loss of a song

there are moments in time and space when the world stops. time ceases to exist and the passing of hours into days no longer holds meaning and within that moment nothing and nobody can bother you within that stillness. i'd like to say that these moments offer you such pure bliss that nothing else can be noticed, but it is not the moment i am thinking of. no, the one i am thinking of is a moment of pure grief. a grief so profound that to utter any sound would be sacrilegious, a grief so complete that it encompasses your entire being and swallows you whole, that is the moment i speak of, and while events that took me there could have been a death of a beloved family member, my most profound sense of loss occurred when red-wing blackbirds fell from the sky and when humans successfully cloned the embryo of a sheep. the psychological scars left by those events could easily be the same as experienced by the death of a relative, and yet, for me, these were felt more. i cannot say how, or why, or even what for the convoluted psyche behind this phenomenon, but it is there, and it is a truth about myself that cannot be ignored. perhaps it is the following thoughts that go along with these events that effect me so profoundly: if we can clone sheep, when will we begin to clone humans? and who's to say who's genes get cloned, and who's do not? if we have lost hundreds upon hundreds of red-wing blackbirds will my spring flock return to me? or have we lost part of their song? a song that is known only to a few, and a melody that can only be heard by those willing to sit still and listen, but how many have forgotten the notes? how many will loose the tone, until the song of the red-wing blackbird becomes changed into something unrecognizable and indescribable to their own ears? how much have we lost? will we ever be able to regain what was there? will my flock return? or will the lone early bird of last year now become the only one?

life = fight = flight

my life is a fight. every moment of every waking day i struggle to make it through the end, until i can pretend that my job is just a job, that my job is not me, and i truly am a writer, a dancer, a mother, a teacher, a healer, a lover, a friend, all these things and more i push to the side, and make them abide the mundanities and inanities of dawn's early light, waiting for respite to bring a moment's solace and peace.
my life is a struggle to push against, barriers follow my paths wherever i turn. i push at them, i slide across their sides, i dash around them, i am exhausted by them, and yet, when sleep finally beckons, i reckon that there is more to do, more to write, more to read, more to see, more to hear, more to touch and taste and smell, always more to keep me fighting against the oblivion of sleep, so much so that my brain becomes a muddled, fuddled, duddled mess. my thoughts no longer form straight lines, but instead curve and swerve, forming spirals into labyrinthine thoughts too bold and pure to find my way out of, and suddenly, quite unexpectedly, i find myself outside myself, looking in beneath the surface of my skin, and i take note of the things that i wrote, damning them all back to the hell they came from, wondering at their madness, marveling at their gladness, and i am stopped in my tracks by the awesomeness of the path i have laid out before me, by the grandeur of the trees that line their borders, by the colors of lush life swaying and dancing in the breeze, as the muse and i dance and play along its winding roads of yesterday, and today, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, loosing each other in time, in space, in the words that try to form the spirals into squares and walls of lush growth become cut down into hedges so that others may see into the labyrinth of my mind's ever wandering eyes.

yes, of course!

A few weeks ago I’m sitting at my desk, typing away in front of my computer, the muse and I having a grand ol' time of fluency and inspiration, when my husband walks by and says: "Why are you working on another story? Why not finish the one you’ve started?"

I pause a moment within this reverie of creation, and reply with the only thing that comes to mind: "Well, Amy has the draft", and he says: "So, you can still work on it." Meanwhile, I’m thinking, well, of course I could still work on it, and I have worked on it since I printed out a draft for her, but somehow there just isn’t enough time to write anymore. Somehow, Thursday nights have become the only time I have for writing, and with the amount of sleep I’ve had since the last Thursday night it’s a wonder I’m even able to stand and drive and work and complete the basic functions and tasks necessary for my survival! For example, just that morning I was awoken at 3am by the voice of our daughter: “Maawm? Can you lay with me?”, so, up out of my nice, warm comfy bed and back onto her cold futon I went. I snuggled up close to her and attempted to place my body between the steel bars that lay beneath her futon mattress, and it must have worked because that morning my right hip did not feel as if there was a knife driving into its socket every time I took a step, and then once I was finally settled into the bed and finally warm beneath the covers and my mind was almost ready to drift back off to sleep, our son woke up, bumped his way out of the top bunk, switched on the hallway light and POOF! Our daughter was awake again and then I needed to be awake, but instead I rolled over and fell into the deepest sleep I had had all night! and then SURPRISE! The alarm was blaring, and since it’s one of those that gets louder as the seconds pass and the volume is set to 100, I really needed to get out of her bed and turn that damn thing off! and then I stumbled downstairs, hoping that I could stand up long enough to find my way to the bathroom and then stand up for a few more minutes to put some water into the kettle for my coffee cuz the house was freezing and there was no way I was drinking day old coffee, even if it would mean it’d be ready in a microwave minute, and our son says to me, even before I took the last step off the stairs: “I want french toast for breakfast!”

So, yes, dear, of course, I can finish the story, but can I go back to bed first? Please???

writing is my religion

The 11^th commandment – is what again? Thou shalt not kill? No, no that’s probably number 3, or something further up there. Thou shalt not steal? No, not that one either. Thou shalt not commit adultery? Covet thy neighbor? … maybe? Yeah, I suppose it could be that one but it’s hard to remember them all, especially since I’ve committed them all at least once since I had them ingrained into my mind during those years of parochial school. Well, since we’re talking about commandments, I should probably be truthful and say, I probably haven’t committed them all, however since I can’t remember them all, who’s to say? And that right there my friend is the gist of this isn’t it? Who’s to say what’s right, what’s wrong, since we know no issue is truly black and white, therefore wouldn’t it be assumed that there is no right or wrong? Just someone’s loose interpretation that they’ve given to themselves during times of psychological distress and unrest? Someone’s random associations and proclamations witnessed and beheld for all the world to see for those viewed and held among the populace amongst the throng of humanity, lest ye be deemed and judged unworthy in the eyes of the lord. … but who really talks to god these days? I bet those who actually do speak to him are the crazy ones, don’t you think you’d be crazy too if you’d spoken with an all knowing, all powerful being? I’d imagine it’s sort of like speaking to a parent when one is young, but how young is too young to behold the grandeur of the human psyche? Shouldn’t there be warning signs, or a statute of limitations, for some of these declarations and proclamations over human behavior? When you get right down to it, down to the heart of the matter, the meat of the meaning behind these demands, doesn’t every child know that these commandments are inherently a good idea? Maybe these statutes should be taught to adults, perhaps they’d have greater meaning to those in power who seem to tout the will of god, if they actually knew what they were getting themselves into? Would they still proclaim the teachings of their savior if they were proven to be deficient in them?

decembered thoughts

clutter migraines dance
spirals around husbands
while wives swim under
currents of circuitous
thoughts brought on
by diurnal timing
of seasons change

former life

In a former life I lived within the lap of luxury. Servants were at my beck and call, and to be honest, I overused them. When my tea was room temperature I demanded a newly steaming cup, when I had worn my clothing for more than an hour I demanded a completely new outfit and I refused to wear any bra or a pair of underwear more than once, cuz while I’m being honest, let me be honest about this, after washing any bra or pair of panties more than once, the elastic just isn’t the same. And of course, one must not forget that when taking my evening bath, the water had to be changed anew as soon as the bubbles no longer covered my gleaming bronze skin and my robes of silk needed to be replenished lest any trace of a water stain be seen. So all in all, in a former life I was a neurotic bitch who demanded excellence from everyone and everything around her.

And so that is why I am the way that I am today, obviously, this is the better choice.

writing/reading

last weekend i attended my first writing conference. one of the keynote speakers, andre dubus III, said in his afternoon lecture, that when we read a book, what we're looking for is to find a part of ourselves, "give me, me", he said.
if this is truly the case, and it must hold some truth, otherwise i would not have bothered to write it down, then which characters are me within the stories i enjoy reading: anita blake? merry gentry? hunter kiss? janelle angelline? vicki nelson? lt. torr?
and before now: the children of v.c andrews, the various victims of dean koontz, emily dickinson, the worlds of edgar allen poe.
the stories and characters i read then were about victims and being victimized, helpless to fight back with little to no chance of taking charge in a world gone mad.
the stories i read now are about being a heroine, taking charge of your life and the lives of those you care about.
anita blake is no one's victim.
merry gentry is no one's victim.
hunter kiss is no one's victim.
janelle angelline is no one's victim.
vicki nelson is no one's victim.
lt. torr is no one's victim.
this doesn't mean that none of these characters have been victimized, it just means that they've lived to tell the tale, and they are stronger now than they were before, and they are able to protect themselves and those around them from anything like what they've experienced from happening again.
these women are nobody's victim and neither am i.