This IS me! I’m staring into space in the fall of 2022. I am seventy-two. I’m small. And tall. I have no clue at all.
“Heaven is a new pair of glasses.” ~ Anne Lamott
With this post, I am starting on the second in the series that started with Giving My Self to the Wind. (2017)
This one will be called: Giving My Self to the Stars
Subtitle: How to BE Life (NOTE: Not DO Life)
“How to Be Alive”
“How to Life”
“Life’s Secrets” Hint: There are none.
This post doesn’t have to do with the Deathlist, My Piano Hands, OR Giving My Self to the Wind. NOPE. It’s about climate change. It just happens that Margaret Atwood is one of my favorite authors, and she gets it.
We must all work together to do this thing… Keep our planet from imploding on itself because of our neglect. But “It’s Not Too Late!” YAY
Okay. That’s it. Be the change. Thanks, Margaret, for supporting our cause.
I play music as I pass through my day.
Sometimes it’s harsh, and sometimes easy-breezy, hooray.
Each day it’s a choice to:
Curate the chords
Making majors from the minors.
Nurture each note and
Relaxing on the rests.
Dive into dissonance
Forcing fortes and frowns.
Invite
Pianissimos seeking peace,
Soft pedals pushed down.
Channel rock ‘n roll?
Relish Rachmaninoff!
Meet Miranda or Mozart.
It’s a joy, it’s an art.
The best news is
The music I play.
Is totally mine,
To make my day my way.
. . .But she doesn’t smell nearly as good!
Death has had all manner of bad press for centuries–even before there were media outlets. History, literature, music, and life are replete with death. It’s not something we can avoid.
But Death has her job to do. Death, a.k.a. Coco, climbs aboard the train of life to complete her mission of passing souls from the Earthly plane to the Metaphysical space. When she enters the train’s passenger cars, she fills the closed spaces with her “aroma.” As we find out in Deathlist, her odor is compliments of God, and it’s a definite turn-off. We want to know why it’s there, and so does Death!
“Why couldn’t I smell like bacon?” she might ask herself rhetorically in a quiet moment.
We all have odors. I mean, I feel like our odors are the mistakes we make. They are the hurts we pass to our fellow humans. And to ourselves. We have things on us that we think we cannot expunge, although we try desperately. Bad habits. Sins, maybe. A divorce! Well, heck. I think we all have those, and yet, we save our friends (and sometimes our enemies), our pets, spouses, and ex-spouses because, in a brave moment, we come above our sins. Maybe we step around them. Or we push them aside, even for a split second, to do something we never expected we could or would do.
And at that moment, we realize that we aren’t so bad after all. We can even hug ourselves or at least pat ourselves on the back.
“Well done!” you say to yourself in the mirror.
AND we need to remember that day for the funky times when all looks lost. Those are the times when the “odor” of unworthiness surrounds us. And we’re in the dumps.
@AustinKleon, in his book Steal Like an Artist, says, “Keep a Praise File.” Collect the pats on the back and the hugs, so you can find them when you’re sad.
In the meantime, chin up. Help a friend in need. Or… heck…save the human race. We’ll be glad! And for you… You’ll smell like bacon!
If you’re old enough, you remember Kermit the Frog’s song, “It’s Not Easy Being Green.” If you’re not old enough, you might look it up, but suffice it to say, it’s not easy being Death! It’s almost as bad as being a dentist. No one wants to see Death or the dentist, and people are afraid of both of them when they shouldn’t be afraid of either one.
Death, who also likes to be called Coco for Coco Chanel, is very tired of being feared and of her job of collecting souls. Here’s the thing. She doesn’t CAUSE death. She only collects souls and helps smooth the path between living and the here-after. PLUS — Death doesn’t send people to their eternities, Heaven or Hell, or wherever they are going to go. But people don’t get that about Death. They think she’s the one doing all the dirty work.
So, that’s why Death has a therapist named Nancy. And when Nancy isn’t available, Death uses retail therapy to get through the roughest days on the job.
She wonders if her therapist is real. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. But then she REALLY wonders if she needs therapy!
How about you? What do you do when you’re feeling blue? Bubble baths? Dancing? TV? What’s your secret escape? Let us know!
Maybe check out the Deathlist book trailer to see more about Death and why she’s tired of her job. AND why she buys so many clothes. No, she won’t bite! If you read the book Deathlist, which is a satire (and pretty heavy on philosophy), you’ll get to meet a pretty goofy God, a bike riding Jesus, and a fashionista Holy Spirit. They’re funny, although sometimes Death questions their idea of funny because they all drive her nuts!
Death plays golf with the Trinity when they’re talking to one another, that is.
The book asks: “WOULD YOU WANT TO KNOW WHEN YOU’RE GOING TO DIE?” Because that’s what the Deathlist will tell you. Take the survey here.
I’m often asked, “What was the inspiration for this novel?”
Well, pretty often. Um, so. Hmmm. Okay. I’m telling you now that you’ve asked. Thanks! 🙂
Here’s my ANSWER: Every time I saw someone on the news or heard of a person dying that seemed especially odd (like a child, for gosh sakes, or someone sitting on a bench eating a sandwich and a tree fell on them, maybe), I began to form a theory that everyone had a specified death date. Death was not by chance, happenstance, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. God had it planned out. He kept track of it in a big database, which someone or other dubbed the Deathlist.
I still believe there might be one somewhere. How do you explain those little times when you were two seconds behind that huge traffic accident? Or, okay, on a morbid but equally mysterious level, why do some suicide attempts not work? Without bogging down my explanation with statistics, we can all report anecdotal evidence of failed suicides.
Then imagine that humans were somehow allowed to know what their death date was. That was the germ of the book.
I could know how much time I had to finish and publish the Deathlist. Write a how-to book about anything. (I’m not sure, but I buy a lot of those fix-me-please books, so I think I should write one!)
When is death? I would like to tell my fanbase that I am able to answer this question for you. It’s THE question, and I AM DEATH. I should know.
On my side, when I pick up a soul, that usually means a person’s sentient mind and corporeal body are no longer connected. More importantly, the “spirit” has been separated, and that essence is what flows to its next existence. Your IS and your IS NOT co-exist in a non-existent in-betweenness that some people call Heaven, some call Hell, and some call Limbo.
Some people don’t call it anything. And some people say those places exist not after life but during life. They think that the really terrible stuff that happens to them is “Hell” and that the sweet, happy stuff is Heaven.
Let me tell you this: In Heaven, we have several beautiful golf courses, a free gym with lots of machines, jacuzzis, and lovely fluffy towels. And the best part is that you get to meet a lot of the people you’ve admired over your lifetime. Sorry to say that the people you admired most, however, may not have made it to Heaven. We do have standards. You know. Too many sins and you go to the other place.
I’m going to say this about death. It’s not the end. You can quote me. Because you won’t know if I’m telling the truth until, well, until, you’re gone. In the meantime, read DEATHLIST. You’ll get to hear more about Heaven, Hell, death, and me, Death, a.k.a. “Coco.”
Here’s the thing. The novel Deathlist is a satire, in the same way, that George Orwell’s Animal Farm was a satire. Satire is “penetrating wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly. Orwell’s satire took the form of his effort, “to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole.” [Wikipedia] In the case of Deathlist, I tried to fuse life’s purpose and artistic purpose into one whole.
The Deathlist is God’s way to keep his mind free to do other things. Keeping track of everyone’s birth and death dates is a huge chore that not even God likes to do. When the Deathlist gets released to the people of Earth, humans have a chance at achieving their life’s purpose with more urgency if they know when they will die. That was my original idea for writing the book. I wanted that urgency in my life.
The book started out with an entirely different main character, and he (a young man) was a mortal and found the Deathlist, and at the same time, there was another older man and his wife who also knew the Deathlist existed. Alas, that story (I really liked it) was taken over by the vain and gorgeous Death, so much so that the entire book changed from science fiction/fantasy to visionary & metaphysical/satire.
In some ways, the final scenes of Deathlist mimic the end of Animal Farm in that our main character Death is betrayed by the Trinity. However, unlike Animal Farm, the novel Deathlist is not as depressing an ending. Death learns quite a bit about herself during the course of the action, while the reader will have some pretty important questions to ask of themselves as well. Most importantly, it’s this one:
“Would you want to know when you’re going to die?”
You can answer the question in our survey here.
As a literary device or artistic form, an “allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory throughout history in all forms of art to illustrate or convey complex ideas.” [Wikipedia]
The character Death conveys vanity, selfishness, and a host of other “deadly sins” (Did I say that? Yes, I guess I did.) But her character represents some aspects of hope, love, trust, and loyalty, too. SO. I hope you read Deathlist, take the survey, and let me know what you think of it!
Also, Deathlist is funny, but its messages are not. That’s kind of what satire is all about, I think.
Well, the Trinity is off playing golf while you and I are working. So let’s go back to work.
As a business writer, I write about accounting, taxes, marketing, sales, inventory, construction, real estate, and other interesting topics. Everyone once in a while I get to write about someone who is doing something to help people. In my article “Finding Freedom — Five Steps When Applying for a Green Card” for National Business Post, I got to write about someone who helps people attain Legal Permanent Residency in the United States.
The man is Chris M. Ingram and he is an immigration attorney who is himself a Legal Permanent Resident in the United States. He’s spent the last 20 years of his life helping others to find the freedom to work and stay here. Other work visas are temporary. The Green Card, which grants legal permanent residency, is the “gold standard” in work visas, and the only higher level is citizenship. People born in the U.S. are lucky. Others, many of whom we see at our borders, are clamoring to be a part of the promised land. It reminds me how lucky we are.
I like writing about interest rates. Trust and probate homes. Cybersecurity and banking are fun topics. But a person like Chris M. Ingram is a real treat. His website, with pages and pages of videos, tutorials, and definitions shows his passion and desire to help his fellow immigrant.
Thanks, Chris!