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Saturday, October 4, 2014.  Last Thursday evening at 5:15 pm the seriousness of fall arrived.  I watched it coming.  I didn’t know in those few moments that was what I was seeing.  What I noticed after a warm perfect afternoon of no North Dakota wind and warm sunshine was a bank of blue clouds lining up in the west.  I have NEVER seen those exquisite shades of blue in any clouds, in any sky.

I was awestruck as if my heart stopped beating inside of me but rather beat within those clouds in the sky.   Oh, such beauty.

I was sitting on one of my worn chairs on my tiny cement slab outside my apartment door when five minutes later the wind came with chilling gusts.  The temperature dropped 10 degrees instantly and kept going down, down.

I am not surprised by fall but I am dismayed by it.  My life changed that instantly, as well.  What lies ahead of me from now until at least March is one series of hardships after another one as far as I am concerned.

Light vanishes from both ends of day at a rapid pace only beat in its rush by the nasty winds.  Yes, they belong to and on and over these great plains.  It is I who does not really belong here.  I recognize that.  Yet here I am with another lease signed in this city apartment until my 64th birthday next August 31, 2015.  This is where I need to be, for some reasons I understand but mostly for reasons I don’t.

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All the words I write in my posts feel to be more like punctuation marks with the actual sentences missing.  I cannot possibly keep up with all my thoughts and feelings.  They come like Tsunamis.  They follow me around like gaunt shadows.  The ensnare me if I let them.  So I am always on the run inside.  Always on the run.

But once in a while I stop by here.  Right now because two hours ago I completed what will be my last drumming lesson — possibly for the next five months until spring arrives.

I feel sad.  I feel sad the loss of these lessons in the here and now and sad for all that was taken from me as a child.  Everything I ever wanted.  Snatched.  Gone.  Intentionally so by my abuser.  I work to separate those sadnesses……

How much of the lesson-letting-go is MY CHOICE right now?  I won’t go into those details, those sentences for which these words are their end-dots.

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Jango radio has been a total miserable disappointing mess for me lately.  There may be a new compatibility issue with my Google Chrome browser but I don’t want to mess with adding Firefox or Mosilla just to straighten out that mess.  So I just switched back to Pandora online free radio because I need — ROCK’N’ROLL!!!!

I can’t play it LOUD in this dinky place (apartment) but when I am ready I will get myself a 50′ cord system going so I can walk around this place with my excellent headphones on when the baby isn’t here.  (As it is there’s so little space to walk in here let alone walk around together let alone walk around some CORD for heaven’s sake!)

I have barely been afford those lessons on my low fixed disability income.  Since March.  Every Saturday at 4:30 I have walked my mile and there I be.  Perched.  Drumming, or trying to, along with my so-good teacher.  How to get there without a car in the horrible winter chill and winds?

My anxiety is too busy to let me deal with figuring out the city bus schedule and stops.  My anxiety is just plain too dang busy, period!!  Good ‘ole PTSD!!  Where would I be without you?  (Another writing here alluded to with punctuation-words.  Sometimes their are oceans signified only by the smallest pieces of sand.)

Music says it better.

Rhythm says it best.  In my world.

I am on my own now.  I can do this.  I have plenty to practice.  After all, I have to turn those notes on these pages into INSTINCT.  I need CONFIDENCE so when I eventually get back to lessons — when spring comes — having hopefully saved enough from not paying lesson fees to make a big dent in the purchase price of a Vdrum (electronic drum) set I want to buy — I will not be nearly paralyzed by my “performance anxiety” that makes it so DAMN difficult for me to drum in the room with my teacher!

How dumb is THAT??  Four sticks, one tiny pad, one tiny room, me feeling about 2″ tall and couldn’t-be-clumsier ….

Or more afraid.

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I also have a long North Dakota winter to practice focusing on what I have rather than what I don’t have.  I don’t say that tritely.  In reading Dr. Bruce Perry’s book, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog — and I am making slow, painful progress through the book —  I found the reason I can’t even drive since I moved here from Arizona last year.  TOO MUCH CHANGE!!!  TOO MUCH has changed.  Nothing is familiar.  And in my traumatized body-brain this is something I cannot fix.  I am overloaded.  I am on overload.

I cannot drive…..  I am trapped …….  and on it goes……  and then there’s music.

And maybe down the road — not too far — I can get my spunk back.  I can’t think of any other time in my life when my spunk was gone.  I will drum it back.  I will drum and drum and DRUM it back!

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Now.  The sentence writing and then erasing has begun……  Nothing left for now from here but the dots………..

But to eat buffalo burger and dig my winter clothing out.  Believe me.  I need a LOT of both.

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Click to listen with great links at the side

Drummer Kenny Aronoff – AWESOME Drumming!

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  Click here to view or purchase –

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are welcome.

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