Mothers Day.

Hourglass of Worries

I whispered close to my mothers worn features

The marking of age danced before my eyes like wind shaping sand.

I leaned closer to her chest, wrapping my body around her.

Her body was a buoy saving me as I drifted out to sea.

Her hands were sandpaper worn smooth,

Caressing my hair, watching it flow between her short fingers

And slip away- an hourglass of brown and gold.

My tired limbs hug over the side of the rocking chair,

My legs were too long to be tucked between us.

A barricade of appendages now kept me from her womb.

I am afraid I’m not pretty.

There isn’t a garden more vibrant.

The murmur of her level voice warmed me,

A concoction of warm milk and honey.

She rocked forward in the chair.

Comforting me with motion,

She rocked back in the chair.

The aged chair now whined under

The strain of our weight.

I whispered it once again.

Trying to feed off her weak body,

Wondering how she still had strength to bring me relief.

The wisps of hair around her skin cascaded as avalanches of snow.

As I brought my face in, letting my nose unearth her tattered sleeve,

She transformed into the flowery scent that made my childhood bloom

Before my eyes. My belly grew as my childhood wilted away.

I am afraid I won’t have anything to show for my life.

She stopped her rocking to look at my stomach.

Tears drifted from the crow’s feet around her cerulean eyes.

A daughter is enough.

The happiest I have ever been.

It's summer. Last summer to be exact. The sun beats down on my neck. The hot sand between my feet. I am in North Carolina with my two best friends visiting our teacher/friend. We are walking down the beach about to run, hand in hand into the Atlantic ocean for the first time. We run full sprint into the water and I brace myself for the chill of the water. It doesn't come- I have been to the ocean more times but always forced to deal with the freezing waters of the Pacific. This water is bath temperature. As my two best friends stand on either side of us we hold hands the waves crash upon us. They can't take drag us anywhere, we are too strong, the three of us together. The blue skies, the best friends the perfect temperatures. I am laughing and giggling. This is the happiest I have ever been. If I were living in the magical world of Harry Potter and I was forced to make a Patronus charm I would think back to this moment and nothing would be able to touch me.

NATURE.

"I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion."
Henry David Thoreau  

I have decided I need to put more pictures up on this thing, I know you all LOVE to hear me rant on and on about my life... but I think that throwing in some pictures here and there will make it a lot more colorful.

A RANT.

HOW WERE PEOPLE EVER TALKED INTO THIS ABSURD NOTION THAT ALL FEMALES, THAT ALL WOMEN SHOULD LOOK THE SAME?
OR THAT THERE IS EVEN ONE WAY THAT THE FEMALE BODY SHOULD LOOK? THERE IS SUCH UNIQUENESS AND DIFFERENCE THAT IS IN EVERY SINGLE BODY.
TO CATEGORIZE YOURSELF IS TO PUT A NAME TO YOUR SELF LOATHING. PATTERNS OF HATRED FOR YOUR SACRED BODY.
CHUNKY?
TALL?
PETITE?
WHICH ONE ARE YOU?
NONE? I AM NOT SURPRISED.
STOP AND NOTICE THAT WE ARE NOT SHAPES. WE ARE NOT WOODEN BLOCKS TO BE SHAPED TO FIT OTHERS EXPECTATIONS.
WE ARE HUMANS. AND WE ARE ALL MADE DIFFERENTLY.
WHY TRY FOR THE SAME?
WHEN IT FEELS SO GOOD TO BE DIFFERENT. WHEN YOU WILL TRY FOR YOUR WHOLE LIFE TO BE STRANGE- TO MAKE YOUR MARK ON THIS WORLD BY GETTING CRAZY. WHY DON'T WE ALL GET CRAZY AND REALIZE THAT EVERY GIRL, WOMAN, MAN, WHOEVER HAS FELT SELF CONSCIOUS IN THEIR OWN BODY, NEEDS TO MAKE A CHANGE AND STOP.
IT IS TIME FOR US TO STOP.
BECAUSE WE CAN NOT BE BROKEN.
WE CAN NOT BE BROKEN DOWN INTO CATEGORIES OF FAT OR SKINNY, PRETTY OR UGLY.
WE CAN NOT BE BROKEN.
IT IS TIME TO SHOW OURSELVES AS WE ARE.
WE ARE US.
BANDING TOGETHER TO SHOW THAT WE CAN NOT BE SHAPED WE ARE TOO STRONG- WE CANNOT BE MADE- WE ARE TOO STRONG.
WE WILL NOT BE JUDGED BY OUR WEIGHT OR HAIR LENGTH. WE ARE TOO STRONG. WE ARE WOMEN, WE ARE NOT OBJECTS.
WE ARE HERE TO SHOW YOU THAT WE WILL BREAK YOUR MOLD OF BEAUTY. WE WILL BREAK THOSE BOXES YOU FIT US INTO.
WE WILL BREAK THE EXPECTATIONS YOU LAY UPON US.
WE ARE WOMEN. NOT OBJECTS.

Inspiration

I have some memories of my earlier life that thinking about now would make even the strangest of people seem normal. I do not understand how I am not more screwed up than I am. Really. Its a miracle. Or maybe, I am just doomed to be a crazy cat lady... or one of those people who tell stories to their grandchildren that no one knows if they are true or not. But for me, they are all true. I couldn't make this crap up if I tried. And the funniest thing, is when I think about them, or my family reminds me about them they don't seem so strange... Its when I tell others, and the looks of shock or confusion start... That's when I realize that this is not some normal life I live.

1. I used to take beet baths as a kid... When my mom would cook beets for dinner instead of wasting the water they were cooked in she made it into a game... Who wants to swim in red water?? It made us all feel like vampires.

2. When I got my period for the first time all of the important women in my life and I had a celebration out in the middle of a field.

3. I used to drink milk straight from the cows udder... Like my mom would literally squirt it into my mouth.

4. I've mummified a Barbie with my cousins.

5. While we were younger my cousins and I would run around the yard and my dad would Lasso us with a  rope.

6. I have played "spin the inhaler" before.

7. I ran around naked until I was 6 or 7.

8. I used to play house with eggplants.

9. When I was 10 I tired to build a log cabin with my friend. We dug the cellar before giving up.

10. I used to go to an all Native American school... I was called a stupid Jimocki (heck if I know how to spell it...) which they all said meant Supid Little White Girl... Once when I was playing tag, a girl told me she had to go take a shower because I had gotten my white girl germs on her.

11. I was going to be named Blossom after my moms favorite cow.

12.  I was home schooled until 8th grade.

13. My brothers once wrapped my hands and feet in duct-tape... and duct-taped my mouth shut threw me in a box and rolled me down stairs and threw me outside and left me to free myself. 

14. We have a celebration where almost 6,000 people come to my house each year.

15. I am published on a Harry Potter website.

16. My sister go bit by a guard dog of a band of traveling gypsies. And a rattlesnake.

17. My friends and I would set up a tent in our packing shed cooler (where we keep the vegetables) in the summer and camp out in there.

18. When I was young I would rap vegetables in plastic bags and cook them in piles of manure we had on our farm, and then I would eat them.

19. My friends and I once tried to swim in a huge bin of rotten tomatoes. (the most painful thing I've ever done.)

20. When I was a little kid my parents used to find me sitting in the toilet. Not on... in. (This was before my fear of the toilet monster...)

And the list goes on and on. The best thing about these things- they are completely crazy... and completely original even if one day I am crazy I think it will have been totally worth it. My childhood was awesome!

REVISED

So the one thing about writing a poem dedicated to someone for a poetry class your taking.... is that sometimes you get criticized. I had to re-due the poem I wrote for my friend Sam who passed away but the good thing is that I like this one better. So here it is! I will be writing more blogs soon...

To Short 

Memories of you are shooting stars against the black night

The same stars had flown above as we had embraced to make light

With our lips, and hips choosing to live

As we did

Years ago, before you-

Vanished to the earth, the wind and skies

 I find

Myself beginning to retreat, beginning to rewind

You would chase me down now

If you knew I wept now

Chase me down like the days of our childlike play

When the use of a moment was not to survive

But to bask in the brightness of being alive

I recall kindheartedness in your eyes, eyes like soft coal

The same pleasure for life you held close to your soul

.

You my friend were fearless, a molder and sculpture of men!

You rode bareback through life stopping only when

Your final breath came to and your life came to an end.

You knew life was too short to hold the reigns in close

When immortality seemed to follow like a pale moon ghost.

There is a power to not knowing.

I contemplated this as a stood looking out to sea

The softness of your smile that now can never be.

I noticed every second, watched waves hurtle against the sand

The truth is hard for me to seize, believe or even understand.

The churning of waves unsettled, oceans run down my face

 The chaos of the stormy sea slowly falling into place.

There’s a power to not knowing when our lives will end

Yet, this realization does not stop me aching for my friend.

Our memories remain like worn down picture books

Turning pages of our treasured times each like tugging hooks.

How unforgiving is this life?

To wrap us all in love

To remind us we have no control

Then to give us all a shove.

Dedicated to Sam.

To Short

These roses are all wrong, you would have wanted daisies!

I can’t seem to shake the feeling that you would now blame me

For letting some an “important person” bring these to your party

They didn’t know you like I did

Their love was not as hardy

You’ve vanished to the earth, the wind, and skies

 I find

Myself retreating and beginning to rewind.

But then 

I recall the kindness in your eyes and the goodness of your soul

You would have wanted me to rise up and to take control.

For you my friend were fearless!

You rode though life bareback.

You saw a lack of love and made up for that fact.

You knew life is too short to hold the reigns in close

When chaos and death follow you like a pale moon ghost

There’s a power to not knowing it lets us all be free.

I contemplated this as a stood looking out to sea

I noticed every second, every grain of sand

It’s hard for me to grasp of even understand

There’s a power to not knowing when our lives will end.

Yet, this realization doesn’t stop me aching for my friend.

Our memories remain like warn down picture books

Turning pages of our treasured times each a tugging hook.

How unforgiving is this life?

To rap us all in love

To remind us we have no control

Then to give us all a shove.