my imaginary friends may be real and you maybe not

so i got another box from the attic.
stuff my mom saved from my childhood and then gave to me.
maybe i can get rid of it!

here's my baby book, something mothers worked hard at.
oh look, i had an imaginary friend, a rabbit.
i have no memory of such a thing.
apparently it had to have a place to sit at dinner.
my parents loved this stuff.

i'm thinking my next imaginary friend was Jesus,
i took to him at a very early age.
my parents were not so happy about that,
but they let me live in that rabbit hole until i outgrew it.

which i did, and then went without imaginary friends for years.
were those my years as a grown-up?
now that i'm a Buddhist i have many many imaginary friends!
if i become a Hindu i'll have multiple times that number.

my friend the Shaman has his power animal (i keep wanting to say 'familiar' but that's witches)
it sits by him at dinner (apparently on the floor) or so he mentioned at dinner recently.
is that his imaginary friend, or is it real?
in which case aren't they all real?

real as anything else?

science marches on!

apparently a study has shown that children have significantly fewer allergies if their parents cleaned off a dropped pacifier by licking or sucking it.

i'd like to know more about this!

were those parents all men?

did they have allergies?

what effect did it have on the health of the parent?

will this help my 30 something son if i lick or suck a pacifier and then give it to him?

what about lighting someone's cigarette, or sharing a joint?

will it help my sister, who has allergies, altho i pretty much don't, if i share some saliva with her now?

what if the dog licks it off?

does this involve some ancient knowledge now remembered in the phrase "he's the spit and image of his dad?"

the unseen becomes felt

often people become more 'spiritual' as they age.
the usual explanation is that they feel the approach of death.

but i think it's expanding awareness.

picture my baby son at the ocean. 
the infinite sky, the endless beach, the limitless sea.
what did he do?
picked up nearby cigarette butts.

as children our area of awareness is so small, because everything is new. 
once the nearby is familiar we extend our awareness out another step.

awareness expands and grows as we age and become familiar with a wider and wider circle, until it reaches and then includes the unseen, the felt, the sensed world beyond our 5 senses, the world we maybe scoffed at in our body-centered youth.

summer's end

labor day was summer blue and pink
shy autumn played around the edges
tuesday never dawned
cold rain down your back


and rain and rain and rain and rain
and i opened my eyes to dreams of yellow pencils
and the smell of paper wrappers on crayons
chalk dust squeak


oh to be in second grade
and the cold rain falling
my new desk shines smooth under warm lights
and my teacher is so beautiful!

spring memories

two separate stories of parents told to me this weekend, by guys who are older than 50 but not elderly. i love to hear people's stories.

does spring makes us think of our childhood?

1. my father's mother took in laundry and that's probably how he got polio as a child. he had no use of his legs and in order for him to function at all, they had to destroy his knees and ankles. he was like charles atlas from the waist up, so muscular from pushing himself around.  he made platforms to sit on and after he died we found a big box of casters in the garage -- those were his way to move. Me: how did he meet your mom?  they grew up next door to each other. knew each other all of their lives. 

2. my mother had a day care at a bowling alley.  in a room this size (a 12 x 10 or so) she had up to 50 kids, including babies in cribs. this was when i was a teenager. she had no time to care for me then, and i was sent to live with an uncle.