I'm feeling extremely restless. Something about spending an entire day expecting to learn at any minute that any number of people I hold very dear had died. Something about this ovulation being extra cat-in-heat-like. Something about too much introspection and existential thought. Something about I love a man on the other side of a globe and what am I even stringing him along for if I will probably just let him down by going to bed with someone and never live near him anyway. An open relationship in theory and in practice are different animals. A past lover asked if I wanted to get down. I wanted to get down. I went to see him. It was fun and it was fine but how will the man I love be after I tell him? And I left still feeling cat-in-heat-like. I wanted to go to any bar and go to bed with the first person who made eye contact. I wanted a stranger to slap me full across the face and tell me horrible things about myself. I went home and wrote a tender poem about my love then spent my whole dream fucking strangers who said yes. So instead I drive too fast after school down rural highways and the wind is too cold because I don't have a jacket and it hurts my skin and I like it. And a car in front of me is kicking up dust and it's stinging my skin and I like it. I follow the car down roads I wouldn't otherwise have taken because I want the stinging to keep stinging. And the cold and the sting is making me tear up and I like it because I have an excuse to shed tears and a reason for them I can name. I'm driving too fast and I'm fantasizing about leaping off and flying for a few seconds. I hold the accelerator down until it will go no faster and dream about brick walls. And what am I even doing staying up too late every night and I just want to sleep all day and why am I going to work what does this work mean for me for my future what is a future do I even want one? What is living for and can't I just sleep under an overpass and start drunk fights with strangers and get my teeth knocked out? Why do I feel like shit and why do I want someone something to make me feel like shit? Because then I'd have an actual reason for feeling this way that I cannot otherwise name?
Showing posts with label meditating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meditating. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
30/30: this time it's personal and it's naked and it's ugly.
And it's prose. Whoops.
I'm feeling extremely restless. Something about spending an entire day expecting to learn at any minute that any number of people I hold very dear had died. Something about this ovulation being extra cat-in-heat-like. Something about too much introspection and existential thought. Something about I love a man on the other side of a globe and what am I even stringing him along for if I will probably just let him down by going to bed with someone and never live near him anyway. An open relationship in theory and in practice are different animals. A past lover asked if I wanted to get down. I wanted to get down. I went to see him. It was fun and it was fine but how will the man I love be after I tell him? And I left still feeling cat-in-heat-like. I wanted to go to any bar and go to bed with the first person who made eye contact. I wanted a stranger to slap me full across the face and tell me horrible things about myself. I went home and wrote a tender poem about my love then spent my whole dream fucking strangers who said yes. So instead I drive too fast after school down rural highways and the wind is too cold because I don't have a jacket and it hurts my skin and I like it. And a car in front of me is kicking up dust and it's stinging my skin and I like it. I follow the car down roads I wouldn't otherwise have taken because I want the stinging to keep stinging. And the cold and the sting is making me tear up and I like it because I have an excuse to shed tears and a reason for them I can name. I'm driving too fast and I'm fantasizing about leaping off and flying for a few seconds. I hold the accelerator down until it will go no faster and dream about brick walls. And what am I even doing staying up too late every night and I just want to sleep all day and why am I going to work what does this work mean for me for my future what is a future do I even want one? What is living for and can't I just sleep under an overpass and start drunk fights with strangers and get my teeth knocked out? Why do I feel like shit and why do I want someone something to make me feel like shit? Because then I'd have an actual reason for feeling this way that I cannot otherwise name?
I'm feeling extremely restless. Something about spending an entire day expecting to learn at any minute that any number of people I hold very dear had died. Something about this ovulation being extra cat-in-heat-like. Something about too much introspection and existential thought. Something about I love a man on the other side of a globe and what am I even stringing him along for if I will probably just let him down by going to bed with someone and never live near him anyway. An open relationship in theory and in practice are different animals. A past lover asked if I wanted to get down. I wanted to get down. I went to see him. It was fun and it was fine but how will the man I love be after I tell him? And I left still feeling cat-in-heat-like. I wanted to go to any bar and go to bed with the first person who made eye contact. I wanted a stranger to slap me full across the face and tell me horrible things about myself. I went home and wrote a tender poem about my love then spent my whole dream fucking strangers who said yes. So instead I drive too fast after school down rural highways and the wind is too cold because I don't have a jacket and it hurts my skin and I like it. And a car in front of me is kicking up dust and it's stinging my skin and I like it. I follow the car down roads I wouldn't otherwise have taken because I want the stinging to keep stinging. And the cold and the sting is making me tear up and I like it because I have an excuse to shed tears and a reason for them I can name. I'm driving too fast and I'm fantasizing about leaping off and flying for a few seconds. I hold the accelerator down until it will go no faster and dream about brick walls. And what am I even doing staying up too late every night and I just want to sleep all day and why am I going to work what does this work mean for me for my future what is a future do I even want one? What is living for and can't I just sleep under an overpass and start drunk fights with strangers and get my teeth knocked out? Why do I feel like shit and why do I want someone something to make me feel like shit? Because then I'd have an actual reason for feeling this way that I cannot otherwise name?
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Sneaky Feet
My partner plays footsie... while completely fast asleep. It's the most darling phenomenon. Or will roll over and heave this big sigh and throw an arm across me - completely unconscious - or I go to the bathroom and when I come back my pillow has been swept up and is now being cuddled in my place, like a surrogate-me, to facilitate survival until my return.
Having a partner who's not so big on words can leave a poet feeling lovestarved sometimes. Me, I gush them like a fountain. All the time. Sometimes I worry it's too much. And all I want is to hear some sweet words, about anything, about me, or my dimple, or that I cook all the time, or even just those traditional three, and I've always had trouble falling asleep, and I lay awake wondering if I'm not good enough...
...and then those sneaky feet sliiiiide across the sheets to hug mine, and the whole wide world just melts away.
Having a partner who's not so big on words can leave a poet feeling lovestarved sometimes. Me, I gush them like a fountain. All the time. Sometimes I worry it's too much. And all I want is to hear some sweet words, about anything, about me, or my dimple, or that I cook all the time, or even just those traditional three, and I've always had trouble falling asleep, and I lay awake wondering if I'm not good enough...
...and then those sneaky feet sliiiiide across the sheets to hug mine, and the whole wide world just melts away.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
On my personal experience as a minority.
Because it's just that: My personal experience. I cannot speak for all people who live/have lived as minorities, I cannot speak even to the general experience of all tall white girls in Taiwan. I can only speak about what I personally am experiencing. So this is not a manifesto, just a personal meditation.
When I last wrote about getting stares, I was still in Taipei. North of the island, biggest city in Taiwan, etc etc etc. I wrote that they were minimal, that they were more curious than lecherous, just interested passing glances. Now I'm in a small town in the south. Now the stares are unabashed and lingering. Now I feel like I'm in a zoo, except I'm the animal. And I'm the only one. And they're all here to see me. I wish they'd at least bring food.
I know I'm tall. I know I'm white. I know my eyes are blue. I know I have tattoos and curly hair. Most of these things have been a lifelong thing for me - even the tattoos started eleven years ago. None of this is new for me.
It's pretty new to most of the folks in Pingdong, apparently.
Today some friends were going to go swimming. They asked if I wanted to go. DUH YES. I mean... yeah, if you know me, you know how I feel about swimming. Just what I need, I thought. Especially after last night, drinking with other students in the program and getting into a pretty intense discussion about trans* people and how they aren't unnatural or gross with a bigot in the group.
The place was really magical. For a water-junkie like me, it was a literal heaven on earth. There was a 50-meter long pool for swimming (only one real lap lane that had several people in it, but laps were do-able), and next to it in the corner was this wall about hip-high. Climb over this wall and you find two big soaking pits, one is just warm with these three crazy jets shooting down from the short ceiling you can stand under for a massage, and the other is super hot for soaking, next to some small windows that open into this jungle-looking area with a nice breeze passing by.
And if that wasn't water-heaven enough, downstairs with the dressing rooms (which have both a sauna and a steam room) is this thing called the SPA. Walk down the hallway and you again have to climb over a short wall which puts you in another water pit. This one is kinda lukewarm too, and there are different jet-things everywhere. You can scoot back into a u-shaped cave area where jets will come at you from different angles, you can stand under more of the crazy shower-jets, you can scoot through a maze of little cube-posts that shoot jets out from different heights, you can lay back on the bed-chairs that have jets shooting up at you from underneath... water decadence! It was wonderful! It would have been perfect...
... if I hadn't been the zoo animal.
One girl came around the corner in the dressing room, and when she saw me, drew a sharp intake gasp of breath, her face went all shocked, and she literally jumped back. Yo, .... what? I'm just another human. I'm not some crazy devil monster who's going to attack you. I mean, ... except ...
...that we are literally referred to as "white ghost" here. We were taught this by the program director on a slide in her powerpoint presentation on Taiwanese culture. The slide was titled "How are Americans perceived?" There were bulletin points with racial slurs. White ghost is a little outdated, though. These days, apparently, the popular one is something to do with what freakishly long noses we have. How is that appropriate to teach as a class?
I go through this and I think about my friends of color back home. The thing is, I really don't have it that bad. Sure, I look over in the pool and realize that this old dude is going underwater so he can stare at my body underneath the water's surface, and that's really creepy and weird, but it's not like he's denying me any rights, or spitting on me or anything.
And that's my experience. That I am a novelty, a freak, something to be exoticised, and I don't like it, and I want to complain, and I stare right back now at those who stare at me. And when the little girl who keeps bumping into me in the pool to say, in English, "Oh sorry sorry" finally decides that she's tired of me ignoring her and actually grabs me while I'm swimming and pulls me under so that she can say "Oh sorry sorry" again and surely I'll respond this time, I do, and I look her right in the eyes, and I say, in Chinese, "What? What do you want? What would you like? What?" and she swims away but her friends keep staring and saying, in English, "HALLO HALLOOOO!" and Jesus Christ I just came here to swim people, to get my zen on, to knock out a thousand yards until my body feels completely exhausted and like a million bucks at the same time. I love how my body moves in the water, but I don't want some creepy old man going under to love it too.
And yet I can't have these experiences without thinking about how I really don't have it that bad as a minority here. Yeah, when I complain to a friend who went with me to the pool, he says, in English, "But it is because in Taiwan, we think foreigners are so beautiful!" And I realize he means it as a compliment, genuinely, and so does the creepy old man, but that doesn't make it not racist.
The other night I took a train with a few friends (two Taiwanese, one Vietnamese-American) to Kaohsiung, the second biggest city in Taiwan which is just a half hour up the road. When the conductor passed, he said something in Chinese, and the two locals started laughing. They explained it to the Vietnamese-American, whose Chinese is way better than mine, and he explained it to me. The guy said what he always says, but this time, he said it "like an American would say it." Once he saw me, he decided, I guess, he should do his best American accent. And they all thought it was hilarious and dissolved into laughter.
And I think, well, but I'm still allowed to ride the train. It's not like there's a "White Ghosts Only" car in the back or anything. But I can't help getting pissed.
This has really been a busy and interesting week. There was an opening ceremony, a few days of classes, and a school-led trip to Kaohsiung with a huge Buddhist monastery, a mountain climb with monkeys, and a harbor visit. It was all rad, and I know I should have written about it by now... but I've been kindof confused about how to write about those awesome things and also this prevailing weirdness. So here's this post dedicated to weirdness, and hopefully tomorrow I can write about awesome things only. In the meantime, hopefully, I will just learn and grow.
When I last wrote about getting stares, I was still in Taipei. North of the island, biggest city in Taiwan, etc etc etc. I wrote that they were minimal, that they were more curious than lecherous, just interested passing glances. Now I'm in a small town in the south. Now the stares are unabashed and lingering. Now I feel like I'm in a zoo, except I'm the animal. And I'm the only one. And they're all here to see me. I wish they'd at least bring food.
I know I'm tall. I know I'm white. I know my eyes are blue. I know I have tattoos and curly hair. Most of these things have been a lifelong thing for me - even the tattoos started eleven years ago. None of this is new for me.
It's pretty new to most of the folks in Pingdong, apparently.
Today some friends were going to go swimming. They asked if I wanted to go. DUH YES. I mean... yeah, if you know me, you know how I feel about swimming. Just what I need, I thought. Especially after last night, drinking with other students in the program and getting into a pretty intense discussion about trans* people and how they aren't unnatural or gross with a bigot in the group.
The place was really magical. For a water-junkie like me, it was a literal heaven on earth. There was a 50-meter long pool for swimming (only one real lap lane that had several people in it, but laps were do-able), and next to it in the corner was this wall about hip-high. Climb over this wall and you find two big soaking pits, one is just warm with these three crazy jets shooting down from the short ceiling you can stand under for a massage, and the other is super hot for soaking, next to some small windows that open into this jungle-looking area with a nice breeze passing by.
And if that wasn't water-heaven enough, downstairs with the dressing rooms (which have both a sauna and a steam room) is this thing called the SPA. Walk down the hallway and you again have to climb over a short wall which puts you in another water pit. This one is kinda lukewarm too, and there are different jet-things everywhere. You can scoot back into a u-shaped cave area where jets will come at you from different angles, you can stand under more of the crazy shower-jets, you can scoot through a maze of little cube-posts that shoot jets out from different heights, you can lay back on the bed-chairs that have jets shooting up at you from underneath... water decadence! It was wonderful! It would have been perfect...
... if I hadn't been the zoo animal.
One girl came around the corner in the dressing room, and when she saw me, drew a sharp intake gasp of breath, her face went all shocked, and she literally jumped back. Yo, .... what? I'm just another human. I'm not some crazy devil monster who's going to attack you. I mean, ... except ...
...that we are literally referred to as "white ghost" here. We were taught this by the program director on a slide in her powerpoint presentation on Taiwanese culture. The slide was titled "How are Americans perceived?" There were bulletin points with racial slurs. White ghost is a little outdated, though. These days, apparently, the popular one is something to do with what freakishly long noses we have. How is that appropriate to teach as a class?
I go through this and I think about my friends of color back home. The thing is, I really don't have it that bad. Sure, I look over in the pool and realize that this old dude is going underwater so he can stare at my body underneath the water's surface, and that's really creepy and weird, but it's not like he's denying me any rights, or spitting on me or anything.
And that's my experience. That I am a novelty, a freak, something to be exoticised, and I don't like it, and I want to complain, and I stare right back now at those who stare at me. And when the little girl who keeps bumping into me in the pool to say, in English, "Oh sorry sorry" finally decides that she's tired of me ignoring her and actually grabs me while I'm swimming and pulls me under so that she can say "Oh sorry sorry" again and surely I'll respond this time, I do, and I look her right in the eyes, and I say, in Chinese, "What? What do you want? What would you like? What?" and she swims away but her friends keep staring and saying, in English, "HALLO HALLOOOO!" and Jesus Christ I just came here to swim people, to get my zen on, to knock out a thousand yards until my body feels completely exhausted and like a million bucks at the same time. I love how my body moves in the water, but I don't want some creepy old man going under to love it too.
And yet I can't have these experiences without thinking about how I really don't have it that bad as a minority here. Yeah, when I complain to a friend who went with me to the pool, he says, in English, "But it is because in Taiwan, we think foreigners are so beautiful!" And I realize he means it as a compliment, genuinely, and so does the creepy old man, but that doesn't make it not racist.
The other night I took a train with a few friends (two Taiwanese, one Vietnamese-American) to Kaohsiung, the second biggest city in Taiwan which is just a half hour up the road. When the conductor passed, he said something in Chinese, and the two locals started laughing. They explained it to the Vietnamese-American, whose Chinese is way better than mine, and he explained it to me. The guy said what he always says, but this time, he said it "like an American would say it." Once he saw me, he decided, I guess, he should do his best American accent. And they all thought it was hilarious and dissolved into laughter.
And I think, well, but I'm still allowed to ride the train. It's not like there's a "White Ghosts Only" car in the back or anything. But I can't help getting pissed.
This has really been a busy and interesting week. There was an opening ceremony, a few days of classes, and a school-led trip to Kaohsiung with a huge Buddhist monastery, a mountain climb with monkeys, and a harbor visit. It was all rad, and I know I should have written about it by now... but I've been kindof confused about how to write about those awesome things and also this prevailing weirdness. So here's this post dedicated to weirdness, and hopefully tomorrow I can write about awesome things only. In the meantime, hopefully, I will just learn and grow.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Whoops.
I woke up Sunday wishing I could remember what my mother's voice sounded like. She used to record stories for the local library, and you could call a number to hear it over the phone. I knew they used her stories for years after she left the job, so I called it up. It was a new voice telling a bilingual story. Guess they finally got with the times.
So I hung up. Checked my email and found a message from her.
It was hit and it was miss. There was a line in particular that gave me deep pause, but I won't go into it here, mostly because when I replied I neglected to edit out my signature with the link to this blog in it, so it's possible she's finally found it and maybe even stalking me right now. Ooooooh, spooky. It's a bummer because this has been a place where I felt free to talk about it and write it out. I may migrate over to my livejournal to do this in the future.
But I do want to catalog the things that helped me get to the place where I am today, and that is a place where her memory can no longer hurt me. I just found myself here recently.
1) Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood. The movie works better than the book for my specific purposes. The book is a little too different from our particular problems, but the movie is general enough to apply. I watched it and wished somehow someone would knock me out and take me out of my life and explain everything about her and what made her the crazy woman she became. Never happened.
2) Big Fish. Another movie about a kid who hates his/her parent for the person s/he perceived the parent to be and how s/he goes about reconciling that issue.
3) Postsecret.com and a few secrets in particular that resonated with my situation. One said "I am sorry I can't be who you want me to be, Mom. It's a shame cause I kinda like myself the way I am." Another said "Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering." It's nice to know that even though other people are having lives completely different from your own, our individual sufferings match up on overall themes from time to time. I made one card about us and sent it in, but I never saw it posted on the blog. Lame.
4) Rachel McKibbens's "Central Park, Mother's Day."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlqQzKBfNFE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-k-d-dbWHI&feature=related
Neither of these are as powerful as the version I heard for the first time at the finals of the National Poetry Slam in Austin in 2007. It was the first time I really thought about our situation from her point of view and thought, gee, maybe she didn't *mean* to fuck up so badly.
5) A documentary my father gave me about forgiveness. I can't remember the title right now, sorry, but it got me thinking about the process and working toward it.
6) Writing lots of poems about her.
7) Writing lots of letters to her. I never sent the poems or the letters, of course. Because at the end of the day, they were really just for me.
8) This American Life episode 175:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=175
The story that starts at 32:49 wasn't about us at all at first. It wasn't until it got to 53:36 that the neon signs lit up, and they were all arrows, and they were all pointing right at me.
I'm doing this catalog just in case we do meet up, and it turns out to be a terrible idea and nothing but negativity comes from it. These things (and a few more, but these have been the real beacons) can help bring me back to this place where I realize that she quite probably did the best she honestly could, and I can't hate her any more if her best was really that awful. I don't know what happened to her to make her who she was, and it may happen that she's someone else entirely today. Here's hoping.
The saddest part is that I've found two amazing substitute moms and I've loved them so much and valued having them in my lives more than I can ever tell them. One lives on a mountaintop outside Hot Springs and always gives the best hugs and the hugest heapings of unconditional love and delicious tea and is so giving and so loving. The other is actually a transgendered woman (gets her pussy this week, god bless her!) who is the ass-kicking I-got-your-back kind of mom who doles out brilliant amazing advice and delicious dinners at the same time.
I worry that they may suffer in this. Either my bio-mom will turn out to have changed into someone I can have a relationship with and I'll neglect these amazing women (unlikely, but I'll surely have guilt anyway) or she'll turn out to be the same person she always was and these women will have to help me rebuild myself all over again.
Dear God: Thanks for the amazing mothers you've sent me. Do please keep an eye on me for a bit while I deal with this. Love, Ginna.
So I hung up. Checked my email and found a message from her.
It was hit and it was miss. There was a line in particular that gave me deep pause, but I won't go into it here, mostly because when I replied I neglected to edit out my signature with the link to this blog in it, so it's possible she's finally found it and maybe even stalking me right now. Ooooooh, spooky. It's a bummer because this has been a place where I felt free to talk about it and write it out. I may migrate over to my livejournal to do this in the future.
But I do want to catalog the things that helped me get to the place where I am today, and that is a place where her memory can no longer hurt me. I just found myself here recently.
1) Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood. The movie works better than the book for my specific purposes. The book is a little too different from our particular problems, but the movie is general enough to apply. I watched it and wished somehow someone would knock me out and take me out of my life and explain everything about her and what made her the crazy woman she became. Never happened.
2) Big Fish. Another movie about a kid who hates his/her parent for the person s/he perceived the parent to be and how s/he goes about reconciling that issue.
3) Postsecret.com and a few secrets in particular that resonated with my situation. One said "I am sorry I can't be who you want me to be, Mom. It's a shame cause I kinda like myself the way I am." Another said "Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering." It's nice to know that even though other people are having lives completely different from your own, our individual sufferings match up on overall themes from time to time. I made one card about us and sent it in, but I never saw it posted on the blog. Lame.
4) Rachel McKibbens's "Central Park, Mother's Day."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlqQzKBfNFE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-k-d-dbWHI&feature=related
Neither of these are as powerful as the version I heard for the first time at the finals of the National Poetry Slam in Austin in 2007. It was the first time I really thought about our situation from her point of view and thought, gee, maybe she didn't *mean* to fuck up so badly.
5) A documentary my father gave me about forgiveness. I can't remember the title right now, sorry, but it got me thinking about the process and working toward it.
6) Writing lots of poems about her.
7) Writing lots of letters to her. I never sent the poems or the letters, of course. Because at the end of the day, they were really just for me.
8) This American Life episode 175:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=175
The story that starts at 32:49 wasn't about us at all at first. It wasn't until it got to 53:36 that the neon signs lit up, and they were all arrows, and they were all pointing right at me.
I'm doing this catalog just in case we do meet up, and it turns out to be a terrible idea and nothing but negativity comes from it. These things (and a few more, but these have been the real beacons) can help bring me back to this place where I realize that she quite probably did the best she honestly could, and I can't hate her any more if her best was really that awful. I don't know what happened to her to make her who she was, and it may happen that she's someone else entirely today. Here's hoping.
The saddest part is that I've found two amazing substitute moms and I've loved them so much and valued having them in my lives more than I can ever tell them. One lives on a mountaintop outside Hot Springs and always gives the best hugs and the hugest heapings of unconditional love and delicious tea and is so giving and so loving. The other is actually a transgendered woman (gets her pussy this week, god bless her!) who is the ass-kicking I-got-your-back kind of mom who doles out brilliant amazing advice and delicious dinners at the same time.
I worry that they may suffer in this. Either my bio-mom will turn out to have changed into someone I can have a relationship with and I'll neglect these amazing women (unlikely, but I'll surely have guilt anyway) or she'll turn out to be the same person she always was and these women will have to help me rebuild myself all over again.
Dear God: Thanks for the amazing mothers you've sent me. Do please keep an eye on me for a bit while I deal with this. Love, Ginna.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Trepidation is onomatopoetic.
To me, anyway. The word - trepidation... you can hear the shiver, the nervousness contained within the word. It's the word I thought of when I was driving back from Little Rock this afternoon.
No big deal, by the way, but I've found my next house. It's everything I've been praying for. It's small, cute, close to campus, and has a pretty, level, fenced yard for the pooch. It's got lots of cabinets in the kitchen and a showerhead I won't have to stoop to get under. It's a three bedroom, one bath. It's got a nice big den on the back that I might even claim as my bedroom and stick couches in one of the bedrooms instead. It's in a safe, landscaped neighborhood. It's affordable. In short, it's a godsend.
Why, then, did I feel a very particular nervousness as I was driving back to Hot Springs after turning over the deposit check? Because I'm afraid of commitment and always have been and probably always will be. The particular feeling of fear I was feeling, the specific trepidation, seemed familiar to me and at first I couldn't put my finger on why. I began to dissect the fear to get a better look at it. It was the "run for the door, quick" fear, a "this might not be right even though it seems that way" fear. It was a voice in my head telling me that even though it was everything I'd wanted and everything I needed that I shouldn't change my life.
Then it hit me. It's the exact trepidation I get every time I'm about to go under the needle for some new ink. Even though I've committed to the design by staring at it for months on my refrigerator and drawing it on with a sharpie over and over, I still want to run for the door each time. But I suck it up, conquer the fear, and go through with it... and every time I love it.
Trepidation is a fun word to research. Merriam and Webster, close personal homeboys of mine, say the etymology is Latin trepidation-, trepidatio, from trepidare to tremble, from trepidus agitated; probably akin to Old English thrafian to urge, push, Greek trapein to press grapes. That's exactly how I felt - as if I was hopping from foot to foot, back and forth, nervously. Then the definition goes on to say that trepidation means "timorous uncertain agitation." What perfect, beautiful language.
I'm about to make a huge change in my life. For the past eight years I've been working in restaurants and trying to make that my life, even if I didn't realize it at first. That is not to say that restaurant work can not be part of my life again in the future, but at least for the next two or three years it will not be the focus. My focus will be classes, studying, papers, reading... Instead of in a kitchen, I will spend most of my time on a campus. Rather than cracking dirty jokes with cooks, I'll be discussing ideas with professors. I'll replace late-night-socializing with early-evening-studies.
I'm terrified... but excited. I've been put on this path for a reason, the universe has been painfully clear about that. Fear can be a motivator for strength - as long as my trepidation keeps me hopping from foot to foot on these fresh new grapes, I'll make sure I'm at least hopping forward.
No big deal, by the way, but I've found my next house. It's everything I've been praying for. It's small, cute, close to campus, and has a pretty, level, fenced yard for the pooch. It's got lots of cabinets in the kitchen and a showerhead I won't have to stoop to get under. It's a three bedroom, one bath. It's got a nice big den on the back that I might even claim as my bedroom and stick couches in one of the bedrooms instead. It's in a safe, landscaped neighborhood. It's affordable. In short, it's a godsend.
Why, then, did I feel a very particular nervousness as I was driving back to Hot Springs after turning over the deposit check? Because I'm afraid of commitment and always have been and probably always will be. The particular feeling of fear I was feeling, the specific trepidation, seemed familiar to me and at first I couldn't put my finger on why. I began to dissect the fear to get a better look at it. It was the "run for the door, quick" fear, a "this might not be right even though it seems that way" fear. It was a voice in my head telling me that even though it was everything I'd wanted and everything I needed that I shouldn't change my life.
Then it hit me. It's the exact trepidation I get every time I'm about to go under the needle for some new ink. Even though I've committed to the design by staring at it for months on my refrigerator and drawing it on with a sharpie over and over, I still want to run for the door each time. But I suck it up, conquer the fear, and go through with it... and every time I love it.
Trepidation is a fun word to research. Merriam and Webster, close personal homeboys of mine, say the etymology is Latin trepidation-, trepidatio, from trepidare to tremble, from trepidus agitated; probably akin to Old English thrafian to urge, push, Greek trapein to press grapes. That's exactly how I felt - as if I was hopping from foot to foot, back and forth, nervously. Then the definition goes on to say that trepidation means "timorous uncertain agitation." What perfect, beautiful language.
I'm about to make a huge change in my life. For the past eight years I've been working in restaurants and trying to make that my life, even if I didn't realize it at first. That is not to say that restaurant work can not be part of my life again in the future, but at least for the next two or three years it will not be the focus. My focus will be classes, studying, papers, reading... Instead of in a kitchen, I will spend most of my time on a campus. Rather than cracking dirty jokes with cooks, I'll be discussing ideas with professors. I'll replace late-night-socializing with early-evening-studies.
I'm terrified... but excited. I've been put on this path for a reason, the universe has been painfully clear about that. Fear can be a motivator for strength - as long as my trepidation keeps me hopping from foot to foot on these fresh new grapes, I'll make sure I'm at least hopping forward.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Learning about that F-word
Technically, if I were going to stay "It all started when..." I'd have to say it all started one sunny Labor Day back in 1982 when Susan Elizabeth Weston Wallace gave birth to an eight pound zero ounce squalling baby girl with a head of curly black hair. That girl came unknowingly into a world of cruelty to learn many very important lessons, and forgiveness was one of them.
More recently, though, it started with a movie my father gave to me - a documentary on Forgiveness when I had no idea that I needed it most. I watched it and was overwhelmed, driven to go looking for more learning on the subject. Forgiveness manifests in every religion with different rules applied to it. The Buddhists say that we forgive so that we can clean up our own minds of negative thoughts, for our own karmas. Hinduism sees forgiveness not as weakness but instead as a great power. I told you what the Jewish religion thought about the F-word in a past blog – it’s my favorite interpretation thus far. Psychological and scientific studies on forgiveness have only begun recently – like, 1980s recently. Science has learned that when we originally refuse to forgive, it's actually a survival mechanism. It gives us the adrenaline we need to deal with a situation, and keeps the body moving away from the negative situation. However, when the resentment is held on to over time, it becomes detrimental to our bodies. People who are more forgiving live longer and have healthier as well as happier overall lives when compared to people that hold onto resentment.
When I wrote about it last, a few people asked me to talk more about it when I'd learned more. Forgiveness is so important and so beneficial and something I never thought I would be big on. I never saw myself as a "forgiving type." Those of you who know me well will surely have no problem understanding this. I would like to stress that I am not an expert (and it turns out there are Forgiveness Experts who by the way travel around giving seminars) on anything at all due in part to my twenty-five short years, and I'm just going to tell you what my experience of it has been.
It's awesome. It's completely different from what I originally perceived it to be. I had thought forgiveness was something you gave someone, granted someone, did for someone to help them, to make them feel better, or to somehow grant some magical pardon or... I'm not sure what I thought it was, but I thought the verb "to forgive" was something you did to or for someone else. It is not. It is not. It is not. Forgiveness is something you do for yourself that just happens to impact someone else. Forgiveness does not mean you forget that so-and-so is an arrogant and insensitive punk. It means you accept that they are arrogant and insensitive, and you let go of all resentment you have attached to the fact. You do not feel anger over their actions. Maybe you can feel disappointed, but even that's probably not so great an idea.
And I know that I still have miles to go before I sleep... and miles to go before I sleep... but I know now at least what forgiveness is and I've been practicing it with great results. Shoot - ask me about the fat man at the lake that I ignored at first and then told I forgave for screaming at me that I was an ignorant bitch for swimming near him! Forgiveness is letting go, it is the opposite of holding onto resentment. Acknowledge what happened, acknowledge why it happened and the person who is responsible for it... and let go. Realize and recognize that what happened was negative... and refuse to let it impact you any more. Forgiveness is not Forgetting - forgetting only sets you up to be hurt again and again. Remember, but remember at an emotional-arms-length. Forgiveness is practicing peace in your heart and your consciousness. Forgiveness is saying no to negative thoughts.
A week or two after my father sent me home with that movie, the package from my mother arrived in the mail. My mother, my greatest heartache, the woman I have not had a relationship with for eight years because I could not allow her negative influence in my life anymore. I've resented her for the way she treated me, for the things she did. I've resented myself for allowing her to hurt me. I've resented the other people in my family for not stopping it. And it isn't healthy and now I know this and I am daily practicing thinking of her and the whole situation without negativity.
We may or may not ever have a real relationship again, but that doesn't mean I have to let it bring me down. Someday I hope to tell her that I have forgiven her and to truly mean it. I cannot rush into this - again, those scientific studies stress that premature forgiveness is unhealthy - but I am working toward it every day.
This is what I've learned thus far. Now you know. Now tell me what you know.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Challenging Fear
I am reminded of this blog I wrote after having read Montaigne’s “Of Practice.” As a preface to this, I have spent all summer for the past four summers swimming away issues and stress out at Lake Ouachita, the second cleanest lake in North America, swimming across and back as many times as possible without stopping. This is a first draft, never edited.
I think everyone has thoughts like these sometimes. I think this because I have to in order to stay sane. If I thought people didn't think like this, I'd think I was insane, and if I thought that I'd start to believe it and then I would be crazy and they'd lock me up.
I like things that make me feel close to death.
I'm not sure what this is about. Let's start with the fact that I have a substantial fear of heights. It's not debilitating or anything, but it does make me feel nervous, feel fear, and this problem with vertigo takes over if I get too close to the edge. So, naturally, I climb buildings. I hang out on rooftops; I go to the mountain tower; I ride roller-coasters and at the very top, while everyone's looking forward to see what comes next, I'm peering over the side at the ground below, positively ready to defecate in my britches. I think fear is the mindkiller (shout outs to those who read that and recognize) and I try to fight it at every chance I get.
And the only thing you should really be allowed to fear is death: it's the one thing you can't survive. Sure, I hate bugs - I'll kill a bug and put a cup over it and try and psych myself up to actually pick the dead thing up and throw it away but it takes days. Sometimes I think maybe my fear of bugs is the main motivator for my relationships with men - there's someone around to take care of it then. But a bug won't kill me, you see. Public performances? Oh I can't hold the paper without it shaking, can't even sign up on the open mic list without having to scout out the ladies toilet so I can hit it up seven times before they even get close to calling my name. But I'll live through it. And I do still kill bugs, and I do still perform publicly, because these things frighten me but I don't want them to control me - I want to control them.
Death, when you really break it down, isn't that scary either - not, at least, to me. I'm only twenty five, but I've been to eight countries. I'm bilingual. I've been to a couple of different higher-education-institutions. I've made friends all over the globe. I've ridden airplanes and trains and roadtripped. I've had a handful of really awesome lovers and can overlook the not-so-awesome. I really feel like if I died tomorrow, I'd have nothing to complain about. Sure, I'd have things I would have liked to have accomplished, but I honestly couldn't be sore over it. I've done more than my share already, and it's been freaking sweet.
I say all of this as preface to the thoughts I had this afternoon. I try to conquer my fears daily in my mind, and today while I was swimming, I thought about what would happen if I drowned one day. I've been swimming across this lake and back for four summers now, and I'm pretty good, so God willing it won't be an issue. But it's possible. And I think about being out there, swimming, on a Thursday afternoon when no one else is at the lake - no one on the shores, no boats - maybe one boat but far away. And I think about, as I swim across, what if... what if one of the times that water splashed in my mouth, I didn't spit it right out. What if I accidentally breathed in? What if a muscle seized up and I went under?
Well. I think a few days would pass before anyone knew. I wouldn't show up to work, but they'd chalk it up to a no-call no-show like any other job. Wouldn't worry until the second day, and who would they call? Maybe the girl I work with would call my roommate, but he wouldn't know where I'd gone. Some park ranger would come to the door of my apartment, or maybe even my father's house, who knows, knocking and asking why the car had been sitting on the side of the road for three days and somehow two and two would get put together.
And I'd be waterlogged at the bottom of the lake. I think about this while I swim and I keep swimming and keep swimming and keep swimming off the stress of the week, off the memories of travels, swim off all the past lovers, swim off everything, everything, swim off the fear. If I drowned at the bottom of Lake Ouachita, I'd say leave me there, put a stone near the shore saying Here She Dove and Did Not Rise; Here She Was Never More Happy.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Holy Fucking Shit.
This Fucking Shit is In Fucking Sane.
http://www.survival-international.org/news/3340
http://www.survival-international.org/news/3340
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Lake Ouachita is MY lake.
You can smell the lake before you can see it. I know just when to roll my windows down. First there's a mountain to climb which peaks and then the road goes down, turns, goes down again. That's when to roll the windows down, breathe deeply, let the bliss start to work its way under your skin. Then through the leaves you'll start to see the water's reflection. Come around a curve, ignore the first gravel patch but before you get to the second slow down and pull off the road. This is the sacred spot.
I feel the healing begin as soon as the key turns off. Gather up materials - towel, shoes, sunscreen? Oh guess not, bummer. No goggles today either, damnit. Alright, well, it's the first real swim of the year, it can't be perfect yet. Get out the car, bury the keys in a hidey-spot, and begin my trek through the woods. When I find myself at the edge of the water, if there are people around, I crouch down and shed my layers apologetically - if not, I'm brazen about it. I like to sit down and scoot into the water as the drop-off is quite steep. When I'm almost hip deep I'll take a huge breath and dive on in.
Oh my dear sweet lord. I'm home. I push and push and push myself under the water, trying to see how long I can make the breath last, how far out I can swim before I have to surface. I can feel the little things start to wash off - the fact that the grill man must have burnt seven orders today is gone. Hating the chemicals I have to clean with - gone. I push and push until I'm sure I'll die and only then allow myself to surface. I heave out the biggest sigh and immediately begin pumping legs, pumping arms - I have some distance to cover.
I was previously sure it was a quarter mile across the lake where I swim - Google maps tells me it's more like a tenth. It feels like a full mile. Hand over head, hand over hand, kick kick kick... and I like to switch it up. I'll swim forward, belly down, paddling, then start spinning like a top, swimming while I spin left left left, then right right right, then lay on my back and kick and throw my hands over my head and pull the water down my sides.
You'd never know I was an earth sign.
But apparently my Chinese astrology is full of water. And I love it. I love the feeling of being near weightlessness, the power, the strength I feel when I swim, the way my body moves in the water. Halfway across I forget the fact that I've just worked nearly seventy hours in five and a half days. Then I realize I'm not even halfway across yet and I get a little thrill. I won't let myself stop, won't take a break, have to swim the whole way without stopping. I get tired and I don't care. I keep swimming, keep spinning, swim front swim back swim sideways, just keep swimming and do not stop. Boats don't frighten me - I frighten boats. They can't figure out how I'm doing what they're doing without paying thousands to do it. I'm doing this myself. My own body does this by itself and it is a miracle.
When I finally get to the other side, it's interesting and hillarious watching myself try to pull my body back onto land, trying to remember how it works to be on land again. It takes a moment. This being the first swim of the year, I just collapsed until I remembered how to breathe again. Stood up and walked around to my favorite little spot where no one can see you sunning topless. Hung out until I got my breath back and then... back in, back across, without stopping once again. Gone is stress, gone is drama, gone are bills and unfulfilled obligations and chores, there is nothing but me, the sun, the water, and my breath...
Nothing but me, the sun, the water, and my breaths.
I'll get to the other side and touch rock, but usually cannot climb out just yet. Something about my body just isn't done with its water experience yet, doesn't want to do the land thing again just yet. I'll play games with my body in the water - try and float and see how long I can keep my toes above the water. Try to spin like a top without moving my arms. Try to swim with just my arms, or just my legs, try to turn somersaults without getting water in my ears.
I am wholly myself again, friends. Varsity Lake Crew tryouts begin now.
I feel the healing begin as soon as the key turns off. Gather up materials - towel, shoes, sunscreen? Oh guess not, bummer. No goggles today either, damnit. Alright, well, it's the first real swim of the year, it can't be perfect yet. Get out the car, bury the keys in a hidey-spot, and begin my trek through the woods. When I find myself at the edge of the water, if there are people around, I crouch down and shed my layers apologetically - if not, I'm brazen about it. I like to sit down and scoot into the water as the drop-off is quite steep. When I'm almost hip deep I'll take a huge breath and dive on in.
Oh my dear sweet lord. I'm home. I push and push and push myself under the water, trying to see how long I can make the breath last, how far out I can swim before I have to surface. I can feel the little things start to wash off - the fact that the grill man must have burnt seven orders today is gone. Hating the chemicals I have to clean with - gone. I push and push until I'm sure I'll die and only then allow myself to surface. I heave out the biggest sigh and immediately begin pumping legs, pumping arms - I have some distance to cover.
I was previously sure it was a quarter mile across the lake where I swim - Google maps tells me it's more like a tenth. It feels like a full mile. Hand over head, hand over hand, kick kick kick... and I like to switch it up. I'll swim forward, belly down, paddling, then start spinning like a top, swimming while I spin left left left, then right right right, then lay on my back and kick and throw my hands over my head and pull the water down my sides.
You'd never know I was an earth sign.
But apparently my Chinese astrology is full of water. And I love it. I love the feeling of being near weightlessness, the power, the strength I feel when I swim, the way my body moves in the water. Halfway across I forget the fact that I've just worked nearly seventy hours in five and a half days. Then I realize I'm not even halfway across yet and I get a little thrill. I won't let myself stop, won't take a break, have to swim the whole way without stopping. I get tired and I don't care. I keep swimming, keep spinning, swim front swim back swim sideways, just keep swimming and do not stop. Boats don't frighten me - I frighten boats. They can't figure out how I'm doing what they're doing without paying thousands to do it. I'm doing this myself. My own body does this by itself and it is a miracle.
When I finally get to the other side, it's interesting and hillarious watching myself try to pull my body back onto land, trying to remember how it works to be on land again. It takes a moment. This being the first swim of the year, I just collapsed until I remembered how to breathe again. Stood up and walked around to my favorite little spot where no one can see you sunning topless. Hung out until I got my breath back and then... back in, back across, without stopping once again. Gone is stress, gone is drama, gone are bills and unfulfilled obligations and chores, there is nothing but me, the sun, the water, and my breath...
Nothing but me, the sun, the water, and my breaths.
I'll get to the other side and touch rock, but usually cannot climb out just yet. Something about my body just isn't done with its water experience yet, doesn't want to do the land thing again just yet. I'll play games with my body in the water - try and float and see how long I can keep my toes above the water. Try to spin like a top without moving my arms. Try to swim with just my arms, or just my legs, try to turn somersaults without getting water in my ears.
I am wholly myself again, friends. Varsity Lake Crew tryouts begin now.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Thinking and Reading on Love...
My dear friend Christopher took me to a bookstore. Not just any bookstore - the Strand, with eight miles of books, mostly secondhand. If you know me well, you can imagine how much time I spent just drooling over shelf after shelf...
I've been fascinated with the Napoleonic era and its mindset for a while, and I've recently developed a celebrity crush on poet Edna St Vincent Millay. So I found two books, one with quotes of Napoleon and one with poems of Edna's. Here is what I want to share, and it's been helping this denying-lovesick poet these past few days.
"I do not ask you for the definition of love. I was in love once, and I remember it well enough not to require those metaphysical definitions that merely confuse matters. I do more than deny its existence. I believe it to be harmful to society, to individual happiness - in short, I believe that... it would be the merciful deed of a protective divinity to rid us of love and to liberate the world from it." -N. Bonaparte
"What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more."
-E. StV. Millay
Then Marty McConnel, a poet who regularly gives me Explody of the Brain, wrote a poem containing this line... "the ones who sing you love songs/ are never the ones who stay."
I'm just meditating and reading and wanted to share this with you all.
I've been fascinated with the Napoleonic era and its mindset for a while, and I've recently developed a celebrity crush on poet Edna St Vincent Millay. So I found two books, one with quotes of Napoleon and one with poems of Edna's. Here is what I want to share, and it's been helping this denying-lovesick poet these past few days.
"I do not ask you for the definition of love. I was in love once, and I remember it well enough not to require those metaphysical definitions that merely confuse matters. I do more than deny its existence. I believe it to be harmful to society, to individual happiness - in short, I believe that... it would be the merciful deed of a protective divinity to rid us of love and to liberate the world from it." -N. Bonaparte
"What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more."
-E. StV. Millay
Then Marty McConnel, a poet who regularly gives me Explody of the Brain, wrote a poem containing this line... "the ones who sing you love songs/ are never the ones who stay."
I'm just meditating and reading and wanted to share this with you all.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Day 29: I've been watching movies.
Damnit if I didn't just watch Away From Her. Damnit if I don't keep hearing about this whole "love" thing and wondering where mine is exactly already. Damnit if I don't write a love poem nine out of every ten.
------------------------------
You will say it first, accidentally,
instantly apologetic, and then we will
become awkward, sitting in silences
perched like parenthesis around the words
I will not acknowledge, for the remainder
of the evening. No, I won't say it first,
and probably not even second or third:
You'll have to repeat it a few times,
make it start to stick like a sacred mantra,
before I really believe you. Poets have
this predisposition, you see: poets put
more value on words than we do
on water, on oxygen, on gold, which are
good words to use in this metaphor anyway
I will not say I Love You until I am sure
I can commit myself wholly, blissfully,
unwaveringly to its meaning. I will not tell you
I love you until I have already imagined
each and every way you could hurt me
and reconciled myself somehow with surviving
all five thousand and three of them, in detail.
------------------------------
You will say it first, accidentally,
instantly apologetic, and then we will
become awkward, sitting in silences
perched like parenthesis around the words
I will not acknowledge, for the remainder
of the evening. No, I won't say it first,
and probably not even second or third:
You'll have to repeat it a few times,
make it start to stick like a sacred mantra,
before I really believe you. Poets have
this predisposition, you see: poets put
more value on words than we do
on water, on oxygen, on gold, which are
good words to use in this metaphor anyway
I will not say I Love You until I am sure
I can commit myself wholly, blissfully,
unwaveringly to its meaning. I will not tell you
I love you until I have already imagined
each and every way you could hurt me
and reconciled myself somehow with surviving
all five thousand and three of them, in detail.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Day 28: The girl who looked like me
A girl went out wearing my skin today I know it was mine because the cheeks were still wet. She was too thin for it; it didn't fit quite right on her bones but she wore it like she intended to mean it. She had gone out for breakfast: two eggs over medium, floppy bacon, biscuits instead of toast and a small side of gravy. She smiled once or twice, the girl who was not my self, laughed with people she could not call her friends but felt comfortable eating with. They laughed with her, too.
She ate slowly, this girl who used a voice like mine, sipped her coffee with just enough sugar and just enough cream and didn't worry about a single thing. As she talked and listened and listened, her face dried and the smile began to stick, first in the corners of her mouth, then more and more around the temples. Her conversation became animated and I watched her speak with her hands using gestures that made ballerinas look like newborns.
The girl with my hair on her head stood to leave, and one more person in her young life with advice for her decided to approach her and give it. The reasoning was invalid, but it was heartfelt, and finished off with "You'd be happier if you did."
"I don't know," I heard her say. "I'm a pretty happy person."
She said it like she intended to mean it, and I suspect she did.
She ate slowly, this girl who used a voice like mine, sipped her coffee with just enough sugar and just enough cream and didn't worry about a single thing. As she talked and listened and listened, her face dried and the smile began to stick, first in the corners of her mouth, then more and more around the temples. Her conversation became animated and I watched her speak with her hands using gestures that made ballerinas look like newborns.
The girl with my hair on her head stood to leave, and one more person in her young life with advice for her decided to approach her and give it. The reasoning was invalid, but it was heartfelt, and finished off with "You'd be happier if you did."
"I don't know," I heard her say. "I'm a pretty happy person."
She said it like she intended to mean it, and I suspect she did.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Poetry Month Day 22: Secrets I refuse to take to my grave.
I've been reading this weekly blog at postsecret.com for some time now, watching the list of cities where the owner will be speaking and showing his collection, and saw where he'd be speaking an hour and a half from me recently. I had to go. I got a speeding ticket on the way there, got into the speech a half hour late, but it was worth it. It's an amazing project. People there got up to share their secrets as well, and I know I'm not the only sap who ended up crying. The idea that people will take certain things to their grave is tragic. Today's poem will be secrets I refuse to take to my grave. Please forgive me.
Me and Frank:
Secrets I will not take to my grave:
My first kiss was my little sister. My cousin
made me believe I'd been raped as a child.
I still can't forgive my uncle for the way he treated my teddy bear
when I believed it was alive. I still wish my teddy bear was alive.
I don't know if I prefer to date men or women, but
refuse to call myself bisexual. I knew before I married him
that someday I'd ask him to leave me.
If I know in advance that I'm just the other woman,
we'll be okay, but God help you if you hide it. I don't know
if I believe in God, but I do believe in magic. I feel I'm superior
to other people just because I'm intelligent, billingual,
and well-traveled. I think voting makes me hotter. But at twenty-five,
I still don't know how to take a compliment, and if you tell me you think
I'm beautiful, I'll wonder what you really want from me.
I thought I was afraid of abandonment, but as it happens
I'm really just afraid of allowing myself to become vulnerable.
I may be thin, but I still eat my pain. I use my dog to make me
feel better. I use alcohol to make myself feel better. I use sex
to feel better. I believe in ghosts because I believe I've seen five.
My left breast is bigger than my right one and
I have dimples on my butt. I judge people with poor grammar;
I judge people with poor teeth. Sometimes when I'm tired of
eating my pain, I spend it instead. I like to go to movies by myself
for two reasons: One, I like movies, and Two, I want people to
see me and feel like they could go to movies by themselves. I'm glad
crack kills. I can hold a grudge like a sponge can hold water:
it's the one thing I learned from my mother after what type of woman
not to become. I wish my mom had died when I was a child,
so instead of knowing she's alive but doesn't care I could imagine
she was loving me from heaven. I like to climb on top
of abandoned buildings to think because the air is more clear
that close to God, whether or not she exists, and some of the
happiest moments of my life happened on those rooftops.
Me and Frank:
Secrets I will not take to my grave:
My first kiss was my little sister. My cousin
made me believe I'd been raped as a child.
I still can't forgive my uncle for the way he treated my teddy bear
when I believed it was alive. I still wish my teddy bear was alive.
I don't know if I prefer to date men or women, but
refuse to call myself bisexual. I knew before I married him
that someday I'd ask him to leave me.
If I know in advance that I'm just the other woman,
we'll be okay, but God help you if you hide it. I don't know
if I believe in God, but I do believe in magic. I feel I'm superior
to other people just because I'm intelligent, billingual,
and well-traveled. I think voting makes me hotter. But at twenty-five,
I still don't know how to take a compliment, and if you tell me you think
I'm beautiful, I'll wonder what you really want from me.
I thought I was afraid of abandonment, but as it happens
I'm really just afraid of allowing myself to become vulnerable.
I may be thin, but I still eat my pain. I use my dog to make me
feel better. I use alcohol to make myself feel better. I use sex
to feel better. I believe in ghosts because I believe I've seen five.
My left breast is bigger than my right one and
I have dimples on my butt. I judge people with poor grammar;
I judge people with poor teeth. Sometimes when I'm tired of
eating my pain, I spend it instead. I like to go to movies by myself
for two reasons: One, I like movies, and Two, I want people to
see me and feel like they could go to movies by themselves. I'm glad
crack kills. I can hold a grudge like a sponge can hold water:
it's the one thing I learned from my mother after what type of woman
not to become. I wish my mom had died when I was a child,
so instead of knowing she's alive but doesn't care I could imagine
she was loving me from heaven. I like to climb on top
of abandoned buildings to think because the air is more clear
that close to God, whether or not she exists, and some of the
happiest moments of my life happened on those rooftops.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
napowrimo: 4/5 or A Love Letter from Bette Davis to Paris Hilton
I know this poem drags. I’d definitely appreciate comments on what to cut and or change... May is National Poetry Revision Month, you know...
--------------------------------------------------------------------
In 1981 I was seventy-three and some girl sang a song
about my eyes: it spent two months at the very top.
I tell you this as an introduction because you may not
otherwise know who I am. To be sure, there are
many things that you do not know. For example:
You clearly do not know what it once meant to be
a Hollywood dame. You know parties and cameras and
fashion and parties but do you know the weight
of Struggle’s yoke? A husband ashamed of making wages
equivalent only to your tithings who will not let you
buy a home until he’s the one who can afford it?
You do not know shame and being made to wear it:
Hollywood did not throw me a christening
with fireworks upon my arrival. They first only used me
to screen test other actors, fifteen of them made to lie
on top of me and give me a passionate kiss. I laid there,
a modest virgin praying for death or stardom already -
turns out they’re really the same thing.
Insincere, they called me, and frivolous, at first.
They would come to say feisty, forceful, intense, and once
an English barrister would call me, in court, a
"naughty young lady": it was always my favorite critique.
Can you know what it is to come from nothing?
You are no single mother borne of a single mother,
no boarding school babe, no ugly duckling watching films
for a religion, dreaming dreams with such strength they have
no choice but to become realities. You took a role on a screen
and screamed like a horror queen; I took a role and
became horror, unpretty, unsympathetic and fearless,
combative, convincing, consumed. Would you have shaved
your hairline and eyebrows for an Elizabethan role?
Today’s beauty will wither and fade and blow away
and you will be left with only your soul to show
for it all. Will it be ugly? The city whose name you wear
like concealer held me tight through my last hours,
when I was too weak even to fly home to die.
Pretend for a moment, as an actress, I beseech you,
that you were not born with a mouthful of golden spoons.
I was only forty when I heard them use the term
"soft lighting" - you will overhear "Botox" one day.
You’ve already learned to dangle the public from your fingertips
like my trademark cigarette, but what will you use,
if cancer takes your breasts, to charm America,
your fourth husband, your own doubting face
in the mirror each morning? For myself, I can only say,
"I did it the hard way."
Paris, darling, be easy on their eyes if you must,
but tough on all they have left like an atom bomb.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
In 1981 I was seventy-three and some girl sang a song
about my eyes: it spent two months at the very top.
I tell you this as an introduction because you may not
otherwise know who I am. To be sure, there are
many things that you do not know. For example:
You clearly do not know what it once meant to be
a Hollywood dame. You know parties and cameras and
fashion and parties but do you know the weight
of Struggle’s yoke? A husband ashamed of making wages
equivalent only to your tithings who will not let you
buy a home until he’s the one who can afford it?
You do not know shame and being made to wear it:
Hollywood did not throw me a christening
with fireworks upon my arrival. They first only used me
to screen test other actors, fifteen of them made to lie
on top of me and give me a passionate kiss. I laid there,
a modest virgin praying for death or stardom already -
turns out they’re really the same thing.
Insincere, they called me, and frivolous, at first.
They would come to say feisty, forceful, intense, and once
an English barrister would call me, in court, a
"naughty young lady": it was always my favorite critique.
Can you know what it is to come from nothing?
You are no single mother borne of a single mother,
no boarding school babe, no ugly duckling watching films
for a religion, dreaming dreams with such strength they have
no choice but to become realities. You took a role on a screen
and screamed like a horror queen; I took a role and
became horror, unpretty, unsympathetic and fearless,
combative, convincing, consumed. Would you have shaved
your hairline and eyebrows for an Elizabethan role?
Today’s beauty will wither and fade and blow away
and you will be left with only your soul to show
for it all. Will it be ugly? The city whose name you wear
like concealer held me tight through my last hours,
when I was too weak even to fly home to die.
Pretend for a moment, as an actress, I beseech you,
that you were not born with a mouthful of golden spoons.
I was only forty when I heard them use the term
"soft lighting" - you will overhear "Botox" one day.
You’ve already learned to dangle the public from your fingertips
like my trademark cigarette, but what will you use,
if cancer takes your breasts, to charm America,
your fourth husband, your own doubting face
in the mirror each morning? For myself, I can only say,
"I did it the hard way."
Paris, darling, be easy on their eyes if you must,
but tough on all they have left like an atom bomb.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Letters to the Friend I Never Got to Have
I’m going to keep writing these until I get one right.
Dear Mom:
I got a scholarship and a stipend. Me - at twenty-five, a two-time dropout! Thought you’d be proud to know. Thought you’d have been proud to know all sorts of things that have happend, though, and you haven’t shown the least bit of--
Dear Suby. Do you even care that I’m alive? Your daughter.
Hello, Suby. This is a message from the UNIVERSE. There are certain things that people are supposed to learn and accomplish and change about themselves in their lives before they die - just a friendly reminder about the big one you’ve left hanging.
To my Maternal Unit:
Hello from your first successful live birth... Just wanted to let you know that I’m still alive, waiting for you to give a rats ass about loving me unconditionally. Let me know one way or the other, would you, so I can quit stressing over not knowing?
Hey, what’s up. I was just thinking about that time I was in junior high and you told me I *could* be so pretty if I’d just wear makeup. Scratch that - all those times you said that. What the fuck were you thinking? You’re lucky I didn’t kill myself, you know.
Hi, Mom. I’ve done a lot of changing in these last seven or so years. I was curious about whether you’re still blaming everyone except yourself for the things that go wrong in your life, or whether you’ve actually gained the ability to accept it when you’re wrong - and maybe even admit it? Holla back.
Dear Mom, I hate you, Love me.
Mother: In these past few years, I’ve visited cities you cannot name. I’ve written books you’ve never seen. I’ve held jobs you know nothing about. I’ve had lovers whose names you’ll never know. I’ve accomplished so many things you haven’t even heard of. I’ve recently had this huge thing happen in my life, I’m so proud I can’t even tell people the news without crying, but the woman who gave birth to me is not a part of it at all. And I still don’t know if it’s because you’re too scared to apologize, because you don’t think you should apologize, or because you couldn’t possibly care less.
Mommy: Camp is scary and the other kids are mean. Please come get me and bring me home.
Dear Mom:
I got a scholarship and a stipend. Me - at twenty-five, a two-time dropout! Thought you’d be proud to know. Thought you’d have been proud to know all sorts of things that have happend, though, and you haven’t shown the least bit of--
Dear Suby. Do you even care that I’m alive? Your daughter.
Hello, Suby. This is a message from the UNIVERSE. There are certain things that people are supposed to learn and accomplish and change about themselves in their lives before they die - just a friendly reminder about the big one you’ve left hanging.
To my Maternal Unit:
Hello from your first successful live birth... Just wanted to let you know that I’m still alive, waiting for you to give a rats ass about loving me unconditionally. Let me know one way or the other, would you, so I can quit stressing over not knowing?
Hey, what’s up. I was just thinking about that time I was in junior high and you told me I *could* be so pretty if I’d just wear makeup. Scratch that - all those times you said that. What the fuck were you thinking? You’re lucky I didn’t kill myself, you know.
Hi, Mom. I’ve done a lot of changing in these last seven or so years. I was curious about whether you’re still blaming everyone except yourself for the things that go wrong in your life, or whether you’ve actually gained the ability to accept it when you’re wrong - and maybe even admit it? Holla back.
Dear Mom, I hate you, Love me.
Mother: In these past few years, I’ve visited cities you cannot name. I’ve written books you’ve never seen. I’ve held jobs you know nothing about. I’ve had lovers whose names you’ll never know. I’ve accomplished so many things you haven’t even heard of. I’ve recently had this huge thing happen in my life, I’m so proud I can’t even tell people the news without crying, but the woman who gave birth to me is not a part of it at all. And I still don’t know if it’s because you’re too scared to apologize, because you don’t think you should apologize, or because you couldn’t possibly care less.
Mommy: Camp is scary and the other kids are mean. Please come get me and bring me home.
The best friend I never got to have...
My mother and I haven’t had a relationship for seven years now, and it’s debatable whether what we had before that could be called a relationship.
This blog entry will be neither short nor skin-deep. Consider yourself warned. It might not even be up here for long.
I cannot decide which is worse, I cannot decide which I want less. Do I want to have a mother who will never love who I really am the way she wanted to love who she wanted me to be? No. No I do not want a love with conditions, no I do not want a love that frequently tastes so strongly like hatred, no I do not want a love in which I must tiptoe around my feelings and desires and true self. Then, do I want a life without a mother? NO! I want a mother who loves me.
It’s greedy, I know. So few people have parents at all, let alone parents who love them, and my father loves me more than enough already. I realize my desire to be a selfish one, but most desires are, and I cannot seem to stop this yearning despite trying for either seven years - or perhaps more like seventeen, since the first real altercation we had, since the first time I felt that she didn’t actually love me.
And then I saw a poem performed at a National Poetry Slam that I didn’t even think I would get to go to. I can’t find a recording of that specific performance, and so without any permission at all, I repost here two copies of two separate performances of the poem "Central Park, Mother’s Day" by Rachel McKibbens.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlqQzKBfNFE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-k-d-dbWHI&feature=related
I heard this poem and I thought to myself... maybe she didn’t mean to fuck me up. Maybe what I’ve become, what our relationship has become, wasn’t her intention at all. But then I say to myself, duh, no one would have intended what we’ve become...
I’m feeling the universe bombard me with a need for a mother. What’s that all about? I want her to want me. I want her to miss me, to love me for who I am, tattoos and sapphic tendencies and all. I want her to wake up in the middle of the night reaching for something she cannot name, something she misses, something she could almost grasp... with my name just on the tip of her tongue... I am a strong independent intelligent successful female. I should be just fine on my own. I am twenty-five goddamned years old - this fall will complete my twenty-sixth year. Why, then, do I feel this need for my mommy?
She was never a good, loving mother, or at least not at any point that I can actually remember. My father tells me she’s wonderful with children and was wonderful with us as children, but I cannot remember back that far. I can remember her painful grip on my arm, I can remember her telling me I could be so pretty if I’d only wear makeup over and over, I can remember her packing my things to give to goodwill after I ran away...
And I can remember fight after fight in that old house that became so cold. I can remember her screaming - I’m sure I screamed back. What I remember most is how those fights were resolved. If I was actually wrong, I would go to her and apologize and she would stroke my hair while I cried and forgive me... in her own way. Even as she forgave me she would continue to criticize what I’d done but I didn’t care, I just wanted her hand on my head, her words in my ear, my tears on her knees, anything to be close to her. If she was wrong, however... that woman would hold a grudge until Christ came back. Days and days would pass in which she would refuse to acknowledge me - any necessary conversation was limited to as few syllables as could be used to get it across. At some point, I’d cave, I’d go and talk to her, and some type of conversation would be had after which I was allowed to be her daughter again, but there was never an apology, never an admission of guilt.
And here I am with this need for a mother, and out there in the world is a woman who is actually and biologically my own mother. I want to reach out to her, I want her to be a positive part of my life, but I don’t know if that’s possible. I don’t know if the integral bits of herself that I would need to change in order for us to have a relationship will ever change. I wanted this fight to end differently than every fight we ever had - I wanted her to be the one who would instigate peace talks.
I have written books she’s never seen. I’ve had jobs she’s never heard of. I’ve been to cities she cannot name. I’m going back to school in the fall with a full scholarship and a stipend and she doesn’t know about it. I would have thought she’d want these accomplishments to be a part of her life, too. But her pride prevents her from saying, "You know what, I failed you as a mother and I’m sorry. Help me to make it right."
I know it’s proud of me to want her to make the first move. But right now I’m dying to send her an email and I don’t want to - I want this fight to end differently than all the others we ever had. I even set it up for her two years ago to be able to come back to me and be able to start things off, and she’s completely ignored that.
I want someone to tell me what to do. I want someone to tell her what to do. I wonder if anyone has experience with something like this and can lend me some wisdom.
I also hope you will not judge me based upon this particular blog entry.
This blog entry will be neither short nor skin-deep. Consider yourself warned. It might not even be up here for long.
I cannot decide which is worse, I cannot decide which I want less. Do I want to have a mother who will never love who I really am the way she wanted to love who she wanted me to be? No. No I do not want a love with conditions, no I do not want a love that frequently tastes so strongly like hatred, no I do not want a love in which I must tiptoe around my feelings and desires and true self. Then, do I want a life without a mother? NO! I want a mother who loves me.
It’s greedy, I know. So few people have parents at all, let alone parents who love them, and my father loves me more than enough already. I realize my desire to be a selfish one, but most desires are, and I cannot seem to stop this yearning despite trying for either seven years - or perhaps more like seventeen, since the first real altercation we had, since the first time I felt that she didn’t actually love me.
And then I saw a poem performed at a National Poetry Slam that I didn’t even think I would get to go to. I can’t find a recording of that specific performance, and so without any permission at all, I repost here two copies of two separate performances of the poem "Central Park, Mother’s Day" by Rachel McKibbens.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlqQzKBfNFE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-k-d-dbWHI&feature=related
I heard this poem and I thought to myself... maybe she didn’t mean to fuck me up. Maybe what I’ve become, what our relationship has become, wasn’t her intention at all. But then I say to myself, duh, no one would have intended what we’ve become...
I’m feeling the universe bombard me with a need for a mother. What’s that all about? I want her to want me. I want her to miss me, to love me for who I am, tattoos and sapphic tendencies and all. I want her to wake up in the middle of the night reaching for something she cannot name, something she misses, something she could almost grasp... with my name just on the tip of her tongue... I am a strong independent intelligent successful female. I should be just fine on my own. I am twenty-five goddamned years old - this fall will complete my twenty-sixth year. Why, then, do I feel this need for my mommy?
She was never a good, loving mother, or at least not at any point that I can actually remember. My father tells me she’s wonderful with children and was wonderful with us as children, but I cannot remember back that far. I can remember her painful grip on my arm, I can remember her telling me I could be so pretty if I’d only wear makeup over and over, I can remember her packing my things to give to goodwill after I ran away...
And I can remember fight after fight in that old house that became so cold. I can remember her screaming - I’m sure I screamed back. What I remember most is how those fights were resolved. If I was actually wrong, I would go to her and apologize and she would stroke my hair while I cried and forgive me... in her own way. Even as she forgave me she would continue to criticize what I’d done but I didn’t care, I just wanted her hand on my head, her words in my ear, my tears on her knees, anything to be close to her. If she was wrong, however... that woman would hold a grudge until Christ came back. Days and days would pass in which she would refuse to acknowledge me - any necessary conversation was limited to as few syllables as could be used to get it across. At some point, I’d cave, I’d go and talk to her, and some type of conversation would be had after which I was allowed to be her daughter again, but there was never an apology, never an admission of guilt.
And here I am with this need for a mother, and out there in the world is a woman who is actually and biologically my own mother. I want to reach out to her, I want her to be a positive part of my life, but I don’t know if that’s possible. I don’t know if the integral bits of herself that I would need to change in order for us to have a relationship will ever change. I wanted this fight to end differently than every fight we ever had - I wanted her to be the one who would instigate peace talks.
I have written books she’s never seen. I’ve had jobs she’s never heard of. I’ve been to cities she cannot name. I’m going back to school in the fall with a full scholarship and a stipend and she doesn’t know about it. I would have thought she’d want these accomplishments to be a part of her life, too. But her pride prevents her from saying, "You know what, I failed you as a mother and I’m sorry. Help me to make it right."
I know it’s proud of me to want her to make the first move. But right now I’m dying to send her an email and I don’t want to - I want this fight to end differently than all the others we ever had. I even set it up for her two years ago to be able to come back to me and be able to start things off, and she’s completely ignored that.
I want someone to tell me what to do. I want someone to tell her what to do. I wonder if anyone has experience with something like this and can lend me some wisdom.
I also hope you will not judge me based upon this particular blog entry.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
queen of hearts
the thing about my heart is its
tenacity i was
born with a
stainless steel heart.
its transitive elasticity its
refusal to break apart
its crimson scarlet garnet gold
its grip grits guts rust
its THUMP
its MOXIE
a heart like this
should belong to a queen
—a heart like this,
maybe it does.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
figuring things out
I think I might be on the cusp of a revelation here...
In sunday school we learned that God is Love. In philosophy class, we learned that we can say "A is B, A is C, therefore B is C..."
If God is dead, it is man's burden to remake ourselves in God's image - to take up God's burden, to take up responsibility for our own lives, our own actions, our own outcomes. It isn't easy.
If God is love, and God is dead, therefore... LOVE is dead? Love as we knew it has surely changed these days, no one can deny it... and therefore it is man's burden to recreate love... in our own image...
I'm just sayin'. There's going to be a lot more thought on this, but damnit I'm getting somewhere right now.
In sunday school we learned that God is Love. In philosophy class, we learned that we can say "A is B, A is C, therefore B is C..."
If God is dead, it is man's burden to remake ourselves in God's image - to take up God's burden, to take up responsibility for our own lives, our own actions, our own outcomes. It isn't easy.
If God is love, and God is dead, therefore... LOVE is dead? Love as we knew it has surely changed these days, no one can deny it... and therefore it is man's burden to recreate love... in our own image...
I'm just sayin'. There's going to be a lot more thought on this, but damnit I'm getting somewhere right now.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Baby don't hurt me...
Once upon a time, God used to look down from his throne and decide someone needed to know something. So He'd send down a flapping dove, or a giant cloud or some flaming foliage or maybe just His own big booming voice to let His little homie down on earth know what He wanted to be going on.
Seems like the Good Lord's on permanent vacation. Having just finished reading the Golden Compass books, I'm beginning to wonder if God is even still alive, but that's another blog entry entirely. This one's all about love.
See, since the Almighty Whatever has quit sending out bulletined memos of His great plan for us all individually, we kindof have to wing it, taking hints from the Universe as they get dropped in our paths. Once I almost bought a house, but as I was about to hit the road for the closing deal, a huge snowstorm rolled in. During that snowstorm, I rethought the whole purchase and probably saved myself a lot of headache by reasoning my way out of it. So maybe we don't get typed reports, but maybe the Universe is trying to make up for things by giving us a little nudge here and there when we need it most.
The Universe has been nudging me pretty seriously lately. The Universe says I'm supposed to find out what my ideas about love are, and why I'm so reluctant to get into it. So I ask myself, why Miss Ginna Funk Dub are you so reluctant to love? Perhaps, I answer, it's because I don't know what I expect from Love. This would have to be because I don't know what I want from it. Why on earth wouldn't I know what I want from love? Then that must be because I don't know what it feels like to be loved - either I've forgotten it... or I never really had it. This of course makes me think about my mother again... but I can only blame her for so many of my life's problems. I have to step up now and again. So I'm reluctant to love because I don't know what I want from it because I don't know what it is. Pshew. That took a heck of an afternoon to figure out, by the way!
Perhaps I have known love, but I hold on to the negative experiences more and they wash out the happy ones. All I can think about, when reflecting on love, is my mother - with her heart always just outside my arm's reach. I think about this last poor soul I tried to date, who failed me so completely - ignored the delicious decadent love I daily cooked up and came home with Taco Bell. Okay maybe that's a weird metaphor, but let's discuss what's really weird here. What's really weird is that "I comes before E; except after C... or when they spell 'Ay' like in neighbor and weigh." And yeah also except in the word weird, which is weird.
And then I think about the one time I really honestly truly believe I might have been honestly in actual love and being genuinely loved back... and how I decided I couldn't stand to be that happy and got myself out of it. What on earth did I do that for? Because legality and papers scared me away? What a pathetic answer. There has to be more to it - more meditation needs to be scheduled.
Also this tarot reading a dear beloved friend has given me, which is encouraging me to ask myself these questions and more, warns of an unwanted pregnancy. Universe, you'd better not get too weird on me now! I can only handle so much!
Seems like the Good Lord's on permanent vacation. Having just finished reading the Golden Compass books, I'm beginning to wonder if God is even still alive, but that's another blog entry entirely. This one's all about love.
See, since the Almighty Whatever has quit sending out bulletined memos of His great plan for us all individually, we kindof have to wing it, taking hints from the Universe as they get dropped in our paths. Once I almost bought a house, but as I was about to hit the road for the closing deal, a huge snowstorm rolled in. During that snowstorm, I rethought the whole purchase and probably saved myself a lot of headache by reasoning my way out of it. So maybe we don't get typed reports, but maybe the Universe is trying to make up for things by giving us a little nudge here and there when we need it most.
The Universe has been nudging me pretty seriously lately. The Universe says I'm supposed to find out what my ideas about love are, and why I'm so reluctant to get into it. So I ask myself, why Miss Ginna Funk Dub are you so reluctant to love? Perhaps, I answer, it's because I don't know what I expect from Love. This would have to be because I don't know what I want from it. Why on earth wouldn't I know what I want from love? Then that must be because I don't know what it feels like to be loved - either I've forgotten it... or I never really had it. This of course makes me think about my mother again... but I can only blame her for so many of my life's problems. I have to step up now and again. So I'm reluctant to love because I don't know what I want from it because I don't know what it is. Pshew. That took a heck of an afternoon to figure out, by the way!
Perhaps I have known love, but I hold on to the negative experiences more and they wash out the happy ones. All I can think about, when reflecting on love, is my mother - with her heart always just outside my arm's reach. I think about this last poor soul I tried to date, who failed me so completely - ignored the delicious decadent love I daily cooked up and came home with Taco Bell. Okay maybe that's a weird metaphor, but let's discuss what's really weird here. What's really weird is that "I comes before E; except after C... or when they spell 'Ay' like in neighbor and weigh." And yeah also except in the word weird, which is weird.
And then I think about the one time I really honestly truly believe I might have been honestly in actual love and being genuinely loved back... and how I decided I couldn't stand to be that happy and got myself out of it. What on earth did I do that for? Because legality and papers scared me away? What a pathetic answer. There has to be more to it - more meditation needs to be scheduled.
Also this tarot reading a dear beloved friend has given me, which is encouraging me to ask myself these questions and more, warns of an unwanted pregnancy. Universe, you'd better not get too weird on me now! I can only handle so much!
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