And who are you really?

So I had two seemingly unconnected things come together in my brain to make a blog today. I kind of dig when that happens...

First off this morning I spent a lot of time on Goodreads rating books and I realized two things, first off I "really like" most things I read.  There were only a small handful of books that popped up on the list that I didn't like or even that I sort of liked. For the most part when I saw a book title I thought...Oh! I really liked that one! The second thing I realized is that I spent a lot of time exploring religion and spiritual thought. And for every title that I had read that popped up that came with a recommendation for another book I thought...oh I need to read this!

Okay...leave that thought for awhile and walk with me over here....

I used to have a very distinctive sneeze. Or sneezes I guess I should say. I never sneeze just once it's usually 3 or 4 times in a row. But the sound that used to come out when I sneezed was very distinctive. It was very high pitched and kind of had a lilt at the end. After years and years of being teased about it about 5 or 6 years ago I snapped and decided that that was it! I was changing the way I sneezed! And I did. When I would feel a sneeze coming on I would concentrate very hard on making the sound lower and not doing the lilt at the end. I just wanted to sneeze in peace. I could never change the multiple sneezes in a row but after awhile I finally got to the point where my sneeze was lower in tone and had no lilt and I could do it without thinking so very hard each time I sneezed.

Then this afternoon I was cleaning some things in the garage and thinking over a few things so my body was busy and my brain was busy and I sneezed. High pitched and lilt. Well shit. Isn't that funny? All this time I thought I had changed something pretty fundamental about myself and I hadn't. It was there all along just waiting for me to not pay attention so it could sneak back out. And it made me laugh. And I liked the way it sounded. It's very much my own sound. I've never heard anyone else sneeze like that and I guess I missed being me. Free to sneeze the way I want! Or something like that...

So then I started thinking about things that are just fundamentally me. The things that come out when I'm not paying attention. And I came back around to the Goodreads website. I really like most things I read. It took me YEARS to be able to admit that a book could be bad and that it was okay to put it down without finishing it. And when I do that I don't think about the book again, for the most part. A book really had to make me angry to stick in my head as something I didn't like (Jonathan Franzen I am looking at you here, oh and Justin Cronin, you can come stand next to him for the second half of The Passage) but for the most part the books I remember are the ones I really liked. I don't spend a lot of time dwelling on things I don't like. I just let them slide back out of my head.

And the spiritual searching? Yeah, that's hard wired in to me as well. If you read the background blogs that I referenced in yesterday's post you remember I was baptized in my parent's faith at 6 which is super young for my church. But I understood the rules of that faith and needed to follow them. But then I kept on following things and eventually my path led me right back out of their faith and in to my own. But I have never stopped looking at things. Wondering. Feeling. I love to hear what people believe and why. I can so understand people who feel closer to god when they are in nature. How it speaks to them. You all know how I feel about the ocean.  Well the mountains come a close second to that. Part of that is because I can just let my mind go and be, and feel, and question, and wonder, and marvel.

So what does it all mean? I have no idea. That's another part of me that just is me. I will always look for the thread that ties things together. I will always want to know what else there is going on under the surface. I will really like most things, I will keep looking for the big answers and well....I will sneeze the way I want to.  Deal with it.