I Thought You Were Different

I remember this very well so it must be significant. I was at a college party where there was lots of music, pot and clicks. I can't say I felt entirely comfortable there. I sat down and started talking to some guests at the party and we formed a little circle. I think they felt as uncomfortable as I did at the seemingly entertaining milieu of the place, when really there wasn't anything interesting going on. I just wanted to talk to people who weren't just trying to look cool and for a brief moment, I found them. As the party progressed, I did something quite stupid, as we sometimes do when we are young. Then someone who I barely knew, someone who I just met at that party said to me, "I thought you were different."

It was a passing comment, something someone I can't even remember said in the middle of a very complicated night but I remember that most of all. I never took the time to ask myself why this was so significant until now. I remember feeling quite offended. Who was he to say he thought he knew me? He talked to me for maybe fifteen minutes at the most? I can't even remember what he had talked about, what his name was or what he looked like but I remember him saying that he thought I was different.

So today I'm wondering if a stranger could really "know" a person as he said he did. And who are we to say we are different? We are all special, yes, just like everyone else. Maybe I didn't want to be different or maybe I did. I never understood people who wanted to be like everyone else. I recall a line in a movie where the hero said that he just wanted to be like everyone else and the love interest said, "so you want to be petty and dishonest?"

Or perhaps what really got me was that this man who barely knew me turned out to be wrong. I did something to disappoint him. I wasn't different after all. How horrible is that? I was very embarrassed about what happened at that party but looking back, I doubt anyone really cared, except maybe for a good reason to gossip. Yet here was someone who barely knew me that I managed to disappoint. Could a perfect stranger care in this deep of a level? Maybe I care what people think of me after all. I thought I didn't. I didn't care what people thought because most people just want to judge or gossip but here was someone who thought I was different, who had expectations of me. He wasn't a parent or a teacher or any other authority figure, yet he had expectations. Why? Even now, as I use this subject as a thesis and as a focus of contemplation, I still don't get it.

I was raised to be very independent and growing up, I did everything on my own. I never thought it noble to care what other people thought. I have always had that John Wayne, cowboy, Wolverine mindset. Raw individuality always became me and its only now that I have a family, a business and a career that I see the importance of other people in our lives. Perhaps this is why I'm reflecting on what happened. Maybe its time for me to look back and see how my more mature self views what this young man said so long ago.

Maybe it does matter when someone sees something special in us. Maybe other people's expectations can make a difference. Maybe, looking back, I did get help along the way although I thought myself so independent. While I followed my heart, struck out on my own, payed my way through school and lived the dream, there were some people who encouraged me. There was my high school acting teacher who simply told me I was a genius. My high school English teacher told me I marched to my own drum. My boss who hired me even though most kids who were bum poor, paying their way through school dropped out and moved back home within a few months. When I told him I was having a hard time reaching some merchandise on the top shelf of the stock room, he simply said, "I don't think there's anything you can't do." I didn't care much for my boss, but I'll never forget that he said that. I remember when someone says that I am the person I want to be and I guess it does mean something now, when my clients tell me I've changed them for the better. So, when I disappointed this young stranger at a party, I guess I never forgot that either. Truth is, I disappointed myself. I am different... but we are not our mistakes. We are who ever we want ourselves to be and we have to keep reminding ourselves of this.

My Neighbors Don't Make Love No More, and other poems

I spend a lot of time going from place to place and sometimes I have a moment to write a quick poem here and there. Here are a few, some comical, some philosophical, others reflective.

My neighbors don't make love no more.
Can't hear them moan beyond the door.
Or the rattling of their rusty bed,
Sending daydream pornos through my head.
They're still together.
Maybe its the weather.
I see them cross the veranda as they walk.
I sometimes even see them talk.
But why do they make love no more?
Why don't I ever hear her roar?
Across the thin, earthquake proof walls,
Across the wooden apartment stalls.
I don't know what to say.
I do hope they're okay.
Or maybe its just all in my head.
Perhaps they simply moved the bed.
--Lacey Reah

And for something completely different and more Zen-like:

Nothing is permanent
Nothing temporary
We are made of the same stuff
Ever changing
Never dying
Always striving, shining, crying
--Lacey Reah

I was pretty stressed and busy. Then I had a minute between gigs and wrote this on a notepad:

Babes and teens
Bosses and dollars
people and the masks they wear
Juggling clients
Just trying to get there
Cars and buildings
Pollution in the big city
With a palm tree
Here and there
Life happens
but the birds keep cawing
And vermin scatter
From here to there
We adapt somehow
To the crowds and noise
To the daily stress
We think will drive us insane
My thirty second vacation
A bird on a branch
The sky above me
And the gentle relief
When I hear you laugh
A soothing balm to my pain
--Lacey Reah

A quick observation I made, I do hate seeing my single friends struggle every year around the same time:

Today is Friday the 13
Tomorrow Valentines Day
I watch in awe
As my single friends
Grow more and more
Psycho
--Lacey Reah

Giving credit to my best friend:

Oh diary, my diary
my ode to you
Friends come and go 
But you remain true
--Lacey Reah

What Will the Modern Faerie Tale Be?

The original Grimm's fairy tales were Grim indeed and highly criticized for their far too adult nature. Snow White was raped by the seven dwarfs. Sleeping beauty was penetrated by the prince and gave birth in her sleep, then she was deceived and tortured by the Prince's real wife.

In the original novel, "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame," which I read when I was in high school, Esmarelda is hanged. Her love interest is already betrothed to another woman and he ends up marrying someone else. Again, the beautiful Ingenue is doomed.

In Hans Christian Anderson's "A Little Mermaid," the mermaid loses. The prince marries someone else and because she refuses to kill him, as the sea witch demands in exchange for her life, the Little Mermaid dissolves into the air.

None of these heroine's live happily ever after. The lesson to young women seemed to be that life is harsh. Love hurts and you don't always get the man you love. Many of Grimm's fairy tales showed the cruelty of men and wolves and how girls who journey outside the comfort of their homes have nothing but hardship ahead of them.

The 20th century ushered in a new age where these fairy tales were softened in order to relieve children from nightmares and inspire them to a gentler type of magic where the lines between good and evil became clearer. The Princes all became charming and nice. It was the age of being a gentleman and young girls would dream of how prince charming would  rescue them from a world of cruelty.

Yet, what gets me about this era is how the heroines still needed a man to save them from their miserable situations and this ushered in a generation of women who, though they wouldn't always accept abuse as the way of the world, they did have a new version of romance. These girls were led to believe that they couldn't be happy until they found that perfect man. That  man would be a prince, already well to do and perfect in every other way. She will be looking for this ideal in a man, expecting him to sweep her off her feet and save her from whatever kind of life she wanted to walk away from. Snow white, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella were helpless without their prince but he would eventually reward them for being kind, submissive and gentle. As long as they didn't ruffle anyone else's feathers, they would be rewarded by a man who would rescue them because they were "nice."

One of the last great renditions of a fairie tale from this era was Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" which was released in 1991, near the end of the millennium. This movie shows us one of the best renditions of Stockholm syndrome I've ever seen. Bell's father is kidnapped by a beast but she offers him to take her instead. Although the beast can be cruel, she sees his softer side and falls in love with him. As sweet as this movie was, one can't help thinking, is Disney saying that its romantic to fall in love with one's kidnapper?

I look at the 20th century as a time when women were expected to be submissive and unable to solve their own problems without waiting for a man to come along. To me Cinderella is the epitome of this ideal. You have a woman who is treated unfairly and abused by her step mother and sisters. She is too "nice" to stand up for herself but is luckly enough to have a fairy Godmother save her so she can find a Prince to marry her. Why can't Cinderella just leave and find a job? Why doesn't she just stand up for herself? Instead, she does what an adult friend once advised me to never do when I was a teenager. She went from the frying pan into the fire. She used a man to get her out of her situation.
The fairy tales of the 20th century seemed to say that women will always be slaves to their situations and nothing without a man in their life.

This helplessness doesn't become apparent until someone from a different generation takes a note of it. Just as people living in today's culture are shocked and offended by the original violent fairy tales of the Brother's Grimm, children of today's generation are starting to find the fairy tales of the 20th century a bit strange. At a time when the bad ass woman is getting all the glory, the classic princesses are losing their appeal.

A while back, I rented the movie, "A Princess Bride," a brilliant classic fairy tale full of sword fights, great dialogue and love. While my son did love the movie, he was frustrated with the princess. "Why is she so weak?" he asked. "Why doesn't she help the man fight that giant rat? Why is she incapable of using that stick?"
This is coming from a boy who's mother studies martial arts and who's role model was Sarah Conner from "The Terminator Saga."

Thank God! I say. We must raise our children with self empowering ideals. Just as men are raised with classic virtues of knighthood, shouldn't women start learning to be strong and be the change they wish to see in the world? Aren't women just as capable as men of changing their circumstance and being heroes? What happens to a woman who depends on a man for everything? What if the man can't do it all? What if the Prince turns out to be a troll? What if he dies? What if her relationships aren't based on real love and respect, but on dependency and desperation? Are we to teach out daughters that their only option is to dwell in darkness until their prince saves them? Are we to live in a society where populations of women are unable to contribute but sit idly by? The ingenues of today's fairy tales are helping to slay the dragons. They have drive, spunk and courage. They don't wait for things to change. They look for solutions. I like to think that today's woman doesn't get her self confidence from feeling "pretty" but from being a total bad ass.

The Dragon

I'm sharing this because there's been a lot of talk about dragons online. There have also been a lot of comparisons between dragons and princesses, princes and knights. I often have a hard time relating to these comparisons because I never saw myself as a princess, prince or knight. I always saw myself as a dragon. I was born in the Chinese sign of the fire dragon and in the east, that is a very lucky and healthy omen. Dragons are not something to be feared, but something to be admired. The following is taken from my spirit animal log which I've been keeping in private. I shared some of my spiritual animal journeys in an earlier post, around the time when I started journeying again. I added some extra thoughts and meditations to the comment section but decided to keep a personal log on my own after that. That blog can be found here:

http://laceyreah.blogspot.com/2014/12/my-shamanic-journey-log-spirit-animals.html

What people connect with spiritually is personal to them so I hope everyone can respect my own spiritual revelations whether they can relate to them or not.

I went into another trance. I felt myself becoming younger and for a moment, I tried to find an older version of me, someone with experience. For a moment, the younger and older me were holding hands but it ended up being the younger me again, as if this is who I am deep inside and who I’d always be but the two still talked to each other as we journeyed downward. I am always reminded in these meditations, that it is the youngest me who is wisest and closest to the source of truth.

When we reached the bottom, there was something there, like a giant, nearly hatched egg, all feathers and ooze. It was breathing and alive but still somewhat dormant. I stepped on it as it took up the entire ground of the tree I had descended. When it woke, it grew into something enormous and I knew I had found my fire dragon. I embraced it as it rose to the sky and brought me wherever I asked, into space and many dimensions.

I asked about a friend who needed guidance and it said that she was a powerful feeler, perhaps an empath like me and she could let her painful emotions destroy her from the inside or she could make the choice to tap into their power and be an outward force in the world.

During our journey, I saw the eagle, raven and wolf but they only played cameo roles. The dragon made it clear that they are me and I am them and that it was everything. I was riding the dragon at first, then it swallowed me and my other spirit animals. Then I realized that I simply was the dragon.

The dragon seemed to say that once I understood that we are all one and once I felt comfortable seeing the universe and all dimensions as all encompassing, then nothing can harm me. All my choices will be correct and I will be all powerful and knowing because I will be free of doubt. I could feel the dragon's mythical and unstoppable power while I embodied its spirit.

Since then I’ve been more accepting of my place in the universe and I’ve learned to trust it more. I’m starting to understand what surrendering to God means. I’m realizing that everything that happens, happens for a reason and I must learn from my experiences and live them out, rather than finding ways to control or change everything (like my dreams of the future) just to test my power.

Suddenly, this Willam Cowper poem comes to mind:

1     God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

2    Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sov’reign will.

3     Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

4     Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

5     His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flow’r.

6     Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.

All the illustrations on this blog are just sketches I did for fun.

On Writing, Courage and Solitude

While visiting relatives in Michigan, I'm happy to learn that there is a serene pond right outside of the complex. Writing by this pond would be my daily ritual if I lived here. Its so still and peaceful at this time. The lake is clear and reflective with only some green algae spotting the view. The ducks play and seem to go about their own business with a particular ease, though one territorial geese hissed at me as I walked by it and its family. There's a little island in the middle of the pond which helps create the feeling of solitude.This could be Walden and I could be Henry David Thoeau. I love that his idea of living life deeply and sucking the marrow out of life is to go to the forest and be by oneself.

To write is a great and brave endeavor. Do not underestimate the courage it takes to sit in solitude and speak the truth, creating universes as a God would, or fight for what one believes in with the mighty use of a pen. The pen and the keyboard can create great cultural shifts and social awareness as did Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin"; predict the future as Jules Verne has done with his science fiction; open the eyes of a generation as Steven Hawking has done with his, "A Brief History of Time"; or overthrow governments as Thomas Paine did with his pamphlet, "Common Sense."

At a time in history where everyone is connected to the web and needs constant attention, it takes courage to find the solitude it takes to create--not to just say, "I will create--" but to actually create something original, something worthy of all the karmic experiences we as individuals have accumulated. It takes courage to have a voice, whether its an inspiring spiritual work, a universe creating peace of fiction, a social commentary or a work of taboo exploration that society would rather we censor. We are speaking our truth and what is alive within us.

It takes courage to read as well. To read something all the way through takes depth and reflection. You have to dive deep and experience someone else's point of view. Its not just a passing glance or an acknowledgement. Its an adventure, and it starts here, with me sitting alone but not feeling lonely. To write, one must be okay with that and even seek it out. And once we do learn to still our  minds and appreciate the little things we never noticed before, all the power of the creative self starts pouring through, a mighty gift to the world.

"The root of the word courage is cor - the Latin word for heart.In one of its earliest forms, the word courage meant 'To speak one's mind by telling all one's heart.' Over time, this definition has changed and today, we typically associate courage with heroic and brave deeds. But in my opinion, this definition fails to recognize the inner strengtha nd level of commitment requjired for us to actually speak honestly and opely abotu who we are and about our experiences--good and bad. S[eaking from our hearts is what I think of as 'ordinary courage'" --Brene Brown

Ghosts, Mediums, Murder, Desire and more FREE STUFF!!!!!

I just want to let everyone know about some free fiction I have published that is available to everyone.

The most recent story is a paranormal romance which is appropriate for general audiences.
SHE TALKS TO GHOSTS is about a young lady who communicates with ghosts better than she communicates with people. One day she is drawn to a beautiful spirit who happens to be undead. But why can't this spirit stay within the confines of its own body, like the other living humans? Why does it seem to be missing a piece? Gina is determined to understand this spirit, who turns out to be more important than she expected.

Follow Gina into a tale of love and loss as she revives memories, heals hearts and helps to balance the elements.

You can read this story for free by clicking HERE
or by copying and pasting this address to your browser window
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/545337

The other story is adult content and is for adults only.

THE CONFESSIONAL is about a priest who's most punctual and sinfully lustful confessor stops coming. When this happens, he's convinced that she was murdered by her sadistic lover. Determined to solve the mystery, his journey into the secret life of this enigmatic woman leads to a tangled web of sex, violence and dark secrets about him and the woman he has always loved.

You can read this story for free by clicking HERE
Or by copying and pasting this address to your browser window:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/473162

If you liked these stories, feel free to purchase my novels on paperback or ebook.
ENLIGHTENED ONES reveals the tangled web of secrets and personal stories of the members of a powerful, brainwashing cult.
Betrayal is not an option

To sample or purchase this book on Smashwords, click HERE

Or by copying and pasting this address to your browser window:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/310996

To sample or purchase this book on Amazon, click HERE

or by copying and pasting this address to your browser window

http://www.amazon.com/Enlightened-Ones-Lacey-Reah/dp/1300483644/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433125536&sr=8-1&keywords=lacey+reah

My other novel is an erotica that is only available for adult audiences.

FIREFLIES is about a calculating, career-driven woman whose perfect world is shattered when she is seduced and transformed by a vampire-like creature called a nymphomite. Linda becomes a beast, feeding off the energy of orgasmic ally-charged blood. Convinced that her humanity has faded away, Linda adapts to her new instincts of hunger and sex. She hunts woman, primarily for their longer and more frequent orgasms, and becomes a master of prolonging and intensifying their pleasure. But she never expected to find a woman like Jesse, and Linda's decision to spare her life instead of feed off her leads to a shocking turn of events that will make Linda question her beast-like identity and the humanity she thought she had lost.

To sample or purchase this book on Smashwords, click HERE
Or by copying and pasting this address to your browser window:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/71952
To sample or purchase this book on Amazon, click HERE
Or by copying and pasting this address to your browser window:
http://www.amazon.com/Fireflies-Lacey-Reah/dp/145028163X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1433124869&sr=8-2&keywords=lacey+reah

Happiness?

Without getting too personal, I’ll just say that I’ve had more changes of fortune this year than I’ve bargained for. I’d like to thank all my friends for their patience and support. Now that the s*%@$ has hit the fan, I’m surprised to find myself actually happy. I’ve been poor before, but still happy with nothing left to lose. I didn’t know I was happy at the time. It’s funny how we don’t realize how much we’ve taken for granted until we look back. Why make those mistakes again? I’ve lost so much on a throw of a dice and a turn of fate. There’s no point in looking back on investments that no longer matter anymore. The past will never come back. It’s like an unrequited love. There’s no point in obsessing over it. It doesn’t care about you.

            I noticed something about us silly humans. When we have time, freedom, and nothing to lose; instead of enjoying our freedom, we worry about having nothing. When we have something to lose, we worry about losing it or how we can get more of it. When we are in a relationship, we complain about how stifling it is. When we are single, instead of enjoying our freedom, we pine over not being in a relationship. We force our kids to grow up and once that happens, we regret they ever did. When on a vacation, we dread going back to work. When we are at work, we wish we were on vacation. All the time we are regretting our past or worried about our future. We fight to keep our status, our jobs and our power. We forget that these things don’t really matter. We even forsake those we love and let the other stuff ruin our moods.

            When your spouse loses his/her job, instead of worrying and nagging him about getting a new one, tell him that you will smother him with as much love as you can while you have him. She’ll get a job eventually and when she does, you’ll be sad that she’ll no longer have time for you. Spend time with your kids when that big deal or your clients cancel. They’ll stop being bad just to get your attention. Take some time to meditate, smell the flowers, watch the sunset and remember what Mary Anne Radmacher said, “that no day is wasted in which a single moment is spent on love”