The original intention of the Relighting Us website was to provide a venue for a therapeutic approach to overcoming the heartache of a loss. Specifically, a spouse, or a close person. It centers on the therapeutic use of restoring, in story form, fulfillment that took place in the past.
It is metaphorically expressed as light. Light that shone on past episodes of happiness, and showing how writing about them could restore some of their moments. My writing has succeeded in doing so on a personal scale, and I felt a desire to share its benefits with whoever might be similarly affected.
As I moved deeper into its development, I became aware of its becoming an expanding process, and as such, is still evolving. The key word here is process.
Writing in itself is a process. A process that, when employed, exercises the brain in a similar way as to the body. It rejuvenates and expands the operating components. The brain, in turn, sends its rejuvenating message to the heart, and in so doing, helps it heal.
I am not yet healed, but am definitely improving. In the process I am beginning to expand my improvements. I am beginning to better understand who I am. Specifically, to get a better grip on my humanity. To learn to accept what had previously been ignored or not accepted. All in all, a transformation.
Going back to where I have been helps me take another look at the gifts and help I have been given. To acknowledge my assets and liabilities, and to work toward finding an enjoyable balance. To put it simply, to make the best of what I have been given. In that sense, writing puts the ball in my court, and helps me see the best ways to play it back.
That last statement is a complete metaphor. Writing helps get a grip on metaphors and how they can be employed. They are the clues we are given to better understand who, what, and how we are. They are made of words. They are the components of our stories. In that sense we are all metaphors.
But, metaphors who can be self-improved with truth and effort. Not self-defined as in self-serving venues, showing only what is wishful, but self-revealed as in writing. Our stories are us, plain and simple. The plainer and simpler we can make them, the better we can become.
The material of their composition can be found in our memories. Relighting Us is a process designed for our self-improvement. Restoring the gifts of good that exist in our memories, shines the light of truth on our own unique contributions. Contributions, when shared, shine even more light.
Good does not grow from the fog of self-importance, it grows from clarity of self-understanding. That understanding includes warts, as well as, clean clothes. It grows from a clarifying grasp of true importance, and unintended errors. Fog is blinding. Clarity is revealing. Simply put: Clarity is the key to understanding.
Understanding must be acceptable. Laughter is recognition of humanity and a key to accepting. Laughing at unintended mistakes is a human remedy. It is medicine in that sense. The need for inspiring Laughter led me to the accommodation of another website: Seniors Ink. It was already in place. My daughter had created it as a venue for another story writer.
Seniors Ink seemed to me to be an appropriate parallel venue to Relighting Us in the sense that it could comfortably be a venue for stories of Laughter. I could see it in that light, more than in a venue completely dedicated to overcoming the loss of a spouse or close person. Further, there were many stories that, if shared on both venues, could be better ways to encourage development of expressions of who we truly are.
Who we truly are takes a long period of discovery and evaluation. Many people travel through life entirely clueless. Never experiencing the joy that comes from that revelation and understanding.
I am testimony. It took a long time, but I am getting there. Going back and recollecting the vaguely understood truths has been like putting dirty clothes in a washing machine. They come out cleaner, and I can enjoy wearing them. My mission in offering these venues is to invite you into the laundromat and we can have a beer together, while our clothes are being washed.
s earlier mentioned, the Shaggy Dog Stories are the primary set of my memoirs in metaphor. They are me seen through two different lenses. My stories are not fancy garments. In fact they are rather simple, and sometimes, crude. Reality is not always nice. Crude is a cousin to real, and a vocal opponent of hypocrisy.
Skibootch is a simple character, and reality sticks out all over him. The two dogs that discuss his antics. They get at my own perceived notion of who I really am. They fill in all the cracks in an attitude toward life that reflects my view of seeing life as a joke.
A joke you say! Not very serious is it? Some people would frown on such a statement. Might even be outraged, or at least horrified. Unfortunately, some people have only one set of lenses in their glasses, and their vision is limited to what those lenses can find in focus. Seeing life as a joke enables one to frame all of its happenings in metaphor. Comedians and Cartoonists have been doing it for centuries. All the way back to times when kings employed court jesters.
Furthermore our other senses are limited. So, I have chosen two dogs to provide their superior senses to view and report on what life is all about. In particular – mine.
So, why should you care what my life was all about? By itself, probably not at all, but I find it my duty to present it as a model of what not to do. In that context, it has some value. It can be put into a recycling process that can extract what good has been found, employ it, and use the rest for fertilizer. That process is mostly what all these stories are all about.
They evolved from my being gifted with a total of nine disguised angels who watched over me during some terribly difficult times. There were other angelic visits, as well. I will insert them as they become appropriate. During my childhood and teens, our family had six male Collie dogs, each named Rowdy. In retrospect, I am better able to understand their influence and guidance than I was when it was all happening. In their honor, I am naming one of my narrators and observers – Mollie.
Mollie rhymes with Collie, so it is an easy name to use. The only problem, my Collie dogs were all male. My compensatory reaction was to name my other angelic narrator Shaggy and present her in gender as a male. Shaggy was actually inspired by a most intelligent and physically adroit dog named Pokie. Pokie was a female, and she lived an unbelievable 17 years. She is represented as Shaggy. Shaggy is my primary narrator. Pokie had the smarts way over any other dog I had ever observed. I wrote a separate story titled: Pokie the Wonderdog, and it is posted on both the Seniors Ink and Relighting Us websites. Finally, all our Collies were purebred with Kennel Club papers. Not Pokie, she was mostly Black Lab mixed with unknown other breeds. I don’t know if there is any message there, but I like to think so. She, of mixed ancestry, was so smart. Other dogs were OK, kind, loyal, and protective, as was she, but she was by far, the smartest.
Other authors have used dogs as narrators, so I cannot claim I am doing anything unique on that score. My sense is that, they too, could see where a lot of true wisdom was stashed in those four legged angels. We always picture angels in human form, with a couple of ornate, but somewhat flightless looking wings protruding from their shoulder blades. You know, when birds are not using their wings, they fold up neatly into their bodies. Much more natural. I like natural. It’s like metaphor, it’s there but people mostly don’t fully take in what it does.
Dogs, like birds, have sleek natural looks, and some interesting communication and sensory abilities – again natural. Let me cite a few.
Barking; tail wagging; sniffing (especially when meeting someone new); hearing; demonstrable affection; manners; obedience; family loyalty; gratitude; and many more, including faithful returning of cast away objects. Dogs are there for us. We just don’t get a lot of it. We have little or no appreciation for their roles in our lives.
Well, in the Shaggy Dog Stories, that all changes. In those stories they are the recorders, or if you will – the journalists. They record and attach meaning to what they see. In their own fashion they attempt to quietly intervene as they sense blunders and dangers approaching on the horizon.
They cannot tell us, but they can do a great job of showing. Barking and tail wagging are among their most prominent indicators. Sniffing is a great way to become aware of possible complications. They know when something doesn’t smell right. People can be easily deceived, but dogs do know how to sniff out (I will let you finish the rest).
In our world today, that is one of man’s outstanding shortcomings.