Unless you’re wearing safety goggles.
The title of this post comes from a greeting I get from my partner every time I go into the work studio when he’s using the laser.
It’s a warning, but it’s also become a bit of an endearing joke which is still a warning.
While my mind does have a lot of glitches, luckily it doesn’t seem to have that one which doesn’t hear the word “Don’t” when someone says “Don’t do that” and only hears “Do that”… otherwise I’d look at the laser every time my partner tells me not to and my eyes would be fucked.
My eyes… aren’t as sharp as they used to be, which is a blessing when I look in the mirror as I see myself through gaussian blur and appear ethereal.
“Is it smokey in here or is that just my eyes?” – is something I ask regularly… sometimes it is smokey due to the laser burning and the open window is blowing the smoke inside rather than taking it out… for dinner?
My eyes… used to cause trouble for me with other people or so they used to tell me.
“Don’t look at me that way!” – was an oft repeated instruction, usually in an angry, upset, offended or distressed “they’re the victim here and my eyes are the victimiser” tone.
The other one was – “Why are you looking at me like that?” – sometimes followed by – “I didn’t do what you think I did!”
If I revealed that I wasn’t thinking anything, I wasn’t thinking about them at all, and hadn’t noticed what they’d done… yeah, that’s not what they wanted to hear even though in theory it should have been good news.
Of course the moment someone drew my attention to them and what they were up to which was making them all paranoid and projecting their paranoia into my eyes…
My eyes tend to stare, don’t blink as much as they perhaps should, and do that more when my mind is away on a thought journey – miles away from wherever my body is located and whoever is around me at the time.
Occasionally I’m in my body looking at the person and maybe even thinking of them – “Look at how their nose sits on their face… it’s such a perfect piece of design. What a fascinating structural marvel the nose is… I wonder why every nose is different, what’s the purpose of the variety?”
I have a bit of a thing about noses.
Probably because once mine stopped being a cute little button and became a big honker which didn’t fit my still a child’s face… people kept commenting on it, telling me how large it was, gasping at the size, “You could be so beautiful if it weren’t for that ugly thing!” and making me feel more self-conscious than I really needed to be about a functional piece of face gear which I can’t really see unless I look in a mirror or at a picture of myself or see myself through the eyes of others telling me what they’re seeing and… ew, they can’t unsee that.
The repeated judgement of my nose got to the point where… I wanted to have a nose job. But back in those ancient times, a nose job meant having your nose broken… and why on earth would I deliberately pay someone a lot of money to break my nose!?
And there was no guarantee that such an extreme fix would fix the problem of other people judging my nose and thinking that I needed to hear their judgments… just in case I quite liked the way I looked, can’t have that – “Don’t like the way you look! You don’t want to become vain, do you!”
Making me self-conscious about my nose by criticising it… actually made me more vain rather than less vain, but I guess people don’t bother with checking out how their methods of fixing people actually work or don’t work in the long run.
Eventually my face caught up to my nose and the whole facial system became more balanced. My nose is still prominent, and it always stands out in pictures…
What’s that… oh… you need a visual…
The problem with most cameras, including the one on your mobile phone, is that the regular lens they use does a bit of a fish-eye with the nose… and if you have a prominent nose it becomes a focal point, gets widened and stretched until any selfie is just all nose.
If you smile – the wider the smile, the wider the nose.
I recently had the good-bad idea of using selfies taken on a mobile for a business website profile pic…
My partner looked great in his, as he always does. Yes, I’m blinkered by love even after more than two decades together, but he is very good looking.
I thought I looked okay in mine… “That’ll do” is what I said about the pic… we’re never totally happy anyway, are we, with photos of ourselves because that’s not how we see ourselves in our mind’s eye.
How do I see myself in my mind’s eye? Like my WP profile pic mostly… but how am I seeing that? Shut up with your questions, me!
My problem with the pic, and others I had taken of which that one was sort of the best, was that I kept making a weird expression and couldn’t stop myself from doing that so… “Fuck it, that’ll do!”
My nose looked large in it and my partner decided to tweak my nose in the pic without telling me. So when I saw it… “That’s not my nose!” was what I said. It was a gorgeous nose but it wasn’t mine and this was a profile pic. And then… “Wtf, dude, have you seen what tweaking my nose did to my eyes!!!” – they looked like grey alien cat eyes.
My partner is an expert when it comes to using Photoshop but he’d done the tweak in a hurry and… my face was messed up.
We reached a compromise… he un-fucked-up my eyes and un-tweaked my nose a bit but kept some tweakage because he needed that. And I was “Whatever, it doesn’t matter… most people don’t meet me or see me, anyway.”
No, I don’t usually mention the business/work side of my life on my blog, because… something along the lines of “Don’t mix business with pleasure”… it’s unprofessional… which is a fancy way of saying something else, like “It’s none of your business, you don’t need to know about it.”
What do I do? I do grunt work… in other words I grunt when asked to work.
So it really doesn’t matter what I look like – I look grumpy, fyi.
My main “job” at the moment is to not look at the laser… cool, I can do that!
My eyes are important to me…
I use them for more than just reading, which is one of my favourite activities, and seeing, which is also a favourite activity.
I use them for hearing too… and thinking.
I’m a visual thinker…
I said this recently, I think it was in a reply-comment on a post rather than in a post – if you put a gif in your post, I can’t read the words in that post because of the gif, it’s too distracting.
Flashy flashy flashy… look at me, I’m doing the same thing over and over and it’s so not interesting after the first time I did it!!!
That’s why I use Ad-Block. You can block any flashy flashy flashy distraction and actually hear… think.
I don’t use Ad Block to deprive websites of earnings… I just can’t navigate your website if things are flashing all over the place, so if you block me from accessing your site until I stop using Ad Block… bye bye because I won’t be able to concentrate, I won’t be able to see what I came to the website to see which is usually in writing form, so there’s no point in my being there.
Those flashy flashing images, be it gifs or moving adverts or videos playing without permission are a bit like lasers to me.
Don’t look at the laser!
My eyes… my eyes…
My eyes… have caused problems for me in other ways.
“You have kind eyes” is something I’ve been told by strangers, they’re the reason why some stranger in the street picked me to ask the way or some other question or chose me as a confessional, to offload their problems, their entire life story, while we were stuck in a waiting room, a bus, a plane together – it’s a compliment but also a rather onerous role to be given just because of what they saw in my eyes.
Which reminds me…
Of a great post by Cage Dunn (my glitchy mind has rejigged his name to Caged One):
It’s In The Eyes – Cage Dunn: Writer, Author, Tell of Tall Tales
WordPress is also glitchy at times, and atm it’s not being cooperative when it comes to sharing excerpts, at least the way I do it using the “quote” box feature on Gutenberg (which is a system I adore)… but I’ve figured out a complicated workaround which requires extra grunt work and effort on my part, when I really feel compelled to share, which I do now with CD’s post, and the bit of it which wowed me the most:
“The bathroom window takes up all of one wall. It’s huge. Faces west. The afternoon sun makes the space as bright as an operating room. I like that. No mould.
The other day, I went in to dust and wipe and tidy. The doors to the mirror shone to a smear-free finish. The best time to do it is in the afternoon when the sun highlights all the marks and smudges.
I looked up, and …
My father’s eyes looked back at me.
It’s the first time I’ve ever seen the direct relationship between the two of us. We don’t look alike in any other way. Different hair, body shape, facial structure, ears, hands, feet.
But the eyes — I have his eyes. And he had his mother’s eyes. I loved her eyes. She died too young. 50.
I stared at her eyes, at his eyes, at my eyes.
The mirror stared back at me with my father’s history. I couldn’t look away. My chest burned with the need to speak to him, to tell him things we didn’t talk about when he was still here.”
excerpt from It’s In The Eyes – Cage Dunn: Writer, Author, Tell of Tall Tales
It’s such a magnificent piece of writing, of skill using words to conjure up images, visuals, story…
Thing is though…
My eyes… are the only part of me which are mine and only mine.
They’re nothing like my mother’s eyes – thank goodness because they were beady and harsh. Pretty though but scary for me when they were looking at me… what they saw when they looked at me was not pretty, and her mouth felt I should know the awful truth at all times.
They’re nothing like my father’s eyes – although the eyebrows are his, and they’re brown like his, but the brown is lighter, it has green around it if you look really closely while shining a laser into to them. They’re more hazel… his were brown verging on black.
My eyes…
They’re mine… they’re the one thing I had which was mine and couldn’t be taken away from me… easily… like everything else, including my self.
The mirror for me wasn’t a mirror.
It wasn’t something I looked in to see what I looked like, or what others saw when they looked at me – I learned fairly quickly that others saw what they saw and it wasn’t necessarily what was there in the face system, they tweaked it to suit their vision and version of me.
It wasn’t an object of vanity.
It wasn’t an object of self-criticism – oh, look at that spot, line, wrinkle, the crooked or chipped tooth, the fault, flaws, imperfections which make you ugly or hate yourself because others point these out and then you absorb their pointing out and do it for yourself as they did only worse… what you don’t let others get away with but let yourself get away with when it comes to yourself.
It was the place where someone actually looked me in the eyes and saw me – “I see you.”
Hi.
You.
In there.
Hello.
What are you thinking? Care to share with someone who is genuinely interested and not faking interest for a variety of reasons.
What are you feeling? Your eyes tell me you’re feeling unseen. Others see everything about you or so they say and think but they don’t actually see you – it’s themselves they’re seeing using you as a mirror and then breaking it when it doesn’t reflect before reflecting…
“Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.“
Jean Cocteau
As a child the mirror was my refuge, my kind eyes to ask where am I to, to ask for directions, to use as a confessional – I feel like killing myself is that normal, okay… what do I do?
Sometimes the mirror and my eyes were the only “thing” keeping me… me… alive… whatever…
These days I don’t need my eyes in the mirror as much as I used to… but even now when I catch my eyes in the mirror…
Hi.
Hello.
You.
You too.
I see you.
Thank you… for seeing me.
How are you? Okay? You can always…
I know…
If you’re not.
You always know when I’m not.
I know.
I’m not I’m not…
I know. I can see.
Smile.
Smile.
No judging of smile. No caring if teeth aren’t white, perfect, or anything… it’s the quality of the smile, what it means and says about what’s within, not the other type of quality of the smile – can my eyes handle yellow? Crooked? Chipped? Not perfect Hollywood fake hiding all sorts of ARGH! (oh, if you’ve never seen the film – Starry Eyes (2014) – maybe it’s better if you never see it but it’s basically an in your face to those who pretended they didn’t know what we all now know when Hollywood was hit by the Time’s Up Me Too movements).
Move on.
Btw, my partner is one of the few people who when they look at me – really see me.
It’s scary-thrilling how well he see-sees me. Laser eyes…
He’s actually the first person I met who helped me to stop seeing myself through the eyes of others and hating what I saw… because he loved what he saw.
Taught me to re-love what I saw when looking at myself.
So he gets cut a lot of slack when he does something like tweak my nose in a photo, which fucks up my eyes, until it’s no longer a pic of me.
He apologised for doing that – he didn’t need to apologise, I understood why he did that. He was caught up in the design and forgot that… I’m a people not a thing to be perfected by designing eyes perfecting design.
Besides… I’ve tweaked my face in photos in Photoshop, to make me look like not myself… it can be fun, and insightful, sometimes to do that. Get to look like what you don’t look like and then go – Cool, but also not cool…
I don’t wear make-up in RL… can’t be bothered… it’s work… grunt… and it makes me want to rip my face off… itchy… not me… yes, it’s relevant, connected.
My mother wore a lot of make-up, used to say she was – “Putting my face on” – sounded sinister, wtf!?! – “I can’t meet people yet, I haven’t put my face on” – but… what about that face you have which you cover up, why isn’t that considered a face?
My nose… that’s my father’s and his family’s, his culture’s nose. Roman… he was Roman after he moved to Rome from not-Rome. I know… just messing around with words and their meanings which are multiple at times.
My mouth and smile with its slightly crooked teeth (worse for wear due to unconsciously clenching and grinding, mainly during sleep and sometimes during not-sleep, since I was a little one) are actually my mother’s but she always thought and said they were my father’s… she hated her smile for many self-criticism reasons… so she saw it as not perfect, not like my father’s, not like mine. She really blew a fuse when I fainted, hit a chair corner and chipped my front tooth, her words of consolation were – “You’ve ruined your perfect teeth!”
Now is a good place to end this post.
An Upturned Soul 
Hi Ursula 🤓
Your selfie is gorgeous BTW, such pretty red hair (I have an affinity for red heads😍. My Granny was a red head until age, hormones, and straightening chemicals took over stripping her unique attribute.). When I used to chemically straighten my hair, it turned red but once I went natural it became this darker brown. Chemicals alter body chemistry sometimes resulting in good results or not so great mutations.
I dont take selfies as much as I probably should in this age of vanity, but it’s because of the very reason you mentioned about the camera perspectives on a mobile phone. You have to get the angles right (which some people are awesome at) or your eyes and/or nose will appear less becoming. What I do is have Kareem take it for me. Having the camera pointed at his distance results in the product I was trying to achieve.
I stare into the mirror oftentimes because I’m trying to see who it is looking back at me; if I stare too long I get swept up in my thoughts like Alice Through The Looking Glass.
I was told through my childhood, I resembled my father’s side of the family more, and I did until I moved in with my Granny. Once being around her was a consistent thing, I physically resembled her (which is a compliment because I adore my grandmother). Do you think over time one can morph similar physical traits resembling a constant person in their life just from being with them all the time?
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Thank you, Scherezade 🙂
That’s an intriguing question.
If we spend a lot of time with someone, we do absorb them by osmosis in many ways. We may adopt their mannerisms, their way of speaking, their facial expressions, the way they move or sit.
It’s usually done unconsciously, but it can be conscious too especially when we admire something they do. You’ll see that with your sons, as children tend to mimic their parents and often do it really obviously in funny ways – it’s a way of learning. Adults do it too, but it tends to be more subtle (unless it’s a narcissist who are like children about copying others).
It’s a part of socialising – in fact it’s a recommended tactic if you’re trying to make the other person feel comfortable with you, to mirror them, their posture and expression, use similar language and vocal style, but you have to be careful when doing it deliberately as it can appear to be mockery, a bit like those annoying people who copy you just to get on your nerves. My cousin used to do that, repeat everything I said after I said it, mimicking me in an exaggerated manner, and it made me want to punch him 😉 And I had another cousin who followed me around copying what I did, but she was not doing it to mock me, she was just fascinated by my weirdness.
If you walk the way someone is walking, sit like they sit or adopt their facial expression, tone of voice, it can help you understand what they’re thinking and feeling, what it’s like to be them.
You can also change your thoughts and feelings by changing your posture and expression, but it’s hard to keep it going. We fall back into how we usually are when not thinking about it.
I think since a part of how we look is created by what we do with our features, we can appear to morph physically… like actors do when playing different roles, without using prosthetics or heavy make up, they change their expression and posture, which changes how they look physically to some degree. Some actors have faces which appear to be made of putty and they shape the putty into different people.
Have you looked at pictures of yourself before, during and after you lived with your Granny?
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Yeah, I’ve seen pictures of myself pre-Granny and I didnt favor her, but during, I definitely seen the metamorphosis, and now…Kareem and I were playing with a photo filter which aged you somebody had trended on FB. I took a selfie, let the filter do its thing and lo and behold I looked exactly like her! It was uncanny! Some can argue the photo filter could used already stored pics on your phone to create the finished product, but I have no pics of her on my phone. I guess some apps are just really good. But I can expect to look like her in the future😊
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Interesting. How we see ourselves. The mirrors lie, you know, someone recently explained to me that the mirror image is flawed, and so we can never truly see ourselves….cameras distort and add weight that may not be realistic, and (to me personally) highlight flaws we’ve been told we have by others whose apparent biggest flaw is their nasty mouth and unthinking judgment of another person. I like the phrase “God didn’t make no junk” (and yeah, I know it’s not grammatically correct). He didn’t (IMHO). So I’m just as beautiful as my neighbor or acquaintance who has flawless skin, a perfect smile with even, impossibly white teeth and lustrous hair. I’m not junk. Neither are you. One day I suspect our true selves (the soul) will become able to be seen by others. And those of us who are deep thinkers and take the time to make our souls beautiful, will be the ‘fairest of them all’.
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Thank you, Melanie 🙂
Mirrors flip us around, so we’re seeing ourselves reversed when we look at them. They’re a reflection of what we look like, a visual for us to reflect upon. They never promised to tell us the truth, so technically they’re not lying, however we might discover something about ourselves because of how we view mirrors and ourselves in them. We might spot a lie someone has told us about how we appear, that someone may be ourselves.
Mirrors themselves are all different. I have one in the hallway which is a bit of a funhouse mirror, it’s slightly warped so everyone looks squat in it. It makes me laugh when I look in it so it puts me in a good mood just before I go out, but some people hate it because it squishes them and they don’t find that funny. Bathroom mirrors, the ones which are very clear and sharp with the magnification and a spotlight for the face… they’re scary, every skin pore is huge, we should not see ourselves that up close and personal, it makes us want to pick on ourselves with tools and fingers, or cover it all up, hide it 😉 or maybe that’s the test, what do you do when you’re that close to yourself and see yourself that clearly?
I think the soul can already be seen.
Like you pointed out, someone telling you what’s wrong with you according to them is showing you their soul – or at least the story of their soul, the journey it’s on and the obstacles, tests, challenges it is facing, and where they’re at in that moment in time. Usually people see in us what’s in them, we become the mirror. Someone who is hyper-critical of others is usually hyper-critical of themselves. Their soul is going through a tortured soul phase. If we’re also going through a tortured soul phase then what they say makes us want to do to them what they did to us. Or we may see the lie or truth or opportunity to squeeze through a crack in the mirror to another way of experiencing ourselves and others.
Sometimes, just sometimes, when someone is crticising you, you can surprise them out of it by being gentle with them, by not reacting to the criticism but instead seeing the criticism as a cry from a tortured soul who is afraid and protecting/projecting themselves. But it can be tough to stop the knee-jerk reaction 🙂
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Well hello there Ursula👀
The Caged One post reminds me of a time I glanced into the mirror in the bathroom and saw my mother’s face. Yikes! I dont make a habit of looking in the mirror because mostly I dont care what I look like. I might check to see if my hair is sticking up in weird ways before I go out or I might not.
The make up thing is something I was very much into back in high school and during the weekdays I worked. On weekends I worked I didnt bother because I was in casual clothes, but in “office attire” my face looked wrong somehow without some makeup. Now I dont own any.
The second conversation with yourself in the mirror… pass the tissues please. It got me right in the feels. Beautiful!
I remember something my grandmother said about my eyes when I was 7 or 8, around that age. She said my eyes were very expressive and that I could easily tell someone to “Go to Hell” with them. I cant remember who she was saying it to, probably my mother or great-grandmother, it wasnt me. My grandmother wasnt a warm person. I really didnt have a relationship with her so when she died it didn’t affect me. I was 15, I had other things on my mind. But the eyes… kind eyes, expressive eyes, windows to the soul?
Does my inner me shine out? Is my outer body shaped by my spirit/soul/thingy? Does my facial expression, body posture, way of moving tell you who I am? Hmmmm…
I’m always shocked by pictures of myself with others. I am so much larger than I see myself. I know I’m taller and not rail thin but it’s hard to see yourself next to another person except in a mirror or photo, and I dont notice the difference generally.
I really dont pay much attention to my physical self or anyone else’s much anymore. I’ve actually thought about this. I sometimes cant remember what Ben is wearing after the bus leaves, even if I’ve dressed him. The thought started with “would I be able to describe what he’s wearing if he got lost”? Hmmm…
I haven’t decided if my lack of noticing the physical is a good thing, bad thing or just a thing. I’m more interested in who a person is. That may or may not be what they’re trying to show me with their wrappings and ribbons and bows.
💌
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Thank you, Angie 🙂
It’s strange to hear people talking about you as though you’re not there even though you are there. Adults do that a lot with children, and that includes when the children are adults but the other adults are parents or grandparents. It can be a bit like – I know they’re talking about me, but it doesn’t sound like me they’re talking about.
Thanks to people commenting on my eyes… I use my eyes a lot to do the talking for me. I’ve had people say that whole – If looks could kill – thing about my eyes, so I use it. I’ve used it when someone has crossed a boundary with me and I don’t feel like discussing the issue because I know the conversation will go for a ride on a merry-go-round. I just stare in silence… it’s very unnerving apparently. It can be fun and insightful to see how they fill the silence. I use “hmmm…” too as a vocal version of the stare. Stare + Hmmm… is a great interrogation tactic 😉 My eyes can also calm people down far better than saying “Calm down” – which tends to have the opposite effect.
It’s weird really.
I think our focus shifts throughout our lives.
When we’re teenagers, it tends to be all about what we look like and what others look like. The outside is very important. Appearance is a big part of identity, individual and group identity. I also experimented with make up in my teens, tried out different fashions, what I wore on face and body was part of who I was, then when I crossed over into my 20’s I gradually went more basic. I’m covered in freckles so stuff like foundation and powder tend to be problematic – I end up looking weirder with make up. No one seemed to notice that I didn’t wear make up, unless I was at a counter in the make-up department of a shop, but they usually wanted to sell me vanishing cream rather than face paint.
When we hit the midlife crisis years, focus shifts again, but it seems to go through all the previous stages to re-focus itself. Hence some of us re-living a previous age for a while. Often becoming teenagers again in behaviour.
So I think perhaps not focusing on the physical is a natural part of being 50+ because the focus needs to be on the inside, on what’s inside of you which shows more on the outside as we age. If you’re bitter inside, it shows on the face, skin, the expression. The inner is etched into the outer. Does the outer change when the inner does – that’s maybe what we explore when 50+ ?
You could take a pic on your phone of Ben every morning just before he goes out… then if he gets lost, you have a pic and that’s far more useful than memory in that kind of scenario 🙂
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Ah, the freckles… they used to be ALL I saw when I looked in the mirror, now I dont notice them. I never wore foundation even when I wore makeup because, yeah, trying to cover the freckles for “smooth palette” was like some weird fake tan or something.
I use my eyes too. Maybe our spiritsoulthingies DO shine through? Does the color of your eyes change with what you’re wearing or your moods? Mine do. They’re a grey-blue sometimes more grey, sometimes more blue.
The 50+ change I think is accurate for those of us who’ve become comfortable in who we are. Unfortunately, some people never get there. Plastic surgery is a booming business.
Taking a pic of Ben is a fantastic idea!! A pic is better than a description anyway, Duh🤦♀️ Why are the simple answers always the hardest?
💌🌻
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I love your photo. 🙂 And I didn’t notice the shadow until you talked about it and I went back to look.
I think that how we see ourselves is a part of our personal evolution. I was told that I had a big nose too, to the point that I also wanted a nose job. At one time I started saving for one until I realised that that much money was going to really cut into my uni fund and I knew which option I wanted more – getting out was a lot more important than a new nose.
I eventually grew into my nose (and other body parts) in my head, probably because I finally saw that criticising someone for their molecule arrangement is complete assholery. A healthy nose is a good thing. I hate colds. 😉
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Thank you, Lynette 🙂
Ha! Yes, ain’t that the way! You don’t noticed the “flaw” until someone points it out, and then it becomes almost all you can see about them… and you can’t remember how you saw them before they pointed it out and made it a focal point.
I agree. How we see ourselves gives us feedback on where we’re at in our personal story about self. How we see others does that too. How others see us tells us about where they’re at. It’s a fascinating experience.
I never got around to saving money for the nose job because I knew I wouldn’t do it even though I thought about doing it a lot. I’m one of those people who thinks about doing things, thinks my way through the doing from start, through middle, to finish, but rarely does the thing because I’ve thought myself into and finally out of it. Sometimes that’s an annoying habit and at others times it is a blessing – never know which it’s going to be.
One of the things I noticed while thinking about it, gathering data, was that those who did get nose jobs often had people commenting more than before on the nose, and they’d get comments on how the nose no longer went with the face so then they’d start “fixing” other parts of their face to suit the new nose.
I love your nose story, and freedom is definitely the way to go!
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Thank you. I like yours too. ❤️
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I only read your post this evening and some words up there reminds me of a dream I had last night—synchronicity. So I’m here inserting my comment 🙂
Hm, I’ve been sleeping a lot lately lol eager to enter dream sleep. Anyway, I think it was my muse or maybe not, in my dreams faces sometimes appeared vague, so I’ve to recognised the other person by feeling. Anyway, someone told me, ‘Move on…’ and I replied,’Only the dead move on.’ I woke up awhile later and the first thought that came up was ‘Sometimes even the dead can’t move on.’ 😉 Atm, I’m watching a ghostly drama Barrack O’Karma. The conversation in the dream did not end there, I was going to put that in a post.
Btw, is that a mole at the bottom of your neck or it’s a shadow dot or something from the ring?
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Hi Rev 🙂
Seems fitting for The Reverist to be eager to enter dreams and be reminded of dreams when awake.
Sounds like an intriguing dream. I love those dreams where some deep conversation/communication happens.
Have you noticed that there are dreaming phases throughout the year, which includes a no-dream phase? I was trying to make an astrology connection with it – such as does it flow with transiting Mercury.
So when Mercury is in Scorpio, which it is atm having just changed signs, the dreams are more intense. You were talking in your dream about the dead – death is a subject connected to Scorpio, and Mercury talks.
T-Merc in Scorpio is just about conjunct my natal Mars – I woke up in the middle of the night slightly angry (Mars) and I didn’t know why so I had a conversation (Mercury) with myself about it, which went deep (Scorpio) and then I felt better and went back to sleep. I woke up rather Zen this morning because of that night chat with myself. It was a Scorpionic kind of Zen though.
It’s the ring.
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I have been on a no dream phase for years. Or maybe I did but can’t remember at all. Of course, this is due to alcohol, recently limiting or no drink before sleep helps recover my dream phase.
Your middle of the night conversation has something to with this post? Oh earlier I was going to tell you fun but not so funny then forgot again. I sometimes grind my teeth to just hear the sound, it started when people told me I do that during sleep but I can’t hear and don’t know what it sounded like. Quite like my teeth grinding sound fun within since then 😀
Scorpionic kind of Zen… Love your description and it also sounds like my state now
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Haha! Before I started wearing a mouthguard to protect the teeth I occasionally would wake myself up with the sound of my grinding. I sleep better when I don’t wear the mouthguard, deeper, but the lighter level of sleep increases dreaming time.
No, I don’t think there’s a connection between this post and the night conversation. I was thinking about the Peloponnesian war and the battle of Amphipolis, plus David Lynch and Goliath (the TV series) just before I went to sleep… it sort of connects with that and yet not 😉
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I hazard a guess the war/battle connection from playing Assassins Creed? 😉
For the past month or so, TV in the house was all about HK protests news. For goodness sake, when will Mrs Landlady get tired watching it, not that I watch TV in the hall though. The hk situation led me to think about wars and revolutions in China history…
When it comes to the teeth grinding, it always reminds me of my father. He did that a lot in his sleep and I could hear it even though I was sleeping in the living room 😀
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Your guess is correct – we’ve finished the game itself, but they have this extra section called “Discovery Tour” which explains how they put the game together, where the creators got their inspiration, the research they did, the artwork, and there are these guided tours which give you historical information about the time the game is set in. The Battle of Amphipolis is one our character played in the game – the real story behind it is fascinating. It was a final battle, after that Athens and Sparta decided to stop fighting… for a few years.
One of the things I was thinking about was how much humans have not changed one bit since those times.
I was going to do a post about the Discovery Tour, and how my mind connected it with other things, but I’m still hmmm-ing about it.
The HK situation is incredibly interesting, so many layers and players. It’s a huge event. What’s on the surface, what’s underneath. What is it really about.
What goes on in the world of human is also what goes on within the psyche of each individual human – the battles on the outside/the battles on the inside.
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‘The HK situation is incredibly interesting, so many layers and players. It’s a huge event. What’s on the surface, what’s underneath. What is it really about.’ Wonderful perspective to start with 😉
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I love how naturally pretty you are, and without makeup. I love that picture of you. I can see so much of your words in your photo. IOW, the picture shows your depth.
I know what you mean about your partner seeing the real you. My husband used to always say, “I wish you could see you through my eyes instead of your family’s eyes.” He doesn’t say that anymore because I no longer see me through their eyes. I’m talking personality, not physical appearance.
BTW, the only thing that I had of my own were my eyes, too. My eyes are brown, like my mom’s, but they’re much more prominent. They have depth and are the first thing that people notice. I’ve always believed I was ugly, and that is NOT due to my narcissist parents. They always complimented my looks. No one ever told me I was ugly except for one boy who used to pick on me in the 5th grade. So, I don’t understand why I lack such confidence in my appearance. It’s getting worse as I age. I just look in the mirror or at a photo and don’t like what I see. I wear makeup, not a lot, but I won’t go out without at least a little something.
Well, that’s enough about me. 😜 Thanks for sharing your photo. It was nice to put the words to a face.
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Thank you, Lori 🙂
I love that picture too. It reminds me of coming out from under a big weight which had been crushing me, coming out of my shell, breaking free and discovering a whole new version of the world, reality, other people and myself. I took a lot of pictures of myself during that period – before then I never took pics of myself, and I tried to avoid being captured by anyone else. I would actually flee when people tried to take my picture. I used to look hunted or agonised when captured.
When I broke free there was this feeling of energy release and I actually aged backwards for a while, looked younger, glowed with a certain something. Now I’m not quite as glow-y. I look my age, but I like the look. It may be a Capricorn thing – we’re supposedly born old and get younger as we get older. I’m finally at an age where I feel comfortable in my skin, whereas when I was younger… that skin never felt like my skin, it was always a size too big or too small, now it’s just right. That sounds rather creepy 😀
Your husband sounds lovely. He looks lovely too. So do you. You shared pics of you and him in your Feet story. My first thought about your photo was – very pretty. The kind of pretty which lasts and never fades, actually grows prettier with age because the aging process defines it, highlights it.
That boy in 5th grade most likely fancied you – it’s a trope but it’s often a true one, when we’re kids we tend to pick on, tease, pull the pigtails of those we like and wish would like us back because we’re embarrassed and awkward about the whole liking someone. Also being mean is a way to get attention – we might be ignored if we’re nice. It’s the whole our parents only notice us when we’re naughty/bad.
The confidence in your appearance issue… here’s something I do when I’m trying to figure something along those lines out… if there was no one else on planet Earth, just you, how would you feel about the way you look?
Sometimes it’s the environment made of people/society, because we are people/society too we absorb the collective issue into ourselves and it becomes our personal issue – the clue that it’s not really our personal issue is in the “I don’t know why I think/feel this way” or like you put it “I don’t understand why…”. You live in the US, it focuses a lot on looks (similarly to the way Italy does and Italians do), and has an obsession with youth and remaining youthful. Aging is almost considered a crime… how dare you look your age, quick take an elixir!
I was reading a post the other day while following WP recommended post links by a woman who was going through an aging crisis as well as a putting on more weight crisis. She shared these before and after pics – she looked great in both. I didn’t really see any difference other than that she looked healthier and happier in the second one which was the one she viewed as her being unhealthier, fatter and older, and unhappier because she saw herself that way. She also lives in the US and she did say that she felt she was viewing herself through a warped lens of unrealistic standards, of Hollywood, fashion media, and idealistic societal ideals, but she still couldn’t stop herself from doing that even though she was aware of it. It was an interesting read but I didn’t bookmark it. I kind of quietly exited the room. It felt like a very private conversation with herself.
Sometimes we see ourselves the way we see ourselves because we’re part of the collective and that’s what the collective is going through… person by person, bit by bit, we change the narrative 🙂
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Thank you for your kind words, Ursula. I think you’re right about the physical appearance thing. We do put a lot of emphasis on looks here in the U.S., and I’ve wondered if that was what affected me.
As far as the bully kid in 5th grade, I agree with you about why he may have behaved that way. I’ll have to tell the story on my blog someday about how I ran into him again as an adult.
I’m very short, under 5 feet. As a teenager and young adult, I loved it. Boys thought it was so cute, and I was boy crazy. Now, I’m slowly turning into a literal, little old lady (I’m in my 50’s, but older than you). 😜
One more thing, your thoughts on the U.S. putting emphasis on appearance was so spot on. I wrote a post a while ago that demonstrates just that.
https://loreezlane.wordpress.com/2017/04/11/brinkley-or-bust/
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That’s a great post, Lori 🙂
For a moment I thought you were going to sing the praises of CB, and I cringed a bit because I reckon she may be an N. I know we’re not supposed to “diagnose” people but I find it useful to do that and then reflect back to myself what I’m seeing in them. But then you spun it around and took off in a great direction. I like what your pastor did at the retreat – I’ve done something similar, it’s a fun exercise. It’s good to do it with people too – take the jumping to a conclusion part away and just observe.
Your mentor sounds as though she understood the power of being her age – that’s what Clarissa Pinkola Estes discussed in her podcast interview on Sounds True with Tami Simon. Aging for women brings greater power, but only if we accept being older/old. Part of the aging process is going through a period of rejecting ourselves because we’re old – it’s the shock of no longer being attractive/valued because of our physical appearance, the “maiden” is gone, and society seems to throw us on the garbage heap, we become invisible grey entities no one is interested in. However that’s the illusion and we have to pop it to get what’s within it.
On a completely unrelated note – you mentioned not getting pingbacks when I linked to your old posts, and it suddenly dawned on me, Pingbacks are Comments, and you’ve closed comments on old posts, so that means pingbacks won’t be generated on posts where the comments are closed.
My mind never stops trying to solve puzzles 😉
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This comment has a bunch of gems you shared. I need to save this to read again when I’m feeling invisible as I age. Thank you for saying these things and for reading Brinkley or Bust.
I’m always analyzing every person and situation, so I’m not sure if I could do that exercise of just observing. But if I remember to try it some time, it would be a fun challenge. I do tend to observe anyway, but like I said, my mind is always analyzing while I’m doing so. 😜
Thanks for explaining the pingback thing. I had no idea.
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