(no subject)

The gift subscription to House and Garden magazine that firinel gave me is turning out to be a very dangerous thing. I want to redecorate. Everything. Now. I want my kitchen, which is a hallway, mind you, done up to resemble a Yorkshire cottage, all warm woods and stone. Considering its (lack of) size, it would come to look more like a Cro-Magnon cave first, I'm afraid. There was also a wickedly pointed article on the travesty of design that was committed in my beloved Philadelphia, specifcally Independence Mall. The dingy and somewhat pathetic looking glass building housing the Liberty Bell has been replaced with this....thing, that looks like the brainchild of the crack-addled spawn of Frank Lloyd Wright and a log cabin. No, really. It's bad. There's also this *box* that houses the "Center for Constitutional Studies". It's a square, with skeletal squares hanging off of it, in the middle of a small field of grass. It looks like an Erector set gone wrong. I'd seen the new Kimmel Center, too - it looks like an accordian, and I'm told the seating might have been designed by Torquemada.

In more design news, I also just got a postcard from silme, of the interior of a Welsh castle. This place is *amazing* - it's an Arts and Crafts era fantasy, with walls covered in the most detailed murals. I spent some time looking at it through a magnifying glass, it's that detailed. There are parrots resting on sunflower stalks, surrounded by pigeons, roosters and squirrels the size of small dogs. Butterflies are hidden here and there, everywhere the eye could rest is another little detail or surprise (parrots?). While it's not something I'd do to my own walls, it's gorgeous, in a lush, almost overblown way..

So, on this bitterly cold, cold day, with my joints aching like fire, I'm wrapped up in a blanket, happily feeding my eyes, thanks to two good friends thinking of me. Life is good.

In other news, I have a course catalog from an institution that has certification programs in hebalism. While I know I want to pursue that course of study, some things in the catalog give me pause. There are quotes on every few pages, just little blurbs that are likely meant to be inspiring, but one..."Compare the warning labels on prescription drugs vs. herbs. Never do you see such a litany of contraindications on all natural products. Herbs just simply work. Simply" This is patently untrue. Chamomile and Echinacea are contraindicated to people with ragweed allergies (many people, indeed). Rosemary is also a powerful allergen. St. John's Wort can cause problems to some people with bipolar disorder (like prozac, which is chemically similar). I could easily rattle off ten more common herbal remedies with very common contraindications. Hell, even yoga poses have contraindications - Sir can't do inversions because of his blood pressure. Statements like the one I quoted can do very bad things to a field already battling for a deserved measure of respect. Seeing it in a course catalog makes me nervous, indeed.

I've been studying herbs for over ten years now, and am eager to take my studies farther. However, it seems difficult to find an institution that takes a 'middle way', respecting both allopathic and naturopathic madicine, and understanding both have their uses and dangers. Finding a place with this type of understanding may prove difficult.

"Bid my blood to run..."

Stephen R. Donaldson wrote are beautiful, lush novel called The Mirror of Her Dreams. I read it quite a few years ago, when I was in my early teens. The main charater is a young woman named Teresa, who lives a quiet, predictable life, living alone, working as a secretary for a pastor. There is something about her though that made me feel as if someone had seen inside my own mind, and written down what they had found. She is never quite sure that she is real. She covered the walls of her apartment with mirrors, using her reflection to remind herself that indeed, she truly does exist. Without those images reflected back at her, she would come undone, lose herself in the quiet of her own mind, and the narrow bounds of her life. I have always felt that way, although I dealt with it somewhat differently. Instead of hanging mirrors on my walls, I avoid them, draping them with scarves. My mother had to wheedle me into take the mirror that matches the dresser she is giving me, because I was refusing to take it, loath to have something so large in my bedroom, showing me my own face. Even when I brush my hair, or put on makeup, my eyes never quite take in my reflection as a whole, instead focusing on a look of hair, or my eyelids, rather than deal with the shock of my inherent reality. I have always felt my existence was a questionable thing, the enormous quiet in my mind felt so contradictory to the solidity of being real.

In my early twenties that feeling changed, faded a little. I 'woke up' just a bit, the quiet receding, the boundaries of my mental vision opening and the silence replaced by music and laughter, sometimes tears and angry voices too. While I still avoided my reflection, it was out of ages long habit more than a desire to avoid the confusion it would bring. Over the past year or so the quiet has returned, coming in like a slow tide, and I realized just the other night that it brought with it that sense of questioning, of not being sure what being 'real' meant, not being sure if I was. I know why, and know how to change it, but the quiet is so soft, so comforting that I feel conflicted. The quiet always allows me a sense of safety and warmth, a cushion against the blows of the day to day. 'Waking up' from that has its obvious value as well, but I feel pulled in two directions.

I shall be writng back to my sister. In her letter, she casts me into a role in her little life play that I do not want, that turns truth into lie, and expects me to play out old patterns of fear and quiet. I will write her back, and point out that our 'estrangement' as she so floridly puts it (dramatic language runs in the family, it seems, oh, what writers we would have made!) has come from her, never me. I will tell her that the communication she saw between Joe and I was my honest opinion, which he asked for. I never meant to hurt her by it, but it is truth as I see it - she is not well, and until she gets the help she needs, I feel she is a danger to E. I will offer my regrets, and wish her well. Any future mail from her will be refused and returned to sender. She has my email, and my phone number. If she wants things to change, she shall have to do the work in real time.

I fool myself a lot, in situations like these. I really believed that even considering what has gone before between her and I, if we were both willing to work, to speak openly and vulnerably, we could get through it, work it out and go on, developing an actual relation, instead of playing out these old tired games. I really believed that, even though I have tried it before in similar situations, and watched it fail. "How long must we sing this song?" It didn't have to go down like this. It never has to go down like this, and yet it does, it so often does.