Bring Back Romantic Friendship

Whatever happened to romantic friendship? It used to be, until about a hundred years ago that friends could show their affection, profess undying love, and look after one another emotionally without anyone so much as twitching a whisker.

Wiki explains romantic friendship this way. In short it's a passionate and usually non-sexual friendship with a physical closeness not seen in western society.

This is missing today. Men can shake hands with one another, but not hold them. Any touching they get is done under the cover of sports and often involves fighting.

It's a  bit better for women, but even them too much physical closeness gets questioned. Consequently they have all but disappeared.

Not entirely, of course. But they have gone underground.

Years ago I did a story for Women's History Month. My subject had been a nurse who had been quite a character. Among other things she was known for physically hauling in people off the street to make sure they got their shots.  She'd died about five years earlier so I couldn't interview her, but I did speak to her friend.

The two women were companions. Close friends, never married, and they'd shared a house until death parted them.  Work took one away from town for long periods of time. When the other retired she would often go up and stay with her friend.

When the one died the other continued going to go each year where they'd wintered and took a large framed photo of her friend along.

I wrote the story not quite sure what to make of their relationship other than knowing it really wasn't my business.  Any local person I discussed it with left a great deal unsaid.

Not long afterward I found the book,  Surpassing The Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women From the Renaissance to the Present, by Lillian Faderman  (Quill, William Morrow, 1981).

This opened a fascinating world for me. I had no idea such relationships existed and it made me look at the Women's History feature I'd written in a new light. I don't know the degree and details of their relationship and neither does it matter. What these two women had together worked for them, met their needs, and harmed no one.

Same sex marriage is legal and we see same sex couples in shows and movies and it is wonderful.  But we also need the middle ground. Friendship as we commonly see it is great, friends hug, occasionally have a passing touch in a conversation or will comfort one another, but that's about it.

I think we need more physical contact. I believe we'd be healthier and happier and feel less alone if we could have friendship where we weren’t concerned with what everyone thinks or feel the need to question our sexuality.

Bring back romantic friendship for all our sakes.

Gratitude Monday - Eyes On The Skies Edition

I'm sorry I haven't been around lately, blogwise. I haven't forgotten about it. I needed a wee break.  I hope to post a bit more regularly in the future, but who knows?
For now I am grateful that I have a blog to write in.

If you've been reading my posts, then you know I've had a few interesting experiences in my life and that I attribute them to extraterrestrials. Give that history you will not be surprised to learn that I have taken the next logical step.
I am a field investigator for MUFON. That is, I investigate UFO sighting reports.

I joined MUFON Canada about a year ago and wondered about becoming an investigator. I got great support from its director emeritus Andre Morin. He answered my questions and gave me unflagging support as I read the manual and wondered if it was for me.
I am grateful to Andre for this.

There's a test to take. It is open book and you can take all the time you need. Open book tests are the hardest, but I passed. There has been additional training and there will be more.

This is volunteer work. We do it in our spare time and I am grateful that I have the time to spare.
It is eye-opening and it is fulfilling. I am grateful that I get to do this.

Eyes on the skies, my friends.

The Appendix Dreams

For most of my life I've dreamt about having my appendix out. I'd be in the hospital prior to the surgery and then it was a day or two later. Sometimes I was still in the hospital, other times I was walking outside of it in the dark of night, and never did I recall what had happened during those days.

Those I got used to. I haven't had one in years and in an odd way I miss them.

But one time when I was 10 the dream changed. Instead of waking up afterward  I woke up on the operating table. I'd only ever been in hospital treatment room once and that was to have a cast put on my leg. That room was tone blue with dark at the bottom half of the walls and lighter blue above this mark. I was awake for that and I recall it fairly well. I remember some lowered lights above me and I tried to sit up to watch the pasted strips being wound around my leg.

In the dream I woke up surrounded by a team of doctors. Their faces were covered from the nose down with surgical masks. They wore dull aquamarine surgical gowns with matching caps that covered most of their foreheads. And I have it in my mind they all wore glasses. I don't recall the exactly what those glasses look like. It's about the only think that I'm not sure of. In my mind they are plain eyeglasses with thick heavy black square frames that cover their eyes  and reach from the surgical mask to the caps. Their eyes are dark. I can see a bit of skin on them. I think it's flat, yellowy brown. I don't recall noticing any hands. There are at least six of them staring down at me on the table. I am surrounded.

The other thing remember is the dullness of the light. Not subdued or dimmed, but dull. The light above me is a dingy, faded yellow such as you might get out of a 30 watt bulb. The room is also dingy, almost dirty, looking.

They all seem tall and thin though I am only 10 and barely five feet tall at the time. Everyone is tall to me. I can't say if they are male or female though I have the sense that the one at the foot of the table is male. That's all I know about the dream because that's all I saw. I went right back to sleep on that table and then it was morning in my own bed.

This stayed with me right from the time I had it. However, I didn't think too much about it other than it was a really odd dream, It wasn't until I read Whitley Strieber's  book Communion in the late 80s which contained a similar description on a ship that I associated it with anything beyond a dream.

Is it a dream? A memory? I honestly can't say for a fact. It is one more item on the list of odd things in my life. Separately, they may not mean much. Together, I believe they are  evidence of ETs in my life.

The Other Side of the Story

 So far I've talked about aliens/ETs, the ones I call my people. Wrapped up in the UFO phenomenon is paranormal activity. Are they related? I can only speak for my life. In that respect, they sure are.

Paranormal can't be explained by conventional means and that means it can't be explained by acceptable means. It's well past time to enlarge what acceptable means can mean.

But that's an argument for later and for better qualified folk to answer. All I've got right now is me and so that's all I can talk about. 

Here's some of my other stuff.

There was this one day in the eighties. I'm in my early 20s living in a high-rise apartment. I've got a job, search clerk in a government office. This is where liens and chattels are registered as well as limited companies. It's boring, but it's work. I'm really a journalist, you see, but the one reporting job I had I hated. It was in the buckle town of the province Bible belt. I lasted less than four months. It didn't help that I didn't have a driver's license.

It made for a dull life. I paid my bills, read, dreamt of being a writer and often wondered what to do with my life. Usual 20s stuff, but with a feeling of inertia.

Then one day in the shower I had this feeling. It came from nowhere. I hadn't been thinking of my future and probably not thinking much more than why did the three step hair shampoo I used had bottles for steps one and three but a small squeeze tube for step two.

The feeling washed over me like the shower was doing, only this feeling came from inside: Everything was going to be all right in my thirties. And I smiled inside. I wasn't a smiler then. I barely knew how to do it, but my mind grinned ear to ear.

The feeling didn't last very long, but the memory never left me. It didn't stay topmost in my mind, but I'd think of it from time to time. But at no point did I ever sit down to figure out how that was going to happen.

Instead I went to work until one day I went travelling with a new friend to Europe. Then I came home after a few months and decided to get back to journalism. I sent out resume after resume to every newpaper in the province I could find and wound up in the south end of the centre. I covered just about everything but sports and loved it. Oh, and I had my driver's license by this time. A few things happened here. In one, on the way back from the interview for that job one sunny Saturday in July as the canola bloomed and waved hot gold against the deep blue sky I saw a unicorn.

I can't prove it, but I know it happened. I was driving up the highway on the way back and out the corner of my eye a large white horse in a field stood out. Or rather, its single dynamic horn jutting skyward caught my eye. My parents were with me. I'd never driven on the big freeway before and only had my license a few months. I wanted the company and they wanted the scenic drive. It all worked out.

Anyway, I didn't mention the unicorn. I kind of regret that. My parents were pretty cool that way. Mom was a bit on the psychic side and read Fate Magazine. Dad always wanted to see aliens and go for a ride. In retrospect, that should have been an indicator.

The there was court. I loved covering Provincial Court.. One learns a great deal and it's passive newsgathering at its best. Anyone, one day a new Crown Prosecutor showed up to handle the day's files. She looked 32. I don't know where I got that, but it struck me as probably her age. She seemed to have it all together. I have no idea if she did or didn't, but she handled herself in the courtroom and certainly gave the appearance of having it together.

So I decided that 32 was going to be the best age for me, and then I remembered again about how things were going got be okay in my thirties.

I worked there 33 months and took another trip to Europe. That's for later. For this, I took the trip, came home to my parent's house,  read the Bible cover to cover, and then decided to get another reporting job.

That one took me to Ft. St.John B.C.

I spent six months there at a daily newspaper. That was fine, but I didn't feel right there. It wasn't for me.

Quit that mess after six months, hung around at my parents house and then realized I'd better get another job. That's how I ended up in the job I stayed at and the town I live in and found the man I married.

By the time I was 32 I was living with my going to be someday husband, had a job I liked in a town I liked and everything felt pretty good.

One night I had one of those dreams. You know, the kind that really aren't dreams at all but you don't quite know the right word so you go with dream and hope for the best.

I was alone, fiancé was away working, it was during the dead hours of the night when I visited me. The me of the 80s high-rise apartment hesitated as she walked into the bedroom. I sat up in bed and made myself as open to younger me as I could. Young me was so shy, withdrawn, hesitant. Then me remembered those feelings so well.

We talked. I have forgotten about what. I remember the red pants and red and white striped shirt younger me wore to the visit. Younger me even had makeup on.

Then me made some comforting reassuring noises to younger me and said everything would be all right as the visit ended. Then me stretched out her arms for a hug that younger me was reluctant to accept. I wasn't a hugger then. I wanted to be, but I didn't know how to do it. Then me understood and hugged younger me while younger me accepted it but did not respond, her arms lifeless at her side.

She left, and then me fell back to sleep immediately, knowing after all these years I'd seen the other side of the story.

Content To Wait?

All my life I've had the feeling I was to do something important. Not so much world-changing, but important nonetheless. I'm just a gearwheel, but what I do matters. 

Accompanying this is the feeling, knowledge really, that the thing I do is after some big world change. I'm not going to speculate on any world changes here. Perhaps it's Edgar Cayces' predicted physical upheaval, it may be restricted to the social landscape. Whatever it is, it will be big and I am here to help afterward.

That's all fine and good, but I also think I need to be doing something until those changes occur. It frustrates me to feel this and have no way to determine what it is.

On the other hand, maybe I should just be content to wait. Maybe I've got some deep-seated suggestion that is triggered by an event. Maybe I wake up to the knowledge I need. Maybe my ET family swings by and activates my memory.

All I can swear to is I've had continuous conscious recollection of this my entire life. Along with it since I was 17 years old I have seen myself on a stage, in front of a closed curtain, speaking publicly. About what I do not know.

For now all I can do is wait and watch and speak publicly via this blog about what I recall, what I've known through feelings, and maybe start a conversation about ETs and world changes, and all the other things we don't talk about.

Taking Stock

I am of extraterrestrial stock.

My parents were human. I'm human, but also alien as near as I can figure it. I've written about it here from time to time, but at no point have I actually said it. That stops today.

I've written about the clown in the barn and how it started as a being who visited me and drew it on the wall in grease pencil. That's how I remember it, and I have continuous conscious recollection of it. That said, it was for my eyes only as the reminder was for me alone. 

She used to visit me often and during those times I was no child. A full- grown adult consciousness took over as we spoke.

We talked of what I am to do here in this life. I don't know what that is, but I do know if I am not open about who and what I am, the heritage I share, then I may never know it.

Are you wondering what my parents would think of this?

My mom would be cool about it as she had some moderate psychic ability and read all the Edgar Cayce materials she could get her hands on. Past lives were her interest.

My dad always wanted to be abducted by aliens and taken for a ride. He was clear he wanted them to bring him back, but a quick trip around the cosmos was on his list.

I asked him once, "Aren't you scared?"

He replied, "What's to be scared of?"

Back to me. I am sure that full-grown adult consciousness is still in here somewhere. I wish it would come back out. I want to know what it knows. It is possible it is simply adult me that through some process of time and space and reality was available to me there.

I have no idea what is going to happen next. For now, it is important to get the matter out on the public record. I am of alien heritage and I look forward to what is next.

Gratitude Monday -- The Magic Cupboard

This morning when I opened the cupboard to get some cooking oil I saw lurking at the back a large container of olives. This was a wonderful vision, and for it I am grateful, but it was an unexpected one. I'd opened the 3L container of Kalamata olives a few weeks ago.
We love these olives. The nearest source for these containers ( 231-260 large olives in each) is Edmonton so we buy three at a time usually and they last us perhaps a year. We stocked up last April so opening the last remaining container recently was no surprise, but I took a second look afterward to make sure.
I moved several containers around to make sure it was the last of its kind and realized, with a pang, that when it was gone we'd have to find a reason to go to the city.
This morning's discovery was the very happiest of surprises, but similar things have happened in the past.

We used to have a magic freezer. I'd think I'd be out of something and then one day, there's be one more of it in with the other frozen foods.
It started about 25 years ago when we got some sauerkraut from Mike's dad in the fall. It was so good that we went through it quickly, probably less than two months.
I craved it and looked several times in the freezer in a case a container had fallen way down to the bottom and gotten covered. I emptied the freezer. I rearranged the contents. Nothing.
Then one day in the following March I went in to get something and there was a container of it, sitting almost on top of the rest of the food.
Oh yes, I was grateful.
Over the next few years similar things happened with that freezer . I dubbed it "The Magic Freezer" and often wondered if I was ever really out of anything.

We had to get a new freezer last spring. I am not sure if the magic has transferred to the new one or not, but if not, then at least it found a new home in the cupboard.