THE OTHERSIDE OF THE VOLCANO - CHAPTER 25: My innermost sorting machine, change/can-not-change, begins to operate at dawn shortly after the dog kiss wakes me up.

"Lu Lu" Gonzalez

I wake up early in the morning, sunrise, for many years now.  I hate getting out of my warm cozy bed.  I have a new dog, Lu Lu, who licks my face about five thirty a.m.   I prefer to think a dog kiss is "glad to see you this morning kiss"  instead of the "lets eat" kiss.  

Reality just takes some getting used to.

One of the cool things about DENIAL: Denial is multi-purpose.  If one is good at denial, and I am, it can be used in almost every situation.  Customizing my life to suit my preferences in thinking/believing is a little risky however.  Sometimes the annoying truth still nags in the back of my mind and will not allow me to linger in the delights of a more preferred reality.  On the other hand, I am quite good at facing the stark reality and its "startling" discoveries by accepting the hard/cold facts. I have learned "clarity" by living with "situations" where I am powerless to act/fix them. I can not always offer up solutions. Imagine! I don't even want to try very hard  when "surrender" is the wisest choice. I know real from faux (mostly).  Life keeps presenting new dilemmas and challenges and I keep wanting to retire from thinking/doing anything other than to keep a narrow focus on REAL things I can do something about.  Some extra unpleasant things "I can change" but many I can not change...that's the hard part of becoming more "rightsized". 

"Dulce ska Ms.White" and "Lu Lu"

My innermost sorting machine, change/can-not-change, begins to operate at dawn shortly after the dog kiss wakes me up. 

Outside my bedroom window, on a outside inner-patio-garden-corridor, I grow plants. Beautiful/healthy plants of many varieties.  I am not a gardener but I have been helped over the years by talented people with green thumbs/talent. The view from my bed is that of a huge number of potted plants on several levels surrounding the large Virgin of Guadalupe statue I purchased from a door-to-door salesman over ten years ago.  Only in Latin America can one buy a Virgin of Guadalupe statue from someone who comes to your front door selling them.  How could I not be compelled to buy one?  I try and keep a long burning candle glowing all the time in front my my statue.  It's a way of remembering others (and myself) who are struggling sometimes when facing truth.  That inability to "change" the things I/we can often requires outside intervention (and trusted confidants/friends)....I abandon myself to the light of each new day as I petition the Virgin of Guadalupe and the powerful forces of Maya inspired spirituality...I am surrounded by powers greater than myself.

Leonardo Ricardo
Leonard Clark Beardsley
Sacatepequez, Guatemala 

to be continued