A contact on flickr, Charlotte Augusta, sent me an email that said that I’d been tagged for the 16 Things group, explaining “. . . this means you have to post a picture and tell us 16 random facts about yourself. Then tag 16 other people.” Because she’s such a great person, I have tried to write it and quite enjoyed doing so, but the perfectionist in my is hurting (LOL) from the thought of writing a definitive 16. As for tagging, I hate being so forward so I’ll save that for the end of this post. – Melody
16 RANDOM FACTS ABOUT ME
1.When I was not even two years old, I nearly choked to death on a peanut. We were in Papua New Guinea in the late 60’s and medical services were good, but through a series of inconceivable and unforeseeable events (what some might call coincidences, but what I would call miracles) my life was saved. I spent about two months in the hospital and I lived when I “should have” died.
Though I have struggled with a low self-esteem and dark moods all my life, for some reason I have always carried with me the belief that I would accomplish something great and noble with my life; that my life was saved for a reason.
I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble. – Helen Keller
I do not know if this great thing has been accomplished, but I don’t think so. And I continue with the daily tasks of loving and nurturing my children, creating beauty, and hopefully growing into the person that might one day accomplish these things.
2.The ocean renews me. But I don’t think I could ever live by the ocean or the magic might stop.
3.When I was young, I wanted to be a jungle pilot and an artist. And a writer. I kept journals from when I was very young, but in my late twenties in a rash act of extreme foolishness, trying to “start over” , I threw them all away. My heart still hurts when I think if it.
4.I have always wanted to have the super power of Invisibility.
5.I am very shy, but you will find me to be extremely friendly if you work hard enough to get past my “aloofness.” I also suffer from social anxiety but I manage it so that you would not know it if you met me.
6. I’d like to live somewhere warm and rural, somewhere in Europe or New Zealand or, I’m not picky, Montana. I love Montana.
7.I cannot cry, although as a child I cried uncontrollably with just a stern look from my father. But today he is gone and I cannot cry. It’s not that I don’t feel sorrow or extreme emotion, I do. But that mechanism of crying, cathartic as it may be, is broken.
8.I love books, which for some reason represent home, familiarity, love, knowledge, affection, history, and belonging. I could spend hours in a bookstore, used or new, but my preference being old, used and the best is in my possession.
9.I have a freakishly weird obsession with education, brilliance and general genius. I like smart people and I hate to be around stupid people. And I know that’s horrible, superficial, and mean, but it was the one thing my dad really, really admired in people. It was around 2nd/3rd grade that I decided I was stupid.
10.I have no, I mean no sense of direction.
11.I played the piano for nine years (age 6-15) and I should never have given it up. I love to sing, have done it all my life, and try to keep it in my life somehow. I love Opera and world music, other genres pale comparatively. Music gives me life. The Cowboy Junkies Trinity Sessions got me through three natural childbirths with no medication.
12.I like the idea of being a vegetarian; the idea of lowering my cholesterol and weight, but then I smell a New York Strip or a burger and I forget all that.
13.I love to sleep. For a melancholy type sleep is a relief.
14.My husband saved my life – emotionally he’s solid and so beautiful. And twice, he saved my life, literally.
15. I never enjoyed eating before I met my husband Tom. I never ate for pleasure. Although I am now 30 pounds heavier than when we met, I think learning to experience pleasure is worth it.
16.I like to say I’m a cynic and a skeptic, but honestly I am loyal to a fault though I don’t automatically trust anyone.
I just have one thing left to say if you’ve read this far, thank you. You should try writing this list, it’s hard but you will learn a few things about yourself as you see where your mind darts to in the process!!!
If you’re on flickr,: “Tag. You’re it.“
Logic & Imagination 
9. I feel the same way: that admiration, almost lust, for braininess. Only, I decided when I was in Junior High that I wanted to be the smartest person anyone I knew knew. Even more shallow and as much of a big fat lie as your thinking you were (are?) stupid! I don’t have the mental discipline to come even close, even if the raw materials were pretty good–as Mary Fisher once said to me, “You are a borderline dilettante.” (I hope I haven’t ever fallen over into “full-blown dilettante”, actually, but I can’t be sure.)
10. I married a smart guy who makes good money which allows me to mostly stay home and to still honestly say, “I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up” (except, somewhere in the deepest part of me, the smartest person in the room). Funny thing is, I’m taking GRAPHIC DESIGN classes–so far away from anything I ever thought that I would be (missionary, Bible translator, linguistics professor, author, literary critic, public speaker…I digress). I like graphic design, but I could also easily live without it. Easily. Which is why I don’t think it’s what I want to be when I grow up.
Being a mom, a really great mom when my kids were preschoolers, is the closest I’ve come to fulfilling that yearning to know what I was meant to do. I’m more than a little sad, now that my kids are 7 and 10, that I didn’t just embrace that calling and have more when it would have made more “sense”. Now I’m almost 40, have no baby or even toddler stuff around the house, have moved on to the next stage of life, have a husband who is “done”, etc., and I am left with this feeling that being the mother of preschoolers is what I was meant to do. Foster mom? Adoption? Maybe. Or just accepting that those days are over and moving on. *shrugs*
In case you can’t tell, I enjoyed reading your list and it pushed a lot of buttons for me, as well as helping me know you better.
Thanks for your vulnerability.
I’m “brightlywoven” on Flickr, if you ever want to look me up or friend me. No photo art (but Tom’s), but a lot of pics of who I am now.
Meg
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