The Fresh Air Vent

A Spider Ditty

2007-05-27T03:48:00.000-07:00

There’s a spider living behind my bathroom door
Snaring the things that I abhor
At first I stared, squeamish about her,
But soon found she was really no bother
She was still as stone when I first sat down
A dark black mixed with a little brown
When they scamper and scuttle across,
Goosebumps break out like patches of moss

But still she is now, fishing with a dainty net
She caught that mosquito from last night, I bet
For now I’ll spare the shoe and the jar—
Share space with an alien more comfortable afar
If she makes no move towards my tushy bare
There’s no telling how long I might leave her there
I’ll share her with my family when they get home—
To provide sanctuary for this strange unknown.

-- Grace

Art by Susan Seddon Boulet-- 'Shaman Spider Woman'

Successful Release

2007-05-01T03:57:00.000-07:00

Yes it's true...after three years-- THREE!-- of caring for him and feeding him and cleaning his tank it its entirety and sucking up the poo from his gravel and buying crickets...........

It's happened. We've let him go.

The turtle is free.

(sigh)

Although a gift to my son from his grandparents, he had ultimately become 'mine'. Not that D didn't love him, and he used to get loads of excitement from feeding him worms in front of his friends, watching their little bodies gush in the water as he sliced them neatly in two. The turtle, not D. Trying my best not to raise a serial killer, you know. Although from what I've heard of the mothers of serial killers, they have no idea how or why or when it started to happen, so perhaps it is something one is born with.

But I digress.

The only trouble with a five, six, seven-year-old keeping a turtle as a pet is that they cannot seem to help much with the upkeep. You have to ciphon off the water into a bucket that then has to be dumped into the sink, or you have to use a hose in which case you have to hold it firmly while it sucks up all the water, and then you have to take out all the big heavy rocks and faux rocks that the turtle climbs on and digs into and clean them with a brush within an inch of their lives, and you have to clean the filter, taking it apart bit by bit and scrubbing at all the mechanisms.

In the end, it was just easier if I did it. And so if it didn't get done, the tank would develop a smell akin to that of plant material staying in a vase for too long. Unpleasant. It took me an hour to clean his tank, sometimes one and a half if it needed to be done very thoroughly. And then there was the aspect of a living creature that was growing quite well being confined year after year in a twenty-nine gallon tank. Anything bigger and I wouldn't be able to manipulate it to clean. Not to mention the fact that I live in a townhouse, which are not known for their excessive counter space.

In the meantime, D had all but forgotten about the turtle, whose name is Trach. (Read as 'Track', for trachedermys-- or some such spelling-- which is their genus name.) I would watch him as the days would go by and he wouldn't even go up to the tank to greet the gently paddling amphibian. Even I had stopped holding him and wiping his shell and talking to him. Life happens and goes by so quickly.

A dog is under your feet right when you walk in the door. It's vying for your attentions every second it's not napping or eating. They are easy to cuddle and very easy to play with: tag, chase, tug-o-war, hide-n-seek, beast and knight. It's endless. The turtle? You watch him eat a cricket or two and he does that cute thing with his front feet........and that's about the extent of the excitement. I personally loved watching him swim around, when his water wasn't filthy. Writing a lot lately has really put a damper on my turtle gazing, and the smell in the tank was getting progressively worse.

This is an extravagant lead-up to us releasing him into a little pond behind our tiny city's library. The pond itself always has ducks and fish and other 'stuff' in it, so I know it's a working ecosystem. As far as I've seen, there doesn't seem to be any other turtles there either, so it's open season as far as territory goes. Now he is male, and there is a chance that he might go wandering for a female. But if he chooses to stay, it looks like it would make a nice home.

He rode in the front seat of the Isuzu, in a white plastic bowl with a red lid on it to keep the water from sloshing out. (Mama was driving, after all.) D kept asking me what was in the bowl, and I kept answering him with, 'you'll see.' He and I had been having the discussion about getting rid of Trach for about six months, and it had ended in tears and shaking bottom lips, (his, not mine.) and so I had put it off. But it was time. And I was going to allow him to face his sadness at Trach's departure, not just suddenly realize that the turtle was magically 'gone'.

It's painful, yes, but necessary to learn how to part with things, even if you love them and wish they could stay. At times it is just better for everyone, the keeper and the kept.

He blended in well with the leaf litter at the base of the pond and the mud. He looked like he really belonged there. He turned and gave us one last long look before turning his little red-eared self around and ducking beneath the water, heading out at a brisk paddle into the darker depths of the pond. A mama duck swam by with her ducklings. A few tadpoles wriggled by.

It is a good place for a turtle. My son was actually happy to see him go, and to know that he was so close to us. There were no tears, just a faint feeling of sadness and hope.

Spring Cleaning Frenzy

2007-04-28T15:14:00.000-07:00

Just the thought of it normally makes my scalp itch. But somehow...someway...it has grabbed hold of me recently. The funny thing is, though I like it when my home resembles a place where people could feasibly 'pop' by and I wouldn't die of embarrassment, I'm still disgruntled that I had to spend my 'off' time from work to, well...work. At home.

At some point last week, I woke up at around four in the morning and just decided to clean my house and TRY to organize it as if it really were my castle, and I, its procrastinating Queen. I poke at it a lot, but just don't keep it up. The Chaos Theory is alive and well here, believe me.

So for some reason, my son's room came first, as we've already laid a new floor downstairs. The downstairs has its problems-- least of which being the detritus from laying said flooring as the tools still inhabit the table on which they were finally perched as if any moment now we'll suddenly realize that we've done it all wrong and have to take up the whole of it and try it again. But for the most part, the downstairs is habitable.

'D' is turning eight this year, and there were just a few things I wanted to accomplish in order to get him ready for the looming 'big boy' years. More serious chores are high on the list, and keeping his room clean is going to be one of them. So, in all fairness because kids really have a hard time sorting out their stuff, I told him that I would take all the things out that he thought were too babyish, and put a few things in there that bespoke more of his gently maturing nature.

In with the good, out with the bad. A good lesson for him. He did very well at letting things go-- better than I did, to be quite honest. I was proud of this buddhist side of him.

A trip to Goodwill and several dumpster-loads later, and we had gotten half the goal under our belt. A trip to Target and then to WallyWorld gave us the other half of the plan, put in place just in time for him to have a new friend over this weekend for a little R&R in his new-ish pad.

Much of this was done on Thursday, my first day off this week. I finished the little details and also made a huge sweep of the downstairs today, my second day off.

My days off are leaving me more tired than my work days.

But I cannot bear to think that the rest of the house looks good while my bedroom-- my private boudior, my peaceful nook away from the rest of the house- nay, the rest of the world!- should go lacking. So it would appear that the next couple of days off are going to be centered around cleaning out a sadly neglected closet and organizing my piles of art debris that have just been accumulating like so much dandruff on a pair of black-knit-clad shoulders.

As an aside, I have discovered that drinking lots of water is, in fact, good for me. Are you as shocked as I am??? I mean, just because it's in all the health magazines and all over the latest medical news updates doesn't make it true, you know! Geesh! I have to trip and FALL face first into some things apparently.

I have been drinking at least 50 ounces every day-- and a bit more if I can manage it, especially if I've been sweating-- for about a week now. I don't feel nearly as hungry-- and I don't mean that to sound like I'm so full of water that I can't eat. Oh, I eat. REAL hunger sets in just like it did before. But if I sip between meals, I'm not grumpy and gnawing at my own leg when it comes time to actually eat something. My bowel movements are incredible. (Regular, easily passed, keeping me from feeling so inflated. You know, things I've not felt ever. I've always been somewhat incontinent. And I don't mean living in the USA.)

But in general, I just feel..........

Better. Which was one of my main goals this year. Body, mind and soul. It's time for me to feel GOOD about myself, about my life, my decisions, my current state and my hope for the future. I had already begun to grip a lifelong depression by the horns last year, and now I'm letting bits of it peek outwardly. It's a long, slow process, but one I'm very excited about, even with the little triumphs.

Spring cleaning, inside and out if you will. Hmm. And as always, thanks for listening to my ramblings about these little triumphs.

Visual DNA

2007-04-20T18:53:00.000-07:00

This was quite fun...thanks for sharing it! I like the similarities between us, and the differences as well.

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Apple Picking is OVER!!!!

2007-04-20T12:54:00.000-07:00

It's sad, really, how I just re-opened this as an after-thought today. I have been writing-- been producing temendous amounts of writing all things considered-- but just...

Not posting anything here. There will probably only be one or perhaps two of you who will care enough to stop in anymore, and for that, I thank you. You've clearly made it into the annals of my heart for your perseverance alone, not to mention your utter and complete faith in the face of my inexorable procrastination.

I've decided to post thoughts, animal sightings, and tidbits from my 'other' writing here, just to fill in some blank pages, to not leave this standing here waiting for a date that never shows.

So for the lack of posting, to you my one (or two) most noble of friends, I thank you and apologize and grovel before your loyalty to me. May it ever be repaid in random kindness around you, and in my loyalty to you as well.

Pht.

Thought: DAY-um, it's been a long time since I posted on my blog. Perhaps I should go remedy that???

Animal: a falcon flew over my and my neighbor's head this morning not fifteen feet above us. Beautiful bird, fast as a jet. Clearly hunting one of the neighbor's many stray cats. Heh.

Tidbit: Gentle at first was the breeze blowing through the tree tops as the mid-morning sun rose well above the horizon. In spite of the timeless star’s burning glow, however, it brought little heat, and so the mist continued to roll in like a sly grey beast sneaking up from the valley, stalking its way through the underbrush and hulking close to the ground. It retained the chill of early morning to its last whispery breath, exhaled through frost-laden teeth. Tendrils of cool air born of the Fallomik River wove their way between the large chestnut, oak, and maple trees, crisping the leaves and slowing the sap within each ancient trunk. A group of crows complained noisily of stiff joints as small rodents lost in the leaf litter were chilled down to their whiskers. Tiny insects burrowed tightly into their hidden niches, not yet willing to venture out to forage. Even the fairies huddled closer together within their beds of milkweed down and feathers, afraid that the stretch of wings might break them off in the face of such cold.

Apple Picking

2006-10-01T17:24:00.000-07:00

We had surprise fun today-- apple picking in an orchard about an hour north of here, sort of spur of the moment-like. It was too much to resist-- actual apples from actual apple trees. My son had fun picking the biggest fruit, and I found dodging the gynormous hornets that were buried deep in the rotting fruit scattered along under the trees very exciting.

I thought it was good that he see an actual fruit tree, and pick something from it, knowing later when he ate it that it's true-- the Earth gives us what we need in its all-knowing way. Sheer natural perfection.

He definitely enjoyed the pig race as well. Sheer country boredom.

I recall being bored beyond reason when I was young. I spent a lot of time in rural areas, even though I've been living near the city now for over twenty years. Still, the painful afternoons of time creeping by at a snail's pace is something not easily forgotten. Had I had access to pigs, I'm certain that I would have raced them too, and probably dressed them up in funny clothes and trained them to sit still at a tea party in the mud hole. Being an only child in the middle of the sticks is really a practice in the growth of patience. And in imagination. Which explains why I have such a calling for tedious artwork.

Anyway, I wholly recommend taking the youngsters-- and even ourselves-- to a farm where they grow apples, or pumpkins since 'tis the season. It's a bit crowded on the weekends, yes. But the mule drawn hayrides are so fun, and the press of people to buy simple things like apple butter and apple cider is intoxicating. You'd think they didn't offer such commodities in Kroger. And of course, they don't, at this value per actual tastiness.

There's something else you won't find at Kroger, though I'm of a mind that it might be a good thing that you don't. They had a kind of museum-- at least, that was what they were calling it. A Moonshine Museum. You walk along this old converted barn that still carries the stink of a multitude of animals living out their lives there, staring at the ill-painted signs denoting the different kinds of moonshine-making apparati available back when the craze was hitting the mountain folk. And as you shuffle along, you can see where the demarcation occurs after they've run out of examples to show of the main draw, in which case they begin to set up little dioramas of country life 'way back when', with a farming couple sitting around the fire; she with her sewing and he with a pipe in his mouth. Normally these sorts of things are pleasant, drawing in our memories pictures of ancestors and the kinds of lives they must have led when the country was still young and sans electricity.

But in these particular setups, they were apparently operating on a farming budget, because the people were not mannequins or even remote replicas of actual pioneering people. Oh, no. These people were stuffed shirts and pants with straw, with heads made from halfway deflated playing balls, topped with strange and unusual and unmatching masks haphazardly attached to them. The children looked downright freakish, and more than a few of the adults were sporting altered Halloween masks, simply repainted to look more 'normal'. I'm telling you, it was SO creepy!

But the apples were good, and the mules were tolerant of our patting hands, so all in all, an experience to have and to hold. I'll let you know if there are any nightmare flashbacks from the diorama 'country folk'.

Happy Apple Pickin' to you all.

Where DOES the time go???

2006-09-27T04:01:00.000-07:00

That was an unexpected absence from blogging...

Life just filled up and spilled over into all my free time a couple of weeks ago. The most I can do in a short period of time is let you all know what's been going on in synopsis form, and then I can write again about frivolous things.

Let's see...My birthday was last week. (35 and feeling it) I spent the week juggling family and friends and family that don't get along and friends that do, etc. Fun!!

We've been trying to adjust to D's workload from school. This is not the second grade that I remember, let me just say that out loud and for the record!

I started a pottery class, which will help with Christmas/Solstice gifts as I'm finally getting good enough to classify my pieces as 'worthy of gifting' to people other than my mom, who loves just about everything I do. I'm carving into some of the pieces this time as well to personalize them more, which is, of course, much more time consuming.

I've actually begun to work exercise into my weekly regimen. There goes free time for blogging right there. Don't ask which one I'd rather be doing-- I'm trying to trick myself into thinking that exercise is GOOD FOR ME. And NOT BORING. And WORTH THE TIME.

Did I mention that I work full time? Or that I've been waiting about three months now for a raise that, so far, has not made it to my paycheck? Or that I'm highly addicted to the Sims 2 video game on my son's Nintendo DS?

Time management is getting beaten to death in my daily routine. I consider myself lucky that I have clean underwear most mornings, and that there is food in the house. I've also taken the 'I am SO fed up with the clutter around here that I AM going to do something about it, even if it kills me in the process!!!' attitude towards the state of my abode.

What's been going on with you all??? :-)

Autumn in the Air

2006-08-28T15:09:00.000-07:00

Fall is coming.

Can you smell it? Not in the middle of the balmy day, no...but in the morning before the sun comes up. There's just something that changes in September. The rain is becoming refreshing-- not just an excuse for the asphalt to steam and the humidity to reach 100% without actual rain in the forecast.

Everything outside my window is wet and lush and dripping. You can hear the plants and trees heave a huge sigh of relief. Even the birds pick up the pace, having finished raising the babies. They can now become introspective once more.

I feel autumn under my skin like an impending excitement. I always have. Summer beats down on me, Spring drives me out of my peaceful frame of mind, and winter-- which is a close second to autumn-- can get drepressing. But the oncoming autumnal season makes me want to cavort out in the swaying grass, and run like a horse with the coursing thunderstorms.

Mushrooms in the yard? Delightful fairy rings! Being able to play outside without sweating to death? Invigorating! Purchasing Halloween signs and stuffed crows to adorn the foyer? PRICELESS!

Cheers to you all with the onset of Fall!

How do the seasons effect you? Just curious...

Childhood Blues

2006-08-20T18:05:00.000-07:00

I've had the 'first-week-of-school' blues these past couple of weeks. No, I'm not the one going to school, though you wouldn't know it by hearing me go on and on about the subject to anyone who happens to make the mistake in asking.

For the past three years or so, whenever my son has been getting ready to start a new year of school, I get VERY nostalgic. Just achy from the past, and for the past, for him when he was a baby and school wasn't even on the agenda, for myself having a hard childhood and looking so forward to school as a break from the tension of home.

The summer between my seventh and eighth year of life was one of the most difficult ones I've ever had to face. My mother fled from eight years of emotional and physical abuse during that summer, stealing my brother and I away in the night like a thief, with my father close on her heels, trying to run our car off the road (though his two children were in the back seat). I was asked to make a decision at that age-- the question arising whether I would like to live with mom or dad, my four-year-old brother crying a river in the seat next to me...

I look at my son and I can't even imagine how painful that would be for him. So traumatic. He hates it enough now when my husband and I have heated arguments. If the crap hit the fan around here like it used to when I was a kid, he'd have a breakdown.

And then I think to myself...did I have a breakdown? And if I did, would I recall it? Or just block it out? Or had all the years of tension leading up to that moment served as some sort of morbid practice?

As I think back on it, I probably wasn't given the opportunity to have a breakdown. I had to keep my wits about me, had to make sure that my brother and I were going to make it from day to day. Mom was broke when she fled, and she had also fled with men who didn't always have our best interests in mind.

I'm so thankful that I'm able to give D a better life than that. I'm grateful to my mother for sticking it out and taking us with her and risking her neck to bring us along and keep us as safe as she could. But I'm also thankful that I've chosen a better man, and that time has found it to be a sound choice.

I can't wait to see how far this difference in my son's life will take him in his life as an adult.

He's so completely wonderful to be around, and more importantly, seems so very happy.

(I tried to tell you, serious blues here.)

2006-08-11T03:53:00.000-07:00

I was going to write something witty and charming this morning, but alas...that bone seems to be broken.

I am officially PMSing as of yesterday. I almost cried twice at work for reasons that are normally NOT A BIG DEAL. And then I went on to be rather chipper for the rest of the day. This morning, I have the inadvertent death-ray-beams shooting out of my eyes. Hopefully I won't bring the building down around my ears as I casually glance around me, cutting the steel and concrete girders neatly in two. I should probably bring fresh fruit in to work too, to just go ahead and get that apology out in the open, up front. You know, the apology for becoming a vehement neck-snapping harpie because there was no sugar for coffee and the drink machine is spouting out warm sodas.

Etcetera. I hope everyone has a wonderful Friday, far far away from me. Safely away...

Caution: Racial Observations Ahead

2006-08-07T04:02:00.000-07:00

I found myself in a unique situation yesterday. Apparently—and unbeknownst to myself—the mall closest to us is a venue visited predominantly by black people. (Insert ‘African American’ if that is your preference, but most of the black people I know currently dislike this phrase, so I’ve reverted to my personal standby, having heard a close friend use it extensively—and she’s black.)

Now I was going shopping with Kate, to a store she and I both adore, so that I could find a nice shirt to wear when we go to the Fox Theatre this Wednesday night to see a play called ‘Bombay Nights’. (Side note: my husband is from India in origin, and Kate is black. Aren’t I the culturally rounded one?)

There we were, making our way through the mall during ‘Tax Free’ weekend, so that it was heaving at gills with people—not my most favorite time to go to a mall. In fact, I usually dislike going to malls in general, unless it is with a friend. Anyway, there we were, walking along, when Kate said quietly in my ear, “This is why Ashton doesn’t want to come here…right now, you’re the only white person I see.”

I have to admit, I was a little surprised at this observation, having not yet made it myself. There have been a few times that I have looked around and suddenly noticed that I was the only white person in an area, i.e. a party at a black friend’s house, a club that was suggested by a black friend, an Indian dinner party where my pale face stuck out among so many darker ones.

It’s not that I was unpleasantly surprised, mind you. I just find it…I don’t know. Intriguing. It didn’t really register, nor would it have, had she not mentioned it. Now in the aforementioned club, I felt awkward when I walked in the door and everyone was looking at me as though an air horn had sounded, heralding my presence. I was with very good friends, though, and soon the shock to the people around us wore off and I was treated with normal disinterest.

Of course, at the mall, no one really cared. It was Tax Free weekend! Whoo-HOO! We had already heard several mothers cursing out their children on our looooong walk in from across the Sears acreage, but that just made for comic relief. I secretly admire how many black mothers are not afraid to absolutely speak their minds to their children. It’s refreshing at times, albeit a bit frightening from the children’s perspective.

But by golly, you KNOW their kids sit quietly in church on Sundays. Hell yes they do.

It was at this time, though, that I thought to delve deeper into a mystery. You see, Kate and I are bookkeepers at our workplace, and so there are often hours on end where she and I get to talk while we work. We knew that we had many things in common before I joined her in the back room, and so we have yet to threaten to kill each other after long days together.

To summarize, we get along rather well. So I did not shirk my next question to her in the mall, as it seemed pertinent to the current line of interest.

“Why won’t Ashton come here?” (Side note number deux: Ashton is a self-proclaimed skinny white boy, very sweet and intelligent, and a good friend to us both.)

Kate shrugged and laughed a little bit. “I don’t know…”

“Does he think everyone would gang up on him and kick him out or something?”

She just shook her head, clearly not wanting to throw out any answers, so I let it go. I’ll ask Ashton today to find out. Perhaps I would have felt similarly unsettled, had Kate not been there with me. I honestly couldn't tell you.

We went into another store, called ‘Ashley Stewart’, which is totally funked out and full of black women’s 70’s fashion. I bought a skirt there, which is really freakin’ beautiful—long, full, dusky peach, heavy lace panels sewn in, and On Sale. But they also had the shirts held together with interlocking gold rings and leopard print this, that and the other. In this store, I got a glance from the other patrons here and there, but nothing that denoted distaste at my being in there and being non-black. (Side note numero tres: I am a white girl, of German, Irish and English stock, blond hair and blue eyed. An unmistakable cracker.)

I can be naïve at times; I’ll be the first to admit it. But I’m starting to feel like many of the barriers between the races are breaking down. Perhaps not on a global front, perhaps not according to the news…but slowly, in the world around me at any rate, it is growing acceptable for a black man and a white woman to strike up a conversation in line at a Dunkin’ Donuts and just chit-chat about the day they had yesterday and the day that has begun way too early for both of them.

Let me know if you have had any similar experiences lately, to map out the easing of racial tensions closer to home—or perhaps the heightening of it, whatever. I just feel like the world I live in is different from the world on the news. And this gives me hope for the world my son is growing up in.

This is a Self Image?

2006-08-05T04:30:00.000-07:00

Here it is, a weekend again. I don’t have to be in to work at the absolute CRACK of DAWN. I can lollygag for at least an extra twenty minutes or so. Oh, the luxuriousness of it all.

Something I said struck me as odd earlier, while my husband and I were talking about the day’s plans.

Now as a side note: I’m not fishing for compliments here. I’m aware that people who are fishing for compliments often SAY this very thing just before they bait the hook and throw in the line. THIS is not the case. Just an internal observation. (You can send boxes of chocolates and roses at an address I will disclose to you at a later date.)

Ahem.
So we’re standing there, discussing the reason why I’m going to have to go in later than I had first anticipated, (so the extra twenty minutes becomes forty. Pinch me quick.) so that he can reprimand a worker of his who just might become hostile. You see, he was taking our son in with him, but decided just this morning that perhaps ‘D’ wouldn’t want to be in the middle of a bunch of throw-down redneck ruckus. I agreed, and so will wait for the signal of ‘All Clear’ (which may sound something like ‘The Bitch is Gone’) before bringing him in to help clean up the debris. (Only kidding, he plays his Nintendo DS and reads the whole time.)

I informed my husband that, while I agreed with this arrangement, I might catch a little flack for it as I’ve been positioned at the front end of our store in order to make us appear to have enough people to cover the early morning shifts, even though we, in fact, do not.

My husband said, “So you’re the cover-up girl.” And then I said, “Yeah, like the Cover Girl…only not pretty,” at which time he wrapped me up in his arms and told me how wrong I was, etc. But in my head, I’m thinking, ‘Do I really think that about myself?’

I was looking over old pictures of myself the other day, when I was a teenager and just did NOT like much about my appearance. From a thirty-something’s perspective, I look at those photos and despise the circumstances in my life that made me feel that way about myself. (It was more than just the usual teenager angst over a pimple here and there…)

Because, quite frankly, I was beautiful back then. Long, blonde hair; large, almond shaped eyes; good nose, decent skin, lumps in all the right places, strong as an ox… I could be biased now, I don’t know. Do you begin to look at your younger self like one of your children when you get a bit older?

Anyway, as you can clearly see where this is going—I’ve gained some weight over the years. I’ve been battling it off and on recently, and most recently more off than on, simply because my physical appearance gets lost in the shuffle of day to day living.

I get the clothes on that cover the inappropriate bulges, and with makeup and freshly washed hair, I’m definitely acceptable. But somehow it has begun to sink into my own mind that I am no longer ‘pretty’.

At first I denied that I meant it seriously. I mean let’s face it, it was a decent joke at 6:30am. But after I thought long and hard about how I feel about my body at the present time, I realized…no, I meant it. In all its nastiness. And I know it’s unhealthy to feel this way about one’s body, but I dislike shirking the truth. And I am my own worst critic.

So this weekend I will be making it a point to visit our company’s gym and sign up for the $4 per month to use all their awesome equipment and I will be ON A RAMPAGE to change this self-image. I don’t want to keep heading down the path to self-loathing. I’m way too pretty for that.

Thanks for listening. I feel better having gotten it off my chest. Have a fabulous weekend!

Storytelling

2006-07-29T19:56:00.000-07:00

It's late at night again.

I think I'm one of the few bloggers that doesn't have work email, so that I cannot write from work. Which is probably a good thing, in the end. Otherwise it would all be about perennials and annuals and price changes on bales of pinestraw and who's come out of the closet in the loading area and how did Shantae's husband get out of jail in time for the wedding...

Etcetera.

I've been writing a lot lately. Not just here, although that has picked up tremedously from the 'once-every-three-months' posting I was doing earlier in the year. (Thanks to everyone who prodded me along, you know who you are!)I have a huge body of unprintable story that I am currently thinking about changing enough to make printable-- just bits and pieces of it, simply because they're good scenes and can be worked in-- and incorporting them into an actual.....

Book. I want to write one so badly. The endeavor I began late last year I think might have been too overwhelming for me, though I have every intention of continuing on with it eventually. But after so much writing on the unprintable thing- which was solely for my own personal amusement- I realized that I had a couple of characters on my hands already, and with permission will have a couple more, and they're characters that I know a lot about. Enough to write about them believably.

I wanted to share with you all an interesting excerpt from something I wrote, simply because it's different and recently tweaked and edited within an inch of its life.

Feedback is always welcome, but if you're not in the mood to go over the bulkiness of it, I completely understand. It is, after all, late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. Still...how many times do you get to experience amateur writing frivolously thrown out for public viewing???

Oh, yeah. Often. Well, enjoy and thanks ahead of time for looking it over.

Time had passed, she knew.

How much time though, she could not say right away. And it was so quiet…

Let’s see if we can move, shall we?

The deep silence surrounding her was almost a tangible thing.

First one leg stretched out from under her heavy body, long and white and shaking a little. She took in a deep breath …

And noticed that her lungs felt like they could fill for an eternity. An odd sensation, that, she thought to herself.

Why am I so tired…?

But she knew she had to get up. Something internal was telling her so. Listening to her aching body, she unfolded a second leg, stretching it forward, feeling it uncurl and lengthen in front of her.

The thud resounding on wood as her foot contacted the table brought her around to reality a bit more.

Forcing her eyes open, she looked down her long, graceful nose at the sight in front of her. A tabletop, strewn with candles knocked over and various vials spent, a green velvet dress that still smelled like burning black holly…

I’m naked then. That’s an unsettling sign…

And the thought of the dress and the holly brought some of it back, crashing through her mind, causing her to panic.

Her back legs flailed out into space for several seconds before she bunched up powerful muscles underneath her and stood, still shaking slightly, listening in confusion to the sound of hard thumps and thuds resounding through the table beneath her every time she stepped.

It took a few more seconds before the whole ‘BACK legs?? What the…?!?’ set in.

She snorted with unease. Her nostrils trembled.

Lowering her head, she picked her way carefully to the edge of the table, eyeing the floor with trepidation.

Why??? Why am I horse? she asked herself, extending one tremulous leg down and then taking a leap of faith and hoping that the rest of her would catch on to the movement. Closing her eyes, she jumped.

Her back legs skidded out from under her as her hooves, feeling like strange little hard shoes melded around her actual feet, met with the slick stone floor with all her weight behind them.

Very graceful, she chided herself. Straightening was easy, though, as the large muscle masses moved beneath her skin with ease, catching her balance.

She turned, enjoying the intense peripheral vision that eyes positioned on the side of her head afforded her. There was no one in the room. The sun was up and shining through windows overhead, dust moving like mist in the rays. She flicked her ears forward and back and took in a deep breath.

Nothing more than the smell of old and dusty things, and the burnt smell, of course. She turned back to the table.

Lying there where she’d woken up, she saw her dress, the choker, the hairnet, her shoes, her cloak… All laid out as though she’d disappeared from underneath them.

Putting her nose to her cloak, she snuffled around, pawing at the bottom to hold it taut while she poked her nose into the pocket where she’d concealed her wand.

Feeling the smooth wooden handle between her sensitive lips, she grasped it gently and pulled it free with a tug from her large head. The abrupt motion tossed a flap of the cloak over her eyes causing her to freak out for a second. Grace responded by squealing and rearing up, knocking it back with her front hooves.

Panting heavily she began to calm herself, coming to the realization that she had a more horsey sense about her now, and could apparently panic at the drop of a hat.

Still breathing deeply, she shoved the handle of the wand underneath a pile of debris on the edge of the table and stared down at its tip protruding out into thin air with a sense of doubt.

How do I wield a wand without hands?

She tried simply touching her nose to the tip, concentrating on transfiguring back to her human form. It did nothing but make her sneeze. Her nose was, of course, ultra-sensitive.

She turned around and poked herself in the ass with it. Still nothing, though she did get to experience that strange, quirky thing animals with hides could do when something was biting them just out of reach. A layer of muscle just beneath the skin allowed her to shimmy her skin, vibrating it of its own accord as if to rid itself of a pesky fly.

Fascinating though being in a horse’s body was, she was beginning to worry.

And then it occurred to her to call on Gwyneth, to see if she could help in some way.

Turning her thoughts inward and wandering around in her own mind, she searched for her twin, calling out to her, but there was no answer. Even the spot that Gwyneth holed up in behind the curtain so reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz was gone.

No Gwyneth, not a trace, not even a whispering giggle.

Thinking back harder than before on the things that had transpired last night, it suddenly became quite clear that Gwyneth was a part of her once more, like she had been before she’d broken off from her core being. She was gone, in a way, even though she had been permanently absorbed back into her psyche.

Grace was overcome with the feeling that she’d lost someone very dear to her. Her heart squeezed tight with the thought of Gwyneth no longer being a separate presence in her mind.

And who knew where she was, or even how she could begin to search for Everett? He might have been the only person that was able to help her now. She couldn’t even transform herself.

With a deep snorting sigh, she grabbed up the wand in her teeth and turned, walking down the length of the room, her hoofbeats echoing off the stone walls, mocking her the whole way.

Large Alcoholic Beverage Anyone?

2006-07-26T19:15:00.000-07:00

What a ride…

I’ve had a Dr. Seuss kind of day. Not the sweet and innocent, ‘…And I Saw It On Mulberry Street’ sort, either. More like the Lorax, mixed in with a little Amy Tan.

My stepfather and I have not spoken in a while—and even then, not a normal, light-hearted conversation for many, many moons. Long story compressed into one tiny sentence: I went through a few sessions of therapy whereas I was told to listen to my conscious and stay away from him for as long as I felt like it.

I have been feeling like it for some time now, and still do. Yet there he stood, on the other side of my front door, unannounced and inconvenient. A friend of mine and I were in the middle of watching ‘Broke Back Mountain’ (which I found VERY well acted, though some parts left me in a puddle of disbelief. Still other parts just left me in a puddle, though. Very moving story.)

ANYWAY.

Yeah, so I think I handled it well. There was no yelling. There was no knife throwing, nor were there any self-esteem-shredding innuendos. He’d come to see a piece of tax information that the government had sent to my home about his house up here. There were no harsh words or crass statements. He said I look well, which I do at times. I said he did as well, and he did, although he looked older, and a little more tired. He said the turtle was getting bigger, and I agreed. There was even a hug.

I know I should be happy about it on some level—especially since it went so well, but for the life of me I couldn’t get over the fact that he’d just SHOWN up on the doorstep. It’s not cool, not after the extended silence between us. But I think he was just …

Wanting to see me again. It didn’t make me overly angry. I was grateful that I had a reason to not visit with him for any length of time, telling him that I was in the middle of the movie, etc. and I just had to find out if Heath and that ‘other cute guy’ lived Happily Ever After or not. He left as graciously as I could have hoped.

My friends save my life all the time—even unconsciously. They all have, at one point or another, been in the right place at the right time to save me from suffering from severe heartbreak. My lack of family ties has shown me the value of creating family in friendships. I am blessed with the ability to see this, I’m certain of it. And even further blessed by their stalwart appearances in my life.

I mean, you get to pick your friends, you know? And they very rarely stop by without calling first. And they almost NEVER make you feel bad about your life/marriage/decisions. Unless you need to feel bad about them, of course, but usually they stand by you and cheer for your efforts. And they almost NEVER throw knives at you.

Even now, as I write this, I know that this late at night, you’re listening, even if you don’t hear me fully until tomorrow morning. Thanks for that.

Sleep well to you all…

2006-07-23T19:19:00.000-07:00

The funny thing about a swamp is...there you are, walking along, trying not to careen through any gargantuan spider webs that would-- of course-- contain gargantuan spiders somewhere within their midst, suspiciously eyeballing the dark and murky water that is mysteriously bubbling off to your right, when suddenly, you turn around a corner and BAM!!!

A beautiful, big-as-your-Aunt-Myra's-head-before-the-surgery Lotus blossom is staring you in the eye.

It was breathtaking, truly. Almost pretty enough to make me forget about the bubbling.

Almost.

Around another corner appeared a HUGE hibiscus, pictured below, big as a dinner plate. Which is, at the present time, smaller than Aunt Myra's head.

>sigh<

All day today I stared at a wall and counter with only a stapler and tape dispenser and paper clips and paperwork to break up the monatony. I had to step out into the greenhouse to see some color, because I missed it so. And then was promptly bombarded by customers who descended upon me while I was clearly sniffing the hibiscus.

Who, tell me-- WHO in their right mind would be planting shrubbery in this kind of heat??? Well, okay, so some people would, and yes, they just might--- MIGHT, I say!--be in their right mind sort of... but from working around plants, I can tell you honestly and from the root of my soul that

PLANTS DON'T LIKE TO BE TRANSPLANTED IN THE BAKING HEAT OF SUMMER.

Ah, the word is out now...I feel better. Thanks for helping me get that off my chest. Need a new tree? Sod? Tea Olive bush? Wait until late August/September to plant it. Trust me.

I am SO off the horticulture soap box now. Don't forget to take time to smell the jasmine. (Not the verbena, it stinks to high heaven. Even the angels have complained about it.)

Non-Boring Vacation Pics!!!

2006-07-21T16:27:00.000-07:00

So I am now officially back from vacation, and staring the inevitable return to the workplace down as it stealthily approaches tomorrow morning at 9 am. I appeased my inner child this morning by going through our digital photos and running them through Photoshop, cleaning them up and lightening/brightening them as I saw fit. I'll share a couple with you now, as they are a decent illustration of what a blast we had, my little family and I.

Charleston was beautiful...really different, and architecturally fascinating. I adored all the gingerbread trim and victorian gates and gardens. The colors were muted, the plants tropical and varied, the shops intriguing. Unfortunately, I was on vacation with my husband- who is not 'into' this sort of atmospheric nuance- and my seven-year-old son- who is more impressed with the latest maneuvering of Mario in Super Mario Bros. So I adored it alone. They made proper noises when I prompted them, and even stood still for a photo opt. in front of some of the houses, but their hearts weren't in it.

We moved on from there to the beach on Sullivan Island, where they had a cool lighthouse which I believe was part of Fort Sumter, if I'm not mistaken. It was there on that beach that photo magic happened. I took some of my most favorite pictures of my son and husband ever. I don't know what it is about the ocean, but it seems to add just the right amount of natural ambiance to a scene.

I turned into a beach-combing fool, and my son became the human sprinkler system, running and frolicking in the wash of the waves like a young sheep in the spring grass in an Irish meadow. He even kicked up his heels. No kidding!

More vacation stuff on its way. I have to finish some things up around the house before I ignore them completely with the onset of work over the next few days.

I can't stand putting laundry away. I've even gotten better about folding it over the past few years. Now it just hangs out on the arms of the sofa or in the dining room chairs. I am the very antithesis to a Virgo, I swear.

Until later...

2006-07-20T13:12:00.000-07:00

I took this "Blogthings" quiz on wordnerd's site... and I have to agree, it is pretty close to the actual telling of my personality on many levels. I'm a little concerned for the 'Full of Yourself' thing towards the end, though. I guess I've never thought that I was full of myself. I'm going to go into the bathroom and have a little chat with 'me' in the mirror and get to the bottom of this.

You would tell me if you thought I was percocious, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you???

(Note to self: Find thesaurus where it fell behind the computer desk in 'No Man's Land', or BUY A NEW ONE, YOU CHEAP HUSSY.)

Thanks wordnerd. No, really. Thanks a lot.

What Your Soul Really Looks Like

You are quite expressive and thoughtful. You see the world in a way that others are blind to.

You are a grounded person, but you also leave room for imagination and dreams. You feet may be on the ground, but you're head is in the clouds.

You believe that people see you as larger than life and important. While this is true, they also think you're a bit full of yourself.

Your near future is still unknown, and a little scary. You'll get through wild times - and you'll textually enjoy it.

For you, love is all about caring and comfort. You couldn't fall in love with someone you didn't trust.

Inside the Room of Your Soul

Welcome Newcomers and Friends!

2006-07-19T18:41:00.000-07:00

I've been...ousted! And Dahli, you're right-- It's about friggin' time. Such a warm welcome from so many that I've read and enjoyed myself... too cool, really. Thank you for that. I'm usually a lurker on many of the blogs that are linked to Erica's, but I've read most of them. I'm flattered that you all stopped in! Here, have a slice of blueberry pie! Coffee anyone??? Mint julip tea, perhaps? (Whatever the hell a 'julip' is. I picture a cross between a juniper and a tulip. Not pretty, and I have no idea how one would go about making it 'minty'.)

Okay, so just so everyone knows, the reason I haven't been brave enough to be linked to Mopey Chick (Who kicked me out of her house this morning on account of me looking at her boobs...it's difficult NOT to after so many hours in the girls' presence) or to anyone I actually know is because this darned blog started off MAJORLY personal. It still is in places, and will remain so since...well, since that's its purpose. But I DID delete a couple of things, but only to spare anyone the embarrassment of some of the things that became --- um, embarrassing to me, though that makes no sense whatsoever now that I've written it.

Still. Nasty stuff. And if you feel so inclined to read over some earlier posts, you'll see where it gets hairy scary in places. At times, the venom flows. Writing it out is my anti-venom. Sorry about that. Again, venting. I hope at times it pulls you in a bit, and perhaps makes you ponder on things important to you. Enjoy, by all means, and thank you all so much-- once again-- for the ousting!

(Remind me to pay you that $20, Erica.)

In My Dreams

2006-07-18T05:38:00.000-07:00

A brief post from the Mopey Chick's abode... And an excursion into the creation of a Dream Avatar, which was too fun to make. Pick and click and see it on your character IMMEDIATELY. Instant gratification has its place in MY life, I can tell you that.

By the way, glass-blown 'witch balls' might serve as an attractant. Just FYI. Sort of a ha-ha on muggles, I'm thinking.

Cute and spooky. Just like me. Note the empty coffee cup in her hand...
Never mess with a witch before her second cup. Never.

Vacation tidbits to come!

Time and His Scooter

2006-07-04T04:06:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted since frickin' FEBRUARY?!?

Are you kidding me?

Surely I'd... but I'm certain...but...

Well. Maybe not then. Damn. There's nothing like the cold dose of reality to really bring home one's lack of discipline. Although I have been working, and hard too, I might add. After four-plus years of staying at home, that forty-hour-work-week really snuck up on me. Time has been zinging by. Literally.

As a case in point, I saw him just yesterday, when my son grinned at me with his brand new gaping tooth hole, his head coming to breast-level now, though he's only recently just turned seven. And that's when I saw Time, in my son's big brown eyes, reflected in the depths of them. He was riding a red scooter and waving maliciously with a white hankie embroidered with little clock faces on it. I heard him laugh cruelly as he sped by. I did not feel one iota bad for him when he hit a small rock in the road and flipped head over heels into some shrubbery, either. My son and I sat on the back porch and I read to him while he captured firefly after firefly, watching fascinated as he let them go, their little wing shells hinging upward to let out their true wing panels, their bodies straightening and reaching for any miniscule breeze as they took off like some sort of alien skiff.

Time sat at the edge of the road tending to his boo-boos and my son and I luxuriated in the respite from that mad dash to tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...

Speaking of the new tooth-hole, I have a funny quote from the wee man.

Uncle Dan: Devin, did you finish all your fruit?

Devin: Yeah, mostly...except for the pineapple.

Uncle Dan: Ahh... (waiting pensively for a possible explanation, seeing Devin working one up.)

Devin: The pineapple gets in my tooth-hole...it really freaks me out.

So don't let the pineapple get in your tooth-hole. I reckon that'd be the moral, if it needed one. I've been saving up a few missives to post on my hugely neglected FAV, which I will try to begin posting at LEAST every other day.

Waggle your fingers at Time for me today, won't you? He may ultimately have the last laugh, but for now, we trip him up as best we can. Going to buy a big bag of rocks this afternoon to scatter in the road...

Happy Birthday Alan!

2006-02-21T05:48:00.000-08:00

To an actor whose scope of talent is as broad as his mind...

Just For the Fun of It...

2006-02-02T21:32:00.000-08:00

This looked interesting...

You Are The Lovers

You represent ideal love: innocence, trust, exhilaration and joy.

You demonstrate the harmony of opposites, two sides coming together.

At times, you also represent the struggle between what is right and what is tempting.

Control is an issue for you, especially when you don't know your reasons for choosing something.

Your fortune:

You have an important choice you need to make about love, and it will be a difficult choice to make.

You are likely struggling between the love you crave and the love that is right.

In the end, you will choose what you crave, even if it's bad for you.

Because without what you crave, you will feel empty and incomplete.

What Tarot Card Are You?

Low Riders

2006-01-26T10:16:00.000-08:00

Unduly warm for this time of the year. I have a feeling a freeze is coming soon, but who can know for sure? Nature gives us what she will, and we all dress accordingly, despite what we THINK the weather should or shouldn't be.

I bought a new pair of jeans today. I had to settle for a different kind than I normally buy. Usually I wear 'Relaxed Fit', allowing for my ample hips and butt. Come to find out, Old Navy is no longer going to carry that cut. It starts at 'Regular' and works on down to 'Boney Butt'. Also, it starts with the 'Just Below Waist' and ends with 'Don't Have to Pull These Down to Take a Piss'. Because, once you bend over, they just slip off your hips on down to your mid-thigh. Yes, I'm talking about Ultra-Low Waist jeans. What the hell are women THINKING buying this cut of jeans? What was it, exactly, that was SO alluring about plumber's crack that made us turn to the fashion industry and demand that we, too, have the opportunity to ventilate our ass-cracks every time we have to squat down to pick something up off the floor?

I'm happy to say that, though they are supposed to come 'just below the waist', they seem to fit fine. Thank goodness I wear long shirts, that's all I'm sayin'. And for all those other women who are wearing low-riders, perhaps we can all be thankful for you for the unseasonable warm weather.

Mid-Summer's Night Action Figures Part I

2006-01-13T04:23:00.000-08:00

TOO much tea TOO late at night + Newfound Knowledge of How to Work Camera =
So Much Nonsense. Divided by Twenty-Seven. Carry the nine.

Post-Holiday Ditty

2006-01-07T03:56:00.000-08:00

Way over due for a new post, don't you agree?

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Mazaltov!

Always on the other side of the holidays, looking back on them, I'm reminded of just where those holiday blues come from. They're not SO bad this year, though, now that I'm learning to embrace my nuclear family more tightly and focus on them rather than the parents and All That Is Going Wrong with them.

Having a child has really made a difference around the holidays. Everything is so much more celabratory than it has been in... well, in forever. Sure we celebrated Christmas when I was little. I know we had a tree almost every year, and I do recall getting those incredible gifts here and there throughout: One year, plastic and realistic Breyer horses to play with, another year my new 'Big Girl' bike, with the sparkling pink banana seat and tassles in the handles to show just HOW much wind you were creating all on your own, and still another year, roller skates. The kind that you adjust with a key and fit over your sneakers, clamping them down and praying that they hold...

My six-year-old is, I know, making the inevitable change from 'What I would like for Christmas is that cool attack robot action-figure that Daniel has at school...' to things that have actual thought behind him, after cultivating his opinion over weeks of info-toxin from the television coupled with the Toys 'R' Expensive catalog. Before long we will be heading to Circuit City every time, to spend the majority of cash on something electronic for him, I can just FEEL its slow and inevitable approach.

But this year, he made the sensible selection of a couple of sets of Magnetix. He also got the HUGE honking set that comes in a case. Now you might think, well sure, magnetic balls and sticks are sort of interesting, for the first thirty minutes or so, but what about after that?

I am proud to say- mainly because I believe it shows an early propensity for engineering skills- that he plays with them for LOOOOOONG stretches of time, not to mention the smaller set in the backseat that he grooves on every time we're driving somewhere that takes longer than ten minutes to reach. Yes, the Magnetix were a big hit. They're pretty damned cool for adult play as well.

Of course, this was delicately balanced with the new 'Ed, Edd and Eddie' video game, which features a multitude of mindless tasks and the grappling of bigger Ed and using his head as a battering ram to destroy neighbor's homes and to cull evil red squirrels that will hump your leg harder than a Re-dead.

Well, I don't want him to grow up in a social bubble, you know. He's gonna have to know how to PLAY with other boys, after all, even while he's on his way to MIT.

Happy Winter Solstice!

2005-12-20T15:31:00.000-08:00

Ahhh... The Spirit of the Holidays...

Yes, I know it's Christmas, usually. But I fall under one of those 'other' catagories-- of the 'Winter Solstice' variety. Which is tomorrow, by the way. December 21st, shortest day of the year if you consider the sun's presence important. Which, of course, it most assuredly is. It's the only one like it in the solar system, which is a good thing-- and from my understanding not all galaxies have one in the gooey center like we do. And here we are, third blue marble from the sun, probably owing it every single thought we have in our little brains. Owing it our very existence.

Here are some goodies from the pages of the Welsh Witch:

As everyone has heard I am sure, Christmas has always been more Pagan than Christian, with it's associations of Celtic fertility rites and Roman Mithraism. That is why both Martin Luther and John Calvin abhorred it, why the Puritans refused to acknowledge it, much less celebrate it (to them, no day of the year could be more holy than the Sabbath), and why it was even made ILLEGAL in Boston! The holiday was already too closely associated with the birth of older Pagan gods and heroes. And many of them (like Oedipus, Theseus, Hercules, Perseus, Jason, Dionysus, Apollo, Mithra, Horus and even Arthur) possessed a narrative of birth, death, and resurrection that was uncomfortably close to that of Jesus. And to make matters worse, many of them pre-dated the Christian Savior.

Ultimately, of course, the holiday is rooted deeply in the cycle of the year. It is the Winter Solstice that is being celebrated, seed-time of the year, the longest night and shortest day. It is the birthday of the new Sun King, the Son of God -- by whatever name you choose to call him. On this darkest of nights, the Goddess becomes the Great Mother and once again gives birth. And it makes perfect poetic sense that on the longest night of the winter, 'the dark night of our souls', there springs the new spark of hope, the Sacred Fire, the Light of the World, the Coel Coeth.

That is why Wiccans have as much right to claim this holiday as Christians. Perhaps even more so, as the Christians were rather late in laying claim to it, and tried more than once to reject it. There had been a tradition in the West that Mary bore the child Jesus on the twenty-fifth day, but no one could seem to decide on the month. Finally, in 320 C.E., the Catholic Fathers in Rome decided to make it December, in an effort to co-opt the Mithraic celebration of the Romans and the Yule celebrations of the Celts and Saxons.

There was never much pretense that the date they finally chose was historically accurate. Shepherds just don't 'tend their flocks by night' in the high pastures in the dead of winter! But if one wishes to use the New Testament as historical evidence, this reference may point to sometime in the spring as the time of Jesus' birth. This is because the lambing season occurs in the spring and that is the only time when shepherds are likely to 'watch their flocks by night' -- to make sure the lambing goes well. Knowing this, the Eastern half of the Church continued to reject December 25, preferring a 'movable date' fixed by their astrologers according to the moon.

Thus, despite its shaky start (for over three centuries, no one knew when Jesus was supposed to have been born!), December 25 finally began to catch on. By 529, it was a civic holiday, and all work or public business (except that of cooks, bakers, or any that contributed to the delight of the holiday) was prohibited by the Emperor Justinian. In 563, the Council of Braga forbade fasting on Christmas Day, and four years later the Council of Tours proclaimed the twelve days from December 25 to Epiphany as a sacred, festive season. This last point is perhaps the hardest to impress upon the modern reader, who is lucky to get a single day off work. Christmas, in the Middle Ages, was not a SINGLE day, but rather a period of TWELVE days, from December 25 to January 6. The Twelve Days of Christmas, in fact. It is certainly lamentable that the modern world has abandoned this approach, along with the popular Twelfth Night celebrations.

Of course, the Christian version of the holiday spread to many countries no faster than Christianity itself, which means that 'Christmas' wasn't celebrated in Ireland until the late fifth century; in England, Switzerland, and Austria until the seventh; in Germany until the eighth; and in the Slavic lands until the ninth and tenth. Not that these countries lacked their own mid-winter celebrations of Yuletide. Long before the world had heard of Jesus, Pagans had been observing the season by bringing in the Yule log, wishing on it, and lighting it from the remains of last year's log. Riddles were posed and answered, magic and rituals were practiced, wild boars were sacrificed and consumed along with large quantities of liquor, corn dollies were carried from house to house while caroling, fertility rites were practiced (girls standing under a sprig of mistletoe were subject to a bit more than a kiss), and divinations were cast for the coming Spring. Many of these Pagan customs, in an appropriately watered-down form, have entered the mainstream of Christian celebration, though most celebrants do not realize (or do not mention it, if they do) their origins.

For modern Witches, Yule (from the Anglo-Saxon 'Yula', meaning 'wheel' of the year) is usually celebrated on the actual Winter Solstice, which may vary by a few days, though it usually occurs on or around December 21st. It is a Lesser Sabbat or Lower Holiday in the modern Pagan calendar, one of the four quarter-days of the year, but a very important one. This year it occurs on December 21st. Pagan customs are still enthusiastically followed. Once, the Yule log had been the center of the celebration. It was lighted on the eve of the solstice (it should light on the first try) and must be kept burning for twelve hours, for good luck. It should be made of ash. Later, the Yule log was replaced by the Yule tree but, instead of burning it, burning candles were placed on it.(Now, of course, we use a cut tree and electric lights...) http://www.tylwythteg.com/index.html

She makes for such interesting reading late at night while I watch the lights flicker on my 'Yule' tree. Here's to warmth in the home, love among family members, potent potables and lastly to the sun, may it come back to warm us more and more each day, to make the plants grow, the air stir, the water evaporate, and the world THRIVE as we know it. Goddess bless us, every one.

A Four-Legged Love

2005-12-13T02:16:00.000-08:00

There were many things that happened, imagination-wise, after the 'emergence'. Perhaps one of the most significant- due to the fact that we lived next door to a family that owned two horses, one smaller reddish one and one larger white with grey spots- was that I started to ride a phantom horse everywhere I went in my mind.

My mother told me that I loved horses since before I even knew to CALL them horses. I would just point and point at them in books, and gravitate towards them in all things. She told me a story about looking out the window in the living room one day when I was walking to school, and watching me-- at the tender age of five or six-- walk up to the larger white horse without a trace of tepidation, which was staked out to graze alongside our driveway, and talk to it, reach up and pet its large velevety nose. She said her heart was in her throat, as she was moving out the door but I was already next to it, barely coming up to its knees in height, and she stared- completely amazed- as that big old horse just looked down on me and sniffed my hand and didn't move a muscle. After a few moments he just went back to grazing, letting me pet his neck and mane.

The neighbors noticed this infatuation pretty quickly, and one of the younger girls came out one afternoon, seeing me picking tufts of grass and holding it under the horse's mouth, watching those large, soft lips grasp at the tiny strands next to my delicate fingers, never biting me, always knowing where to stop... and she asked me if I wanted to ride him. I don't think I even said anything, just nodded with that glassy look in my eyes. She picked me up and put me across that broad, white back and tossed nonchalant advice at me that I never, ever forgot in all my horseback-riding days to follow. "Hang on with your legs!"

It wasn't like when I ask my son- bless his heart, for he is very intelligent in many ways- to please get me something from the kitchen and he goes in there three times, NOT finding it and eventually asks me to come help him, and the thing is right where I directed him it would be, just slightly underneath something else... No, it wasn't like that in the least. I KNEW what she meant, and did as she told me, as though some ancient knowledge rose up from the depths of my mind and reminded me- from lessons learned in some other lifetime- how to match the movement of a horse.

It was one of the few times in my young life that I felt like I was EXACTLY where I was supposed to be.

She paraded me around their yard for what felt like forever, and I stared down at the horse, watched its ears, fell in love with the feel of the movement underneath me, the subtle shifts of balance with every step, the push and pull of muscle beneath my legs. It was magic.

A horse became my close familiar after that, and every now and again, especially walking to or from school (which was only a quarter of a mile away) I conjured up the feeling of one underneath me, and at times became the horse myself. I taught myself how to run with a skip in my step that clapped my back foot against my front foot, giving me the third click that imitated the sound of a horse's cantering gate.

The noble and beautiful horse was my first true love, and would stick with me for the rest of my life. Even now, at the ripe age of thirty four, when I go for a walk and hit a particularly steep hill, I pull against it as though I were a horse digging in its hooves. When my son was little enough to carry on my back in a pack....yes, you guessed it. I was a horse going everywhere with a precious rider upon me. It's been a while since I did the hoofbeat skip. Perhaps I will give it a go down the Christmas tree aisle at work today, to see if I can still get that clippety clop going.

The Tiger and the Little Body Mechanics

2005-12-09T18:37:00.000-08:00

The World of Imagination…
The Home of Day Dreams…
La La Land.

There are two things that come to mind defining the ‘beginning’ of these sojourns that would, in essence, become a soundtrack to the rest of my life. I would like to be able to say that one of them was THE one, the christening as it were, but I cannot honestly recall which came first.

What seems to strike me as the strongest of the two instances occurred outside my childhood home in upstate New York. I must have been…oh, five or six, maybe. Perhaps younger. You know how all those formative years can sometimes mush together. I remember distinctly that I did NOT want to go inside, and that could have been for any number of reasons.

So this left me OUTSIDE, for most of the afternoon. Bored to tears. Sitting on the front steps of the house and looking around, wondering what I should do with myself. I don’t think I had a bike yet, and my brother was probably inside, too young to play with. No Gameboy Advanced. Just me, adrift in the world of the front yard.

I know I used to talk to myself, as though there were several people in my head, almost constantly. (Could I have been channeling someone? What a pleasant thought…) And rich though the conversations would be, even this sometimes did not suffice—not just the talking. I had a peculiar feeling that there was another level to this ‘make believe’ stuff.

A dark and shady area caught my roving eye. It was the middle of summer, the sun was high, and this dark place looked cool and inviting to me. It was one of those patches of lawn that got cut only once or twice a year, because it was situated in a spot that was not easily reached via mower, and this was, of course, back when weed eaters were not a common household item, if they’d been invented at all. We’re talking early seventies, here. Color TV’s were just becoming ALL the rage.

So the grass was thick and high, almost to my waist, flopping over onto itself. The little thicket went all the way back behind the house, crowded on one side by a heavy overgrowth of bushes, and on the other side, the foundation of the house supported it.

I knelt down and peered into the shadowy depths. My father was a hunter, and had caught many animals, killing most of them except for some raccoons that he trained the dogs with. I’d seen squirrels, rabbits, deer, all manner of dogs and cats… I was already well versed in the world of creatures, and the thought of one lurking in the grass did not bother me in the least.

Pushing into the depths, I started to gently create a tunnel, actually weaving the grass together at the top to secure the ‘roof’. I kept my eye out for any angry bugs, but soon did not care at all about anything other than immersing myself in my den.

There was a tiger in there, I was sure of it. I could hear her growling, panting from the heat of the day. Once I’d tunneled back to a depth that allowed only the bottoms of my shoes to remain in the cut part of the lawn, I could see her bright yellow-green eyes in the shadows. She did not frighten me, nor did I believe she wanted to hurt me in any way.

Seeing me, looking into my eyes and watching my hands weaving their way back into the dark earthy depths of the grass, she knew I was there to keep her company, that I was cub come to share her den with her.

I tunneled so far back into that thicket of grass that when my mom came out to look for me, she couldn’t find me for several minutes. I let her call for me, savoring my great hiding place, knowing that, for those few seconds before guilt would overwhelm me and I would poke my head out and answer her, I was blissfully IN my little world, one that I had created myself and shared with my tigress.

For me, it was the first little toehold in La La Land. Every chance I got, I retired to the tiger’s den that summer, luxuriating in the absolute safeness of it.

The second thing that I recall of such significance occurred while I was falling asleep one night. Part dream, part mental meandering, I lay there seeing myself in my bed, as though from some point beside my prostrate body. The bedroom window was slightly open, and the room was very dark, lit only by a faint amount of moonlight.

There was movement on the windowsill. Again, fear did not play into it, as I watched tiny little men come streaming in from the darkness outside. They were about four inches tall, and almost all of them carried strange looking tools. Most had large noses and ears for their faces, wore hats and striped clothing, pants with suspenders and tiny shoes. Some had beards of grey or black or blonde. They made a ‘B’ line for my bed, jumping from windowsill to nightstand, to dresser, to pillow.

Much to my amazement, a few of them went to work on what appeared to be hidden hatches magically opened in my skin. The little men went right to it as though they did this every night, pulling out all sorts of wires and gadgetry out of my arms and legs and back and head. They were fixing me, rejuvenating me from my long day, replacing parts that had too much wear and tear on them. They spoke to each other in a strange language, some helping each other, some giving orders, until they appeared to be wrapping it up after a while. A couple of them were even brushing my hair out for me.

One of them tipped his hat to the ‘spirit’ me standing there surveying the scene, as if to say, “She’s all yours again… until next checkup…” And then they had gone back out into the night. After that, I was convinced that the little men came every night and performed this service on me, because I was a special being from another planet and all of us from that planet had to have this treatment in order to go from day to day.

It feels good to put these experiences into words, to have them recorded somewhere. They were so significant to me—such eye-opening visions. I remember that it wasn’t just play during these particular times… I stared over that tenuous lip of utter belief into the gaping, wide maw of an imaginary realm… and dove in as often as I could from then on.

Goblet of Fire Spoiler- and the Encouragement of Magic

2005-11-19T17:32:00.000-08:00

Aaaahhhh...

It was great. Truly well made, exciting, invigorating, intriguing... Oh yeah. I saw 'Goblet of Fire' today, and was not disappointed in the least. Harry was on fire. (Literally at one point, thanks to the Horntail...)He's growing up fast, too-- wink wink! Hermione was beautiful, the introduced characters were very well done. I hated to see Cedric go, making such a handsome young man's appearance in this movie, but you know what they say. Only the good die young. Even Ron was definitely tolerable, even in good form, whereas I have been known to raz on him in other movies. (ie. the perpetual look of 'horror' over every little thing in 'Chamber'.) His twin brothers are very fun to watch. Hagrid and the Head of Beauxbaton was a great addition, and there were truly funny parts as well. Severus Snape was not in it NEARLY enough... but at least he was there, and had a couple of memorable moments. Dumbledore was fantastic, as usual. Mad-Eye Moody and Minerva have a hilarious stint when he transfigures Malfoy (also looking very good in his growing young body...) into a ferret- I was laughing and snorting Sprite out of my nose. Delightful.

But the magic... Oh, the magic was sublime. It got my blood coursing, singed my nerves, opened my eyes as though I could suddenly recall that I, myself, can DO magic.

There is ONE sure-fire way to impart the depth and breadth and magic of an imagination upon those around us-- writing stories. (Movie-making is breathtaking, but I wouldn't know where to even begin to get in line to go to school for that...)

I have been writing a story, and have been deliberating over it for a while now.

I will plunge into it head-long now, dear reader. It will be worth the effort in the end, I know. Because I have seen it's star-filled sky, it's pearly white shores, and its seedy underbelly. And I believe it will be worth it to share, in the end. For that is the point of telling a story--

The actual TELLING of it.

2005-11-16T04:29:00.000-08:00

The Harry Potter movie comes out this Friday. It's going to be shown here, (Georgia, USA) in the Imax theater. And now for a tiny confession: I secretly ADORE Professor Snape. Oh yes, I know he's supposed to be greasy-haired, caustic, almost evil... but I like that in a character! He's so moody, and so damned intelligent, and so incredibly skilled, not to mention quintessentially misunderstood...(I hope)

So yeah, I'm pretty excited. I won't be standing in line at midnight the day before to get my tickets or anything-- it's not like it's a New York premiere. But I will be seeing it soon. I will TRY to wait until I am visiting my best friend in Charlotte next week, so that we can take out sons and go see it together. But I cannot make the promise. I've got the obsessive/compulsive disorder thing going on every time I see Snape attached to something. I've even started to rent Alan Rickman movies, just to here THE VOICE.
How appropriate was it that he played Metatron, the Voice of God, in the movie Dogma??? Because surely, he very well could be. Have even gone so far as to request an audio book read by Alan Rickman--- fifteen hours of sheer bliss-- for Christmas. Okay, so seeing this all in print brings me to the realization that it's pretty bad. Moving on now. To save whatever dignity I have left.

AND let's not forget 'A Feast For Crows' has recently been released.
I read the other books in the 'A Song of Fire and Ice' chronicles earlier this year just to be prepared. I haven't gotten it yet, though, as I know as soon as I do, I will be knee-deep in it and will have put other current endeavors aside, which I'm not prepared to do at this time. But soon, I will have it, and will be walking along the dark ramparts of The Wall once more with the brothers in black, and savoring every nuance of Tyrion Lannister... You have to read the books to fully understand.

So much talent, so many artistic milestones being made all around me-- it is the season to make my own mark. I can feel it. Of course, I am not in the same league as these other writers/creators... but I yearn to be, and that is enough. If you do not strive toward your dreams, then you surely will never reach them.

All Hallow's Eve rant

2005-11-01T17:39:00.000-08:00

Happy All Hallow's Eve, Happy Samhain and happy wiccan New Year to you all! It's time to usher out summer and begin thinking of internalizing, preparing for the cold months ahead, getting stoked for the rest of the holiday frenzy. Nature is turning over a new leaf. She's rallying for that final, end of the year test. Did you grow a thick enough coat of fur? Did you finish putting out your seeds in time? Did you pay your gas bill on a regular basis? Welcome winter months! I've crocheted scarves and bought my son new boots, bought a gas grill and have hurricane lamps ready. Let it snow!

Well, it's official. I've been diagnosed with 'clinical depression'. Though I started this blog with the idea that it might take the place of actual therapy, I've found that a real life, speaking-back-type of person was in order. And so far, so good.

Something I haven't told her yet, or you, dear reader (and yes, you know who you are!) is that I have another passion, another blog. And I can't share it with you. It's secret. As a matter of fact, it's a whole other secret universe. For an hour or two every day (just about), I live in it, defining it, co-creating it, wandering through its mists and dark alleys. I'm in love with writing it... Total fiction, with absolutely everything mashed up into it, including but not limited to witches and wizards, magic, light-sabers, childhood dreams, warriors, evil doers, slimey type people, popular children's books characters, and real in-your-face type sex scenes. The kind I love.

My friend has posted at length about milquetoast-type romances, and I agree wholeheartedly. Why on earth would you spend THAT much time getting to know two characters, watching them fall in love, woo each other, overcome all obstacles to their love, and NOT want to reap the benefits??? Throw me a bone, people! Sex shouldn't be that taboo, you know? Violence is more common in our culture than shagging. It's just not right. And if you're a romance writer, go ahead and take the plunge! I can understand if you're writing a novel, and the romance is only a part of the overall story. But if it's the ONLY reason you're telling the story in the first place... MAKE IT HAPPEN!

I'M DONE SHOUTING NOW! Honestly, I didn't know I felt so strongly about it until I started writing it just now. But I do. So when I take a little stroll down 'writer's lane', and I have romance on the brain, I let it go. I'm thirty four, married, have a child. I know for a fact that sex is going to be the one thing that is free (usually) that feels THAT damned good, and that I won't get sick of it if I do it more than, say, once a month. Feel the love, people. Use condoms...but FEEL IT.

Have a happy, sexy Halloween...

Hawk Sightings

2005-10-19T11:12:00.000-07:00

Maybe it’s just Autumn and they’re more active than usual, but the hawk’s have been out. Everywhere I’ve turned, just about. You can hear their piercing cries in the cloudless blue sky, but I’ve been seeing them, as though they’re tying to tell me something. Of course, I could just be egocentric about the whole thing…maybe I’m just choosing to notice them. Anyway, here’s a list of the recent sightings:

1. Outside an office building, where my husband had run in to drop off some paperwork. I was sitting in the car and then realized that there was an honest-to-goodness breeze blowing, so I turned off the radio and the car and stepped outside. Immediately there was a piercing cry, undercut by the rumbling of some heavy machinery just beyond a line of trees around the parking area. I looked up, scanning the sky, and then he came careening over the tree tops, screeching away at the rumbling machines, from the look of it. I lost sight of him for a few minutes and just walked under the trees, taking in the first hint of fall weather, when he came back over the treetops once more, flying lower, and I could see his belly feathers and head pretty clearly. His head was to the side, and I knew that he was looking at me the way birds do, with that one eye…he flicked his head from one side to the other as I waved up at him. Then he disappeared back over the tree line. I bet they’d done something to one of his favorite roosting spots.

2. Came out of a friend’s front door, which is perched up on a hill from the driveway, and there on the roof of my little Nissan was perched a red-tailed hawk, sitting pretty as you please. They have lots of chipmunks and squirrels that run all over the streets and driveways there, so I’m sure he was just taking advantage of a closer vantage point. He was glorious to behold! I could see the yellow of his beak and the dark rim of his eye, not to mention the tiny black flecks dotting his snowy belly feathers. I was trying to quietly call for my friend and the kids to come see him, which of course, let him know that he had been spotted, so he silently opened his beautiful wings and took off just as graceful as you please. He flew up into a pine tree across the street, unperturbed by our pointing and ooing and ahhing. So majestic.

3. Parked in front of the house and climbed out to a relatively silent community, only to catch the shrilling of a pair of hawks circling overhead. The dipped their wing-tips and waggled on the precipice of the wind, balancing and calling to each other, subtly shifting their balance whenever the other came too close…perhaps they were a mating pair, or they were being territorial. Sometimes it’s very hard to discern the difference, in all species.

4. And last, the one on top of a phone pole alongside a highway, his feathers fluffed so that he resembled a huge ball of whitish-grey fuzz to protect him against a drizzling rain. But as always, that alert head twisting to and fro, pointed beak outlined against the grey sky.

Ursus Americanus

2005-09-13T08:17:00.000-07:00

We’ve just returned from a camping trip, my son and I. The hubby had to stay behind and make money—which he was probably grateful for once he found out just how much excitement we experienced!

It was the two of us, plus a close friend, Beth, her husband Ben and their two kids, and we had decided to try out a new campground. Well, new to them, but I had been there before when I was younger and camped with my parents. As we pulled in, we noted besides the beauty and seclusion of the place, the many ‘Bear Warning’ signs hung on the front information board, and on the bathroom doors, and on the front door of the little campground store. (Called ‘Serves You Right’, eerily enough…)

Now I had backpacked in ‘bear’ country before, meaning the Smokey Mountain National Park, and there is a certain etiquette one must follow if one wants to stay on the upper hand of the food chain, so I started to go over these practices with my camp-mates and we agreed to have the food coolers put in the truck every night, dishes washed, dinner cooked and eaten by nightfall, clean up and burning of any food wrappers, change children who had dribbled hot cocoa or stew juice down the front of their jackets, etc.

The first night went without a hitch, and the next morning the two women took the kids on an early perusal of the campground. We saw a campsite that, the evening before, had been home to bagged up garbage remains left by some delinquent campers. Now, my friend had thought of moving the garbage the night before, (she had been the only one to see it) but had thought that the campground host would be better prepared to handle the trash and had not thought anything of it. This next morning, however, we saw that the campground host was completely remiss in taking care of his campground loop as now the garbage was strewn in a wide circle, everything carefully picked over and opened.

I got an idea to go and check out the garbage pile with a lingering notion in my head. Sure enough, after looking through the wreckage, I spotted a ‘Sierra Mist’ soda can with a neat hole about half an inch across with a torn edge and a scrape mark on the opposite side that could only mean one thing—large tooth hole, decent sized bite expanse, had to have been a bear. Nothing else has canines that big, unless it was a VERY large dog, and we hadn’t heard a thing the night before. (My son and I were sleeping in the tent, whereas the other family was sleeping in a hard-shell camper.) There were also some scratch marks in the dirt around the garbage clearly made by claws, though the size of the foot was indeterminable. I took the can as a souvenir.

We ended up moving farther down the loop next to a stream that day, into a bigger site. The day went along wonderfully, with Ben and I cooking the evening meal while Beth and the kids went down to the stream. After dinner, we had roasted marshmallows then put the little ones to bed. (After a walk down to the bathrooms to brush sugary teeth). My son was in the tent with the screen closed but the outer flap open so that I could glance in at him from my seat by the fire. The adults sat up talking and laughing and drinking hot chocolate with Bailey’s in it while burning a fire late into the night.

Now I am not a nervous person by nature, but things were starting to add up in the back of my head concerning these bear warnings and the garbage, so every time I heard a crack or noise in the woods, I would freeze for a moment and listen to see if I could tell if the sound heralded small furry friend or potential large furry foe. Beth has substantial hearing difficulties, so every time I cocked my head and stopped talking, she would freak out a little bit, wondering what I’d heard, etc. She started ribbing me for making her worry, until I uttered the fateful words to her, “One day you’ll get to see a bear close and personal, and you’ll see how it changes the way you feel about them.” I know, I might as well have washed my car and watched it rain for the next four days.

I have seen black bears before, while hiking. Most of them minded their own business, showing you their shiny black bottoms as they headed off into the brush to get as far away from you, the intruder, as possible. Once my parents and I had had a she-bear with cubs raid a ‘bear proof shelter’ (har har) while we were off on a day-hike, only to high-tail it off a little ways when we showed back up. She stopped to rifle through our food bag, but only because she had sent her cubs up the tree she parked under. There was no way my father could scare her off with the babies overheard, so we had just packed up and waited for her to move off so that we could head back to our car. (No food = no backpacking)

So you can imagine just how surprised I was when Ben hit the light (1,000,000 candle-powered spot light, now affectionately referred to as the ‘Man Torch’)
and pointed it over the dogs in the kennel to a place a few feet behind the picnic tables, and said calmly, “It’s a bear.”
The dogs had been growling under their breath for a few minutes, woofing quietly here and there, until the older one had barked quite a bit in succession. Now we knew why. I turned to look and said, “It’s a bear,” too, just to make sure he had confirmation. Something large and black was moving on the other side of the tables, filling the space in between two of them. Ben stood, and he was 6’4”, and I sidled up beside him as he pinned the bear’s face with the light. Beth stood behind us, finally realizing that we weren’t just playing a trick on her, and mentioned under her breath, “Grace, D’s in the tent.”

At that point, my heart went into overdrive. This bear had not, as I had hoped beyond hope, turned tail to run off at the sight of a light bright enough to burn out his retinas hovering some six-plus feet off the ground. Instead I watched him as he docilely turned his head to the side to see if the light might not be so bad on the other side of the tables.

The side closer to my boy sleeping in his tent.

“Ben, I’m going to get D.” He heard the conviction in my voice and so walked to that side of the table, shining that light that was a beacon of hope into the face of the bear while keeping an eye on me who was scrabbling behind him to the tent to forcibly drag my sleeping son from his warm cocoon of blankets, all the time saying sharply into his face, “D, wake up! Stand up, D! Up, D!” he finally got his feet under him and I handed him out the tent to Beth who whisked him away to the hard-shell. As soon as I knew she had him, I went to stand beside Ben to fortify our stance, and to watch as the bear very slowly made his way down the hill, apparently not pleased, though certainly by NO means scared, by the light and the noise.

Needless to say, we all spent the night in the hard-shell with my son and I snuggled up on the thick foam on the floor, and the three adults yakking until two thirty a.m., waiting for the adrenaline to spend itself out in our bloodstreams. The next morning we moved again, to a campground that backs up to a fairly busy road, which also apparently discourages the bears. It was also tended much more meticulously, and hadn’t had a sighting all season. That was music to our ears.

I love bears, seriously, and to see one is tantamount to magic in my eyes. They’re beautiful, graceful, and very respectful usually. The bear we saw had been contaminated by terrible human habits, and I can only hope that he learns over time that humans are dangerous to his health, not a signal for snack-time to commence. A host on a lower loop had spotted him the same night he had come into our campsite and said he hit him in the butt with a load of buckshot to scare him off. (It spreads out and, according to the host, doesn’t penetrate their skin but sure does smart a ton) So I’m hopeful he’ll get the idea eventually, instead of pushing his luck so much that he becomes a threat to humans. It’s a losing battle in that direction, for everyone involved.

Long live the black bears…

http://www.bear.org/Black/BB_Home.html

http://www.nps.gov/grsm/

Barefoot Down Stoney Memory Lane

2005-08-31T10:29:00.000-07:00

…So my son and I are coming back from his dentist appointment the other day, after finding out that he has a few cavities, much to my horror. (At his age, I’m sure I should have been watching him brush more closely. He didn’t always pay as much attention as we would have liked to his upper molars.) Right when we walked in the door, the phone rang, and it was a voice I had only heard a few times in the past twenty-seven years—that of my biological paternal grandmother.

Now unlike my biological father, I had some pretty good memories about Gramma Jan’s house. My mother always said that she had treated her well, and had even helped us out when we were down on our luck, so I’ve never harbored any animosity towards her. Apparently she was going through a hellish marriage at that time as well, and didn’t really know the specifics of the deterioration between Bart and my mom until it was way too late to try and intervene.

And so here she was, on the other end of the phone line, telling me she was about an hour away in driving time, and asking if we could get together somewhere to have an early dinner. I accepted, feeling slightly excited but also just numb with surprise.

We met at a location that was easy for her to get to, considering she didn’t know exactly where she was. She was traveling down to Florida from New York and had a friend with her. As I waited for her to call and tell me when she reached a certain point, my mind kept rewinding back to my childhood, back to this woman I had not seen in so very long. The more I thought about it, the more anxious I became, and not in a bad way…just, nerves, I guess. It smacked of those shows on the Lifetime Channel where two family members have been separated for so long for whatever reasons and were finally going to be reunited. I’m not one for an inordinate amount of cheesiness in my life. My jokes are a whole other entity, but generally I’m pretty matter-of-fact, or as close as an artistic person can get. Still, my throat was tightening by the time I was driving down the highway to meet them.

She looked like what I thought she would. Still had red hair, though I’m pretty sure she must have been dying it by now, strong German/Irish stock, pale skin like mine, glasses and a quick smile. We all hugged and stood around to pose for pictures for a few minutes before going to eat. Her friend was a very nice fellow, and was very kind to my son as she and I caught up on all sorts of things, like family members I hadn’t seen since leaving New York, who had had kids, who’s living life at large and who’s barely hanging on. It was very emotional, and intensely interesting since it was my family, even though I didn’t talk to most of them anymore.

I went into a trance about three-quarters into dinner, and started telling her about all the very specific things I recalled about her home, and my visits there. It was so strange to feel all the old memories come back, as though my brain was laying these little crystalline eggs that kept popping out of my mouth. Her garden, us picking fresh asparagus and strawberries that were so sweet, and blackberries that stained our teeth; the huge (to me, any way. I was six …) stack-stone fireplace, with the long sofa across from it where I used to sleep when we spent the night; the adults playing poker, which I was privileged enough to stay up and watch as I was a rather well-behaved little girl, the color of the chips and the cards and the jokes that were told; the old cuckoo clock with the pinecones dangling beneath it, the cuckoo being a kind of magical thing to me, as it always knew when the hour or half-hour was up and heralded it to the house at large; and the Indian at the top of her flag pole, who, by my mother’s account, had come alive when I was born and had shot me in my tummy with an arrow which explained where my bellybutton had come from. (No, with me being so young, she was NOT ready to have ‘the talk’ with me while we were unloading Christmas presents, thankyouverymuch.)

I could barely remember how to chew while I was reciting these memories to her, as bits and pieces of the pain of how stressful life was back then came sneaking through the newly made opening along with the good stuff. Though I shut them out while we were together, on the drive back home I started to realize that I had lived with such incredible stress ALL my life, until a few years back when my husband and I started to live together. Every day stress— How drunk was daddy, and was he in a good mood or a dark mood today? Were his friends good people who could be trusted even though they were loud and drunk too? What was wrong with mommy? Why was she always so quiet and angry at dad? Why did he speak to her like that? If they can’t stay together, what’s going to happen to my brother and I? Why would anyone want to toss my mom across the room like a rag doll—isn’t daddy supposed to love her? Why does my uncle want me to get naked with him— is that normal for babysitters? (Only happened once, but still.)

ALL MY LIFE.

And my stepfather, when he came on the scene, was just as much a threat to me as anyone before him. Why wouldn’t he be? He was a man, and that was how men were, right?? Oh yes, believe me, he was much much better than the previous man that stood there beside my mom and looked at me, the third wheel. I still didn’t trust him. And I didn’t love him for a long time. I knew my mom loved him, and I loved her with every fiber of my being, and so for her sake, seeing her happier than she had been since before I could remember, I made peace with him. He started to shape me, to mold me into what he thought a young girl should be. Sometimes he was right on the mark and did me a tremendous boon, but sometimes…just occasionally, he missed. And a few times, he missed badly. I would work with him and he would yell at me, hurting my feelings. Among other slights. Eventually I came to see that he was very smart, and did seem to care for me, and was crazy about my mother, so I walked on eggshells and tried to fit his mold. Hell, I’d done it up to then before, what was so difficult about doing it some more? Maybe that was just how it always was…

Anyway. Enough for now. More later, after I think a bit.

Found Sisters

2005-08-04T06:07:00.000-07:00

It is amazing to me how life can hand you exactly what you need sometimes, if you can only learn to recognize it. A woman whom I've known since I was fourteen has become like a sister to me during the past 20 years, and I just don't know how I would have made it all this way without her there beside me.

It's a friendship that has stood the tests of time, literally. We had a couple of falling-outs, though never the screeching, saying-things-that-will-make-you-regret-it-thrity-minutes-later kind, just... I see your life going in that direction, and mine is going down this road right now, but keep in touch and maybe they will converge again...

And they ALWAYS did, much to our mutual delight. We always reached out to one another again, and there we would find that same solid, knowing friendship which never faltered even with the distance of time and space. When we met, we felt so familiar to each other that we gushed on a daily basis about things so private NO one else had ever heard them- most secrets had not even been uttered out loud to ourselves. Though not related by blood, it was as if we had lived parallel lives and had come up with parallel conclusions, which fortified and strengthened us in our resolve to survive past the painful truths in our lives. And our joys were equal as well, some of the same things delighting us, our differences only serving to compliment each other.

We became joined at the hip for several years, until teenageritis hit around our senior year of high school and we came to the first fork in the road. It was touch-n-go for some time after that, with me living my life out of my house for the first time, and she trying to cope with college and living with her single mother. Every time we came back together, though, it was solid, pure love and never weighted down with vengeance. Regret over lost time, almost always, but never accusatory. She was married long before I was- married during a time in my life when I could not have been more lonely- and that distanced us for a little while. Then she had a son and sought me out, and a year later I was giving birth to mine own son then, and through new motherhood we stoked the old flame of our closeness and it has blazed ever since. Life is less like a roller coaster now, for both of us, so the valleys don't run as deep as they used to (so deep that you cannot see the sunlight anymore). And the hills are not as treacherous to climb.

The time we spend together is, I know, priceless. She understands me and my nature better than anyone I know, and oftentimes better than myself. She has a way of telling me things I'm afraid to tell myself; like forgiveness is the key to release the heavy burden of revenge and regret, and that life is too short to wallow in guilt and self-pity. Things I logically know are true but are afraid to actually believe.

This entry is for her, for the challenges we both face now and will face in the future; challenges and dark places and happiness, always facing them together. Two rocking chairs on the front porch of Shady Pines Retirement Home for the Hopelessly Ancient await us...

Is This Inappropriate?

2005-07-01T18:34:00.000-07:00

There must be something in the water lately. I work at a store as a cashier, selling plants mostly, and today, a strange occurence took place. We get a lot of landscapers in the store, buying large quantities of bushes and shrubs, and this guy was no different. He was loaded up with azaleas, a couple of hollies and some other plants that were at least green, in my memory.

As a rule, whenever someone writes a check we have to write down their driver's lisence number and date of birth. I noticed that his birthday was the same as mine. Since I am in customer service and find that I can make my day go by smoother by making small talk with customers, I mentioned this coincidence to him. So there I am, bent over the check, scribbling away, when I feel the faintest of touches on my cheek- he actually kissed my cheek. I froze. He said, "Happy birthday". And I said the only thing I could think to say at that time. 'Thanks'. He wasn't looming over the counter or anything, he had planted it quick and jerked back just as fast to the appropriate distance of a customer-to-salesperson ratio.

Now, I don't know about how company policy deals with this sort of thing, but in hindsight I probably should have slapped him, or at least SAID something that eluded to the fact that this sort of attention is NOT acceptable, etc, etc. But I wasn't in that frame of mind, you know? I ended up joking about virgos ruling, or somesuch nonsense, but realized with horror that I was blushing a little bit. I mean...I was trying to be calm on the outside, but inside I was still rolling it over...did he...did he just...? Why oh WHAT possessed him....? What am I supposed to do?

And I came up with squat. So out he walked with nary a word from me for this infringement upon my person. So strange. I'm not what you would call a meek person by ANY definition. In a customer service position, I try to keep in mind that a lot of people don't get ANY service at all from most customer service associates, and with that in mind, I'm not my usual outspoken, who-gives-a-damn-if-I'm-talking-too-loud kind a gal while I'm on the clock. It's my job to be nice. So my street side wasn't ready and waiting, if that makes any sense at all. He took me off guard.

So, do I beat myself up about this? Am I a weenie for letting him walk out without a smack? Is it possible that it was an innocent oversight on his part? (Let's face it, he's a man and they don't always use the best judgement on a regular basis when it comes to social etiquette) Do I take this as a violation? Or does this happen ALLLL the time in France and I should just shrug it off?

Honestly, I still don't know what I should have done. I think I may have gotten in trouble for striking him, though they should have taken my side on it. Well, it's water under the bridge, no harm done. I just won't lean so far over the counter the next time I'm jotting down numbers, and I'll never ever NEVER mention my birthday again to someone. Apparently it was a bad case of TMI.

Sighting

2005-06-29T05:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was at my step-father's house, waiting for him to meet me. He's had this house since the mid-seventies, though he doesn't live in it anymore, unless he's fixing it up. He's getting ready to sell it, making many renovations throughout. It is my teenage home, the home I lived in when I was in the eighth grade, through graduation.

I saw that the gardenia planted near a fence that separates our yard from our neighbor's was in desparate need of dead-heading. It's blooming had been prolific, but now it was covered in tiny dried up brown balls, as a meatball bush might look bearing fruit. I started to methodically pluck at them, zoning out at the same time.

Just as I was about a third of the way through, I heard a door creak open at the neighbor's house. Now the couple that live next door, David and Patricia, are a very...unusual couple. My father has told me that he believes something terrible happened to Patricia when she was younger, (ike a rape, and that she simply stopped coming out of the house. Her husband, David, works a lot, and long hours, though you wouldn't know that he was making any money at all by looking at the condition of their house. It's got weeds in the grass that more often than not grows knee deep, grape vines and honeysuckle are covering most of a couple of trees on the fence side, the roof of the porch is caving in and holds water, other parts of the trim are falling off, the paint is chipping off on the parts that weren't covered in vinyl siding, and there are a couple of cars in the driveway that never leave. One of our other neighbors reported banging on the door one time (he was supposed to meet David there to discuss selling his property, which he never intends to though he talks about it all the time. He'd have to sell Patricia with the house, and I don't think that would go over well on the buyer's market) and when Patricia finally cracked the door open a half an inch, he said the smell almost made him sit down, it was so rank.

Now, I've heard people, including David, bang on that door for a good hour or so and NOT gain an audience, so I was amazed that she opened the door for him at all, but that smell wasn't a good sign. So when the door creaked open while I was tending the gardenia, my ears tuned in and I slowed my movements down so as not to make any undue noise. My eyes locked on the bush at hand while I used my peripheral vision to track the motion on the porch without full-on staring.

Patricia moved out onto the porch like a wild animal sniffing out someplace new. (I considered she might be wary of that porch roof finally giving way...) And with a tunnel-vision type of approach she headed down the driveway. I lost sight of her for a moment, but then she appeared on the other side of the gardenia blocking my view, and she moved silently with only very faint shufflings of her white and blue and pink flowered slippers. I stared at her openly once she couldn't see me doing so, and noted her paleness, a white skin that almost glowed, with her white hair bundled up in a haphazard twist/ponytail. She wore a thin, faded nightgown with a shift underneath it. Her movements were stiff- she did not swing her arms or look from side to side or dally next to the shrubs to see what was eating the leaves. She was on a mission to the mailbox, and nothing would stop her. I felt like I was watching an apparition and didn't want to disturb it, lest it disentegrate into thin air. I didn't realize it, but I was holding my breath.

Once she had the mail in hand, closing the box very gently and noiselessly, she turned slowly back to the house and then I saw her lift her face to glance around, a frown imbedded on her mouth, her eyes gaunt and dark, almost all black except for a little white sclera in either corner. I wanted to look away, so that I wouldn't freak her out by her finding someone staring at her on her one venture out of the house in June, but I couldn't. I was mezmerized by her eyes. I wanted her to make eye contact with me and join me in a neighborly smile. Part of me wanted to see if she'd spot me and scream, mail flying through the air and her bolting for the sanctity of her house, leaving one frazzled slipper by the dead blue ford's back tire and a torn piece of nightgown on the overgrown rose bush leading up the porch stair.

Well, she did spot me, I think. But neither scenario took place. She saw me, and then her eyes looked right through me, and then she turned her head away slowly, as though I were invisible (I smiled to see if she would return the gesture, which she did not.) and silently shuffled back up to the house, through I noticed she was moving much faster than before. In her own way, she was bolting. She forced herself to close the door almost silently, though it took more time.

It left me feeling as though I'd just sighted a ghost. Though I wouldn't wish it on anyone, I have often wondered if Patricia would be one of those spirits that will linger after death. She is almost a ghost while she still lives. It's eerie and sad, how she moves through her world as if whomever attacked her when she was young might still be lingering in her bushes or in the broken-down cars that litter her driveway, waiting for the right moment to finish her off. I want to take her by the shoulders and make her look at me, focus on me, and tell her...Patricia, they're gone. You can come out now and enjoy the sun.

Intimidation

2005-06-24T18:47:00.000-07:00

I started this, and now I've not found the right 'moment' to write in it? I'm a total chicken.

My son turns six tomorrow. I'm so proud of who he has become. He's very down-to-earth, yet has an insane streak as wide as his mother's. He reads like a fiend. He laughs easy and loves with all his being. Gods how I love that boy.

His father's not so bad either. I'm truly blessed. I've come far from that lanky, stringy-haired girl I used to be. (Still am, deep down inside.) But she never knew she would grow up and surround herself with a family full of love. She never knew that there could be a bit of peace in her household, that she would grow up and be able to come home without dread or remorse. I owed that to her, and I'm so glad I could come through for her. I wanted to say 'she deserved better than her first father'...but as I wrote it, I knew it was a lie. No one deserves anything-- we get what we get, no tricks, no failings of fate, no sick twists of destiny. It's just the way it is. And I survived him, as did my mom. We both moved on to bigger and better things and never forget what we mean to each other, brought so close like we were by those times in our past.

Let the intimidation pass...

Not For Everyone

2005-06-15T14:12:00.000-07:00

This blog is dedicated to do exactly what the name suggests... be a fresh air vent. I am thirty-something years old, and as time goes on, there are places in the attic that get musty, smelly, smolder with dust and decay, and need a little fresh air. Some things have not seen the light of day ever since they happened.

I don't know if you could say that time heals all wounds. Well, I'm sure it heals MOST of them. I just don't know...it feels like some wounds will never dry up, no matter how much you ignore them. I'm going to try to pick at them instead, open them up to the fresh air. I also understand blogging is cheaper than therapy. We'll see if it works any better.

This will also be a place where the mind gets to capture some of the things happening around me, things that I notice that get tossed around in my mental sea, looking for a place to land. So maybe we can keep this from being the 'doom and gloom' page. Although honestly, I make the rest of my life fairly doom and gloom free, so maybe this one place, this one tiny bit of space can be for the darker things. The things that itch in the night...