Hissy Fit

I got an email from one of my friends suggesting we do dinner New Year's Eve.  Fine by me.  This girl is good for dining out.  After some discussion a place was chosen and we were good to go.  

Or so I thought.  The more I contemplated it, the more freaked out I got.  Freaked because this requires clothes that I just don't own or want to own.  For the last 25 years I have worked in a research lab where T shirt, jeans and chucks ARE dressed up.  I also own a few things suitable for the opera.  What my wardrobe is all Mother Hubbardy in is business casual.  Yunno trousers, skirts, blouses, heels and hose.  I don't own them and try not to get wrangled into having to go/do something where they would be de rigeur.  This is what is expected in the restaurant we have chosen.  Good Gawd.  WTF am I gonna do now?

So off I went to shop.  

The launch code had ben activated and as I stood in the dressing room trying on entire cargo containers of clothing, I felt myself become increasingly agitated until I was angry and on the verge of tears.  Frustrated with my body.  Pissed off at the clothes.  My mom was amazingly supportive, but that didn't help with things that were just butt ugly or ill-fitting.  The night is supposed to be fun, but the shopping was spoiling it before it even started.  If we could have laughed about it, I would have been OK.  But all I could see was how each piece worked against me.

I called it quits.  

I know the clothes don't change who I am - that person is spectacular.  But dammit just once I would like to have something that makes me feel gorgeous. 

Learn to Know Me By That Name

Every so often it's good to see yourself through someone else's eyes.  I don't know why that is.  But it seems that when we look at ourselves too close in for too long, our eyes get all out of focus and our heads start to spin out funhouse stories of ourselves.  

This afternoon as a change of pace from writing and beating myself up about not writing more.  I have been carving stamps for letterboxing.  A new series based on Narnia.  I am reading an insane amount of CS Lewis right now (not limited to Narnia) and working the pieces gives my brain time to process some of the headier philosophical works.  

I view these stamps as toss offs.  These are just part of my nutjob hobby.  They go into Tupperware or camo duct tape covered bags and live outside.  Some will disappear, chewed up by wild critters or thrown out as trash by well-meaning muggles or noxers (non-boxers) as they are sometimes known.  

I took a break, posted a FB status update and thought why not throw in a photo of the stamps.  What I didn't expect was for someone to call these hobby pieces Art.  Art?  Rreally?  But making Art would have required me to dig out the paints and paper or at least the really cool and smeary drawing pencils I like, which I didn't do.    Art would lead a cushy life lived inside under glass, not thrown into a bush.  

I stopped myself right about there and looked at what I had been saying.  Dismissing this as less than.  YIKES!  Let's back the train up.  Maybe if I stopped thinking about Art and started thinking about art, I would see that most of my life is about making art.   I make art with my words.  I make art with relationships.  Hell I even do a very artsy load of laundry.  And yes, on some days I make art in the form of little rubber stamps that I share with other people just for the thrill of it.

Random thoughts on a random walk in the snow...

Yunno I got my trail.  Haven't been out in it in some time now.  And I can tell too.  Too much couch and not enough boots.  I have been meaning to go for a week, but I am the Mistress of Lame Ass excuses.  Time to correct that little habit.  So out I go.  

Met three new friends out there today - Rusty, Bear and Teetee who barked at me tails wagging.  Which end am I to believe?  In this case the tail end.  Barked at me every time they crossed my path until they smelled my gloves and realized that this two-legged had worshipped them already and moved on.  

I was unwilling to risk the big hills and frozen water bars that were iced over from lots of feet and mountain bikes.  So I settled for those parts I could reasonably traverse which wasn't very much.  Still it took as long to navigate those short pieces as the whole does in summer.  I generally avoided the icy middle and navigated the edges of the trail where the snow still gave me modest traction.  Even so, cautious, because one can never tell what lies just under that unbroken crust of snow.  It is so deceptively innocent and sparkly as if to say I wouldn't hurt a fly, when all the while it hides a hole, slippery leaves or ankle biting rocks.   Gingerly trying each placement and finding it suitable, planting a foot authoritatively thru the crust.  

Using this technique I managed a short set of water bars and a small hill.  I might have dared more if I had not brought the camera.  But I worry about wiping out and breaking this toy it took me two years to acquire.  I am content with today's effort.  Some of the restlessness has been quelled.  It has been enough.

NaSmaStoMo

This idea came across my desk via writer and artiste extraordinaire Barb Black .
What a great thought.

Key to the Castle

I feel stuck.  There I admitted it.  The door behind me is closed and the one coming has yet to open.  Hell maybe it hasn't even been framed yet.  I keep asking for guidance and help from the peeps, but they are just being quiet on this subject.  I have been trying to sit tight and not fly off in any direction just because I feel like I should be doing something.  

Group meditation at Healing Circle, a practice generally used to focus communally on a larger subject, was designed  last night for each participant to look inward for what they needed.  Answers were rich and varied as the people in the circle.  

My vision was of the 3 of Staves in my favorite Tarot deck by Stephanie Pui Mun Law (www.shadowscapes.com).  It is exactly the place that I have been for the last two months.  Standing at the end of the little land bridge and unable to proceed.  I can see the horizon of where I want to go (or think I want to go), but there is no way to get there from where I am. Sometimes I think it's one of those Indiana Jones kinda things where I am supposed to just step out into the void and to find there is more path, I just can't see it.  But I can never do it, can't seem to take what amounts to a leap of faith.  The image is beautiful, but it makes me unnecessarily sad and I wonder why I can't seem to move from there.

THAT seems the right question at last. Growing up we got a letter from a local toy store called Johnny's Toys near our birthday. It contained a small metal key that opened a child-sized door in a child-sized castle in the store and you were allowed to choose one gift, an ingenious marketing ploy. I loved that key. It was the potential for every toy my kid brain could imagine. It was power. It was magic. OK. So I told you that in order for this next piece to make sense. I see my grown up self now standing in front of an adult-sized and more realistic version of Johnny's Birthday Castle. The lights are on inside and they are casting a warm yellow orange light on the linoleum floor.  I press my face to the window and gawk at what I see inside.  The castle is stuffed with the most amazing gifts.  These aren't wrapped and I can clearly see what they are jumbled and stacked in there.  Gripped with a child's greed I want it all!  Happy Twirling Dance.

I come to realize that this castle exists inside me like St. Theresa of Avila's Interior Castle and that those things that I am seeing are for me.  ALL OF THEM.  Happy Dance Part II.  I wonder why don't I have access to them then?  Also an excellent question.  Seems that whole one at a time thing has bit me in the ass.  Yunno.  Get out one toy, play with it, put it away before you get out the next one.  Study one subject at a time.  That for years I have been using the key to open the door and get out one awesomeness, then put it back and retrieve another.  What I really want is to get them all out and spread them across the floor and roll thru them laughing.  I nearly faint from the sheer joy of this thought.  I am suddenly five again gripping my key to the Castle and dreaming of what I might get.  

The only problem with this is that I don't have the key to the castle.  And I think there might be a sizeable obstacle between me and the door.  An obstacle of my own creation made of all the boogeymen I have ever known.  But I'm not concerned about that.  Now that I have seen what's inside I will get in there. 

And once I do, I know that I can stand on that land bridge, hold out my hand and the right tool will appear by magic in it and I will paint, write, sculpt, dance the bridge into existence in front of me one magical step at a time until I get where I need to be.

The Holly and the Crown

One might think that a favorite holiday memory would be something from childhood, some perfect gift. A dog, a bicycle, catching Santa at his work. Oddly the two I am about to share are neither.

My mom was not a cuddle-you-kinda mom. I'm sure she did cuddle us, because none of us turned out a deranged killer. But yunno how some kids are just fiends for crawling into your lap and nesting there? I was one of those kids. My mom not so much. Our family always attended midnight Mass. There is a magic in staying up late when you are little. Magic made all the brighter for snow, clear dark skies, new red velvet dresses and the ethereal voices of the choir in the darkened church. There were five of us and growing up the little ones jockeyed for positions near our Mom, the older ones jockeying the away ones. My happiest Christmas memory is not a gift at all. It is the nights I landed that coveted position next to my mom in her mink coat. (Back before PETA people). I was not allowed her lap, that would wrinkle both her dress and mine. But I was for that night only allowed to nestle beneath her arm in her mink coat. A place that felt safe and warm and silky smooth against my skin.  A place of sleepy Christmas dreams of such innocence.  A place where memories are made. 

I am against the wearing of fur and have been since I saw a video of how the skins were harvested. I understand that for my mom and women of her generation that fur symbolizes a whole other set of things than it does me. I would never wear it, but I will sheepishly admit that I have been known to close my eyes and rub the sleeve of a fur coat against my cheek just to bring back that sense of clear skied awe and snuggled wintry safety.

***************************************************************************

Five of my family members have the deep misfortune of having birthdays Christmas week. Wah wah wah. If you don't like it, well then be smart next time and be born in the summer like folks should. For me the only misfortune is the financial hit of double dip presents and the endless caking that threatens to burst the seams of my jeans. Made one cake worse by my mother's insistence that we celebrate Christmas as Baby Jesus' Birthday. No lie. There was birthday cake and singing which should have been enough to have an omnipotent being take us all out. Proof that Baby Jesus is either benevolent or tone deaf.

I have four brothers all towering over 6 feet. Most carrying a little extra in the midsection like my family is wont to do. My brother Tom has 4 kids - girl, boy, boy girl - two of whom have the dreaded Christmas week birthday. Jackie, the youngest one is the soul of sweetness like youngest children mostly are. She was also the girliest girl - princess, twirly skirts, sparkles, the who shebang. The year she turned four there was a party with relatives from both sides.

At one point in the evening, I wondered where she had gotten off to? I walked down the hall toward her cupboard of a room where the door was ajar. I heard voices from inside. When I peaked my head around the corner I saw a knot of people laying on their stomachs around what looked to be a gameboard. Jackie, aka the birthday girl, had roped her dad and her Uncles Phil and Jeff into a game of Pretty Pretty Princess where you compete for the rhinestone crown.  Jackie's tiny body nearly lost in that sea of dude in her tiny bedroom.  My brother Tom was wearing little plastic clip on earrings (Some things never change brutha), Jackie's Uncle Jeff was wearing a big plastic 'diamond' ring, and my brother Phil was wearing a sparkly bracelet of some kind.

I stuffed my fist in my mouth until I got to the living room where I collapsed in wheezing gales of laughter. When I finally manage to stop, I waved my sister-in-law Cindy and a few others women with me. We crept quietly down the hall and each poked our head around the doorway one above the other like some cheesy 70's sitcom intro. Pretty sure Cindy got off a picture before she fell over on the floor in laughter. At that point none of us could contain the giggles at the sight of all those dudes in their little plastic jewelry.

It is the part that comes next that makes this my favorite memory of the holidays. The guys might have gotten up embarrassed, pulled off the plastic gems and harrumphed their way down the hall, pounding their chests back to whatever sporting event was on the tube. Instead these big dudes lying on the floor turned and gave us dimply princess smiles and little princess waves and went back to the game.

I know my family is fucked up some times. Maybe more than most. Maybe not. I could focus on that fucked upness like I did yesterday. Or I could see those hulking dudes in that cramped room busted by sisters and wives calmly go back to their game with a wave because it is what made one little four year old girl ecstatically happy.  

Just in case your wondering about the title, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the post.  But it is another of my favorite holiday things.  I love Christmas tunage (in moderation and of my own choosing - NO MUSAK!) which is proof that the deity has a sense of humor since I can't sing for shit

Putting the Fun in DysFUNctional

Lots of holiday YIKES going on around me.  I want no truck with that.  But sometimes it creeps up on me and mows me the fuck over.  I can feel it in my body, a certain tightness in the neck and shoulders that is the result of carrying so much on one pair of standard issue woman's shoulders.  Despite their larger than average size, they really don't hold more, which is clearly a case of false advertising if you ask me.  I don't usually feel it until my shoulders are relocated to the vicinity of my ears.  That is my call to action or inaction.

After a couple of days ripe with this foulness, I am taking a break, shrugging off the weight of it all and coming back to a place that is just me.  A place of happy muchness.  I brewed up a lovely cuppa jasmine tea.  Its scent insanely calming and its ability to unwind the tightness oh so welcome.  Breathing in warm spring nights, the radiance of the sun and the seduction of vines heavy with perfumed flowers.  Ahhhh....the shoulders sag to a biologically safe position.  

Now - about the fam.  I love them all, but sometimes I wish it were easier.  Wish that any of my siblings spoke to any of the others.  Wish that I were not the glue that held the pieces together.  Wish I could just not give a flying fuck about any of it and walk away.  Maybe this is just the way of things in Boyworld (Reason # 3542 that Girlworld is superior).  If Santa could deliver even one of those things I would kiss his sleigh-flattened ass.

Things were cohesive once, but like a shattered magnet unable to be reassembled once each piece has established its own polarity.  No amount of trying will make it what it was once.  So this year I am not going to try to do that.  (Really? Why did I ever?  I blame Norman Rockwell and every other holiday image that pollutes my grey matter.)  This year I am accepting each piece AS IS.  No that isn't it.  I think I do that already hence the glue status.  I am going to stop expecting everyone else to accept the AS IS-NESS of the other pieces.  Yes - that's it.  If they can't see the value of something because all they see is the crack, then that's on them.  I see us as we are and let me tell you - we are all fucking cracked!

HoHoHoHoHum

Yeah, it's that time of year again.  Snow, ass-inducing cookies, presents.  You all know the drill.  Some years I get all into it, decorate, bake, shop.  Other years not so much.  This is one of the years of less muchness.  Not quite maximal bah humbuggy, but approaching that asymptote.  No tree, no presents.  

My stocking is up, but I will admit I forgot to take it down last year and decided to leave it up.  I was hoping it would induce gift giving, but sadly no.  I would be happy if it could just pass another day like any other.  If I must endure it, maybe the red dude could tie me up, throw me on his sleigh and drop my ass off in Samoa.  In the very least, he could leave me a Samoan dude as a substitute if the sleigh is too full.  I happen to know for a fact that Troy Polamalu isn't busy this week.  

Dear Santa,

I have been a good person this year (refs on request). Please take me someplace where it's hot, where clothing is minimal, and where round is a friendly shape instead of universally loathed.   I have included a map for your convenience with the destination marked.  Or if you are navigating by GPS South 14º20', West 170º00' should get me close enough for North Pole work.  

You know where the cookies are.  Help yourself.  And please curb the reindeer this year.  

M

Ripping off Wm Carlos Wms

The Red Teakettle

so much depends

upon

a red tea

kettle

wreathed in warm

steam

on top of the white 

stove.

This morning I blew up my teakettle.  By that I mean I boiled water in it for coffee then left it heating with the annoying whistling lid open to add a bit of moisture to a house dry from winter heat.  I do this every morning while the coffee steeps in the French press.  On this morning though, I forgot about both the coffee brewing and the kettle boiling on the stove.  YIKES!  Strong coffee and a tea kettle hopelessly dry.  Enamel fused onto the burner coil.  Spout melted beyond use.  

Thinking about it as I cleaned it up, I had never really liked this kettle.  I got it three and a half years ago when I moved in to my new apartment where everything was renters white.  The kettle I got was white and I still don't understand why the white on white on white felt like it would work for me.  It whistled which I liked, but the note of that whistle was like stepping in a pile of poo every morning.  The rest of the kitchen is tricked out in red metallic or red chromey pieces that break up the tundra of white.  Red trash bin.  Red chrome toaster.  Red metallic flake microwave.  So the tea kettle was always the red herring....or white herring in this case....of the group.  

I quickly realized that no teakettle meant no coffee tomorrow morning.  DEFCON 5.  

So off I went.  I gave the white one a hasty burial in the bin on my way out.  Then off to Home Goods.  I will now admit that I have a kitchen gadget fetish which is just weird as I am prone to tell people that the kitchen is wasted space where a perfectly good hot tub could be.  I could spend hours fiddling around in the kitchen gadget section of Williams Sonoma or hell even Wal-Mart for that matter.  Even weirder is that I rarely buy them.  Maybe I just like imagining myself as needing these things.  But convincing me to go takes about a feather's weight of push.

I was tickled to find that some of the kitchen stuff is color grouped.  There was a black section, a white section, a stainless section, a green one, a blue one, a yellow one - even an orange one.  There I found a fat round orange teakettle that made me happy.   I did resist the urge to buy it immediately since I was afraid it would encourage my inner 4 year old decorator self to have at it on the blank canvas of the kitchen and I would end up with a space that resembled nothing so much as it did a box of Crayolas.  Part of me still thinks a Crayola kitchen would be awesome!!  Maybe next time.  

Of course there was a red section.  That had been my goal from the outset.  And even though I was carrying the chubby orange teakettle (There was only one and this being cutthroat Christmas holiday shopping, you don't dare set something you MIGHT want down) I headed over there to check out the red teakettles.   I didn't see any that made me cartwheel down the aisle and I was afraid the Crayola decorator was gonna insist we take the orange one home.  Right about then I spied it in the back of the next to bottom shelf, hidden by lots of its red brethren.  My teakettle.  There was only one of these too, so I snagged it with a quickness.  Red metallic chrome with a cool British-feeling shape.  No annoying whistle.  Yup.  This was the one.  

I put the orange one back on the shelf, the inner child eyeballing it softly as if to say Next time babe.  It's just me and you.  And we both know there will be a next time and I will give in.  But for now the red metallic one sitting on the stove makes my heart sing and of course it makes me think of William Carlos Williams, which is way better than a pile of poo.  

NB - Lest anyone think I wrote that poem from scratch, I am including here the WCW poem I plagiarized.  

The Red Wheelbarrow    by William Carlos Williams

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens.

Overcoming Pennywise

This week I am reading Stephen King's On Writing.  I don't know why it has taken me 10 years to get to it.  I distinctly remember its publication and thinking I must read that.  But I never did.  That despite really enjoying King's body of work.  When I was younger I loved the way he just knew what creeped me out.  Like he had poked around in the collective and found out what we fear most and then housed those things in the innocuous guise of a clown, or a beloved pet or a nerd girl.  I still can't enjoy circus clowns because of Pennywise.  I was going to include a photo of him, but even those gave me the heebie jeebies.   So don't click on the link if you don't wanna see.

When I got older I recognized that King wrote brilliant dialogue.  I'm not talking content here, but structure and language.  Dialogue in one of his books sounded like the conversations I had with my friends, the ones I overheard on the bus, the ones shouted at 2AM by the drunk in my neighborhood and his wife.  There is just a truth to it.  

So I wonder why did it take me 10 years to get to this book?  I thought about that today as I was reading.  And it was like staring into the chalk white face of Pennywise himself.  Fear.  The kind that immobilizes you in place.  10 years ago it was - What if I discovered that I sucked by reading it?  Or that I was a lame ass hack when it came to writing?  What if people could see inside me when I wrote?  Oh God, what if they discovered how fucked up I am?  Mostly though, there was the thought that if I read this book, I would have to claim my writer's beanie once and for all.  

Those initial fears gave way to new ones as I dared to model my stylin' new writer's beanie in the mirror at last.  Would people think what I have to say unimportant or boring?  What if no one read my words?  What if my words were not appreciated much less understood?  I think King explains it best when he says without an audience "you are just a voice quacking in the void."   Oh God, don't let me be a quacker!

I think I was able to finally pick up the book and read it, because none of those things bother me anymore.  Or at least bother me much less.   I rock the beanie and I'm keepin it.   Nothing you say can make me take it off.  I no longer care if you think I am a total goober or a fucked up nutcase (both are true at times).  I don't care if no one reads.  I am not really writing for them.  I am writing for me.  Anything else is a bonus.

So, Quack Quack Pennywise.  

Olive Barred

My friend Patricia recently wrote a blog about what she refers to as big box stores (You can read about it here http://patriciagarry.com/blog/nfblog/?p=811 ).  I have listened to her talk about this before, but never really understood it.  I mean a store is a store.  Right?  

But as I stood in the Newport Krogers today, understanding began to dawn.  There was no sense of urgency or joy to be found in either the shoppers or the employees.  I chalked that up to the snow at first.  Carts parked haphazardly in the aisle so that no one can pass.  Their drivers oblivious to the line of carts now 4 deep on both sides of the aisle.  This repeated in every blessed aisle.  The Kroger employees restocking in the middle of the afternoon on a Sunday taking up the ends, the aisles, every spare bit of space.  Or worse, the employees shooting the shit while their flats full of food sat there blocking the way.  

I managed to contain my temper by reminding myself that it's snowing and close to the holidays, at least until I reached the bar full of Mediterranean goodies - olives, baba ganoush, peppers, tabouli.  This is one of my favorite places and my guilty pleasure to be able to sample the great selection of olives or bring home some edamame hummus.  When I broke free of the congestion and got to the olive bar, I was appalled to see a 10 year old boy up to his wrists in the olive bar with his bare hands.  ::shudder::   I watched in disbelief as his hands went from the olives to his mouth and back numerous times.  He was certainly old enough to know better.   I wanted to smack his hands so badly with a wooden cooking spoon like my Mom used to when she caught us sampling out of the cooking pot.  Where was his mom?  She was standing right there talking on her cell phone and ignoring this amazingly unsanitary and disgusting action.   So too were the employees.  I went up and asked him to please stop that as nicely as I could.  He glared at me and continued defiantly.  I opted not to get olives.  May never be able to get them again that I won't wonder what booger eating little shit has had his hands in them today.  

It was at that moment that Patricia's blog began to make sense.  People here are not looking for things to nourish their family.  They are not engaged in the activity at all, most are somewhere else entirely.   No thought to what they are buying.   It feels a place where people have given up.  And it explains why I sometimes have an overwhelming urge to cry when I am there.  Maybe she is right and it's time to shop somewhere else.

NB - the major exception and saving grace du jour was the young man at the checkout.  Engaged.  Alive.  Laughing with the bag boy as they tried to guess the number of items in each person's order, but still competently getting his job done.   Just trying to make what could be a tedious afternoon of bitchy customers more fun.  Interesting to watch people's demeanors change as they interacted with this duo.  Smiles.  Laughter.  That at least felt good.  

Where To?

I met my boss today for lunch.  My treat.  Football bet.  Colts lost to the Cowboys.  I haven't seen him for a month.  Not since the day with all the boo-hooing and other non-professional, non-science geek goddess behaviour.  It went as always with an easy grace and interesting convoluted conversation.  But things have shifted and changed for both of us.  We will never be boss and employee again.  (Not that we have been that in more than name for a while now).  His world is still caught up with experiments and grants and mice.  Mine caught up in a little back eddy made by this unexpected and unwanted shift.  Some of those shifts are weird like talking about science that is no longer mine to carry out.  Some are unexpected and sweet like the hug he gave me on leaving.  I hold hope that we can maintain our friendship.  I don't have any friends other than family that I have known as long as him.  And I value him for being there.  

After lunch I tooled through O'Bryonville looking for gifts.  Finding a few.  Scurrying back to my car before the time expired.  On my way back to the car I stuck my hand in the pocket of my fleece.  Fingers assessing the contents.  Keys.  Phone.  Chapstick.  Something else.  What was that?  FYI - I am like a squirrel when it comes to storing things in my pockets and I have a hard time with clothes that have none.  This often leads to surprises as things resurface out of no where.  

I felt of it trying to guess what it was without looking, a weird personal game I play.  Hard plastic.  Roughly the shape of my phone but smaller.  I pulled it out to find it was my compass left in the pocket at the end of a day of letterboxing.  It was a gift from Sno' - my letterboxing conspirator who knows my penchant for misplacing or outright losing stuff.  This one has a lanyard so I can wear it around my neck.  I sheepishly admit I do just that and often forget that I am wearing it like a symbol of my office as geek goddess which I wholeheartedly embrace.   And it is a garish day glo green that would be hard to miss if you were looking for it.  

I stand there in O'Bryonville holding it and compulsively adjust the dial so that the red arrow points north so I can get a true reading should I feel the need which I don't.  I'm glad it has turned up now.  If ever anyone was in need of a compass to help them get their bearings it is this nerd girl.  And I quietly wonder - Where to now?   The answer is still - I have no idea.  

I was at a party recently where a woman near me, a thin and very beautiful woman, gave everyone within earshot a running count of the calories she had consumed during the evening.  Informing us that the cheesecake in her hand that she was debating eating would result in an extra hour on the elliptical, followed by a 45 minute debate on whether it was worth it.  JUST EAT THE DAMN CHEESECAKE....or not.  I don't care.  But your fixation on it makes me wanna give you a good karate chop to the vocal cords.  By the expressions on their faces, I think some of the people around you might break into spontaneous applause if I did just that.

Deep breath......

I have known a lot of women like this - ones who have great bodies by any standard, but hate them and who see food as the enemy.  I am just not one of them, so I ask that you keep that shit dialogue in your head where it belongs.  Don't try to push your negative body image onto me.  And don't ask me to validate it either cuz I think it sucks. 

 

I have worked a long time to get OK with who I am inside and out.  I like my curves.  I like food.  I will never be rail thin, nor do I want to be.  If someone doesn't like that - tough shit!  There is a kind of liberation in accepting that.  If I want to eat something, I do.  No regrets.  No whining.  I enjoy every spoonful of Jeni's ice cream, every bit of Dagoba chocolate, every piece of thick cut bacon......mmmmmm.   And I find it easier to eat what nourishes me if I don't deny myself every damn thing that tastes good.   Find it easier NOT to binge if I am not always telling myself NO.  Honestly, my brain got sooooo tired of calculating caloric content and giving that up has left it free to do other things, like plan a revolution.

Are you with me Sisters of the Round?  

You are heretofore charged with letting go of the calorie counting for a minute, a day, a lifetime.  Let go of the negative language we use to sabotage food.  Pick up that Springerle cookie, that piece of cheesecake, that extra cripsy bacon.  Load your spoons with Creme Brulee.  Wave your candy canes proudly.  And let yourself savor the way those things taste when you eat them without a mouthful of ugly guilt-words to spoil them.  I guarantee a taste bud explosion better than any you have ever known.  And your body will thank you for it.  Thank you for not confusing it by filling it full of things you tell it are fat-inducing poisons.  It will stop being at war with food.  Peace will come.  You will feel better in your skin inside and out.  

Guaran-damn-teed.  

Who knows maybe you will even get that rarest of gems - to love your body  - JUST LIKE IT IS.  

  

Old Nuggets Pt4

Seems I had quite an affection for rhyming back when.  Still some are decent enough.  

Fireflies July 31, 1987

Strung like Chinese lanterns at the  fairy formal ball

Whispering there in the dark

'Come join us one and all

Hear the crickets sing our song

And bullfrogs keeping time

Join us in our revelry

Our dancing is sublime.'

All you need to do is follow lanterns as they flicker

Deeper now into the woods

'Hurry now.  Go quicker.'

There they are now just ahead within their fairy ring

Dressed in iris flags and daffodils

all the flowers of the spring.

The dancing is so graceful

and will last 'til almost dawn.

They leave no trace of merriment

but their ring upont he lawn

And round about this whirling group

like sentinels we sit

Escorting guests with glowing lamps

of tails so brightly lit.

But lo, the dance is slowing down

and by the nodding of your head

I'd say it's time for me to go

and see you safely to your bed

Swan Song May 30, 1989

You touched my soul and made it sing

In a voice both clear and true

And the song.  Oh the song!

Words I didn't know I knew

Came pouring from my heart

took wing and homeward flew.

As Earthbound I stood amazed

watching them disappear from view.

Disbelief that the song I heard was mine

Inspired by the love I felt for you.

I try in vain to recall those words

as I stare softly toward the sky

But they were a swift as dreams

that went so quickly by

Nor can I recall the tune

desperate though I try

I struggle to recapture bliss

but capture only sighs

For, my love, while touched souls sing

deserted souls just die.  

For Nara: Love All  January 25, 1992

An old tennis ball is all it takes

Sometimes a new on to take its place

A couple cups of kibbles in a plastic bowl

on which puppyhood and time did take their toll.

A little black cat that we call Boo-Bear

asleep on my coat in his favorite chair.

There's nothing like going for a ride in the car

Doesn't matter where to.

Doesn't matter how far.

Only thing that matters is that she is here

to make me smile and scratch behind her ears

Fate brought us together on that day back when

But tennis balls and love made that lab my friend.

Stealing Karma

A couple weeks ago, I had a dream wherein an unknown person reached into the cargo netting of my backpack and removed a right angle triangle and a circular protractor (glad that at least my dreams get a use from those, bc I never did).  This person then stashed them in the cargo netting of their own backpack.  All done in plain sight of many people.  When I called them on it, they denied it and no one seemed to have seen them do it or don't care.  Even though they could see them in their backpack and knew them to be mine, they did not back me up.  

I thought I knew what the dream was about since I had it Thanksgiving eve.  But, since I am now part of a dream group (YAY!), I wanted to see what kind of archetypal images my subconscious was throwing out - in particular the circle, the triangle and the backpack.  So I looked them up in my handy dandy dream dictionary.  

The one that kinda surprised me was the backpack, which represents what you are carrying with you.  Karma if you prefer or just the baggage and junk we all seem to lug everywhere.  Makes sense.  The idea that someone would remove part of that and take it on themselves seemed strange to me.  In every way this would be a spectacular gift to give someone - to take part of their karmic burden onto yourself.  And that thought blows the doors open on some new ways of looking at a situation I struggle with mightily over the holidays.  

My dream group offered up a few other explanations that layer the dream images so elegantly and allow it to address lots of things simultaneously.  Love multi-tasking.

Old Nuggets Pt 3

On My Father's Birthday  April 22, 1986

I looked up tonight at a sky filled with stars

and I hoped that you're happy and warm where you are.

The sorrow I feel wells in my soul

at the thought of you tired, or hungry, or cold

And the thought of me living my days without you

makes my grief deeper,  and guilt sometimes too. 

Never once did I think of your place in my life

until it was too late.  Then like a knife

your absence ripped through me destroying my peace. 

Only in hope and in time have I found surcease

from the pain that so gripped me when you passed away.  

I would have done anything to convince you to stay.

Now

I weep for the stories left untold

I weep for my children you'll never hold

I weep for a smile faded from view

I weep for the smiles I saved just for you

I weep for the yesterdays to be redone

I weep for the morrows we would have won

But mostly these days, I weep for me

and how things could have been and would be.

Just one more time to hear your mirth

while you walked still with me on Earth

Just one more time to touch your hand

and side by side together stand

To this time let my love flow out

so that you'd never feel a doubt.

But life's not that kind and now that you're dead

I think of things I wish I had said

So I'm saying them now for the world to hear

I love you my da.  I miss you my dear.

I know I can't change the way things were then

so, I try to look for you in all men

I used to throw my arms to the sky 

and plead for a reason why you had to die

These days instead I look at the stars up above

and know you are there and know you are loved.  

Untitled  February 11, 1987

Oh, I could be 

more like you

But why is it that you 

are not more like me?

This world needs

more of love

and roundness

and less of the 

harsh angularity

that is you.

The Cradle March 4, 1987

I stare at the empty cradle

and wonder if I will ever fill it

push it and watch

as it rocks lonely

in the dust

In my head 

I hear the squall

of generations.

And I sit

and rock

arms crossed

hollow of life

and understand

For I am the cradle.

Old Nuggets Pt 2

In Honor of Dreams September 18, 1985

Rhinestones and cobwebs

Mudpies in porcelain

Reaching.  Not touching

All things that have been

Dreams whirl like sandstorms

throughout my brain

ripping and tearing.

And yet, there's no pain.

Dewdrops on candlelight

Bologna with cheese

Migraines and sweet smells

that float on the breeze.

All keep my company

into the morn

Only on waking 

from me are torn

And yet I remember

in odd kinds of tides

and try to discover

the meaning they hide.

Untitled     March 22, 1986

It's so dark

with only flashing lights

reflected in the mirrors.

Billy Joel croons an old tune

that I only vaguely hear

For I find my eyes and thoughts

riveted on you.

I would love to reach across the table

and touch you

but the more I think about it

the wider the table becomes

and I know my arms are no longer

of a length to span the distance 

between us.  

Old Nuggets Pt1

Some of us are born writers our souls spilling over words.   So today I am perusing the old stuff - the embarrassing stuff I wrote when I was in my teens and 20's mining for any little gold nugget that might have spilled out.  Books and books and books of  drivel :-) but it is my drivel.  There were a few in there that I liked even 20 something years later.  

To Paul   August 12, 1983

We fit together like ducks and water.  

Yet I'm a lone duck on the water

even when I am with you.  

Cool photo by Jeremias Stelter.
More of his work here jeremiasstelter.com
Go check it out.  

I cannot have you to hold

No, you slip through my fingers

like so many droplets of water

You are simply to admire 

for your clarity

and sincere simple beauty

to glide along your surface

Only sometimes will I venture

beneath your surface

to sound the depths of you

For you are deep

and I, alas,

am not a good swimmer.  

Untitled 1984-5

I know I am a fool

For every time I look

into your eyes

I see the same thing

And I know it's not the same

for you as me

Your soul's not there

And when you catch me looking

I turn away

and tell you nothing's wrong. 

Ashed

Ten years ago I was diagnosed with cancer.  In the aftermath of that, my life crumbled down to nothing but a pile of ashes.  I was stripped down to my essence and given an opportunity to change everything - which after much whining and wailing - I did.  When I look around today a lot of the blessings are a direct product of that time.  

I am thinking about that time because I find myself in a similar position sifting thru the ashes trying to decide what stays and what goes.  Not trying to force it to be different.  Not mooning for what has been lost.  But just sitting calmly and knowing that what comes from this will be as beautiful as the last time.  Dreaming new dreams, re-dreaming old ones.  Spinning out a blanket of seeds to sustain me for the next ten years.