Paul Keene's Blog

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The Golden Age of Hollywood Lives

Fun loving bachelor, Auggie Mondo, steps back from the easel to view his street scene painting and bumps into out-going Paris tourist, Nona. The well-known plein air artist catches Nona in his arms before she falls to the ground. Love at first sight strikes. The two marry and return to the Beverly Hills Mondo estate.

Nona is overtaken with happiness when she announces her pregnancy to Auggie. Nona’s joy is dampened by Auggie’s reactions.

Tragedy strikes.

An unknown visitor rings at the Mondo front gate demanding to see her grandpa. Through tears, suspense, and struggles the Mondo inhabitants and spirits face, a story of love unfolds.

How can a father push his son away? What makes a daughter fear a mother who is dead? Can a child sent across the country to a private school at the age of nine forgive his father?

Housekeeper Juanita Lorenzo goes from rags to riches, but a bleak childhood ignites fears of life and love throwing her in a triangle of damaged hearts: housekeeper, father, and son.

While a friend, mother, and wife from the other side works to reunite her husband and son, Juanita discovers that she must mend her own heart before she can find love, joy, and happiness.

 

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We complain and curse taxes openly but push death aside until faced with it. Bring up taxes and you can’t get a word in sideways.  Mention death and the oxygen runs from the room. Is it enough to know that someday you will die, and leave it at that?

Everyone knows they’re going to die: what’s the point?

Accepting that we will die doesn’t lessen the fear and worry that vary among each of us. It’s not about wills, insurances, and funeral services, although having them in place is important. The point is to become at ease with death. Not just at the time of death, but throughout the interim of living.

Address after death beliefs

Knowing what to expect after our last breath eases the fear of dying (thanatophobia) that can cause panic and anxiety. Explore after death opinions. Start with your own opinions and then research the topic. Discuss the topic with others, including spiritualism to agnostics, organized religions from Christian to non-christian. Be open-minded. Read books and accounts of those who have had near death experiences (NDE), and the afterlife.

Create Expectations

The unknown instills fear. Form opinions and fine-tune them. Remember, these are your beliefs, what you expect although no one knows what happens until it takes place. Once you have after death expectations, get back to the joy of living. Embrace the time you have before dying. Your life will reflect the love of living and spread to your family, friends, and others. The ease reflected by your actions when the time comes will be noticed by those left behind, helping them heal.

 

 

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Hope is expressed in music lyrics, poetry, fiction, and the pastor’s sermon. It’s a much-used expression that has different meanings to those doing the hoping:

“I hope Barbara goes to the dance with me if not, I’ll ask Sue."
“Now that I’ve washed the car, I hope it doesn’t rain."
“I hope and pray that they caught the malignancy in time."
“They’re cutting staff and I’m hoping to keep my job until I find another."

Jim Carrey gave a super graduation address. It’s well worth viewing and you won’t regret the twenty some minutes. His take on Hope begins at 24 minutes.

My dad used to say, “To sit on your butt and hope is a waste of time. It’s the action that gets results."

I had said something about hoping to get a good grade on a history test. To put this in perspective, my parents had received a report of missing assignments and sporadic attendance, along with the midterm report of a D- grade. Although it would’ve been a hardship on Mom and Dad I had to turn over the keys to the ’52 Bel Aire.

I loved that car. It motivated me to get my act together for two nights in a row before I turned to hoping and threw in a prayer or two… and scored 53% on the test. I learned that hope without action didn’t work. And I learned to walk back and forth to school and activities.

Hoping is often tied to wishing. I hope this, I wish that… without taking action that brings change.

Hope is the spark that ignites action. Can you live without hope? It would be giving up, living a dismal life–no making the best in the present, no expectations of the future. Never looking forward to a new day.

The overuse of hope has lowered its importance and value. Hoping for safety and protection in times of disaster is more than hoping a Rock Star venue has some good seats left.

Hope combined with prayer to God, the Universe, or the energy that you believe keeps the planets in line is powerful. Should you put hope on a higher pedestal giving it more importance? Does having hope make our lives better, or not?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Please leave a comment below:

 

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We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience ~ Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

 I developed an interest in the paranormal during my college years. Being open to it could’ve increased the awareness of my own experiences. After a divorce, I moved into an old house across from the school where I worked. The first week I was awakened with a slap on my behind at three AM each morning. Then came the footsteps up the basement stairs stopping at the door. Needless to say, my life was turned upside down. Not as severe as Garth Andrews’s life, but enough to plant a story in my head.

The first three books I wrote were a coming of age series that explored a music-talented protagonist’s obsessive compulsive behaviors that led to addictions. A ghost that came with a pawn shop guitar was a strong supporting character, but the supernatural runs the show in Human Experience.

The colorful cast includes a variety of spirits:

ghosts
poltergeist
guardian angels
spirit guides
and more

The notice of divorce not only takes protagonist Garth Andrews by surprise but drives him into a deep depression that clouds the hold unseeable inhabitants of the house have on him. He is torn between protecting his children and fulfilling a selfish lust.


The novel, Human Experience, endorses Pierre Teilhard De Chardin’s belief that we are here to learn from our experiences.





About the Author

Hope, Humor, and the Supernatural

Paul Keene writes literary fiction from his Idaho home near the Swan Falls bird refuge. He enjoys exploring the outdoors, working in the herb garden, and drinking bold coffee while reading on the back deck. The author loves life and enjoys friends, family, and dogs. Humor and gratitude lighten his heart.

Shadows come and go. You turn to look at whoever is staring at you. No one is there. A smell, a scent of perfume, tobacco, or food stirs a memory as it fills the room.

The veil is getting thinner, and thinner. 

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Some think it becomes thinner at Halloween. Others say it has become thinner over the past decade. Then there are those who push spirits aside. “When you take your last breath that’s it–you’re gone, no heaven, no hell,” they say.

 

Others Say

“The smell of chocolate pudding wafts through the house. No one is in the kitchen, but I know mom is here.”

“Someone sits down at the foot of the bed each night. It’s my husband–I smell the Old Spice cologne and love that he watches over me.”

 

How do we know?

It’s great that we do our own thinking and have our own beliefs. That’s the way it should be. I confess that I believe in spirits. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve  not only felt them, I’ve seen a couple. Good thing I wasn’t living in the 1690s.

Seriously, even though we have our own take on the Other Side, Life after Death, or whether or not it exists–how do we know for sure? We can listen to others, attend church, accept what others say and draw our own conclusions, but how do we know if we’re right?

We won’t until it happens.

If we go to heaven, we’ll undoubtedly love it
If hell is as bad as it’s described we’ll probably hate it
If there is no after life, we won’t know and it won’t matter

What do you think? Your opinions are appreciated and are of value.

 

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Garth Andrews moves into a haunted house when his wife files for divorce. The wife goes to Paris, the kids move in, and the family’s life is turned upside down.

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Launch Date September 5  Pre-order Available Now

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Conor Kelman Inside-Out

Free eBook

https://authorpaulkeene.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Books_by_Paul_Keene_480p.mp4

 

Among the Jimson Weeds

Free at your digital store of choice

https://authorpaulkeene.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Among_the_Jimson_Weeds_480p.mp4

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Conor Kelman Inside-Out

Free eBook

https://authorpaulkeene.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Books_by_Paul_Keene_480p.mp4

 

Among the Jimson Weeds

Free at your digital store of choice

https://authorpaulkeene.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Among_the_Jimson_Weeds_480p.mp4

 

https://authorpaulkeene.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Human_Experience_480p-1.mp4

 

 

Anyone blowing out 49 candles on a cake knows that age is in the mind…and back, hips, and down there, too.

The “age is in your mind" and similar nonsense comes from a category of higher education. The awarded degrees, although somewhat different, begin with the B.S. (Bull Shit), followed by the M.S. (More Shit) and Piled Higher and Deeper, Ph.D.

Before we know it, we exchange scotch for green tea, red beef for tofu, coffee for stool softeners, and dirty magazines for cross-word puzzles. Forgive the clichés, but youth really is wasted on the young. The kid using the blower to clear the lawn of autumn leaves, and smacking his hands to turn off the lamp makes me cry. Sits and plays video games when he could’ve been chasing girls–me oh my!

Old age strikes out of nowhere isn’t true. It begins the minute we’re born and creeps up while we’re having too much fun to notice the warning signs.

Help is available. Same as a Big Box hardware store has everything needed to renew the appearance of a weathered house there are shops on every corner loaded with tonics, lotions, and treatments that disguise the wear and tear of old age.

It’s the lie that rubs me the wrong way and gets under my skin (please note the above cliché apology).

Before you send nasty comments, let me say that I support both positive thinking and higher education. Having said this, I avoid stepping in my degrees.

I’m a bit confused where I was going with this, but today is Bingo day at the Senior Center, and I have to find my keys.