Thursday Thirteen #850

1. I have been doing a Thursday Thirteen for 16 years and 4 months. To my knowledge, I have not missed a week. That's 850 weeks of thinking about the number 13 on Thursdays. I've been late on some days, but I haven't missed.

2. It took me almost two months to read Democracy Awakening, by Heather Cox Richardson. I do not remember when it last took me so long to finish a book. I would read parts of it, and then mull over the chapter for days, reflecting on it. I have put the book in my "never discard" section. I will reread it again. There are few books that I read over, but this one deserves a second or third look. It wraps the events of today into the events of the past, and in a strange way makes what is happening now make sense, in a warped and dismaying sort of way. It means, I suppose, that eventually someone like the former guy was inevitable.

3. People are complaining about prices of basically everything. They complain about having to pay taxes. They complain about immigrants and blame everyone but themselves for the mess we're in. I blame myself, although I have no idea what I might have done differently.

4. I am, after all, a product of my environment. And what would we have expected to become of a country founded by profiteers seeking to make more money from the goods of this land? It is what its makers set out to make it - a capitalist paradise, where the wicked and mean move to the top, and the rest sink to the bottom. Most of us are the rest, sunk at the bottom. A sort of sour milk, perhaps, with inedible gunk floating on top.

5. "I will not be a foot soldier in a war I do not understand." I heard some version of this today in a book I am listening to. I began to wonder if those of us who vote are only foot soldiers. And do we understand the war? I think not. I think most of us, myself including, have no idea what is really going on.

6. There have always been strange things at work in my life. Strange people who lead me around, strange men who wanted more than I cared to give, strange women who belittled and did not befriend. I have seen clouds part when I shouted at the sky. I do not have any power, and am powerless, yet sometimes I can part the clouds. Imagine that.

7. Someone gave me a guitar a while back, then asked for it back in what I thought was a loan. I expected to receive it back. Imagine my surprise when I learned that the person had given the guitar to someone else. I did not think it was his to give. He apparently thought otherwise. Some people do not give freely, if ever. They only make loans. And the repayments are generally unexpected and the interest rate incredibly high.

8. I think that applies to the current Republican nominee for the office of president. He does not give freely, if at all. He takes. And takes. He is the Great Pretender. I do not pretend to understand him or his cult. I have yet to find someone who can explain it to me.

9. I have a mental illness. It is called depression. The doctors label it dysthymia, but it is not always mild, nor do I always function well. Sometimes, it weighs me down so much that I all I see is the silhouette of gravel, I am so low to the ground.

10. We are going to play with Runes now. Runes are small stones with pictures on them. I have a set called "Stones from the Muse." Once, when life was giving me a very difficult time, I drew the Chaos rock 5 times in a row. Let's see what we draw in the next three.

11. *Amulet - Honor. It is time to stand and trust my instincts. Do not let anyone quash my internal, intuitive voice. Make my own art. This is interesting, as I only last night had a discussion, well, more like a bitter espousing of emotion, about how I feel unsupported in my writing.

12. *Tadpole - Transformation. (It looks like a sperm, just saying.) By recognizing change in my art, I will transform myself. 

13. *Egg - Potential.  The life of an artist is the tension between what is and what could be. Am I ready to take my art to a fuller, deeper place of creation?

Interestingly, I don't recall ever drawing those three runes before. Ever.

______________

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while, and this is my 850th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.