MsTiara’s Thoughts

While much in this life is beyond our control, all of us hold the power to choose our friends. We can each be a Nobel prize winner at friendship. None of us are perfect friends always, but one way to think about friendship is in terms of carefulness. Be careful with those you love. And surround yourself with people who are careful with you. A good friend of mine devised a rather taxing standard for love and friendship - and a grim one too - “who would you want to become a refugee with?” If your neighborhood were hit by Hurricane Katrina, or Cyclone Nargis, who would have your back? Look around you today. Your parents have your back, your siblings have your back, your closest friends have your back. Keep it that way. And be sure they know you have theirs.”

Samantha Power, from her commencement speech at Pitzer College

Racing is an interesting world, it is like an insidious virus that just when you think you are cured of it, it comes back and starts to fizzle through your blood. Now, is that fizzle more like champagne that makes you giddy or something that will sap your strength as you run around delirious, I am not sure I am the best person to judge.

I thought I would be happy no longer doing it, that I had all the life experiences and amazing moments in time. But, then you get past eh awkwardness and the next thing you know, your soul kind of expands and sucks it all in and you realize it is a part of you and you are a part of it.

I am not sure whether or not I should thank my friend Dan for reeling me back into the world or find a way to pay him back. But, after going to the Indy 500 this weekend and seeing my friends and feeling the buzz of all that energy and excitement, I am back to wanting to go racing rather than easing off into the sunset.

Thanks?

There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chroniclers mind.

So Long and Thanks for all the Fish

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Dragon and Kitten are all excited, there’s a new baby in the house and that means a new soul pet.

Dragon rolls off the bed and stands next to it while Kitten climbs on his back, they are going to go and visit Cole. Chompoo and Bo’s soul pets said it was okay to visit as long as they are quiet. As Kitten settles onto Dragon’s back, she whispers into his ear, “So what do you think he will be? A tiger like Bo or maybe a Panda like Chompoo?”

Dragon lifts his wings and starts to fly from the room and out into the hallway, “Maybe he’ll be another Dragon for me to play with?”

As they land outside of Chompoo and Bo’s door, Kitten’s whisper floats out into the living room, “That would be fun then he can fly me around the house too.”

The door to the bedroom is slightly open and Kitten reaches out and pushes it open a little wider so that Dragon can tiptoe through it, as the door squeaks, Dragon and Kitten both “shhh” and then giggle as they sneak into the room.

Dragon looks around for the baby and the soul pets, but can’t see them, so he flies lightly into the air and lands at the foot of the bed. Chompoo and Bo are sound asleep, but their soul pets each look up at exactly the same time to see what Dragon and Kitten are up to.

Kitten whispers, “We just want to see Cole and say hi to the new pet.”

“We won’t disturb him” Dragon says.

Chompoo’s soul pet, a beautiful white panda, so very graceful and elegant has the sweetest smile as she nods her head and whispers, “He will enjoy the visitors.”

Bo’s soul pet, a white tiger with black stripes, laughingly says, “I am sure that Cole is waiting in the Dreamlands to go flying, so you may want to hurry up so you can meet him there.”

Dragon and Kitten walk over to the crib and look in. Cole’s sound asleep, but his hand had snuck out of the blankets and was lying on a dark red tiger, with black stripes.

“Oooh, he is pretty” whispers Kitten

Cole’s tiger opens up one eye and yawns really big, showing all of his teeth as he looks up at them.

“And a fierce protector” Dragon nods.

“Hi, welcome to the world.” Dragon and Kitten smile down at him.

The young tiger smiles back up at them, “Thank you. Cole and I are playing in the Dreamlands. He needs to sleep a lot right now, want to meet us there and play?”

“We will be there soon” Dragon smiles at the tiger as he turns around with Kitten on his back and flies back to where Tara is sleeping in the other room. As he lands on the bed, Kitten tumbles off his back and then reaches out and makes sure that the blanket covers Tara and kisses her on the cheek before curling into her neck. Dragon wraps his tail around Tara’s wrist and curls up next to Kitten and closes his eyes for the trip to the Dreamlands.

Dragon loves the journey to the Dreamlands, first you close your eyes to darkness, but then as you relax you fly deep into the clouds till the next thing you know, you are where you were heading (which could be just about anywhere).

Tonight they land in a clearing filled with long grass and lots of butterflies and frogs, bright red, happy frogs. Cole and his tiger are already in the clearing playing with the frogs. As Dragon approaches them, Kitten tumbles out of the sky giggling. Dragon flies up to catch her before she lands on the ground.

The dark red and black tiger looked up at them with serious eyes as he introduces himself. “My name is Tann.”

Dragon and Kitten smile and introduce themselves back, “I am Kitten and this is Dragon.”

“Your names are the same as what you are? Isn’t that strange?” asks Tann.

“Well, kind of I guess. We have REAL names, but we are friends with Sandy who is the Sandman’s soul pet and she always tells us not to give our real names. So we just go by Dragon and Kitten,” Dragon explains.

“Do you think I should do the same thing?” Tann asks

“No, I am sure you are safe, but if we go adventuring with Sandy, you may not want to give your name to anyone we encounter.”

Tann nods solemnly.

Cole is laughing at them and all the pets turn to look at him sitting there and smiling. First is Tann, all dark red with black stripes and black eyes. Standing next to him is Dragon all in purple colors, because he is in a mischievous mood tonight, as Cole watches his scales seemed to shimmer between purple with green and hints of black all shining in the sunlight and his eyes are the color of emeralds. Kitten is lying flat on the grass, smoky blue with a cream star in the middle of her forehead and aqua colored eyes and a smile playing around her mouth.

Cole thinks really hard on the image of flying until all of the butterflies in the area start to flutter around and the world is filled with the magical creatures giggling in the air.

“I think Cole wants to go flying, Can I take him?” Dragon asks

“Oh, I think he would really like that, can I go too?” Tann replies back

“Of course you can” he said as Tann picks Cole up and the two of them climbed onto Dragon’s back.

Kitten is clapping in joy as Dragon makes sure that Cole and Tann are settled in before he starts to move his wings up and down and slowly lift them into the air.

Cole claps his hands and starts to laugh as Dragon leaves the clearing to fly through the Dreamlands.

The Dreamlands are an amazing place, with colors that never can be found in the waking world and everything and anything you can imagine is there. Dragon flies over streams made out of chocolate and lakes filled with fizzy soda where bubbles float from the top of the surface and every time they ‘POP’ a song seems to play. “Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream”. As they pass each place, the different creatures and pets all come out and wave and say hi to Cole and Tann.

As they circle the Bunny Gove, all the Bun Buns are bouncing up and down calling to them as they swoop low over the grove.

“Hi Cole, Hi Tann,” calls out a pure white bunny that is wearing roller skates.

“Come by and bounce with us! We love to play hide and seek!” Sings out from another bunny that has black and white polka dots for fur.

“Dragon, when are you going to take us flying again? We want to play chase,” can be heard from a silvery bunny that keeps on changing shape.

Cole and Tann wave hi to all the Bun Buns and Dragon roars out a greeting, promising them that Kitten and him will come by and play very soon!

Dragon turns from the grove to head toward the ocean. As they get closer to it, they smell coconuts and bananas and the saltiness of the sea and hear the rumbling of the waves.

Dragon flies down and starts to play catch me if you can with the waves at the sea side. The salty spray hits Cole and Tann in the face and they start to laugh in joy at the cool feel of it.

“It tickles”, giggles Tann

A Pirate Ship is anchored off of the beach and the Pirates all stop their sword play to run to the side of the boat where they are flying, they cheer “walk the plank!”

Dragon flies low over the pirate ship, while the pirates show off their sword skills. Up at the top of the ship, a man sits in the crow’s nest with a bright blue parrot on his shoulder. “Polly, say hi to Cole and Tann! Squawk”

On the bridge, the Captain pulls off his pirate hat and throws it into the air. Tann reaches out and catches it and places it on Cole’s head. “Nice Catch! Any time you want to go treasure hunting young Cole, come and join us, you are always welcome aboard my ship. Aye Mateys?”

“Aye Captain!” they call back

Dragon flies away from the pirate ship, low over the ocean towards Mystery Island. The dolphins are swimming along with them, jumping in and out of the ocean, all the colors of a rainbow, dancing through the sea. As they get closer to the island, the merpeople wave from underneath the sea and sing to Cole to come and swim with them and explore the underwater world.

Dragon flies higher into the sky and through the clouds back towards the land. Flying alongside them are Gryphon’s, Phoenix’, and Pegasus and down on the land are Unicorns, Tichakorn Jatubod, and so many creatures you can never truly name them all, all waving from all around them as they fly towards the Sandman’s castle where Dream and Sandy live.

The castle is made out of sand and shimmers in the sun as if it is painted in gold and silver and inlaid with diamonds. It looks like an impossible thing, or something that can only be made out of dreams. High up on one of the towers stands a man with dark black hair and eyes the color of night, and on his shoulder is a star made out of sand. As they fly around the tower, Dream waves them over.

“Welcome Cole and Tann to the Dreamlands, I hope you always feel welcome here. If you ever have a bad dream or a desire to make a dream come true, I hope you will come to me or Sandy. Any friend of Dragon and Kitten is a friend of mine.”

Tann looks at Dream and knows that this is a very powerful man but he feels safe. Cole laughs with joy at the man who has the power to make dreams come true and make impossible things happen. Dream can’t help but give a smile in response to his joy.

Sandy shimmers and forms the symbol for Happiness “khwam sook” as Dream nods, Dragon turns to fly back to the clearing where Kitten is waiting for them.

As they land in the clearing, Kitten runs up and hugs them. A Hongsa comes out to join them from the trees. They all yawn before curling up in the grass with the sun warming them from up above and the butterflies giggling lightly in the wind. Cole is curled up next to Tann with his hand on his fur. Tann murmurs, “What a great adventure.”

As they tumbled into sleep in the Dreamlands, they wake up in their beds back in the house.

At the end of their relationship she asked if they could still remain friends. His face stayed expressionless until he said “No. Because we put friends in boxes. You see them once in a while, or even a lot, but still they have their box in your life, their specific place.Their *category.* That’s one of the great things about being someone’s love– you have no box in their life because you’re part of all their boxes. You’re their friend, their lover, their confidante– all those things. I don’t want to be put in one of your boxes and I don’t want to shrink you to fit into one of mine.”

Kitten is dreaming of clouds and flying and lots of laughter, when she hears a noise outside of the dreamlands. What an irritating noise she thinks, but the bed is so warm and comfy and how can you resist flying in the dreamlands with Dragon? The noise gets more distinct till she can make out words. It’s Astrid mumbling a good morning as she gets out of bed to take a shower. Ah, time to get up. But, I don’t want to wake up. Sometimes the dreamlands are so much more exciting than the human world. Flying, adventuring, exploring and access to anywhere in time and space, there are no limits in the dreamlands. But, Astrid wanted to live in physical form again and to be bound by the limits of the physical world and to be challenged by the experience called Life. Kitten almost didn’t join her this time, but she knew that not being with Astrid through a life time would be bad for both of them.

She worried about her though (okay, when didn’t she worry about her?) Astrid had learned and grown so much in the last lifetime that she couldn’t just give in and be like everyone else in this lifetime. She just wasn’t fitting in and felt lonely.

Kitten tried her hardest to enrich and nourish her soul, but sometimes you needed someone in human form to understand you also, rather than just your soul pet.

She remembered a moment back when Astrid was a little girl in school. She was so sweet and beautiful, blonde hair down to her waist, a perfect face like an angel and those beautiful aqua eyes of a dreamer. Astrid was so smart and everyone would go to her for help on their homework.

“Astrid, can you explain what this means to me?”

“How do you work out this problem?”

“Can you read this for me and help me word it better?”

Over and over people would ask for help all wanting something and pretending to be her friend. Till one day, Astrid actually believed that they all liked her. On Valentine ’s Day, Astrid saved up all her money and bought all her friends flowers. Each period, they would go around and give them out to the students. Everyone would receive theirs, Astrid would watch the guy come into the room, so excited, so shy, thinking her friends got her a flower. But, each time she was not called. I watched her sitting at her desk and while everyone else displayed their white carnations she had none. She would be smiling on the outside and pretending it didn’t matter, but insider her soul was crying. I was curled up inside her soul and over and over again I could feel her pain as she was shown that she was all alone and all those people pretended they were her friends just so they could use her. That she really wasn’t a person that people want for a friend.

I growled at everyone and hissed at the other kids soul pets. But, it didn’t help. That night I curled into her soul as she cried herself to sleep. It made me sad that no one realizes what a beautiful soul she is and how worthy she is of being loved.

As time went on, the two of us have had grand adventures together, flying above the sky in a hot air balloon while drinking tea and eating scones.

Today is dark and grey, a storm is rolling through the city, but I am nice and cozy in the office with the fake yellow lights seeming surreal against the darkness of the day. My true joy would be, to be home at my house in the mountains, watching the storm from the comfort of my bed.

I read an amazing quote from Neil Gaiman today about writing, that the true secret is to just write. Keep on writing and slowly it will all come together and you will have your style solidify, that your voice will start to come.

I have a book of writing exercises for when I am home, but I still think I need to try other things, like tell the story from each pet’s perspective, where each one writes something, kind of like the Tao of Pooh where each one has a distinctive voice and personality.

Hello everyone, welcome to the ramblings from my mind.

In the last 2 ½ years I think I have been home 5-6 weeks total. So many experiences and places I have seen and done, life is an amazing thing. But as you go out and have amazing life experiences, home is still there, waiting for you to come back.

My mom and dad have been amazing; they have been doing so much remodeling for me while I have been gone. New bathroom, floors throughout the house, and dad just finished installing my French doors that overlook my pond and waterfall.

It has been very amusing, me standing in Lowes or Home Depot on the phone with them in Arizona at the same section of the store on the other end of the phone. Designing, deciding and debating with me not seeing the place for over 6 months.

Of course, when I get home, I have SO much work to do. I have boxes to go through, colors to decide on, painting the walls and ceilings and the final decorating touches to make it all come together. Curtains, colors, towels and my closet! Eek! (not thinking about the closet).

I am starting to wonder if 6 weeks is enough time to get it all done?

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

So long, and thanks for all the fish
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