I thought about a conversation I had today…Profound silence is not something I fall into easily and I suppose wisdom would more readily transpire if only I could keep my mouth shut. When I’m excited I become the habitual chatterer. Too often in conversations I interrupt the speaker, it’s not that I don’t like what he or she is saying, it’s because I get carried away by the energy of the conversation itself. I have to confess that each time I jump right in and add my thought right over someone else’s I’ve outright and probably diluted what the speaker was trying to say to me. So, silence remains one of my biggest challenges and I apologize for rudely interrupting…energy made me do it…
I can’t sleep. I am over stimulated by my thoughts tonight. I reflect on what is outlived in my life today. I’ve known that holding onto to something for a long time ruins it, as does clinging to old ways, outdated ideals and lifestyles that have run their course. By the way we were is not the way we are and why would anyone still want to hang onto those parts that have lost their zest? Certainly familiar is comforting, easy enough answer…None of us can control the way life passes us, we can only adapt as it goes by. Then, I think about Buddhists and their goal to exist completely in the present, which is a grand idea, but a difficult one for someone who tends to daydream about the future, because she wants immediate answers to questions. Logic tells me that to achieve such presence depends on idleness, another challenge for me—since I prefer motion and doing.
I think about my children, would I want them attached like the barnacles to an old conch shell? Would I want to have raised children who had no interest in flying to coop? No. I am proud of my children and their thirst to forge original lives. One thing I know, a mother can never outgrow her love for her grown children, even in light of what an Jungian once said, the intimacy she once shared over time becomes noting more than simply “hope for loved strangers.” I believe that raising a child, if you do it right, it’s the only relationship that will end in separation. Mothering remains a vibrant memory, but in truth is was but a fleeting moment—
I’m feeling warmed by a few embers of courage that seem to be coming from my thoughts and sleep is beginning to overcome me…
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Today's Confession...
I’ve been running away all my life. When I was little I ran to a vacant lot—the only place I could be all by myself and contemplate life as a butterfly. At sixteen, I ran as far as my thumb took me—changed my name and became who I wanted to be. I tried to be my own person and thought it was deadly not to be! I had the knowledge of what was underneath, but it was obscured by what others thought of me. Of all the term papers I wrote in college, the ones that remain tucked within my journals are those written about runaways.
Today I forced myself to look at a family picture, focusing on the odd fifty-six year old woman. I barely recognized her forced smile, heavy eyelids, hair streaked more with gray than her natural dark brown. They say you get the face you’ve earned by the time you’re forty—all those sorrowful and angry expressions, long hidden behind makeup, become the naked truth. It mirrors who you are, who you’ve been in a mosaic of endless tiles.
I know what I no longer want; things like making life pleasant for others while forgoing my own desires. I hate myself for never being satisfied. I should be more acceptable and accept the status quo, but obviously, I wouldn’t be writing this if I could.
In the beginning there was thought and her name was woman.
She is the OLD woman who tends the fires of life.
She is the OLD woman spider who weaves us together.
She is the eldest God and the one who remembers and
RE-MEMBERS.
~Anonymous
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
April Showers...
April showers bring May flowers, and sweet bowers, where roses twine. Now I know too, I can show you, that it's so true all the time, if the sunshine came at one time, all the fun time would soon be through; April showers bring May flowers…
I have only met one person in my lifetime that expressed such pure elation about rain. That was well over twenty years ago when I went back to college in Arizona. Whenever it rains for more than a few days at a time and I start to get depressed due to the lack of sunshine, I can’t help but think of Skeeter.
This young girl and I shared the same English class. Her outrageous couture fell somewhere between shocking punk and depressing Goth. Her many facial piercings (twenty-seven to be precise), her pasty white complexion and her shock and awe persona was a turn off to most of those in the class, as well as by the obvious manner of the instructor. I think the reason I gravitated towards her was not because I was one of the older students in the class and needed to talk some sense in that pretty little head of hers; but because I saw her as a bold self-expression of myself at that age and I envied her that I could never pull it off like she did.
Skeeter didn’t exhibit any of the precarious or rebellious behaviors that most kids who looked like her had, nor did sit the back of the classroom uninterested in what the instructor lectured about. Instead, she was poised with styled confidence that was almost as electrifying as the outrageous color of her hair. She had much to contribute to the class discussions. I’m not sure if anyone actually listened to what she had to say, or if they were only observing her with idle fascination.
Our paths crossed under one of the breezeways one stormy afternoon in route to our next class. I stood there with much apprehension of getting soaked as I watched the rain plummet the cars in the parking lot. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she said. I made some comment, to the effect if you were a duck and when I looked at her, I actually thought I saw color return to her pale complexion. I don’t remember her exact words except for the initial statement, but Skeeter went on to tell me how she grew up in the Valley and the infrequence of long enduring rainstorms was as thrilling to her as someone who rarely saw snow.
I was captivated and I shared her “high”. She told me how she looked forward to the rain for as long as she could recall. She liked the way it tingled her bare skin. It freshened the air, it made the dessert greener, and it brought life to the otherwise dry and cracked riverbeds making the basins and rivers actually live up to their names like Bloody Basin or the Salt River.
Neither of us made it to our next class. She gave me her own personal history lesson of living in Phoenix and told me of her dreams of wanting to be an artist. To this day, I’m glad I didn’t miss the lecture. I don’t know what happened to Skeeter after that semester, I never saw her again. But, I clearly remember the girl who was “different” telling me how living her life made her almost as “high” as walking in the rain.
I have only met one person in my lifetime that expressed such pure elation about rain. That was well over twenty years ago when I went back to college in Arizona. Whenever it rains for more than a few days at a time and I start to get depressed due to the lack of sunshine, I can’t help but think of Skeeter.
This young girl and I shared the same English class. Her outrageous couture fell somewhere between shocking punk and depressing Goth. Her many facial piercings (twenty-seven to be precise), her pasty white complexion and her shock and awe persona was a turn off to most of those in the class, as well as by the obvious manner of the instructor. I think the reason I gravitated towards her was not because I was one of the older students in the class and needed to talk some sense in that pretty little head of hers; but because I saw her as a bold self-expression of myself at that age and I envied her that I could never pull it off like she did.
Skeeter didn’t exhibit any of the precarious or rebellious behaviors that most kids who looked like her had, nor did sit the back of the classroom uninterested in what the instructor lectured about. Instead, she was poised with styled confidence that was almost as electrifying as the outrageous color of her hair. She had much to contribute to the class discussions. I’m not sure if anyone actually listened to what she had to say, or if they were only observing her with idle fascination.
Our paths crossed under one of the breezeways one stormy afternoon in route to our next class. I stood there with much apprehension of getting soaked as I watched the rain plummet the cars in the parking lot. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she said. I made some comment, to the effect if you were a duck and when I looked at her, I actually thought I saw color return to her pale complexion. I don’t remember her exact words except for the initial statement, but Skeeter went on to tell me how she grew up in the Valley and the infrequence of long enduring rainstorms was as thrilling to her as someone who rarely saw snow.
I was captivated and I shared her “high”. She told me how she looked forward to the rain for as long as she could recall. She liked the way it tingled her bare skin. It freshened the air, it made the dessert greener, and it brought life to the otherwise dry and cracked riverbeds making the basins and rivers actually live up to their names like Bloody Basin or the Salt River.
Neither of us made it to our next class. She gave me her own personal history lesson of living in Phoenix and told me of her dreams of wanting to be an artist. To this day, I’m glad I didn’t miss the lecture. I don’t know what happened to Skeeter after that semester, I never saw her again. But, I clearly remember the girl who was “different” telling me how living her life made her almost as “high” as walking in the rain.
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