proud, walk on.

I had been in the belly of the whale more than once. Places not only did others put me, but I put myself by not seeing my true reflection. By only visiting the pictures others drew for me, of me. They judged, and I took their word over the truth. When this happens, it causes an avalanche of pain and generations of garbage. Then the innocent little ones come into our world with mud on them. Our mud.

But I was not there yet! I had more to learn.

"She's beautiful, but somewhere there is a major flaw."

 

"Perky Breasted Angels" An excerpt from a novel written by Julianna Rowe

        Chapter Thirty-One: Michael's Red-Carpet Journey To his Next Chapter

The Bible says if you want to turn a Hell's  Angel toward God, you better dress like one and visit their establishments, so I became a Hell's Angel chameleon. The definition of a chameleon is a lizard (or human) that can change itself and or its personality and verbiage to match its surroundings.  I did indeed become a chameleon.

As Michael and I sat in the room he would soon depart this earthly realm from, with his beautiful black cat Emery in his lap, I asked him if he would mind if I took him on a journey to another place?  He spoke.

“Sure" but I can’t go very far in this bed.”

I had no soft music and no sage to burn any bad lingering spirits away and considering Michael had lung cancer, sage might have ended his days right then and there so, I calmly explained to him how this journey of ours was to happen.  I told him he would always be in control. That he would become very relaxed, in fact, so relaxed his mind would believe everything it heard.   And if it was okay with him, we were about to take a grand trip.  He smiled a trusting smile, and we began. 

I asked him to relax and close his eyes.  To allow his face to feel as though it were melting into the pillow behind his head.  That he was safe with me. I reminded him that with each breath he took he would take in fresh, clean air, and each time he exhaled, his mind would release all fear from his being.  Each breath would take him to a place where the spirits would help us on our journey. He opened his eyes and peered at me with some reverence regarding the spirits tripping with us.  A much different tripping than that old boy had been used to.  I was doing my best to make sure Michael was somewhat prepared for the hereafter. So, I smiled back, and then I took Michael through some deep relaxation techniques of his neck and shoulders, his torso, then his legs and feet. I assured him once again he was safe and that we were going on a journey across the ocean to Hawaii, the place he told me he always wanted to go.  And so, he closed his eyes, and we boarded a large bright multicolored red magic carpet with imaginary walls and railings that would totally protect us on our journey over the trees that smelled of kindness and the clouds with their majestic gentleness. As we passed each puffy cloud, its strength manifested onto us and pushed us on as though we had our spiritual generators plugged into a speed-charging dock.  I shared with my cousin and friend how we were gaining goodness and purity from the next world as we headed for the great Sturgis Bike Rally in the Dakota's. I showed him through mental images of the many bikers that had purchased his homemade three-wheelers.  At the least, there were six couples showing his custom-made wares to the multitudes.  How proud and shocked he was he had a true legacy.  We moved on south, taking a bit of a detour toward the West Coast, crossing the great Mississippi River in Missouri and then the beautiful yellow-gold wheat fields of Nebraska.  The spirits moved and directed us to land the magic carpet on one of the red mountain plateaus near some amazing rock formations of the National Parks in Utah. The spirit showed Michael through me how to stand on the edge of the plateau with his arms outstretched allowing the spiritual cancers to leave his body and the healing of the God’s. The winds took up and swirled around him like he was a small tumbleweed in a whirlwind of a fast-moving cyclone from another dimension.  I watched the tears fall from Michael's eyes when he began to love and appreciate himself while the spirits filled his being to overflowing.  I then spoke we were leaving the spirit-filled plateaus for The Indian Reservations of New Mexico and then the great Grand Canyon with its magnificent depth and crazy beauty as it etched its way into the earth like the giant it was and left its mark forever.  And then, there we were in an instant, at the edge of what seemed like the world with the ocean's beauty ahead.  We were almost to our destination, Hawaii.  As we crossed the aqua-blue waters, it was peaceful, kind, energetic, and free.  I caught a glimpse of his smile as I described how his Daddy and Mama Augusta as well, were with us. And then I told him the love of his life Judy was also with him. That is when I saw his tears begin to crepe silently like they were trying to hide the pain he had hidden for so long since her untimely death by a car accident a few years back.  She, Judy, was with us. I spoke beyond doubt to him that there was plenty of room on our magic journey for others. I assured him again with each breath he took in he would go deeper into a state of hypnosis, still be in control, yet willing to receive. I told him we were coming to a beach, a place of warm sands, while colors emanating from the sun shone around his being like gentle whispers. Each having a healing sensation of its own just for him. 

“Michael, you are one with the sun. It is enveloping you as all its strength covers you on its mission to prepare you. As you entertain your journey you go even deeper into relaxation where you become aware your arms and legs are feeling heavy.  This is a sign you are totally relaxed.   The sun took its beauty and warmth to the other side of the world and left us with the glistening artistry of the night, leaving with us its shimmering moon to light our way. Michael, pick a star in your mind's eyes and go to it.  Sit up on it and take in the beauty of the Universe.  You are safe whether you are in this galaxy or another it doesn't matter.  You are now one with the Universe as it was created for you and you for it.  Draw in strength from it.   You are totally safe, secure, and loved. You may ask for a guide to aid you in your travels.  But only ask for a positive guide from the pure light.  Notice the sun is coming up.  We are about to land at our destination, Hawaii."   

("Michael is in a deep relaxation state currently.  I continue our session on how to live after death, through hypnosis.)

“Michael, your dreams have come true.  We have landed on a beautiful beach in Hawaii.  There are at least twelve of the most beautiful women running toward you.  They are all screaming with arms flailing as though you are Elvis himself. And Michael, they are all naked except for their grass skirts and beautiful Angel wings that matched the living colors of the leis around their necks. Their symbol of connecting you and aiding you during your transition while the earthly life perishes, they are honoring your life here and in the hereafter. And my dear Michael, they are not leaving much to the imagination.  Young women, older women, all tanned with voluptuous breasts bouncing as they stand firm, pointing toward the sky we just came from.  A dream come true for you and take note Judy is giggling with permission for you to view and seek your blessed passageway to the next realm.  They reach for you one or two at a time placing exotic flowers whose pure smells become one with you.  You drink in the scents offered to you one at a time. This is where you are going after your earthly body is no longer. "

“Now, Michael I am going to count backward from five to one.  With each count, you will begin to come back to where we began our journey. 

Five. Your feet are tingling and awakening.  Your feet are strong and take you to good places. 

Four. Take a deep breath and notice as you exhale your legs are ready to move again.

Three. Take a deep breath and feel the love in your body that was given to you freely.

Two. You may open your eyes and you will recall everything that was said and felt on your journey to Hawaii.

One. You may sit up.”

I could see a big smile on Michael's face as our journey session ended. I believe I helped him see there was more, and that he could face it with strength knowing he was not alone. 

Michael passed away within the following two weeks.  I had to believe he was safe and I had helped him on his journey with good spirits we called in playing the chameleon, Yes, even with the help of the perky-breasted ladies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's Five O'Clock Somewhere! An excerpt from a novel by Julianna Rowe.

                                                             Chapter Thirty: “Michael”

My name is Katerina.  This is about my friend and cousin Michael.  It may be off the beaten path of my crazy life relationships with not-so-great choices in men, but Michael held a special place in my heart not only because of his DNA and cell memories calling me in but because I liked him, with all his flaws.  He was rough and tough and yet loving.  To others, he was a bad boy, but this bad boy I loved as a relative.  And I understood him because his cells matched some of mine.

Michael. The Fonz type good bad guy.  A-Rab in the musical West Side Story. James Dean in the movie GIANT.  My cousin Michael is famous for his saying, “It’s five o’clock somewhere!” 

Michael:  My first cousin from my father’s sister Augusta and her hubbs Leonardo.  They had many children like Grandma Tillie did.  Tillie just kept spitting them out of her wonderful vagina.  Six daughters and three sons, and one her mom and dad gave away when she and Pa did the naughty in the hay mow when they were in their teens.  The baby boy was never to be heard from again, even though I have done the DNA online searches. I have no male family members left to do the testing so finding our long-lost Great Uncle and his descendants are about zero. My DNA results don’t complete my father’s side, only the maternal. I believe that baby boy's descendants don’t know they have a large family out in the world that is a true blood relation.  Of course, he is dead but his offspring surely do not know he hailed from the Tillie vagina. They don’t know they originated from Metzlenberg, Germany or that Pa was born on the ship more towards the United States than Europe, so he was considered an American Citizen before he ever arrived.  They don’t know about Michael, or me, or why they might be plagued with ghosts from the cells of their generations past that have been hidden from them by old laws and secret adoptions. 

Michael's family was a bit, what you would call rough. Not hillbilly, more toward redneck.  Yes redneck, but all hard blue-collar workers. Wait, diamonds in the rough would be a better way to describe the McHenry’s.

Michael tried to save his dad from death at a construction site when Leonardo fell into a wet heavy thick mud-filled trench that collapsed sucking him into the darkness of the earth, seeming to be Hell, close to the surface of air yet so far away from help.  Michael jumped into the thick mud-filled casket of death and dug with his bare hands to get air to his father’s lungs already partially filled with sludge.  Leonardo was airlifted to St. Mary’s where he lost his battle with creation.  Michael blamed himself for Leonardo’s death being the youngest and closest to his dad at the time yet not able to save his life.  No one could have saved Leonardo because the weight of the water-filled mud was like being run over by an enormous dump truck or a boulder falling onto your chest from two stories up. 

Michael and I were the same age, four as I recall when Grandma Till would babysit us.  I don’t know why but she favored me.  I have a good recall of her whipping him, even though it has been many decades past. I suspect she had her own demons to deal with as I have been told.  She would carry Michael like a sack of feed under her arm allowing his tiny body to rest on her overweight hip.  His head hanging over her belly and his legs dangling toward her fat ass.  Sorry, Grandma but you weren’t so nice to Michael and I watched it.  When we could wander the farm yard outside the house and in front of the barn, my recollection recalls duck shit.  Most people have not been introduced to duck shit like Michael and I were.  And P.S. I can’t believe my mother allowed me to meander the yard barefooted stepping in not one but twenty soft oozie piles of duck shit as it squished through and between each of my little four-year-old toesies.  Cold stinky brownish-yellow duck shit all over my feet and God forbid we fell anywhere in that yard as it was a cesspool of duck fertilizer.

I didn’t get to see Michael much after the age of six because we moved far away. The next time I got to see my little blonde-haired buddy Michael was when I was in my mid-twenties. Mother and I were in town visiting Grandma Till.  Pa had died a few years back and she lived in a little apartment over the hardware store downtown.  Next block up was a hole-in-the-wall mom-and-pop restaurant, no not a restaurant, an old lunchroom called The American Diner!  Stools and room for a couple tables. Mother and I walked in and there sat Michael on one of the old cracked red leather bar stools wobbling on their rusty nuts and bolts barely attached to the asbestos tile floors, waiting for his lunch.  I knew that was my Michael just by the back of his blonde head of hair and long-waisted torso.  I walked over and tapped him on the shoulder, and as he turned around, I already had both my arms around his neck telling him how happy I was to see him.  He smiled so big I could hear his love for me too. We had a connection, a kindred spirit of some sort. 

I left with Mother in tow waving at Michael telling him we needed to get together sooner than later.  Mother hushed me as she jabbed me in the rib while pulling me out the door onto the cement street that awaited her words with fury. She opened her mouth and spoke.

“Why did you hug him?  You shouldn’t have touched him!  You will probably get some disease now.”

I was physically shocked, stunned, and speechless, but my mind was not.  The old mummy dearest racetrack had set itself off like a cannonball on a mission.  My mind had been triggered to a time in high school when she told me she wiped the toilet seat off every time I used it so no one would get any diseases.  Take note I had never had sexual relations with anyone, boy or girl, when she was accusing and bleaching her “terlets” from my fake diseases, as Archie would say from “All in the Family.”

A few years later I received a call  telling meTerry, Michael’s older brother, had passed away.  I had been a flower girl at Terry and Ardi’s wedding a million miles ago. Terry was an avid race car driver and a bad boy to boot.  I walked into the packed funeral parlor and suddenly felt I was home. That was a frightening thought, like was I going to die soon?  Why had I felt such a deep comfort surrounded by plaid flannel shirts, jeans, boots, and baseball caps? NASCAR blue collar at its height. Not my ordinary cup of tea as they say. 

I had my own insurance team, won the award of executive leadership club, top sales team, top salesperson of the year, and so on.  I paid eighty dollars for a blouse in the 1980’s and wore gowns to our banquets where we ate with gold forks and drank from gold goblets. Famous singers entertained us as we sat at round tables like the knights and kings of old. Yet I felt I belonged in that room with that bar crowd.  It wasn’t until years later that I realized why.  A long line of generational good and bad spirits and demons hiding in the bushes as well as at that funeral parlor waiting to leap and take me, hostage, forever.  God how they have tried.

I think Michael beat his wife, I’m not sure, but I heard that through what is often referred to as the “grapevine.”  That wretched twisted long vine with tributary creepers leading off the mainstream mother vine suggesting a tale of tails?

To this day I pass Somerset Street where Michael was raised and I visited with my parents the flat-top blue house where so many children lived and grew up to be good and bad just like the rest of us.  The only difference was the percentages of good and evil we were blessed with, and no amount of baptisms by water was going to wash away the continuing ghosts from Crestview Manor.

Many years had passed and Michael and I had lost contact with one another.  Then one day, I received a message via Facebook telling me my friend and cousin Michael had cancer.  I contacted his daughter and asked if I could see him and, of course, it was affirmative. I drove to his home and sat with him almost every day until I became sick with the flu, the same day he lost his bowels while I was visiting.  I didn’t return for a week because I was afraid, I would cause him to become ill and pass away sooner than later.  Where was my dang brain?   He was near death anyway, and he thought I hadn’t returned because he pooped himself.  Dear God, where was my brain?  I returned the following week and sat with him and his cat who lay in his lap until the day he died.  I knew he wasn’t a devout Christian man but he deserved for someone to take his fear of death away. 

I took Michael on a journey.  I had been through three hypnosis sessions to stop smoking and it worked so I used those same skills to help my cousin and friend pass over. I had also been a Hospice Volunteer for a few years giving me even more insight into what Michael was about to face.

Michaels journey:  Next