snake in the woodpile my darling.

Good Morning blog readers, I hope this beautiful first day of October finds you all feeling fine. I am feeling accomplished this morning to have gotten the kids on the school bus and already have two bathrooms cleaned, laundry folded and beds made. The vacuum is summoning me, but I have the nagging need to write about an article that I just read in Rolling Stone which has left me thinking about my own daughter and the myriad of issues that we will face in the upcoming years. I am freaking out internally and trying to break the freak out down into manageable plans I can implement starting like yesterday. The article was about a young high school girl who like all high school age girls, suffered from some self esteem issues - Hard not to, and WOW with society being what it is today, I am going to wager a guess that any young girl coming of age wouldn't feel an immense amount of pressure to live up to some standard that is airbrushed, plain unattainable and completely and utterly inappropriate. But I digress - she apparently went to a party and got really drunk and then was sexually assaulted by three classmates/friends (????) who then proceeded to write all over her body with sharpies and then take disgusting and graphic photographs of their handy sexual work. The girl waking up the next day, found her body graffiti ravaged and violated and assumed because this is the age we live in, that a cell phone somewhere contained images which would go viral if not on facebook at least in the halls of her high school. Her black out from alcohol left her with no memories of what had occurred to her. Naturally because we are raising our boys to be predators and animals, the boys DID show everyone and the young girls reputation hence, ruined. Nice that young high school boys can show this kind of footage off and elevate themselves to rockstar status for raping and ravaging a passed out innocent BUT the girl becomes the whore.....God damn this society pisses me off - but again I digress.....And growl.....This most unfortunate circumstances led to this beautiful sixteen year old girl with her WHOLE life ahead of her, hanging herself from a belt in her bathroom - DEAD. RAPED = DEAD. Her Mother described the mascara trails dried on her hanging young daughters face - this made my stomach turn. I guess it got to me because if I were that Mother, the mascara trails of pain would be forever ingrained into my psyche as well and be note worthy for recollection every time I described the scene to hit home the SADNESS and DESPERATION that my daughter left her life with. I sat for several minutes frozen, magazine leaning on shaky knees and the coffee cup I cradled providing my only sense of warmth as images of Emma flooded my mind. I pictured her at sixteen (I do this a lot) and I imagined her face blackened in mascara and limp, the beautiful light within her extinguished and dark, her blue smiling eyes forever closed. I wanted to scream. I think I did scream inside my head, my skull certainly was vibrating for some reason....I got so angry and so scared. Then I began to figure out how I can keep this from happening to my only daughter - how I can keep her safe from societies ugliness, her peers, herself and the beast demon of self doubt. Somewhere in the article, it was noted that she was not a "drinker" but that she felt less self conscious when drinking alcohol. Step one for Emma - Instill the value of self confidence. This is a tough one although thus far I feel like I do everything I can to inspire her to believe in herself and to keep her eyes on the prize of what is truly important which is her moral compass and taking care of her beautiful life and potential filled future. I tell her every chance I get, that she is the light of my life and her kindness, her generosity, her good heart make me more proud than I ever dreamed I could be. If a chance doesn't arise for such dialogue naturally, I create one - like every five minutes - I am constantly lifting my daughter up by shining a spotlight on the character traits she possesses which are foundation building blocks for a happy and productive life. Emma is a beautiful child and I know all Mothers feel this way and as they should - but my daughter is beautiful physically in a way that makes me nervous. And I wont get into that much because I just cannot without the fear taking over and me stroking out on my keyboard - I will just say that I believe based on what I see now, she will get a lot of attention as she matures for her physical presence alone. This is why I MUST make sure she knows and values what is truly important about who she is so that she doesn't fall victim to the pretty trap which can mean horrible horrible struggles. Didn't Alanis Morrisette (sp?) write a lyric about people hating the prettiest girl in the room? I think she did and it's important to recognize that pretty girls however "lucky" they may seem to the not so pretty girls, have a host of negative issues too - because plainly said WE ALL HAVE SHIT TO DEAL WITH. Sigh.....I wish so much I could keep Emma from having shit to deal with, but alas it is the shit we deal with that challenges us to rise and adapt and change and rise some more and so I know my girl WILL struggle just like everyone else....I just have to keep her from the unnecessary struggle which is something she and I spend a great deal of time discussing and truthfully, always have. My dialogue with my kids is OPEN. There is nothing we cannot discuss, no question I won't answer - I would rather the answers come from me than their peers - that is info like wikipedia and mostly false. Come to me with the question and you will get the honest answer. Period. In the last two years Emma and I have been on the subject of unnecessary risk more than not. It's comical how I have driven little sayings into her head so that when I am not around to say them to her, they are there swirling about in her Mommy present mind. I use lyrics a lot because we are such music freaks and she hears them constantly - my favorite, that she will instantly whip up if I say to her randomly "Emma, what is there?" Her response, "always a snake in the woodpile" - A Dave lyric. I started hammering into her head right after the album came out - to me it says so much with so few words. There is always danger lurking my dear - there is always something there that you do not readily see. It makes her pause - I know it does. I have told her to approach every situation knowing that the snake is present - and so.....go in cautiously. With your relationships, with crossing the road, with trust, with words, with life - go in knowing that a simple stacked wood pile is never just that. Life is never just that. That simple lyric has taught my daughter caution and duality. I hope she never sees me as being some uncool dork of a Mom who says random stupid shit that doesn't matter and therefore brushes my lyric wisdom aside or under rugs. I hope she thinks, Mom is a badass and has repeated these momisms four million times over the span of my life, because she loves me so much and doesn't want to bore me with lectures but rather inspire me with snippets of wisdom she trusts me to interpret and use appropriately when the time is right - cause yeah my Mom loves me like air and would feed me her last breath if it meant I would live and thrive. Yes my darling one - I would....I love my kids all four of them like a Momma bear because well I am one - BUT I also have done this parenting thing seeing them and loving them separate from who they are to me and based on who they are as human beings. I have four very unique and wonderful human beings for offspring. They definitely are my children and I see A LOT of me in them, and yet - what I love about them the most is how different they are from me - I love their independent spirits and destinies that are all their own. It's a really blessed way to see your children. And I see them, oh so clearly. With that clarity, I see the unique struggles they will face as they find themselves and begin to maneuver their way through this very tricky world. I worry for my daughter the most because she is female and females have a harder time staying intact than males - just fact, so please don't debate me if you disagree. If you do, you must have a penis.... Life is harder for women and I just want it to be less hard than it has potential to be for my girl if at all possible.....I don't think it is a secret that I am pretty much sickened by society as of late. The images we are assaulted with are systematically destroying out values. I could ramble on forever about TV and all it traps - sexuality - obesity - violence - ignorance - politics - the almighty $$$$ - I mean really TV is like a 600 part rant/blog if I were to tackle, so you're welcome - I won't. I will just say that our CHILDREN are growing up too fast and to keep them young is to isolate them completely.....Seriously - it is that bad. The accelerated outward growth is not matched by an inward maturity because it is impossible for emotional maturation to keep up with the images and profane catch phrases of say for instance the television show two broke girls (OMG) How can Emma possibly process or understand what she absorbs if she happens to settle on this channel - she cannot and yet, her brain has already captured the images and the words. I don't have cable - I despise TV and I definitely don't let my kids get on the internet - they don't have phones and they are forbidden to watch R rated movies. BUT this is only at my house. Their dad watches R rated movies with them every weekend, in fact Matthew was just telling me that he and Emma watched American Pie this weekend. Emma will be 10 in November TEN TEN TEN. My daughter watched a man masturbate into an apple pie.......Great really fucking great. Well maybe I can snake in the woodpile that somehow and convince her masturbation is the was to go since all she will have to look out for is herself......Seriously WOW. My Ex thinks its FINE. But I will digress into that subject so.....move on. My point is that there is no plastic bubble to keep these kids safe from the world - it all comes down to what they believe about themselves.....Sigh and I must find a way to keep my children focused on the importance of themselves and their futures, to keep themselves from falling victim to a misguided way of thinking and behaving. Like I said initially - the boys who did the raping of that young woman showed their criminal acts around with pride. If my sons ever acted this way - I would have a really hard time with not killing them myself. What the hell went wrong there??? I worry so much about this world and where it is headed and the four individuals who I love the most who must make it through, mostly without me. 8 hours a day in school is more time than they spend with me. I don't know if I have said anything here of any value - I certainly feel like I was all over the board - I guess that is my point in essence - if I feel all over the board and overstimulated in my brain regarding the issues they face, and I am the parent - what must these kids feel and how do we combat that and see clearly and truthfully what is really going on in their private lives away from us? I feel so much sorrow for that poor woman who lost her daughter to sexual assault and ultimately undue shame.....I cannot process how this happens. In my life - I will just tighten my bubble, continue to talk about woodpiles and battle my ex on the merits of NOT drowning our kids in oceans of inappropriateness.... I pray my one voice is the loudest they hear and that I am always there to wipe Emma's mascara streaks before they dry her eyes shut, I snake in the woodpile and pray. Exhale.

I believe in miracles cause I have you.

Twelve years ago today was a day very much like this one here in lovely Virginia. Autumn was creeping in, the morning air greeted me with a crispness, to walk out into it was like biting into a granny smith apple that had spent time in a refrigerator. I remember the sensation of taking in my first breath as I exited my house for the short walk to my car. I remember noting the infant car seat in the back seat, a glare from the sun forcing me to squint through the reflective plane of glass to see it. I remember every motion I made that morning, how it all felt tainted with a million different meanings, a million different possible outcomes could occur. Would the tart apple air, mark the last breaths of ease I would ever inhale? Would that infant car seat make an endless empty journey and eventually have to be removed while I tore my hair out on the familiar bathroom floor where I always went to cry? Nothing about that day was singular. The country had just suffered an unspeakable terrorist attack and the community of American citizens were still reeling from a numbness, a disbelief and a horror, that is still so difficult to articulate. It is a rare experience that every person you encounter is thinking of the same thing, America was that way on September 17th 2001. I of course was thinking of my country too, but on this particular day I was thinking more about how the terrorists had terrorized me specifically, sending me into the day of a million possibilities without my best friend and birthing coach. Mary was grounded from air travel and grounded to a phone line instead of grounded hand and hand with me while I faced my destiny unknown, the unknown always such a hard concept for me to wrap my head around, even on days where possibilities were just part of the landscape and not my very horizon line. I was angry and I was scared. More scared than I have ever been, an anxiousness so much a part of me by this morning that to remove it, would have effectively left me with no identity whatsoever. For nine months I had carried a child inside of my body, felt him grow, heard his heart beat, memorized the squiggly lines on one half of his brain and read a case study sent from Israel on unilateral hydrocephalus until I had it memorized line by line. The words postmortem examination, cerebral spinal fluid, ventricle, compression and death were the words that I heard in my head with each one of his tiny kicks inside my womb,I said them in my head repetitively to comfort myself, a familiarization process, like counting sheep and making close friends with the enemy. I was living a life that I had grown somehow accustomed to and now, one outcome or another, it was about to all change, my son was about to become his own case study, either by postmortem examination or life. All of my life I have seen things in detailed scope. Mary and I say "we go there because we have to" as if playing out the most acute details prepares us for the worst possible outcome should it come to call - I remember thinking that very morning in grave and disturbing detail that if Matthew were born dead, I would ask them not to cut the umbilical cord until I was ready to be severed from my life and that I myself, not a doctor, not my husband would do the snipping. I cry now to remember that, how I pictured it all in my head, that crazy fighter stance scaring Doctor Blommel into submission as she motioned to the nurse to call down to the psych unit because I was definitely going to need grief counseling and maybe some drugs to quiet the screaming. I missed Mary there with me in that moment, I remember missing her desperately as I envisioned the scene that would ensue - I couldn't share my craziness with Dan because he never understood me, Mary however would have pushed my face into her bosom and said with a hint of humor only she could have gotten away with, something to the effect of "Honey if you need to let that cord dangle from you for all of time, I will go out and get you some long skirts." I needed the safety of her so badly, she was the only one who would have thought preserving his cord was a totally legit and sane thing to do. She has always given me permission to be me. I set out that morning having to be me in the most me moment of all my life, completely and utterly alone. As Dan and I drove to the hospital I held my hands tight around my belly, rubbing at my baby thorough the layers of my body that separated us, I was grateful that he was, at that moment very much alive and wondered with each kick, how many more I would feel? I concentrated hard on each one, giving them the same attention I would for a graduation day, a wedding day... I felt like I had to live a lifetime of gratefulness in every movement he made on that car ride to Martha Jefferson hospital. I remember being overwhelmed in a way that I had never ever before encountered. My judgment day had arrived....I would never insinuate that God gives us tragedy to punish us for out sins, I don't subscribe to that crap for an instant. I do know however after this spiritual journey of mine, that God was testing my grace under pressure and challenging me to rise above the confines of simplicity. I had met the challenge with courage and knew without a doubt that whatever the outcome, I was prepared to handle it and then, share my appreciation for my new found knowledge whatever it may be. If it were loss, I would go out and find Mothers like me and hug each and every one of them so they didn't feel so alone. If it were gain, I would not live so selfishly wanting to gain more but rather share and again, hug a lot. I knew I was ready for whatever was about to happen, I just so desperately wanted my baby to live and to have a shot at his own life beyond me and our chord. There are endless complex thoughts that accompanied me throughout that day, if I shared each one with you they amount to a book and me missing his cake and ice cream celebration this evening for I wold still be here at my desk, typing and crying. I just cannot share it all....I will however tell you that I will never forget the moment before my doctor inserted the tablet and placed it on my cervix to induce Matthews birth. It was one of those moments that could only happen to me....I was spread eagle, my privates just a hanging out in the natural light of the hospital room, I was laying back trying to relax, the TV just beyond my knee cap was tuned into NBC and there was Matt Lauer and Katie Couric doing their morning gig. They then announced that wall street would be reopening after the 9/11 tragedy and that there would be a moment of silence to honor the victims before the ringing of the opening trading bell. So, there I lay with my legs spread as far east and west as legs can go, Doctor Blommel before me with her blue gloves on, her right hand high in the air and a small white pill on the tip of her middle finger, encased nicely in a dollop of gel that sparkled in the streaming sunlight like the hope diamond. We paused, because what else do you do when the Nation is taking a moment of silence and for a moment held suspended in time just as we were. The bell rang, cheers rung out on Wall Street, I was told to "take a deep breath, a little pressure...." and game on, the birthing process was open to bidders. I suffered that day like all laboring women do it was a long hard day full of conflicting and overwhelming emotions. At about five that afternoon my doc began talking about epidurals and my need for one despite the fact that I wanted to go naturally and without any intervention at all. we fussed back and orth at each other and finally I caved when she insisted I have one, explaining that my stress over Matthews outcome was working against the progression of my contractions and that I was stuck at 7 centimeters for two hours because I was working against my own body. I needed numb and I needed pitocin and I needed to push this baby out and face my destiny once and for all. Looking back on that afternoon now, I realize my brain was trying to keep him inside of me where he was alive and safe - I was in fact working against the process of childbirth successfully by controlling my labor with my mind - the human brain and it's emotions, undoubtedly the most powerful power tool ever. I hated the needle being inserted in my spine, I was an absolute basket case as I envisioned paralysis and a dead infant all on the same day, I begged the anesthesiologist to not heap any more on to my already full and overflowing plate - he was so kind to me as they all were, they knew I was a special kind of fragile and handled me beautifully in absence of my best friend Mary who I told each and everyone of them about - they missed her being there too, we were all so worn out by the affects of terrorism...the meds began to work and I couldn't feel a thing, I had no idea that my contractions were suddenly much stronger except for watching the numbers grow on the monitor which stood by my bed. Just then my two dear friends and coworkers, Heather and Jenn appeared in the doorway hesitantly - they were just dropping in to share some love. Doctor Blommel had also delivered Heather's babies and suddenly a very still and anxious room became alive with energy and smiles. The nurse checked my cervix as the spirited chatter went on around me, she interrupted that I had reached ten centimeters and was ready to push. I was in shock and felt like the room began to spin furiously like those damn tea cup rides at the county fair. I was not ready. I was not ready. I was not ready and it's loud in here. This is it.....he will live or die now and I am not ready WAIT WAIT WAIT STOP - how about another moment of silence of like a hundred WAIT I am not ready. But I was and the pressure between my legs grew stronger and I had no choice but to let my muscles move his precious abnormal ventricled head out of my body. Heather took a camera, jenn took a video camera and everyone got quiet then. I was so scared. I was so very frightened. I remember it now and tears are streaming down my face with such force, it takes my breath away to go back in time to those moments. I pushed once and it felt wrong because I couldn't really feel my legs, I took a breath and remembered how I had done it so effectively with Brian and Kevin, legs out, thighs down, push from the bottom and bear down at the top....I pushed again, I felt him move outside of me, I paused for the next contractions and I prayed in my head the same prayer I had prayed at each and every visit to the hospital chapel "Please God make him well". He was pulled out of me and raised n the air before me. What I remember most is Heather's laugh/cry it is a sound that will never leave me - it was the sound of relief. Matthew Joseph Poulin came out of my womb and into this world with his hands extended above his head like his favorite team had scored a touch down. He cried like Rocky Balboa after a bout, screaming into the crowd for Adrian, his mouth open and to the side in full on wail. he reached forward then as Dr. Blommel wiped him clean a little, grabbing the mask that covered her mouth just as she said to him "you have no idea how many prayer lists you have been on little one, do you?" - he pulled it back from her face to reveal a smile that was as big as the sky. I remember that all I saw were smiles as I lay on the bed below all the standing people around me, I was forgotten for a moment, all attention turned appropriately to the miracle in the room. I asked over and over "is he okay?" "does he look healthy?" I must have repeated those words at least a dozen times in the span of just a few moments - I needed reassurance that this was real and not just some wild fantasy I had concocted in the throws of hormonal surging. Everyone answered back in the same Heather laughing/crying voices - "he looked perfect." When he was finally given to me, I un-swathed him from his receiving blanket and took off the little blue stocking cap they put on every newborn baby. I looked over his head afraid to make contact with his eyes until I knew that I could. His head was so beautiful, no swelling, no abnormal skull formation, no trace of everything that had gone on in that little head for five months. He was so strong, he squirmed in my arms distracting me from my obsessive inspecting. I kissed him all over the left side of his head, the sweet smell of my womb dense in his fine baby hair. I looked at his face through the swell of tears, his eyes tried to focus on mine as I drank the details of his face in, every drop of that moment like a water bottle appearing in a desert sand dune. He was so beautiful and looking at him, I realized I had spent so little time on what he might look like in my day dreamy moments - what he would look like barely came to mind - I was so focused on will he just, please dear God, live. He lived.....I can never adequately express the gratefulness that I feel for the gift of my sons life. There are just no words that can ever get it right. It is somehow too sacred for words, too privately mine to be shared in totality. It is a pact of emotion and meaning between me and God and me and God only, only we know what we know. I will say, with every year that passes between me and the moments leading up to and following his birth, I gain more clarity and remember more vividly - I am not losing details with time, rather gaining them. I think this is Gods way of reminding me that I must continue to evolve in the gratefulness of my life, these moments are not meant to pass but rather resonate. Today is Matthew's 12th birthday. It's my birthday too - the birth of a completely and totally different me. Matt and I came into this world on September 17th, 2001 together in a new life for us both. I look at him sometimes and get overwhelmed by emotion. I am overwhelmed right now. I know I will never stop being overwhelmed. Happy Birthday Matthew Joseph, may you know each day how much I love you and when you get older and life keeps us from one another may you look back on these writings and find me again whenever you need me. I love you my Matteo xo

unexpected visitors - McCarty and King

Years ago while in college, I took and ethics class with a professor who I immediately fell in love with. She was an older sturdy woman who looked like she could kick my ass if needed and made clear with the softness in her eyes, that this need would only ever arise, if I did not rise to the occasion of my own potential in her class. I told her upon first meeting that I was afraid I wasn't fit for college, that I had a major failure complex and that I was a Mother. She assured me that I would succeed and meet that success with flying colors because it took a special kind of openness to wear my hearts truth on my sleeve so visibly and with such rawness. I believed that I would make it through her class because she told me that I would. Of course, I did and earned myself an A for her class and, all the others. My professor was the kind of woman that I respected. She detested ignorance of any kind and found it plain and simply put, intolerable. Ignorance is what leads to the demise of everything good and just and true and fair. Before this Ethics class, I had already claimed the same belief set as my professor did, claimed that I was so powerfully intolerant of ignorance too, felt superior somehow in my stance, as though I knew all there was to know. I learned very quickly that I was wrong when I was given an assignment on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I had always been a huge fan of his, had always loved his words and wisdom, found his courage remarkable in the deepest meaning of that word. Then I read more and more and more. I had an insatiable hunger for his writings, the ones lesser known and not, generally speaking taught in school. What I loved so much about him was the absence of any anger. He had so much to be angry about, it would have been completely justifiable for him to have exhibited a more Malcolm X type attitude (also a brilliant man and completely self taught)but he didn't - not for a second it seemed. In every word I have ever read of his (and it's a lot) there is not even a hint or hue of anger. I know that he studied Eastern religions and looked to the most revered spiritual leaders for guidance in how to promote non-violence action when it was common place at the time to be sprayed by a water hose in a street or have a cross burned on your yard. Whatever words of wisdom he received were the words that he required, because his writing is the most peaceful and intelligent that I have ever read. His words leave me, as they always do whenever I open his collection, with a yearning to be just like him. I want to learn to meet ignorance with love. I want it so badly that it plagues my mind sometimes, that no matter how hard I try, I still get so angry so quickly. I am a highly emotional human being, I am super sensitive and have always described the sensation of my experience of this life, like living without skin - everything gets in me. Today as I was doing my dishes and preparing to start a load of laundry, clean the bathrooms and tackle the other household chores that are reserved for Monday mornings post kids on the bus, I heard a news report detailing the horrific shootings in our Nations Capital. I was torn in two by my need to know and the equally strong desire to look away as fast as I could - the no skin thing makes these reports a little tough to absorb. I don't know too many details as I worked hard to access the level of threat and then disengage from the horror before it ruined my entire day. I know that 13 people died and that it was possible the numbers would increase. I heard both my professor and Dr. King in my head as thoughts of anger began to form in the recesses of my mind as I clenched my jaw tight, grinding my teeth the way I do when something awful is just too awful and I begin to react. I thought about wearing my truth on my sleeve so raw and Dr.King's grace under violence. I thought about what I want to teach my children by way of the sleeve.....I thought about words of anger, tones of anger, voice inflection of anger and that all those things are both detectable and note able when it comes to my children. I thought about the shooter and wondered if his Mother also wore her raw emotions on her sleeve? Is there any correlation between me and him, he who takes life so freely and me who hates the ignorance that drives anyone to commit such a heinous act? Hate and anger are correlative factors for us both. I crushed my anger immediately remembering that I want to be driven by the good doctor and not by the shooter and that my sweet professor Marietta saw in me a woman full of potential and expects me to show up in colors that have wings. Anger is almost a useless emotion because most of what it inspires is a waste of positive energy. I am so sorry that more people died in this country today, to yet another incident of gun violence - It's far too common place like lots of things rooted in ignorance, it saddens me - all the issues that are pervading our society and stealing lives. I wish I could fix it all. I wish everyone could find a way to live in peace. It is not very likely.....As I went about my day and took the dreaded trip to the grocery store, I encountered a school bus in oncoming traffic, its red lights flashing. I rolled to a slow stop and sat with a smile, one that I felt take over my whole face. Kids are so wonderful to watch as they go about their kid business. Getting off the school bus is such a grand occasion and met with such eagerness. The group of squirts were mostly little, could not have been one child over the age of 8, they were all so tiny next to that big bus and squirmy - my Nana would have said "those kids have ants in their pants" - none of the kids I watched today were mine and yet the joy I felt was as if they were. There was so much promise crossing the street before me and I became overwhelmed by it, I began to cry. Maybe before me in the road was the next great activist for human rights and equality, maybe a philosophy professor, maybe a Mother like me, maybe all of those things and more. I continued to watch the children while I both smiled and cried and I said a quiet prayer. I thanked God for Dr. King and I thanked God for Professor McCarty, I thanked God for the desire in me to not give any of my positive energy to ignorance and the anger it so rightfully can inspire - I thanked God for the promise inside of me to do better and lastly for my children, those cute little itchy britches babies in the road. It is so hard not to be consumed by anger in a world that is full of such damning ignorance - It is really really really hard, but....I put it to you this way, anytime in anger is simply being ignorant to love. I am so grateful for the people in my life who have had such an impact on my thinking....I pray for the victims of today's massacre and their families, that they may experience some comfort and peace.

a change has come

Good quiet and peaceful evening blog readers (if there are any of you left after my terribly long hiatus) I find myself tonight pondering which one of the many topics in my head it feels most pertinent to write about....There are so many things that I want to say at this juncture of me. I guess I could begin with the sense of serenity inside of my mind that has kicked out the ever present storminess. This has been a long time in the works, an extended stay on the battle field in the fight to love myself enough. I read some of my previous blogs from last years horrendous summer and it is so clear to me just how desperately I was fighting to overcome the persistent patterns of emotional self abuse that have dictated my adult life. I was hurting so badly and yet, willing to stay in a state of pain to prove that I could, prove (at least I thought at the time) that I was tough, prove that I could go the distance, prove that I had the answers and that if I believed in them enough, they would take hold. Recently, after two years of going in circles, I discovered that the person I so desperately wanted to save was truly better off without my presence in his life and....I cut the ties that bind me to so many things that seek to do nothing but destroy everything in its path. For so long I clung to ownership of the concept that this person and I were so alike, the same, the threads that bound us together were from the same spool, we were tied to each other by a unique understanding of this life. I was wrong. It is not a unique perspective on our humanness, but rather a unique and rather sick perspective and need for self inflicted pain. My pains are totally different from his, his are despicable on so many levels, and yet.....so are mine. I yelled and screamed about all the things that he does wrong, all the things that should cause him shame, all the ways in which he devalues his existence and everyone involved in it....I heard my voice saying the same things I has said the day before, the week before, the month before, the year before AND then.....I heard my MYSELF. For the first time in over a year and a half of extreme emotional suffering, I heard myself, my voice...I heard the words myself as though I was speaking aloud to no one other than me. I was saying "everything that you bitch and whine and cry about, everything that earns you the self proclaimed victim status you so freely adhere to, all of it - YOU HAVE CHOSEN AND DONE TO YOURSELF. Looking back over my adult life, there have certainly been moments of hell that the world gave to me without me going out and asking for it, for sure. But, the things that I cling to which steal my spirit and energy - those things, I have chosen. Suddenly I realized that I am as guilty as him, because I keep him in my beautiful world and allow the destruction of his self abusing ways to diminish the light of my life. That is my self abuse - keeping people like him around and giving them precedence over me and mine. I have thought all this time that if I remained his voice of reason and truth, I would help him realize the error of his ways and in cadence earn the best friend award for sticking it out in the shit heap. The shit heap is not where I belong, not where my kids belong, not where I should spend another minute of my life. I have been fighting myself this whole time - not to love him enough, but rather to love myself enough... All the energy that I have been scraping the reserve tank for, all the moments I was not present in my life because I was talking him out of reprehensible behaviors - that was meant for my life - not his. I chose to give it all away because I didn't care enough about MY LIFE to turn the attention on myself. I love this person and care about the outcome of his life, very much. I pray that he has an awakening, one that will allow him to finally be alone in the quiet with himself and be okay - I wish for him that he will feel about himself, the way that I now do about myself. I in no way shape or form want to hurt him or cause him anymore pain than he inflicts on himself on a minute to minute basis - I am not shit talking here or hoping he will read this and it will instigate some dialogue between us even. The dialogues have ended for us because they are going nowhere and I have places I want to be, things I want to see, good feelings I want to feel. This isn't about him at all, it is all about me - this relationship and all it's emotional pitfalls have been the catalyst to major change in myself, the path was never to him, it was always to right now.... My marriage was a nightmare and the relationship following a continuum of the same misguided dreams with a few new characters... The elements that caused the past twenty years of pain in my life were not all my fault, and certainly, I did my best with what I brought to the table after a confusing and broken childhood. Hard to have an identity in a relationship when you barely have one in the mirror that is remotely identifiable to the person looking into the glass. My biggest mistake is that I have always chosen to stay when I should have long since said goodbye. I put more value in saving the "relationships" than I did in saving myself. I have flip flopped back and forth on this for the last twenty years.....Having fleeting glimpses of reality and proclaiming readiness for change, only to forget as quickly when the phone rang or a text came in, immediately sucked back into my role as victim of my own self. Truth is, I believe I am a good person. I believe that I deserve peace in my life. I believe that I am human and always learning and evolving and CHANGING for the better. I believe I am worthy of LOVE... I know I am worthy of love because I really do finally love myself, everyone is worthy and SHOULD feel that way about themselves. My life has been painful and hard and full of disappointments - but it doesn't have to be anymore because I have the power of selection and I can choose to not let anyone or anything into my life that will threaten my sense of well being or test my resolve that this life will be what I want it to be. I have been given great tests of my faith and my strength - Matthew comes immediately to mind - but Matthews issues I handled with amazing grace because it was a REAL test of real value and NOT something I put myself through, throwing caution and time and well being on the wind. I can be graceful in times of trouble and undoubtedly there will be more.....I am sure I am not done learning and the karmic process although working me like Rocky Balboa, has not rung its final bell in my corner - I have much work to do... But....it will be the God given kind from this point forward because I am giving up the need to fight myself just to prove I am a fighter. We all know that I am, and that I will, BUT I don't want to anymore unless God calls me to take arms for a cause greater than my old self. There is no purpose to living in the past - it only keeps you from being present in the now. I can't go back to my childhood or even five years ago and change the relationship I had with my Mother or the wounds that I suffered. I can only love my own daughter and three sons, today. I am done dwelling on all the things and people that hurt me - their misconceptions have never belonged to me anyways. I am done choosing to believe that I can change or help or fix anyone that does not FIRST, want to help themselves. I am done needing chaos and noise and drama, because the truth is - I love the quiet and I love being able to hear the brilliant stories and poems I am always writing in my head without interruption from things that just don't stack up to the things inside of me. I met a woman the other night who looked me in the eye the way I look people in the eyes. She said to me "I see how much you have struggled and I appreciate that, I also see that you are coming out of that phase - you have done well, you are a powerful woman." She had that look to her - the one where the aura vibration is so strong there is a visible light to a trained and perceptive eye. She saw me as I now see me and acknowledged it - I am no longer looking like a storm, I am looking like a beautiful sunrise that comes the morning after and I am grateful. There have been many false starts in the last two years - this is not one of them I assure you. I am so quiet inside that all I can do is smile to acknowledge it. Like....am I really quiet or is it just a fleeting stillness? Nope - still quiet. How bout now? Yup - still quiet. Quiet is a deafening sound if you are not well within. I hear crickets and a car outside, the fan on my laptop, my heart beating. My ears don't hurt at all, I think they might be smiling too. It's been a long time coming said Sam Cooke. Yes, yes it has and well worth all the wait time to know that no more moments will be wasted..... Shhhhhhhhhhh. Goodnight y'all. Blessings and Peace.

I remember it well.

Good Morning blog followers, I apologize profusely for being so absent. At the crack of dawn, as I woke my two youngest children for school, I took a quiet moment to really look at them as they attempted to rouse from sleep. The way the stretched into their limbs, pulling and pushing awakeness into their extremities leaving the comfort of dreams behind for a new day of reality. It's a tough thing, waking up and retiring the restfulness, we Poulin's especially seem to struggle with the roosters call. I sat beside Emma on the bed and took notice of her feline like posture, intently took note of how consciousness becomes her and she becomes it, she reaches up to the sky with her very tip of her long fingers and stretches hers toes to the depths, she opens up with a creak like the legs of my Grandmother's old ironing board. Her blond surfer girl hair twists about her face on the pillow and she reminds me of the pictures she herself composes of the sunshine, her strands are rays of light that frame the intense heat of who she is. I was quiet with myself inside as I drank her all in by the rising light that had just begun its cascade from the bottom of my bedroom window sills. A quiet child in the first moments of a new day are without a doubt one of the most beautiful sights to behold. When she became aware of me, her robin egg blue eyes not yet visible beneath the cloak of crusty little lids, she reached her arms into the air towards the space where she could sense my presence and said in her first voice of this September 11th, "Momma hug me." Of course I did, held her tight and exhaled all the air in my lungs so that my embrace could make more room for her in my arms, my chest could invite her into the place she belongs, encircled around the space where my heart beats. I then made my way into Matthew's room where he lay twisted up in blankets facing the wall with a fan about a foot from his body on super high setting, he apparently cannot sleep lately if he isn't in the throws of gale force winds. (Side note, was that expression born of Dorothy Gale and her twister? If it wasn't, is that why the author chose Gale for Dorothy's last name - if I had written it, I sure would have...) As I stood beside his bed looking down on him, I snapped off the fan and listened for the silence so I could hear my heart beat and try to hear his. It is a ritual of mine, to listen for his life sounds before I say my school morning words. My mind is always in a different place from my other children when I approach him sleeping, for he is the child that they said would not live. His living therefore, for me, is always something I need proof of and approach with a breath stuck in my lungs on pause, like the one you take before diving in the deepest end of a pool. I listen for his heart and mine together, like the day he was born and plopped on my chest, his bare and breathing chest a top mine, flesh of a mother and flesh of a child, the first breathing we do together that is not one inside the other. Matt was breathing and so I could too, our together hearts made that familiar music that gives me permission to live easy, something that for twelve years now I have been trying with all my heart to appreciate - the luck in my lucky and the gratefulness for the simplicity of just being.....If you have never read my epic 5 part blog about the months in my life reading up to the terrorist attack of 9/11, I suggest that you do - it seems a prerequisite to understanding all my blogs and my words, me in general. Today we mark the passing of another year since that fateful day that changed not only the Nation, but me and my son, the day that took so much and yet somehow, gave me everything that I need to be who I strive everyday since, to be.... Funny the way it is. I was aware when I woke this morning what this day is an anniversary of - this date, until the day I die, will never slide by me no matter what the chaos or busyness of life may throw at me - it will never be an "oh shit, wow I almost forgot today is September 11th" kind of day. I take this day very seriously and always will as I wrote once upon an anniversary in the epic blog of a tribute...Today is no less epic, I am more grateful today than I was in the days of composing that section of my personal history - so many more days of love have passed between then and now, my daughters legs have grown longer and Matthew's brain more witty - in fact I am thrilled to report he is beginning to come out of the boy haze that so often plagues young men between the ages of nine and a half and twelve, he is actually becoming a person I can tolerate being around without feeling perplexed and confused. Mothers of sons, can I get an AMEN? I am so blessed and lately more quiet, quiet is one of two things - the most deafening sound or the most welcome. I am pleased to announce that just as Matthew is becoming a person I can tolerate being around, I am as well, becoming someone I can tolerate being alone in the quiet with.....This has been a long well fought battle and I believe I have made great strides in winning the war inside myself, sigh - pause - tear up- be grateful - love my kids - love my life - know what matters - truth - composure in the face of truth - strength - humanness - forgiveness - LOVE. I get very emotional on this day as I remember the morning when my life changed and the lives of so many were horrifically altered for all of time. I promised my Grandmother I would always hear every name when they were read and appreciate them all the same, in the back of my head hear Matthew's first new born cry in the space between each one. We all remember things differently as each experience of this life, same event none the less, is so unique to who we are and what we are. For me personally, September 11th is a day where I let the light stream slowly and forget the alarm clock, I look at all 40 fingers and toes on my young children, I listen to them breathe, watch them stretch and creak, and remember that life can and will, turn on a dime....This life is precious, more precious than I have words for even on my most emotional and verbose days. The preciousness comes in the simplicity of loving those that you love. Period end of story nothing more to teach. No fancy car, no new iphone, no possession or position or titles - just being able, each day, to LOVE the human beings you love. I guarantee, every family member who lost a loved one on 9/11 would say that there is absolutely and unequivocally nothing else in this one life that matters.....Today as we remember all those who were lost, I say with equal time, look at those in your own life who were not, and imagine for just one moment of silence that they were gone - just gone. And then, hold them with all your might and for another minute of silence, don't let go, let all the love you have for them seep into the nooks and crannies of their spirits so that they have the same experience and then spend the next moment of silence reciprocating the love exchange. I think that is 3 minutes well spent and a damn worthy tribute. Do it.....Go.....Now. To all the families of the victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, I hold you in my three minute embrace of appreciation and love - my heartfelt prayers are with you all.

marathon, a metaphor for a hard felt/run life?

Good Evening all you lovely blog readers, I hope you are still there? I apologize for being so gone....Sometimes I go silent, at least with my words - I take time to just reflect and wait for the words to form in my head and itch at my finger tips, it is the sensation of NEED - must get this out.... or else. I guess, seeing that I am here and feel a strange sense of urgency, the words are itching like a heroin addict. This week has been one I will never forget. A lot of important shit happened in my life. Before I begin cataloguing events, I must rewind to when I first knew that I was different. I was born to a Mother who looked at me as though I was a foreign entity. I am not positive that it was always this way, pictures of me as a baby reveal a smiling child who was seemingly content enough. I believe that I became foreign to her when I began to express my emotions freely, openly, maybe even unabashedly. I remember looking in her eyes for a sense of familiarity, camaraderie, direction - help - anything and finding nothing but shock and horror and in my perception a look that now as an adult I know to be fear. The thing I am quite sure of at this point is that the fear was not about me, it was all about her and that she would be found out - found out that in her mind, life, spirit - emotions equated to weakness. I was lost for a very long time because of the difference between my emotional life and my Mother's. I longed for her to comfort me when I cried for what seemed to her was no good reason, but to me....well the dying leaves that furled in fire hues outside my bedroom window, the ones that were clinging to their branch for dear life before suddenly being tossed on an unexpected breeze and flying on death wings that maybe came one second too soon, well....that leaf became me - or someone I loved - and then the metaphor would crystalize and the questions would begin and the acceptance take hold and the tears and all their good reasons would roll down my face. Or maybe I would laugh aloud, I did that a lot too and I found no solace in her eyes with giggling either. I am not blaming my Mother for anything here, not looking in this moment to rehash my toxic and lonely childhood. I am just stating that I realized I was very very very different from a good number of people on this Earth way back when and in said situations. Surviving childhood and adolescence in tact of some kind with this major obstacle the round edge to every corner I turned, seemed highly unlikely at the time....but with time I became more sure that my way of living was the preferred way - if you don't see the dance on the wind, you probably can't dance yourself. Just like, you are born with rhythm or not. Yadayadayada.....My whole life, regardless of my self possessed emotion I have had to contend with people who tell me that I am TOO emotional. To them I have learned to say "I would rather be me, than you" and TRY to leave it at that. The thing about people who are afraid to feel is that those types are usually also prone to being verbally abusive in some way shape or form in an attempt to seem stronger and somehow (does not work people) deflect all the attention away from their weakness. We live in a society that views expressing emotion as weakness....Especially if it is sadness, hurt, without 'pride', desperate, etc. and so on and so on....The more emotion we express, the more the greater population screams foul and points fingers at the crazies who need to clock out at work to go outside to bawl their eyes out when 21 kids are gunned down in their elementary class right before Christmas (Me, I did that, immediately following Sandy hook and then imagined and further blogged about, the dirt piles at the door that my kids sneakers leave that I would flip my shit if someone swept up if suddenly they were on a slab in a morgue and that dirt was their final footprint) See what I just did there???? I went there - detail - the fine grain details of pain and truth of the death of a child. A lot of people don't go there, because they are afraid to let themselves feel that much, me......well me....I think it is my fucking human responsibility to feel just that so that I APPRECIATE every single second of my life. I am different from most - no doubt. Sometimes when I hurt really really really bad - I think of the cowards I know personally and I get jealous that they possess the switch I was not born with - the shut off switch like a common light on a wall. ON/OFF. I feel that way - the jealous longing for about two seconds until I hear the echo of loneliness that drowns out everything important about this life. I LITERALLY just shuddered as I typed the words. Let me bleed out, Let me hurt, let me leave my pride in the dirt pile on the floor to profess an love which I know will not be returned, let me SUFFER if I must, BUT GOD JUST LET ME FEEL......... This week, someone I love who used to 'love' me buried me in their back yard under a mound of hate filled words, my hometown was bombed on Patriots Day/Marathon Monday and I was told by another someone, as my heart on my sleeve shattered into pieces over more death and destruction that I 'over react'...... When I was a child, I handed little itty bitty Dixie cups full of water to the Boston Marathoners who persevered Heartbreak Hill to make it at my vantage point near Boston College at the top of Lake Street. By the time they got to me, the race was already run and the homestretch was in sight, all the pain had turned to numbness and confidence so close to literal success. I remember the many women who would have blood spots at their nipples from the sweat and rubbing, wearing away the skin in their sports bras. I remember the Father who pushed his disabled son in a wheel chair every year because at some point the young man had been able to effectively communicate to his Father that when they ran, he felt really really alive and his body felt free from reality. You are not a Bostonian if you don't line the streets on Marathon Monday....My Grandparents are buried along the marathon route right across from the Saint Ignatius Church on the Boston College campus, right down lake street from where they now rest was Willoughby street, my home, where my Grandfather would listen to the sox game out on the screened porch on Marathon Monday/Patriots Day.....watching my city on TV, my home on the news, Boylston Street where I walked in the fog of bomb smoke - well I will suffice it to say that it was just too much for over emotional me to bear. I felt, feel, personally assaulted and saddened beyond words even still today - five full days have passed since then. I still have no words.....It is not simply that it is my home - as we all have homes and mine is no more homey than yours - it's that what was simple is gone and we are living in a time where this kind of disregard for life and death is becoming more prevalent every day. Humanity is dying and I watched a public execution of my own people in the town square on CNN and NBC and FOX and CBS and so on and so on... There is an image ingrained in my psyche from yesterdays events as the manhunt in Boston locked down an entire city and was broadcast in real time - a woman holding a toddler in her arms and the hand of another child who straggled behind her, the Mother looking afraid and rushing, both children's mouths agape and looking behind them following a soldier in full bomb squad gear as he walked alongside a tank which slowly moved down the New England neighborhood of Watertown......I went to high school in Watertown. Kissed David Arend under the apple tree in front of Palfrey Street school until my lips were raw and puffy (puffier) in Watertown. I texted him....I told him I was thinking on those kisses and that I loved him now like I loved him them and that I would promise to keep that innocence frozen in my heart....Children die everyday in all kinds of countries because of this sort of violence. Up until now, we have been both lucky and ignorant. 911 the most heinous terrorist attack America has ever known is marked with ceremonious anniversaries - are we getting to the point that this will be common place, where the attacks on each other as humans will be marked with an anniversary every day, every minute, every second?....We are killing each other at an alarming rate and it frightens me....Mary and I discussed my growing anxiety and "over reactiveness" the other day - she stated that this is as old as humans - the killing, and I agreed - yes - yes it is BUT what is so scary to me is that 1.) have we not learned from history at all? and 2.) our attention spans for empathy and responsibility seem to not last beyond the news coverage. I said it after Sandy Hook and I say it again now, I quoted Dave last time too as I will now "PLEASE WAKE UP." I believe the differences in who we are as humans is the beauty of this world. I also believe that people need to stop being so afraid to imagine that they are the autumn leaf on the tree and act accordingly preemptively - be more human and feel more - fear less - feel more - fear less - feel more. Feeling more is the only way we will again pay attention to the beautiful striking contrast of the person next to us on the bus who is so vastly different and yet remarkably the same. Feel more and with that EXPRESS MORE. The dialogue of the human race needs to be cracked wide open, we need to not be afraid of all the reactive things that make us human - OUR EMOTIONS......We react EMOTIONALLY. If we take the fear out of feeling, maybe fear will lose it's power of intimidation..... I heard on the news a Bostonian who said "In Boston we are concerned with three things - politics - sports and revenge" I laughed my ass off when I heard the words roll of his tongue, I love the R sound in revenge - like when a Bostonian says "you wanna drive to Revere (Rahvere) and get a roast beef grinder (ghrinda) at Kelly's?" RAHVENGE.... Yeah you don't fuck with Bostonian's for sure - a bunch of gritty generational hard working immigrants who break their back and each others balls - I am as Boston as the next girl. BUT my revenge will come in the form of living and loving and feeling even more than I did on Monday. Or...when I was six. I am going to FEEL even more so.....To those who think I am over emotional, you better buckle in or get out of the CAH, cause I am in the drivers seat of my life and seeing that I am so old I better FEEL to the max while I can..... Being me is a challenge and sometimes very isolating - I threaten the existence of many in denial with my incessant need to speak the truth in emotionally charged metaphors and images. I am kryptonite to those who want to remain numb - I weaken their power to deny. This is so shitty when it is someone I love.....Love is accepting but NEVER ever settles for less than what the person you love IS CAPABLE OF. Potential is meaningless if it is not aspired to and encouraged. LOVE SHOULD ALWAYS LIFT. I am not a 'yes girl' - I never have been - I NEVER WILL BE. I will never say yes - if yes is not the truth. Someone I love very dearly has a revolving door of yes girls/guys and I am both the sore thumb and lost in the crowd of mediocrity. THAT IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH for ME or YOU. Even if you "used to love me but had to kill me and buried me in the back yard" under all your meanness and lies, even if you have succeeded in opening the door to the next YES - my ghost will haunt you until you are ready to be that man or until you die, whichever comes first....And boy you never can tell when a bomb is going to go off these days. I say to you ALL Feel more, but especially those who are crippled by my kryptonite. DO NOT BE AFRAID TO FEEL YOUR EMOTIONS they are the only things that make this life worth living for and dying for..... I hope next week is better for everyone, I know it will be for me because I am about to over react to just about everything :) Peace and Love and Leaves.....

Please wake up

I sit here before this blog screen and I feel a little put off, slightly intimidated. I have been away too long....I would like to be able to say that I needed a break, but that just isn't true - I never need a break from writing, ever. I simply have become, like so many of us in this Country sucked in completely by means of survival mode. The economy is such that I must work all the time to be able to put food into fridge and watch it disappear faster than the US Mint can print more money to buy more food to put into my always sparse refrigerator. I refuse however, to not be responsible for my own family - this means blogging is way way back burnered for the time being. Life is what it is....I am off today, my first Saturday off in I don't know how long - like working like a dog of late, this day of rest is just as necessary considering I am in between Dave Matthews shows. At my age to think that I can work Friday all day, go to a show right after, dance like the God's intended and then repeat... - well that would be full on lunacy. Despite the rumors, I am smarter than that. My lower back this morning concurs, good call Lady love, good call. The music was so big last night, my dancers soul/body couldn't help full on muscle engagement - this equal pain in a forty two year old even being as fit as I am. I need a heating pad and some advil to do it again tonight. God damn those boys know how to get to a girl like me..... Although I would be better served alternating the heating pad and the ice pack right now, I must say a few words about the tragedy in Connecticut yesterday before I proceed in licking my so unimportant and self inflicted wounds. I was at work when I heard the news, a customer said something in brief about "another shooting" - she had minimal information to share. I went on my lunch break and tried to access the internet on my smart phone which on the down town mall can be a trying task sometimes. It seems that little plot of Earth is in some kind of technological bubble all it's own, it's floaty to say the least. I could not get the information and was really frustrated. Then....seconds before getting back on the clock, I read the news feed on CNN.com. 27 dead in a Connecticut elementary school, 18(at the time)of the confirmed dead, children between the ages of five and eight....Now, anyone that knows me well, knows that I am not equipped emotionally for this kind of reality. I have never been the kind to hear something of this nature and immediately resume to sipping my coffee and begrudging my own difficult existence. Something like this happens and...it happens to me. All my life my Mother referred to this trait and "histrionics" in fact when my step Father died, I got the phone call from her, the voice wound tight like the Tin Man's jaw "We don't do histrionics" - this from a woman who has nothing to do with her own Grandchildren BUT...I digress. My point is, I have always been this way and to those humans who are not, maybe my inability to just move along quickly in the face of pain is confusing and deemed a bad trait. I would disagree with the whole of my histrionic heart. I cried uncontrollably, wept like my own child had been shot in the head execution style. I walked back into work and stood in the store before my co-workers and said "Well I am no good right now" because in my head on loop, were the five year old faces of my own children. I could see them as though I was looking at a digital frame on auto shuffle, my four babies at five....I could see their shoe laces untied, their milk moustaches that begged to be wiped away with the spit off my thumb, the untainted - unruined innocence in their green, hazel and blue eyes, the puffy swell of their little lips which begged for kisses at bedtime to know that the world was safe enough for slumber, I could hear the excited stutter in their high pitched voices as they asked about Santa Claus and what kind of cookies he might like best. On LOOP in my brain....assaulting images of my precious children before they were corrupted by inevitable outer influences of the world. And then, like I said, I imagined them in a blood bath, execution style, watching their friends, their first go round at relationships with peers, their buds cry and want their Momma's seconds before their confused and overwhelmed little minds became blood splatter on a dry erase board that reads 11 Days til Christmas. This is how I work and there is not a damn thing to be done about it. To be a writer, you must know the fine details of the fine grain of life, the nuances are where the real emotions live - I know them. I feel them. I live them. I write them. I cried like a baby and stuttered like a five year old "I just can't......" I said, "the Mother in me is broken" and yes today, she still is. My babies are safe at the moment, but twenty Mothers in a sleepy New England town are screaming when the valium wears off, they are clutching their child's pillow which smells of them and looking at unopened presents under the tree that will never be opened and looking at the dirt by the door that fell from their sons sneakers yesterday and thinking if anyone sweeps those crumbles of earth away she will kill them like a wild beast protecting her young. If someone swept up the dirt Matthew tracks in my house daily, if he were dead and that trail was all that remained of his footprint, I imagine it would feel like a gunman had opened fire on me - again. It took me a while to compose myself - I felt raw and without skin - go figure. Someone suggested to me that I should not wallow - I get that mindset I guess and I fault no one for their opinion - HOWEVER, I disagree. I think that we all should wallow. Everyone of us who has heard that news report should wallow in the grief of those parents - put ourselves right there with them as if we were them and their hell was ours. Because.....isn't it? It IS. And maybe this is where we are fundamentally jumping off the ledge of humanity. DESENSITIZATION. Will my grief bring those twenty innocent beautiful babies back from the dead? NO, BUT IT will bring an awareness to my spirit that I always need and benefit from. Our society (in my mind) has lost it's way - this is clear. When we are submerged in video games that objectify killing and glorify it - when blood splatter and broken necks get us points and wins, we are losing our grip on reality. When we don't look each other in the eye and instead pass our fellow man on the street and miss the opportunity to say 'hello' because we have our faces in the Iphone instead, we are not taking care of each other as we should. When we don't take responsibility for a culture that glorifies gluttony and rather makes piss poor excuses for our excess - we are missing the mark which is man. I am not on a high horse here I assure you and I don't blame the gaming industry or the gun manufacturers or the internet - I blame myself. I blame you. I blame all of us who are not living to our human potential the way my God intended. My histrionics serve me well, trust me. We may never know what the hell was going on in that young gun mans head that made him cut down innocence while they colored Christmas pictures for their parents - we may never know for sure. But really we do. I say we need to wake the fuck up and take personal responsibility - stop feeding what has become the precedence in our greed and confusion. Be human and realize it is all that really matters. Love each other. Give to one another. Be aware of your fellow mans state of mind, because you care for him as much if not more than you do yourself....This is the season of good will and giving. I will give love in lieu of meaningless shit. I will give tears and smiles and hugs and kisses and ask "hey, you okay? Cause I am, so what can I do for you?" I love my children more than anything in this world. I have little by way of possessions, poverty in the last few years has been a blessing in my life. I want for nothing other than what it takes for me to care for my babies and provide for them a stellar example of humanity. I am grateful for my mindset and my bare bones existence. I give of my spirit daily to everyone I come in contact with and will work harder now because of these lost children in Connecticut to give even more. Hug your children, love your babies, teach them well, lead by example. We cannot change the mind of the mad man unless we do this and lend him a loving hand too. It may not help, but you never know if the guy pumping gas next to you has a glock in his car and is gassing up to head to your elementary school or mall or movie theater. The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself - I am afraid. But I am more afraid of myself than the next guy - because the next guy might need my smile and kind word to diffuse his aloneness and despair and if I don't offer it up he cannot accept help. I will wallow today and wallow tomorrow and wallow until the wallowing subsides. It will take a while I am sure, I hear the Mother's screaming in my head - I hear myself screaming alongside them. I will not silence that for the sake of my own comfort. I say the world needs to scream with those parents so they feel a little less alone with their empty sneakers by the door. Be blessed my friends and share whatever it is you do not NEED. My heart is in Connecticut.