Sickened, period.

Good Morning,
I have about five minutes to write as my endocrinology appointment has finally arrived and is this morning in just a bit.
Really, blogging is about the last thing I should be doing, but.....You know me, so much to say, so much to say, so much to say.....
Yesterday I couldn't find the words to say anymore than I did. Yesterday the violence of the world had pervaded my head and hurt it so bad all I could do was breathe through it, forget about articulate.
I won't get into details, because I cannot - I will just say I witnessed something I never thought I would, EVER and it was a little too close to home for me. A little too close to my own and the randomness of it, the sheer carelessness and disregard had me reeling emotionally and raging on the inside - to put it ever so lightly.
There is a lot of violence in the world and I don't do well with it. Especially, most specifically when it has to do with a total disregard for the value of life.
Violent acts repel me.
I am the pansy that changes the channel on the TV when I see violence, can't do the stab wound scenes or the sound of flesh to flesh combat.
Really, I am far too sensitive for all that, literally turns my stomach.
And that is just on TV - when I am privy to real life violence - I become emotionally challenged and internally unhinged.
That was where I was yesterday, in limbo of the big question that plagues me - REALLY?????
Like REALLY????? and the WHY of it all?
I have no answers and certainly no power to change it - oh wait who am I kidding - I have answers, it's violence in the main stream, shitty ass parenting, selfishness and accessibility to handguns.
The NRA will love me now.
And I have no time for that debate, or to elaborate on my opinions this morning - unfortunately.
I will just say this.
We are all someone. I am someones daughter, sister, aunt, friend and MOTHER (among other titles)
what is it that a person who commits a violent act cannot conceptualize that we are all valuable, life is valuable and the right to extinguish that, is only God's?
I wasn't threatened or hurt per say, but by way of association - I was.
And would have been, if what I witnessed had been a successful attempt.
I have no fucking patience for violent people. No patience for it at all - pushes a button in me that makes me want to fight the oppressor but hide in my closet all at the same time.
Frustrating as hell and sad....
So Sad.
I hate to see it, hear it, read about it - it's everywhere.
And so I have to stop and go get in the shower and fill out a health history form that I have been dreadfully avoiding.
I guess I will end with this...
Life is valuable, there is no reason good enough to snuff it out in a careless act of impulsive violence. Get some self control already.
Have a blessed and SAFE day.

what a night.

Hi,
what is happening to the world? I am so confused by what I see around me. It scares me and makes me sick.
That's it for today. Too sad at the world to even write about it.
sigh.

And so it begins.....

Good Morning Blog readers. sorry for the hiccup in my postings (for those of you who read me daily) - I have a really good excuse though, wanna hear it?
I started writing my book....Oh my God, I started writing my book.... I type that and than ponder in my head of the nearly seven thousand words that I have typed in 'The Canary Memoirs' - how many of those will I actually keep, how many words of the first draft will make it until the final draft? I rewrite chapter one in my head morning noon and night while I should be doing other things, writing a book is a creative process that kinda takes over the writers life.
And I said it, I am a writer.
I remember last year when my Grandpa died, after I had read the eulogy, my cousin Eddied asked me, "So what are you a writer?" and I answered "Well not yet, but I am trying to be" Mary elbowed me in the chops so hard - "YOU ANSWER YES, WHY YES I AM A WRITER, NEXT TIME SOMEONE ASKS YOU DIP SHIT...."
Yes, Yes I am a writer.
I am an artist.
Ha, I love that. I AM A WRITER.
Last night my college school girl professor crush was talking about, how for authors being published is the ultimate goal. Being published means that your work has a chance to be known - I sighed a heavy, labored sigh as I sat with my head resting in my palm - yes, I want to be published so bad it hurts my insides to even consider it.
I want more than anything to see my name on the bottom of a hard covered book front and MY words to be bound on numbered pages with a dedication to Mary on the first page and my bio with a decent picture on the back flap.
I want to know that they (my words) make out into the world and will remain for all of time. I want someone, someday to come across my novel and laugh that it's a dinosaur back from the days when books were printed on paper.
I better hurry, frickin kindles and nooks are taking over....
Unfortunately for me and I imagine most writers, writing an actual book is a slow journey, one that comes like the tides.
It's here now - get to a computer and write for fucks sake.
Oh shit, no computer someone give me a napkin and a pen please, yes fine a receipt back and a pencil will do.
Like this morning for instance...I woke up thinking of chapter one and realized that the blinking green lights of the firefly's on the lawn would be better served, metaphorically speaking, as a vacancy motel sign, not suspended mini emerald cities. And so I must go back to that place in chapter one and begin the slice and dice....
Chapter one will not be left alone so easily.
I know that most writers write and marinate in what they have written and then go back and tweak what wasn't quite what they were trying to say - this is when my nagging self doubt is going to have to be managed like a disorder...
I will have to keep my quitter alter ego tied up somewhere with duct tape on her mouth and her hands bound thrice in a heavy twine to keep that meddling bitch from deleting entire paragraphs and throwing mouses in frustration and self deprecation.
She quits too easily and hates even easier.
But she's manageable OH NO I'M NOT, go away chubby Debbie, this doesn't involve you except that you are the main character hahahahaha.
She hates me, the new improved stronger version. The old me was comfortable in her misery - "better to know something than to know nothing"
HA, just quoted my book.
I am such a tease aren't I?
And so my blogging love bugs, I may have to get in and get out of this page quickly each day so that the novel writer had more time to get her head in the game.
I love you all though, with all my heart - your devotion astonishes me as I see the "view hits" number rise and rise in my blogger stats category.
Thanks for all your support - your comments, when you reveal yourself to me, make me feel like I belong and that my words mean something to you all - priceless that feeling, being understood and encouraged...
Priceless I say.
Makes me feel worthy.
And with that worthiness I must go, depart you all for the time being and go be worthy in my life for just a bit.
I really need the pool today as I feel like my head is in a vice grip this morning - I think my thyroid is playing games with me again.UGH.
I need to relax in my head and splash in some salty water, feel the sun on my belly flab.
Before the pool I have to act like a Mother though and make beds or something....
I bid you all adieu and say - if I am not here as much, it's because of the book.
And I know you all want to read my book, right?
Blessings and love - Deb

Marry me Mary - NYC 2012?

Good Morning Peeps,
I am one happy girl this morning minus the raspy voice and still really sore throat and now, unfortunately, a tight feeling in my chest with a cough - this is definitely a viral issue.
But let us not dwell on the negative :)
As I went to sleep last night, I had a very wide smile planted on my pillow. Anderson Cooper had just reported on the State of New York legalizing same sex marriages....Visions of happy NYC drag queens danced in my head.
AMEN for New York - now to get the rest of the country on board for what is the only right thing to do.
I don't mean to be offensive here - I don't like offending anyone, I am far too 'you do what makes you comfortable and I do what makes me comfortable' to be into offending anyone's position - BUT - I just looked on Lady GAGA's website as she is my Momma Monster and I follow her mission regularly.
I don't get the biblical references, I don't get how anyone here (on EARTH I mean), thinks they have the corner on God's perspective?
I remember vividly a moment from my Ethics class back in my first semester - I believe we were reading ethical perspectives on abortion and a huge fissure broke the center of the classroom, dividing us into oppositional sides. Someone said something about the bible - and I cannot quote or even loosely paraphrase, but basically he insinuated that the bible was thrown down, all written and bound in leather from the heavens, constructed by Gods hand himself.
Um yeah, nope, not even close and I say, you really ought to know your facts before you take a side.
The Bible was not written by God - it was written by men. Men with a political mission above all, and trust me it was tweaked.
I am not debating that any one of the prophets who ever walked the earths surface may have 'received' messages from god himself - a burning bush seems plausible to me, I guess - but I am not banking anything on a burning bush or a man.
I am going with my own gut - and my own gut says that although the bible is a beautiful work of art, an epic collection of stories, I don't believe that the answer to sexuality, or proper judgment of love resides there and only there.
If it is, well than I disagree with the whole of my heart.
I personally have never understood the issue with homosexuality - I personally do not give a flying fuck who loves who, or who has sex with who.
Why is what anyone else does, any of my damn business?
Love is love. Period, and it is not selective nor should it be based on opposing sexual parts. I love plenty of people with vagina's and dare say, they would make better life partners for me than any man I have ever come across.
And yeah okay, I get that the penis fits like a puzzle piece with a vagina and that it seems that is the how it was intended as the meeting of those two make life.
Yeah men and women can pro-create, BUT, I dare say again, that just because we can, does not mean that we should, and more over, a penis and a vagina meeting up does not EQUAL love.
Sure it does sometimes, but not always. How many babies do you know that were mistakes born out of the puzzle pieces being jammed together when they should have been left apart? I know a lot and I am not even touching (in my mind) on the incest and rape issues we deal with every day world wide.
I say, we would be far better suited spending our time dealing with human trafficking, rape, incest etc. etc. and leave the gay people the fuck alone.
The truth is, homosexuality has been around since the beginning of man - anyone who doesn't believe that homosexuality is a valid sexuality is just plain crazy. Of course it is - the ability to make children is not the definition of love or sexual preference.
I don't know about all of you, but when I am making love, kids are the last thing on my mind.... Just sayin' and I have four who I adore and really wanted...
So I just don't get the bible thing - the bible is beautiful yes, but people use your hearts.
It is my opinion that if a woman and a woman want to commit themselves to a life long partnership, well than damn it, who is anyone in congress to say no to that?
Why should those two women not have the same rights as a man and a woman?
Maybe I am naive, maybe I am a sinner, but really - I just don't see the big deal.
I never have and I never will.
I will admit, the opposition to homosexuality makes me really really sad and perpetuates a cycle of hate in our country that makes me sick. It so daunting for young kids to come out of the closet with confidence.
Life is hard enough - we have closets for clothes and shoes and accessories, not a safe place to keep the gays.... that phrase annoys me.
So if you are 'straight' you do not have to announce it to the world, but if you are a homosexual, you have to come out of the closet?
So wrong. How about we just open our hearts and minds to a place where no one has to define themselves to anyone else BECAUSE whatever you are, who ever you love, what ever you choose is yours and OKAY.
I say the lessons from the bible we should be paying attention to are the ones about judgment and not passing it - because if God does hate the homosexuals, I'm leaving the casting to hell fire to him and then, I am definitely sneaking into that party for sure.
That's where the best dressed will be, the music will be off the hook and I know for sure, no one there will turn me away for being different....
I don't know about all of you, but when Kurt kissed his boyfriend on Glee for the first time last season, I cried my eyeballs out and called Mary and said, we have just witnessed something monumental - a teenage boy on boy kiss. Praise Jesus.
I was overjoyed for all the boys who love other boys who live in fear that they will be judged poorly when they lock lips for the first time in their high school hallway.
Boys love who you want. Girls you too.
I know my words are controversial - I just don't understand why? And if you read this and get angry with me, get a taste in your mouth you don't like - STOP - for a second, allow it to marinate and question yourself if you would. WHY?
If you come up with a good reason I would love to hear it, as long as it is respectful.
Although I have spent the longest part of my life involved with men, I do consider myself on the sexual fence. I could easily fall in love with a woman. What the hell is there not to love? Women are beautiful creatures, Goddesses - their bodies are perfection - what is not to love about peaks and valleys, soft and smooth?
Yeah I got no objections to the female.
I could easily go the other way, in fact I have been begging Mary to just consider the kind of wives we would really be for the better part of our seventeen year friendship...haha, but no really....
Am I bi-sexual? I mean, I don't know the answer to that, not sure it is a question that needs to be asked even - I will tell you that about ten years ago I was sitting on the down town mall and this woman walked by me and I was like "Oh Man Yowza, bring that on" - I would have followed her to the ends of the earth if she had given me the come hither finger.
I don't know why I felt that, I just did. And it was intriguing to say the least, but not ever, not even for a second ALARMING.
I am all about the love.
People were lamb basting the GA this morning, attacking her bi-sexuality as though that doesn't give her ENOUGH ammo to count herself in the fight for real.
WHAT???? WHATTTTTT???
Anyone who wears a meat dress to make the statement about equality being the prime rib of our constitution is in the fight for real.
Love her with all my heart - GO GAGA GO.
Straight- BI - Gay - LOVE is all that matters, all you need is love.
I loved NYC before, but I am lovin' it even more today -

Freaky Friday

Good Morning blog peeps,
So I just went through my two blogs from yesterday and did some much needed editing - holy typos batman. I really do need an editor, I am horrible at editing my own work. I rarely read my posts before I hit the publish button, and if I do, because I know my own expression - I skim the words at best - doesn't make for great editing. I apologize for all the moments in yesterdays blogs where the continuity was disrupted by the wrong word or a missing letter. I will work on that, I promise.
Today is Friday and I should be at work, but I feel like ass and so I have called in sick for the day - no linen for me today.
It's not exactly that I feel miserably ill, it's more that my throat hurts and my voice is shot - a goner, I have no doubt that my children will capitalize on my inability to scream at them btw - I probably would be safer at the shop, truth be told...This week has been kinda hellish and not the least bit relaxing.
I would do best on a beach in solitary confinement - I could use a little alone time and some tides to watch as they move in and then out....
I either have a virus or my thyroid is to the point of extreme compression and tightness. The raspy Stevie Nicks thing I have got going on cannot be cured by tea and spoons of honey or the gazillion cough drops I have been sucking. Raw tongue by the way, that may permanently taste like mentholated strawberries. Gross.
Yesterday in the course of like a half an hour three people noticed and commented at my swollen neck - and dramatic like too.
Mary and I discussed the possibility that maybe it won't be the Nan's who will disrupt the PH book writing week, it could very well be the thyroid - my appointment to access the situation is June 30th - five days before I am supposed to fly home - what if they say this stupid enormous gland is cutting off my vocal chords and it needs to come out? I will admit, I cannot currently swallow my calcium supplement or my daily vitamin horse pill - or eat any kind of bread (especially french) which out of the three unswallowables, is the okay one, because yeah, no gluten anyways = no breads.
They make gluten free breads, bagels etc. but, every time I consider buying a loaf, I think "can I swallow that - do I even miss bread?" No, not really - I really don't miss bread.
Although I would be lying if I didn't tell you that last night I picked up a piece of the Artisan garlic bread (whole cloves baked in the bread oh my) and sniffed it, deeply inhaled the aroma - fought the urge to bite it for like a half a second.
I keep reminding myself that this no gluten no dairy business is MY choice and I can cheat if I want, but so far so good - minus the bite of Brian's almond snicker bar the other night - yum, that is a good candy bar.
On a positive note, my Nana has apparently come out of the danger zone enough to be moved from ICU and I say with mixed feelings - PHEW.
Maybe I will get to see her again :)
What a week of worrying and looming though - so stressful.
Mary's Nana also has a stellar day yesterday - these two old broads are definitely our Grandmother's - fighters....And so, we may just get off without tragedy for the time being. (shouldn't have said that - just knocked on wood)
Maybe the lost voice is a manifestation of the stress - bet my family wishes this would happen all school year long. College work load stress on top of crazy life = no voice for Mom....It would amount to total anarchy around here, they would probably have me tied up in the closet by the end of one silent week with me...
Let's hope it's temporary and let's hope that the rasp isn't permanent - I cannot sing right now to save my soul. I lost my mind momentarily yesterday in the shower and began to belt out the National Anthem (I haven no good explanation) - what came out sounded like a dying animal begging for mercy...It shamed our country for sure.
I kinda remind myself of Courtney Love right now and even I find that a little disturbing - the crack head voice is bad news.
If I get to see Nana and sound like this, she is not gonna be happy.
I fell asleep last night watching Anderson Cooper (this is a subject change btw), he was discussing the days events regarding the Casey Anthony trial - I have to go on record as saying "Are you fucking serious?" -
My gut tells me she totally killed her daughter, IDK why I feel that, but I do with every fiber of my being. And I just have to say "Really Casey, really?" - why not just let her live and give her up - get back to your partying ways and allow that innocent child to realize her life's potential? Man that pisses me off so bad.
And I am of the mind that typically when a Mother kills her child it it because she is suffering from a mental illness and the voices say "kill them" - very rarely do I feel it is from a selfishness, a throw away effect, the whole my party life would be better served without you - I feel like Casey Anthony thought just that as she tossed her two year old in the trunk of her car and smelled the rotting flesh.
A child's death at the hand of their parent has surely got to be the most tragic death of all - what do they think as they look at the person they love most extinguishing their very life?
It is no wonder this case is getting so much attention - it is infuriating, confusing, sad beyond conception.
I am a cynic when it comes to our legal system, often feel like the process is more political than anything BUT in this case I hope the truth comes out and that justice IS served.
And I guess it is possible that she didn't do it, although her pathological lying certainly indicates an fundamental instability and character deficit.
I wish parents would not kill their kids - I wish that violence at all would cease to exist. I hate it in every form.
And enough said there because now my own blood is boiling in my veins.
I dislike the feeling of a blood boil - I feel it a lot, built to get all emotionally charged - it's how I grow.
Speaking of growing....My kids are growing like weeds and I will admit it is freaking me out. Don't get me wrong, I CANNOT wait until they are a little more self sufficient, a little less needy - I hear "MOMMY CAN YOU...." like a gazillion times a day, oh my - BUT when it comes to my Emma girl, I will admit that it is pushing my panic button already. This morning when I got up, she was in my bed (she always is) and I looked at her long and hard before I went to brush my fangs. I lingered over every fine detail from her head to her toe and walked away feeling like I had been punched in my gut.
Here's why. She's beautiful. This morning she was wearing a pair of PJ bottoms like my very own, baggy cotton with some silly design all over them. She had the waist band turned over twice just like I do mine and she was wearing a thin spaghetti strapped tank top - her bare tan shoulders a stark contrast to the crisp white shirt.
Her bleach blonde hair was in a mass of tangles and curls and hung around her face in all the right places accentuating her freckles and chiseled chin - my heart stopped beating at the sight of such beauty - her long limbs wrapped around blankets and pillows, she looked like a perfect pearl all snug in a clam shell. I wanted to eat her, every pretty little inch. She's huge and she is not really a "little" girl anymore. Yes she is only almost eight, but she is changing right now as I type - she is getting closer and closer to puberty and it is freaking me out bad!
I fear for her, really I do. I think that she will amount to an effortless beauty, the kind of girl that does absolutely nothing to up keep and is gorgeous despite not a lick of make up present. She is going to be the hair gathered a mess on top of her head, in sweat pants and a tshirt type, that makes young men yearn to get in her comfort zone with her.
She is going to be like me, only a thousand times more beautiful and with legs that reach to the very heavens.
Let me clarify that when I say like me, I don't exactly mean in the physical sense - I mean more alike in spirit - she is wide open and hysterical just like me - a lover like her Momma and a deep thinker to boot.
She will be an attention target and this stresses my nerves beyond belief, already sigh.
I have always been told by men that I ooze sexuality. I have no idea what the hell that means, but I will say that whatever it is that I give off, it is unintentional as far as instigation is concerned (most of the time)
My personality and "I don't care what you think" stance has always made people, especially men interested and speculative about what it is I have got going on.
I keep my goings on, mostly to myself although I do connect profoundly with a lot of people in need.
I KNOW that I am mistakenly judged a lot and I worry about that for Emma Claire. She is not going to give a rat's ass what anyone thinks either and that is easily perceived as something altogether different, especially to men.
Men view "I don't care what you think" as "oh yes please dominate me, yes yes yes"
I don't know why that is - never really have understood the man brain.
SO how will I keep my natural beauty with her wide open lovers spirit, safe???
UGH.
Where is an ugly stick I can beat her with so at least the outside attracts less attention???
I'm no Casey Anthony - clearly that's metaphorical.
All Mom's of daughters have to go through this right? Seems inevitable that when you catch the momentary glimpses of them as teenagers you freak the fuck out...
I know I did this morning.
I want to kiss her all over, why wouldn't everyone else.
I want to protect her from everything ugly in the world, but especially from the ugliness that comes with being female. We are so objectified in our society - I could dress all dowdy and buttoned up conservatively, but that would just confuse her because clearly she understands her mom is a rainbow. Gotta be true to yourself despite what others contrive...
I will just have to talk to her a lot about owning her power and not abusing it - we females DO rule the world.
I will have to teach her that yes, her outer is pretty BUT her inner is even prettier and she needs to guard that and selectively share, hold her cards close to her chest and by way, close to her own heart - and my weak one....sigh.
Good thing about my Mimz is she has an army of older brothers - no boys will get within a hundred feet of her without having their lives threatened three times over first - Thank you God for birth order....I will work with those brutes on effective intimidation tactics.
Simply put, gotta do what I gotta do :)
Well, I need more tea and to do a shot of honey - throat is killing me, so off I go.(where ever have I heard that phrase before?)
I hope you all have a beautiful Friday and a glorious weekend full of happiness and joy.
Peace and lots of Love xo

Happy Birthday Boo

Oh my god I am back again...
This rain shit has got me trapped in my house and this is a no good situation , me and rainy weather have problems to begin with, forget about on a blue mood day. I have done just about everything that a person can do and absolutely nothing all at the same time...I am avoiding the real work, like cleaning - I think I would rather drive the end of thumb tacks up under my nail beds, which btw, I did my nails and Emma's in our new 'crackle blue' - like I said everything and nothing. ugh.
I surfed in itunes in desperate need of new music and found nothing that peaked my interest at all, except for an old Jackson 5 song "I wanna be where you are" - GOD I love that song - used to request it on KISS 108 back in Boston all the damn time....I miss that song and I need it, but to buy it you have to buy the entire album which is like forty bucks. I am all set with that and so I have put out a status update on facebook hoping someone here in Fluvie has it.
I roamed around my house in my comfy sweatshirt, looking for a good place to plop and landed here on my bed. Then I remembered...It's Omar's birthday today - he would be forty one.
What I do not need today is a trip down memory lane, but yeah off my mind went back to 1986....
What a beautiful love affair we had - and with that. fucking more salty tears - All I can say is Thank God I am not hormonal right now, because ovulatory rage would be really an unfortunate ingredient to add to the already perfect recipe for a nervous breakdown.
I thought about my boo - couldn't help myself.
And there we were before my eyes in the dark shade of my lonely bedroom - we were in the clawfoot tub back in the apartment in Belmont - no one was home - we were in a bubble bath together, him between my legs while I washed his hair, piled it high in a soapy beehive - he looked like the bride of Frankenstein. We did that a lot, the bath thing - I washed his hair all the time for him, deep conditioned it to try to heal the damage of too much hairspray - yes I said hairspray - it was the 80's and he was a 'metal head' - he used more hairspray than me. Those were really good days - we had a lot of really great quiet, private moments that I will cherish until the day I die.
We talked a lot and touched while we talked. Arms tangled, heads resting on each other, finger tips touching, quick thumb wrestle, fingers entwined, laughter a good neck bite. We were very happy then.
I find that now, all these years later, when I look at my own sons who are in that same stage of life that we were in back in the tub, it's hard for me to see my kids in a love affair of that caliber, hard for me to imagine them in that kind of quiet intimacy.
Omar and I were like and old married couple from the first time we kissed, we settled into a routine that felt older than our ages combined. It was as if we had been lovers before somewhere in the cycle of time and that 1986 was starting us off at our golden anniversary or something - old souls in young bodies.
Strange to imagine that intimacy now, strange for my finger tips to be unable to find his, still lonely for them after all these years.
When we finished our bath, which was when the water was too cold to stand it anymore and our skin had literally turned elderly - we would hold each other in towels and cuddle for warmth, lay on our bed - his wet, black hair splayed across the pillow case, getting the linens sopping wet. I would sit him up just like back in the tub, between my legs and comb his long hair out with all the gentleness of a Mother to her child. But like a lover more than a Mother, because usually the drying and bare skin and the sensuality of the hair brushing led us to getting tangled up in love making and there went any plans we had of real productivity.
For us, productivity occurred in our conversations, it occurred in our eyes when we stared into each other and said absolutely nothing at all. We enjoyed being alone, we enjoyed the quiet, we enjoyed simplicity of just doing absolutely nothing-together.
I remember when he painted me in the velvet arm chair in the living room - we ate Kentucky Fried chicken and listened to Journey and I complained that I couldn't sit still, he told me to shut up and quit my bitching - sit my ass still. He smiled at me then from around the side of the canvas and I threw a chicken bone at him and he said, "missed loser" and he smiled again around the canvas and mouthed the words "I love you" with a sparkle in his eyes and his lips closed in his 'I'm sorry I am teasing you' side smile.
I love you too.
And here come the fucking tears again, Jesus.
He was beautiful, one of the most beautiful people I have ever seen in my life, still to this very day. His father was from Iraq and he inherited his Fathers strong features and dark skin - his skin was so soft and taut and warm. He had the MOST beautiful hands I have ever seen, perfect hands, long fingers, perfect nails - clean and gently calloused on the tips from his base guitar strings. Gentle hands, hands that made music and smoothed hair, traced the shape of my lips ever so slowly. His eyes were always behind his hair except for when his hair was wet or when I gathered it in a high bun on top of his head like a samurai warrior - then he looked like a little boy - his eyes twinkled all the time, like the whites were littered with flecks of glitter - his brown eyes were the color of good chocolate. My favorite thing about his face were his lips, most likely because his smile could settle any disagreement and smooth any of my ruffled feathers instantly - that, and he had a little ball of flesh that protruded right on the underside of his upper lip, directly in the middle. He would bite it, I would bite it - I would kiss it all the time when he had his mouth open and he least expected me to pounce, something about that little ball of lip that put me right over the edge of desire.
His lips were a great shape, they were adorable when he spoke.
He was so dark and had such long dark hair and he was always in black leather and people assumed he was a bad ass and I put emphasis on the bad there.
He was the kindest, most gentle spirit I have ever known - he took care of me in a way that I have never felt again.
He was completely perfect in my eyes and I always thought that we would return to each other and live forever.
I have a sneaking suspicion that he knew better.
Two months before he died, he came to me under the apple trees one afternoon - he told me that he was miserable - he wanted to move to Cali and apply to art school out there - he produced his Mother's emerald ring and asked me to go with him.
I should have said yes - but, I didn't... When we sat together on a park bench in Harvard Sq. a few weeks later, my legs over his, holding his hand that read BLADE across the knuckles - his Johnny to my Rio the red head - we discussed our love affair and why it had happened we decided to take a break and date other people - when it was we would end up back together for life? He talked about the cowboy boots his Mother still wanted to buy for our baby, we laughed like we had all the time in the world - but again he said with urgency, "please come to California Boo" and I again, said I couldn't go - had to graduate, had to do one thing right...
The day he died, he had called me and I called him back on my way out the door to work - he was in the shower - his Mom on the cordless stood in the doorway to the bathroom, I can still hear the water running and his voice, "No tell her to wait, I have to talk to her it's important" - and me late as usual "I gotta go, tell him I'll talk to him tonight."
I stood in the shoe store where I worked, Xanadu it was called, and I stared at the huge neon clock on the wall and felt as though my insides had frozen solid inside of me - I believe now, it was the moment his lungs filled with water and left no room for air.
I was most upset that I didn't get to wash his hair - that custom is reserved for the Father - that, and that I didn't hang on my end of the phone for thirty more seconds.
The day of his funeral I got out of the car and my hands twisted up like an old witches, fingers gnarled and couldn't unwind - my first real panic attack.
As I walked away from the grave stumbling on earth that now held on to the body that made love to me, the boys from the band handed me a notebook full of songs and poems and doodles and sketches about me.
A piece of me died as I opened it up and looked for the first time at words and pictures I never knew existed - I remember thinking, oh Jesus what is happening?
It was the beginning of a very dark period of my life that I have maybe only just now in the last few years come out of. I lost track of the girl who washed his hair, I lost track of the girl who knew what real love was.
I know that he is profoundly happy to find me healthy again after all these years - he has a hand in every good thing I do for myself - I feel him push me along when my own stubbornness makes me hold my ground for no apparent stupid misguided reason.
The medium who stumbled into my store one day, pulled by a young man with dark hair and eyes that needed her to say the word Worchester to me, confirmed he is over my right shoulder, stuck to me like glue always.
I can feel hm smiling back there right now I think.
Young love with us was old love - He would be forty one today and I wish so much I could see him with salt and pepper hair -
He told me once as I thrashed in fear - "I will never leave you."
Sometimes I think it was a conscious choice to leave me here in this place, to never leave my side again....
The line that divides his world and mine feels so thin to me, like I could poke right through it and touch him -
Today I wish I could slap him on the ass forty one times and tell him he's an old man now....Instead I am the old broad and he is still eighteen.
Happy Birthday my love - I love you forever and a day.

Out of my hands

Good cloudy Thursday morning to you all.
So last night my son Brian said, "Really Ma, two blogs in one day - is that necessary?" Oh my if he only knew that right now, without a real life to live, I would be writing 24/7...I am on the fence about my Grandmother's eulogy. Do I begin it - do I wait? Do I begin it now, because now she is alive, and presently I am not in the throws of a gripping and horrific grief - where it's very possible that the right words will not push through? OR do I wait, because maybe she won't die and maybe the truth is, that my best writing about loss, comes while I am treading water in my own pool of tears? I just don't know - so instead I blog and pour out what I can in preparation of whatever comes next. I am emotionally wrung the fuck out. I think I have a handle on my feelings about Nana and then I realize that I don't at all and then I get to a place where I do and then I return quickly to a place where I do not. It's exhausting.
The thing that really sucks about this kind of limbo is that it is terribly inconvenient. I don't mean to sound selfish and terrible, let me elaborate if I can accurately articulate it - What I mean is that I must live my regular life, right? Still gotta function as Mother, still got work to go to, still have an upcoming trip to consider, yada yada. Still have to live life as though it's live-able, when really, with a death looming over my head and heart - it just isn't. I want the clock on real time to suspend it's ticking too - while she is in health limbo, I think it's only fair that my life should also be.
It is that, "well is it going to happen or isn't it?" kinda pervasiveness - it's in every act I attempt to get through. It looms over the laundry pile....Do I get down the suit cases from the attic? Do I pack for the just in case? But if I do that, what will the open suitcase in the bedroom do for me - how will that effect me - how will that symbol of impending doom make me feel?
I am miserable to say the least.
I went to the pool yesterday afternoon with the kids, thinking that my private Dave concert and otherwise amused kids, were the answer to the looming - that there in my earphones, I may be able to detach myself for even a short time and find that when I re-attached to the thoughts I felt more prepared - but yeah no, the complete opposite happened. Laying there with my bare skin in the sun, the heat oppressively taking hold of my breathing, I felt beat and weak and helpless. And I stared up into the clouds when they eclipsed the sun, I stared up into the white/grayness and I saw Nana there - saw my times with her in the sky. I cried and cried like an idiot as Dave crooned and crooned and of course, I had chosen the Dave and Tim acoustic concert from Vegas and that album is tear inducing for me on the best of days as is. Dave said "the way the rain, the rain, the way the rain" and what he means is "the way the tears, the tears, the way the tears" and so they ran in a stream down my face and I had no reprieve from the looming - instead it settled down on top of my bare skin, my splayed out and weak body parts, like a heavy blanket of sorrow.
Sigh.
I could find no good place to escape it, it plainly said, is inescapable.
I thought about my relationship with my Nan. Do people get it, when I say my Grandmother may be dying? Do other people know what my Grandmother dying is to me? Did they/Do they have a Nana like mine? Did they/do they have a relationship with anyone of this specific significance?
Hard to explain what she is to me - hard to explain what she means - she means everything - she is my best friend, has been for all of my life.
The only person who calls me DEBORAH ANN and gets away with it - who will call me Deborah Ann when she is gone?
Fuck fuck fuck I hate this.
And yet, she has suffered so....God has she suffered so. And I hate her suffering far more than I hate never hearing her speak my name ever, ever again.
And I have no power - no power to do or change anything that is happening, not the illness, not the fear, not the timing, certainly not the inconvenient looming...
I am angry, yes, I am angry but I don't know why - at what - or at who?
I just feel a rage inside that this happens at all - I feel a rage that life inevitably equals death and death inevitably = pain for those left behind.
I would like to say, I have had enough of death - but the sad reality in that statement, is that really, if I have had enough - I must die to escape any more of it because there is an entire generation of up and comings in my life - really the losses have just begun.
I am not ready to die and so I wait...
And I hate WAITING more than I hate anything, except of course death. Waiting is the ultimate exacerbation of the lack of control I possess over everything that is out of my hands. I am not a great waiter. In fact I downright suck at it. I want to throw shit and cry and scream at the sky and say "REALLY - this is the best you've got - WAIT AND SEE?" Jesus Christ, for the love of God.
I want to pitch a fit like a two year old and writhe on the floor, kicking my legs and pounding my fists - I want to rage against the waiting, but I know, trust me I know - been there done it - it does little to relieve the anxiety or make the waiting any easier to cope with. Tantrums just wear you the fuck out and then make the debate concerning the laundry pile and the packed suitcase even more tiresome and cumbersome.
I wait and I hate it, and I hate that I hate it, but I accept that I am a wait hater and there is nothing to be done to change that.
I want to be in control and I am not, period.
I like to be in control.
Part of me wants her to die right now. Book my flights, pack my bags, write the words and get this done - for her sake. Part of me wants her to hang on until I get there, rebound and hold steady until July 5th - be her usual silly Nana self and dote on the kids - get to see her Emma Claire - her Deborah Ann, one more time, lecture me about my cleavage and hike my shirt up for old times sake.
Part of me wants none of this to be an issue at all - just someone please find the elixir to a youthful life and infuse it with her saline IV drip already and let me and my sisters keep our beloved Nan.
UGH - I am wreckage, plain and simply put.
Mary called me last night to remind me of who we are, cause momentarily I think we both forgot.
She said "So this is what will happen - my Grandmother will die at the beginning of the week, then your Grandmother will die mid - week and we will spend the book writing week in PH at wakes and funerals - what are we stupid to ever think we would get a week at PH in peace?"
And she has a valid point - we don't do easy. We tried that when she came here years ago to do the Washington DC experience - she was blown down the stairs at JFK's grave in the weirdest wind storm in history and as we sat at the Emergency room waiting to have her swollen ankle x-rayed - a lunatic went on a shooting spree at VTECH and killed a bunch of innocent students as we watched in horror and disbelief. And who can forget the Dave Matthews show where I was sexually assaulted by a security guard and when I fought back to defend my body, because it is MINE, I went out in cuffs, ejected from Leroi's last show....Oh and then there is puke fest 2010 which was slated to be a relaxing week of kid fun - just our families together doing family stuff - and then it happened Cameron barfed on the rink and then Nana, then Colby, then Shawn, then Matthew, then Emma, then Mary and me, well I did a few shots of tequila because everyone knows that tequila will kill any bug in your stomach - me, no puking, but a constant state of churning nausea - the entire house puked and ran fevers the entire week - changing barfed on bed sheets, washing puked on towels and changing the liners to a million trash cans that were set up like cones on a road throughout the entire house - puke check points. RIDICULOUS. We just don't do easy. Mary had to make me aware, in case I had forgotten, that nothing is ever as we planned - buckle down baby, prepare for the worst case scenario. Fuck me.
I don't want that this time....Selfish....I want the kids to visit Pam and have a great time with their Aunt, I want to go to PH with no stress and write the Canary Memoirs - no broken ankles or lunatics with guns, no sexual assaults, no puking, no death.
Is that so much to ask for once in my life?
Selfish - I know.
But damn it to hell, just once????? JUST FREAKING ONE TIME WITH EASE.
Thing is, I have more than enough material for the book - just gotta have the time to write it.
I want whatever is best for Nana and I don't possess the answer to that. My little sister Toto Bird thinks that she still has joy in her life and that she isn't ready to go - I am not entirely sure I agree, but secretly, okay publicly now, I hope her perception of Nana's state is the right one. If it is, I will get more of her and I always want more Nan, no doubt.
I apologize profusely for my rant this morning - I just have to get it out so my head does not explode, I have enough to clean up as it is.
I am doing my very best to survive this with grace.
I will say that for all the stupidity of my life, when it comes to Grandparents, my Sisters and I lucked out - we have been the luckiest three girls in the world to have had the very best Nana and Papa anyone could ever hope for. Funny and intelligent, loving and nurturing, caring and devoted beyond my wildest dreams and expectations - everything they did for us was perfection. I dare say, we three got the very best of them and for that, I am eternally grateful.
I plan to give it to my Grandchildren one day - plan to be the kind of Nana to them, my Nana was to me - plan to rock the role hard core. I have had the very best example.
I know she isn't reading this - but Thanks Nan for loving me so perfectly, I love you with everything that I am.
I hope she is peaceful today whatever the day may bring for her. I know without a doubt she is saying the rosary in her head, I think I may go pray one round too, maybe it will join us from a far.
Hail Mary full of Grace, the lord is with thee....

You gotta grow there to know there....

There are always people in life that are completely different from ourselves. It's the Robert Palmer effect - It takes every kinda. When thinking about it in terms of color or race, it's easy for me - yeah Emma has a best friend who is black - every kinda is easy....But there is a specific kind of every kinda that pushes even someone like me to expand and that specific type of expansion, even for someone like me, CAN be extremely challenging. My sister in-law Pam is one of those every kindas.
I talked to her today and after, sat at the pool and thought about the turbulent relationship we have had through the years, why it is so and why we have been thrust together in this life to learn from each other.
I thought long and hard about what she has taught me, about what it is that maybe I have taught her.
I have no clue what I have taught her if anything.
I have some very specific thoughts on what she has taught me.
Primarily, we all don't do emotion the same way.
I mean I knew this, obviously I knew this, learned this early on from my Mother, we we felt nothing similar and I was cut from her very cloth...
I learned from Pam, that my tolerance for people who don't do it my way is low - or rather WAS low.
I have always been a feeler, a talker, a gotta go there to know there type...People who don't pour their guts out with ease freak me out and have left me feeling confused.
Why not talk about it? Why bottle it all up and keep it to yourself? Safety comes in numbers.
When Pam was diagnosed with breast cancer over ten years ago, I fully anticipated that she would divulge all the details of her treatment, all the details of the prognosis - that we would discuss every fear and every bad possibility - that we would mutually prepare for the worst through words - I got the bare minimum at best.
For me it was the worst...
I was frustrated beyond belief that I couldn't get her to do the Deb and Mary, she wouldn't open up her heart to me in even the slightest - this cancer journey did not involve me.
I felt very shut out - talk about things after all is what I do.
"How are you feeling Pam?" - "Oh you know Deb, I'm here"
Grrrr that is not an answer Pam.
Pam and I have always been different and yet so similar in so many ways. Not sure she would admit it, but it's true. Different in that we don't do emotion the same way - different in the way we express ourselves, different in a lot of our views even - but different is okay so what the hell was the big problem?
The problem as I see it, is that in a lot of other ways, we are exactly the same. Or were...We both fight for what we believe in with a ferocity that is downright scary to those in opposition. We are both Phoenix risen from ashes and mounds of dust and shit. We are both unbelievably strong and have a will that is unstoppable.
Truth is Pam and I are more like Sisters than maybe even she and Dan, we are just too much alike to get beyond our differences...Or, I should say we were.
The problems that Dan and I suffered through our marriage certainly did little to bring Pam and I closer together, we probably both sharpened our claws from our perspective corners. She wanted to believe the best of her Brother is all, but really, what sister doesn't?
I guess maybe I was too unforgiving of her position while I tried too hard to defend the misery in mine.
The years have been unkind to Pam and I...Until recently when I changed and maybe she did too.
In the great darkness of the past few years of my life, I had to face myself and facets of my personality that were just too fixed for all the wrong reasons.
I figured out that when I say "Pam how are you feeling?" and she says "Well you know Deb, I'm here" - that is a perfectly fine answer - it is her answer and although it is not how I would answer, I would divulge my misery fear and anger - she did too, in her own quiet, reserved and graceful way.

And at the bare bones, who am I to question the way she chooses to answer anything to anyone?
Every kinda is EVERY KINDA - not just the kinda that works for me, not just the way that I would do it.
Recently Pam said, "I wish I had your crazy ass personality" - that is a compliment that I will never ever forget as long as I live. Why you ask?
Because it shows me, that although the years have not been especially kind to our turbulent sister-hood, it has brought us closer in appreciation for who each other are and what it is that makes us different and unique, especially from each other.
Pam possesses a silent, unspoken determination that I wish I had - I wish I could hold on to my emotion a little longer before setting it free to the world - my big mouth has had my foot crammed into it a lot of my time here spent on this earth.
Determination does not always need to be announced or wear a name tag, having it is all that really matters.
Her journey with Cancer has been all her own and although she shares her life and her illness with many women battling this disease more than she does me - I'm sure they understand her challenges far better than I - it's not that she doesn't love or need me, not that she doesn't trust me enough to share.
I respect the way she has carried herself more than I can ever convey with words - and she has been at this relentless battle for over a decade and with few reprieves from it's possession of her body and I imagine, her quiet, dignified and private mind.
We have found our way from the opposite end of the spectrum to a common middle ground where our likenesses, like each other just fine and our differences now accept each other and more importantly, respect each other.
I respect my sister in- law and I am grateful to have arrived at this place and be fortunate enough and able to tell her with time to spare.
I will tell her kids too, if at some point they need to hear how unbelievably fabulous their Mother was.
I have a great memory and sixteen years worth of remembering with a great summer visit to add to that list and hopefully lots more amazing stuff to come.
I would tell you a lot more about her, but considering her private nature, I should really get her permission first.
Just know she is awesome and I am awesomely happy to have heard her say "I love you" today - I love you too Pammy Jean - with all my adoring and expanded heart.

It's crunch time

Good Morning Blog readers - UM WHERE IS THE SUN???
If you are here in Virginia, it is a bit overcast and this is not in line or cooperative with my melting poolside fantasies. I had a private Dave concert on the books for today and the taste of salt water lingering and dried on my lips. Grrrrr, go away clouds - I need me some sun.
Well last night's meet was spectacular and yes, tiring.
Although it was blazing hot here in Fluvie when I left home at 3:30 to head in town to the Elk's pool, as I drove deeper into Cville the sky grew ominously dark minus the bright flashes of lightening. The sky opened up and dumped a ton of rain and the storm clouds released thunder clap after thunder clap. Each rumble meant another half hour before we get on deck. Sigh. Brian and I set up tailgate style in the back of the B2FLMS mobile and waited for the rumbling to dissipate. Eventually the sun returned with a vengeance and the meet was on, however late to start. My kiddos rocked the waters hard last night, both dominated and I was as proud as a Momma could be. Love to see my kids succeed, both such fierce competitors. The best part of my night was undoubtedly watching my kids behave like me. I know right, pat myself on the back - but no seriously - it's good to see that they are paying attention to what is most important - kindness. My Emma Claire girl was so supportive of all of her team mates last night that I myself was even a little surprised. She is always the most kind hearted of all my peanuts, but last night she was really really really ON. She cheered so loudly for everyone "GO GO GO" and for her best pals, she scooted right to the wall and was there to hug them as soon as they lifted up and out of the pool. She even, was there, screaming her lungs out for her brother who she usually hates and is trying to figure out a way that I can reasonably abandon all my sons and just move to a loft in New York with her - "yeah Mom boys drool" she would say.
At one point. I was like "where the hell did Mimz go" and then I spotted her with Matthew's towel draping him in it lovingly as he exited the pool. I watched them walk around the deck together, talking to each other about his race, all up in their own relationship and I teared up a little cause I am a sap and they really do have something that is all their own that even I am not a part of. Sigh.
And then surprise "Where the hell is Matthew now?"
Oh wait, there he is pulling Emma out of the pool after her killer win in breast stroke. Look at him two hand pull her up and oh my god he is hugging her and picking her up right off the ground. Oh heart be still in that moment - take that whole vision in deep deep deep.
Love my kids - Love the way they supported each other and their team - sports are so important for kids at their age - teaches them so many valuable lessons that they can only get from that team experience.
And with that a rain drop just fell on my laptop and I think I may cry....
No more rain please - I need the sunshine....(insert desperate pathetic whine here)
My Nana had surgery yesterday in Boston at Brigham and Womens Hospital, they apparently drained her kidney which was full of infection and a big ole kidney stone. She had heart complications on the table and is not stabilizing satisfactorily, so she has been moved to ICU.
Hate that I can picture her scared eyes and that she is alone. I am hoping my sister Ashleigh gets to leave work early today and can go be with her so at the very least she has the comfort of a family member by her side.
I am hoping she is not suffering most of all. I hate to think of her suffering. And although she never reads blogs and I am not sure God does either, I say just to say it, it's more than okay Nan to just let go now, it's time God, take her home.
I hate it, hate every second of it and yet I am completely calm. It is the calm that worries me - I am very much the calm before the storm type. Not that I will storm, but that life will storm. Can't think of a bigger rain cloud than losing my Nan. But it's okay Nan, go...
Mary and I did our usual morning talk today. We discussed a myriad of topics that ranged from Nana to my book outline.
Clearly Nana is on the forefront, but Mary has also been bugging me relentlessly to get my book outline done before I leave for my trip home to write. I will have an entire week at the PH house (Prospect Harbor Maine) to write without interruption.
Considering the stack of writing I accomplished this past semester with the kids interrupting my train of thought every fifteen seconds, it is more than plausible that without that lack of focus - I could actually hammer out a good deal of my book.
OMG am I really going to write a book? Why yes, yes I am. I have no idea how it will turn out, have no idea if it will be any kind of good - but I am going to do it none the less. It is my personal goal of all goals.
Jason Mraz posted something on his facebook the other day - a quote that I can't quite verbatim back at you, but basically the gist was life is short but art lives forever.
I wrote back YES YES YES.... It is my need to create something lasting so that long after I am gone, I will remain in the form of my art.
I want so much to leave a lasting piece of me for all of eternity.
I love that about literature - love that we still contemplate the identity of Shakespeare's dark lady in the year 2011. Love that a classroom can ignite over drastically different perceptions of Isbens 'dollhouse.'
I have no doubt that I will be a Zora Neal Hurston and hate what I produce - wish to change it and do it all over again - that will just have to be book #2.
Not sure that artists ever feel they have captured what is in their head and given it to the world in accuracy. I know for me, what I write NEVER looks like what I feel - that is my challenge - to hone in on how to get what I express in verbal communication to translate on paper. I want you to feel like we are talking.
That is a hard thing to do.
I have been reading "The Bluest Eye' by Toni Morrison and "Cane' by Jean Toomer. Both literary masterpieces - Cane more so because it is undefinable - I can't tell you what it is, a book? A novel? A journal? A collection? IDK. Amazing writing though, that I can tell you. And a mystery to me.....How the fuck does he pack so much in to an eight word sentence? Toomer lays down, literally, these condensed sentences that have endless multiple meanings (if you are insightful like me) and so eight words takes on infinite possibility and the scope of his point just explodes in all different directions. Reading his work is like watching shutter exposure on a camera in low light....The shutter clicks and opens, then hangs there, the initial gunshot having long been heard and gone - the lens just gapes open for what feels like forever and you think you know what you were pointing at, but then you have no idea what has been captured in the nuances of the shadows and light. Did that make sense, probably not and I am going to write a book, awesome?!!
But that is the only way I can think to describe it - you look at Toomers words and get it immediately, but then in the shadows they cast on one another, in the layers of meaning they create, there is just more and more and more that can be thought, understood, perceived. He was a genius. As is my girl Toni Morrison. She is the same kind of powerfully descriptive author - her visions pack a punch right to the gut. She gets in so powerfully and turns me all around inside. I hug her books a lot when I read them - I hug them so hard and squeeze my eyes tight and say Thank You Jesus for making her this way - thank you for giving her such grit.
Literature, like music, gives me a place of belonging that I have not experienced elsewhere, except for maybe in my relationship with Mary. I feel like I belong in the midst of a million mingling words - I feel at home there in the print, like I am where I am truly meant to be. And I guess beyond immortality, that is why I write - to give some of that, to some Deb somewhere, who will get my sick sense of humor, my deep and raw perceptions and truths and feel as though she belongs too.
I was listening to one of my all time favorite songs the other day poolside, Robert Palmers "Every Kind of People" - I have loved this song like it were my own creation since the first time I heard it a million years ago....It takes every kinda people to make what life's about yeah...yes Robert is really does - a simple lyric that makes me feel like my "EVERY KINDA" is integral to this time and place. Because really it is. What would the world be without me?
For a lot of people, it would be boring. The world would be lest flavorful without my specific spice. Yes it really would be - so I gotta do the work and get it down, so that it remains - my branding on the earths surface. My words.
I will tell my story - The Canary Memoirs - it is daunting I tell you, daunting.
My story is something else, I can guarantee you that...
And so it is crunch time. Time to give myself a definitive outline that keeps me on track. Dr. Wert has taught me to narrow my scope to begin, start really specific in theme - you cannot be general at all - you gotta start tight and expand from there - the opposite is a writers suicide. Not at all like writing these blogs where I sit down with my coffee and puke up my thoughts in random order and meaning and don't really care if you get it or not. Not that I don't care about you all, because obviously I do to share my life with you so openly - but I mean I don't write for you to GET it - I write for you just because I am a good sharer. haha, nice word.
My book has to do more - has to really tell the story of a coal mined canary turned trapped in a gilded cage.
Sigh. Outline Deb, out line.
And if I get the book written, if I knock it out while in PH, I have decided that I will add a canary to my tramp stamp 7 that one day will in completion will resemble a vegas slot machine - not the jackpot mind you. A bunch of symbols indicating my gambling nature and my thought that to win, you gotta keep pumping in quarters and pulling the knob. For me the winning combo is not a bunch of symbols and numbers that look the same - for me it's a Robert Palmer version - a little bit of this a little bit of that, a little bit of "EVERY KINDA" - If you are an every kinda that makes it on my body - you are a significant piece of the puzzle.
If you do not own that song btw, go to itunes and purchase it and make it your 'Deb Does Life' contribution to your musical world - that and #41 of course. And you really should buy "Beautiful Mess" by Jason Mraz while you are at it cause he really did write that for me.
Losing focus - shooooooting all over the place now. OUTLINE DEB, outline.
And I will say it again - I know who some of you readers are, but you all show anonymously in the form of a growing number - I wish I knew who you all were....hmmmm?
I wish that I knew, so I could sign my first edition of 'The Canary Memoirs' to each and every one of you personally. When I get published, we will talk about revealing identities.
Until then, enjoy your anonymity and guess what? Here comes the sun little darlin'.
Peace and love and words, hundreds and millions and pages of those words....
:)

Time to decompress? From life? Yeah no.

Good Morning blog readers,
I feel like I haven't written anything in forever and a day - Today, Tuesday is usually my decompression day, my day to bake in the sunshine, catch up on my reading for school and take a lot of deep breaths, knowing that really all I HAVE to do is breathe. Tuesdays are a nothing day....
And as of late, my fav day of the week except for, unfortunately, this one - my kiddies have a meet tonight in spite of the fact that our usual meet nights are Wednesday - I fear this may have me all out of whack for the rest of the week - I desperately need my decompression time this week....I worked four days in a row at the shop which is unusual for me, I really should have just set up a cot in the back room and slept there as I literally returned home only to sleep and shower - I would have saved a bundle on gas...This was a long weekend for me, capped off by my night class last night after a nine hour day at work - I will admit I am a little crispy fried feeling in the brain this morning, a little fuzzy...And, yesterday mid - afternoon I received news that my Nana was being admitted into the hospital - she has kidney stones and an infection and has apparently been vomiting for over twenty four hours - I got the report from my sister, she is confused and looks terrible.
I am going home in fourteen days and desperately want to see her - but I will admit I am more than ready to have her pass on now and find some much needed peace.
I never thought that I would ever be in a position to admit that I am ready for my Nana, my best friend, to die, but I am - have been really for quite a few years now. I start my everyday with a thought of her that is half prayer, half beg - please God give her peace.
Sad when life gets to a point where peace = death. Unfortunately we are there and I think although my entire family has arrived at this place with fiercely mixed emotions, we are all on the same page - we love her, we will miss her, life will suck for us without her, but, there is no real quality to HER life and so it is time for her to go.
Maybe this illness will be her breaking point, maybe she will hang on until I can see her one more time, maybe either way is okay with me, although I would love to kiss her and look into her beautiful brown yellow green eyes one more time so that I can get one last really good impression of them for the memory bank - truth be told that is not necessary, those eyes are burned in my mind for all of eternity, the kindest eyes I ever did see.
I was talking to Mary about it last night as I drove home from school - ironic that her Nana is also not well and probably in her last days too...I said to Mary, "I was ready for her to die, the day I saw fear in her eyes" - that day came many years ago and has never left me in all the days following.
Fear in the eyes of your elderly, paralyzed and essentially helpless Grandmother, is not a good thing, in fact it is right up there with the worst thing ever.
She is helpless and I am helpless to to fix that. No Good, absolutely no good can come of that.
Years ago when she suffered her stroke and was put in the nursing home, I witnessed things that were just unimaginable to me - life in a nursing home, even the best one possible, is all bad in my experienced eyes. There is a moment where a humans dignity is lost - death as a preemptive to that moment is the only good answer - if only death would come on a working and convenient time schedule - leave the kids out of it and just man the elderly instead, swiftly taking them as dignity begins to diminish.
My Nana is a Catholic and I KNOW that I have watched her pray for forgiveness and that maybe she feels that this suffering is part of her lot in life - she would tell me to offer my pain up to God, that Jesus had to suffer, so why wouldn't we? Yeah Nan, I'm all set with you suffering that's the thing - I am not sure that suffering for anyone is part of the equation, or should be. I don't offer any of your suffering up to God, in fact I am rather irritated that if he exists, he would let someone like you linger in a living hell so long - but I shouldn't go there - there are a lot of shoes suspended in the air that could drop at any moment and so I should just keep my big mouth my shut.
Not that my big mouth has any effect what so ever, but whatever I shall not rant anger at God this morning, it'll do me no good anyways and it would, if she knew, make my Nana's heart hurt so - God it's in your capable hands...
sigh/grunt
I thought last night about her eulogy. What ever will I write? How ever will I get through that one? As if Papa's didn't suck the life force right from me - How ever will I write one for my Nana???
Papa and I were close, as close as a Papa and a Pumpkin could be, but my Nan and I - well we are on a different plane altogether and the pressure to do this monumental relationship any kind of justice, is daunting to say the absolute least...Forget about us - to do HER justice, to encapsulate her life and personality is almost more than I can even comprehend as I sit here and think - where would my jumping off point with words even begin???
I think of a place and well up with a grief so significant it hurts unbearably even at conception phase.
But I will do it, when the time comes, no doubt.
She was the first person to tell me I could write and that I should write. My letters to her from camp when I was ten, are some of my most prized poems to date.
For her I will write my heart out and bleed it directly onto the paper if I have to.
For her, I would do just about anything...
I said to Mary last night "She saved me, because long before I knew real fear and would have been to afraid to take the bottle of pills, I had a love for her that surpassed all - the guilt involved with knowing the sadness my death would have caused her, made me live even when I didn't want to"
Her love, is that kinda good.
So, if I owe anyone my words, it's her.
And I realized just now that I am speaking although this is already in motion - what the hell does that mean? Were the Robin's eggs just what I thought they were? Is the end approaching and I feel it?
I certainly did with Papa - I sat in my bed all day long the day before he died, staring out the window in my bedroom. Flipping through the reels of family photos and home movies in my mind - seeing my life with him play out in the gray glass of the window. I wrote in his eulogy, "I watched as you packed your bag and prepared to leave us, tucking us all safely away, memory by memory" - or something to that effect.
And I say it again (I know I repeat myself from blog to blog) this here, this shit, losing the loved ones who are your mentors and significants, this is the truly shitty part of aging.
I would take the belly flab around the middle, ten fold, to get to keep my Grandparents and have them retain their quality of life.
This is the part of growing into middle adulthood that really and truly sucks.
I think what is weirdest about the experience is my readiness. Who ever could imagine that I would be ready for my Grandmother to die? Me, who fears death so? I am ready God, ready for all the pain. - Just hurry up and take her please.
That whole thing right there, my eagerness for death - it just feels so weird.
It's a sign of real maturity - not just in the emotional sense, but in the life sense - yes I am forty now and see a beginning and end all rolled into one and at this point her death would bring me as much joy as a birth.
Crazy.
I wish that I were with her, wish that I could crawl right in her hospital bed like I did so many times before and hold her - tell her to let go if she is ready - we are all okay.
But, I have done that - she and I have no emotional debts to settle - nothing more to say. Been there already, done that years ago.
I don't have to be there, as much as I would like to be. She knows exactly how I feel about her, she always has.
When I think about her - I see her in the funniest images. I see her in her "bermuda" shorts and white ked sneakers, blotting her red lipstick on a kleenex.
I see her in the kitchen singing kookaburra to me while pulling a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies from the oven. I see her purse on the bed, open and organized, a healthy bunch of tissue is the inside pocket (she loves tissues).
I see her in the back yard by the rose bush, clipping perfect red roses and smiling in the sunshine. I see her muscular calves tense beside my chicken legs as we walked up town together, me always galloping a trot to keep up with her fast stride. I see her putting the cozy covered in green shamrocks over a fresh pot of tea. I see her with her plastic rain bonnet in a spring shower, she just had her hair "set" cannot get it wet - and I see her look down into my cleavage as she sticks her finger down the front of my shirt, and hear her tell me to keep covered up, "men have a hard time controlling themselves" - And I just laughed aloud.
I see her in these abstract ways - these moments of real time. Nothing especially profound, nothing especially dramatic - the real time moments.
The best time moments, when we just were.
I am so glad I have them. So glad I had them all.
And I say to you here and now, I have no idea what I have written today - the words on the screen look long in length but unfamiliar to me.
The brain haze is mixed with an emotional one today I guess - it is just an out pouring of thoughts I guess.
And me without my decompression time, oh my.
Yesterday a sweet girl in my class said "can I ask you an awkward question?" SURE I love awkward...
"How old are you?"
"Me - I am forty, almost forty one actually"
"Wow", she said.
She proceeded to ask the ages of my kids yada yada.
She told me that she hopes she looks as good as me after kids and at "my age" - I laughed and told her my secret to my youthful looks are the CRAZY.
I just live a crazy full life that leaves very little time for me to get old on the outside.
Not enough minutes in the day for me to form age spots and wrinkles (so not true)
BUT in some way very true.
My zest for life, is in that it beats me over the head at a constant pace - I have no option but to keep ducking and counter swinging my way through it - I think in a lot of ways that energy gives off the illusion of youthfulness.
Whatever the case, she made me laugh, that cute young girl, whose mouth gaped when I told her I had an almost twenty one year old - "yes dear, I could be your Mother."
She said her Mom is not nearly as cool as me. Oh honey, I bet she is if you would look a little deeper.
I just wear my cool heart on my sleeve is all - simply cause I have no time to tuck it in.
Nana always encouraged me to be myself, but always warned to know when to keep my mouth shut - laughing again....
Love her and how well she has always known me.
I think if she knew all I had accomplished of late, she would be really proud and pleased to see me with not only THICK SKIN, but skin period. Be, beside herself with joy to recognize that FINALLY - I am comfortable in it, whatever it may be or look like.
It's been a long time coming Nan - huh? Quite a laborious task for us both to undertake.
I couldn't have done it without you kid.
And with that I realize that I have to make sandwiches or something for dinner tonight and pack a cooler that will sustain us from 4pm thru 11pm at an away pool.
I think I have decompressed here in this blog as much as my day will allow - Tomorrow I hope to be in a coma poolside all day long, pretending I don't know who my kids are and wait, "why do you kids keep calling me MOM?"
If you see me tomorrow and I act like I don't know you - don't be insulted, it's the coma and I am in character is all.
I will return to me, after Dave and I have a private concert in my big old school earphones and the sun melts away all the stress - one can hope...
I hope for all of you this blog has not been boring - I know not one thing I have said - seriously it's been a verbal vomit.
I hope you all have a blessed day and that none of you know the first thing about the things I have addressed here today....I hope you cannot relate.
Peace and love and swim meets oh my.

Jello and a nail...

This is gonna have to be a quickie as my life has been turned upside down this lovely Friday morning by my not so lovely teenage son. Grrrrrr.
I know somewhere in Boston, my Mother is smiling, thinking that I am finally getting mine - payback's a bitch daughter - Ha this is for all the hell you caused me.
Yeah Yeah Ma....
At any rate - raising teenagers sucks.
No doubt.
I was no picnic for sure - I will never deny that I gave my Mother a hard ass time.
I was more of a turbulent teenager than a troublesome one though, in my defense.
My Mother and I had a very rocky relationship and that began early on, way before I was introduced to Bartles and James or to Mary Jane - our issues started when I was a wee little lass and continue to this day... Go figure.
I blame a lot of what went on in my head and heart on not having a Dad, having a positive male role model in a child's life is imperative.
Although my step Dad entered the picture when I was ten, it was far too late for him to salvage the wreckage that my Mother and I had become.
He was a great influence on me for sure, a positive example from the word go, but he was more like a band-aid on my teenage wounds and I was capable of ripping that wound protector clean off in times of great self destruction.
Like I have said many times previous in this blog - I wouldn't change a thing about any of it for surely I wouldn't be who I know am - but man my teenage years were nothing less than a train wreck.
Maybe I am getting payback? Maybe it is just the cyclical way of life - I chose men very much like my Mother to marry and hence problematic male role models for my older sons.
I have a magnet at work that says 'raising teenagers is like trying to nail jello to a tree' - I couldn't have said it better myself.
So what do you do when you have a party animal on your hands that listens to Mac Miller who raps that youth is all about having a good time?
Do you lock the doors behind them? Do you put their shit in trash bags on the front lawn? Yell and scream?
I don't have the answer....
Mostly what I do is pray in my head that he doesn't pay a fatal price for his good times.
Don't get in the car with someone who is drinking.....Don't take that little pill that everyone says will be the best trip ever. Don't do too much of any good thing, cause that always turns bad at some point...
Please God keep him safe and get him beyond this moronic, self centered stage of his life....
Please get him to a place where he realizes that character is of the utmost...Please let him figure out that is he thinks summer in Fluvanna is fun, he should really try a semester away in a different state at COLLEGE...
ugh.
Whatever happens with my kids, I pray that we get through it fairly unscathed.
I am not stupid enough to ever imagine that this would be easy - and sons, oh my sons, they think they are invincible.
At least when I was a kid I was aware my demise was around every corner and I behaved somewhat accordingly - I made it after all - here all these years later.
But barely, had a lot of near misses and a lot of close calls and my upbringing was in the heart of one of the countries biggest and most active cities.
What's worse, a drunk ride on the T at 2AM with a bunch of friends or a dark, not lit, winding country road? I think he'd be better off in the city unfortunately, at least public transportation is always available and the streets are well lit...
Sometimes I think the "rural" lifestyle is more dangerous for kids - not as much to "do" but sit around and drink - and if they are stupid enough to try to go out and about, they are bound to do it in a vehicle....
I wish that teenagers had the first clue that it can happen to them - they are not exempt. And I wish that the trees out here weren't littered with floral wreaths marking the many accidents that have already claimed too many Fluvanna kids...
Makes for an acid stomach, even without the dairy and gluten.
I wish that teenagers knew how they stress their parents - what the worry and fear feels like as you watch the clock and the door doesn't open...Or you open the door to their bedroom in the morning and their bed is empty.
I wish they got it, but they probably won't until they are sitting on their deck one day blogging about jello and trees and acid gut themselves.
It takes time to grow and a lot of mistakes to learn. I get that, really I do.
Especially for kids who have had it not so easy - that would be my kids unfortunately...
I will say that they have always had me - and although right now where my seventeen year old is concerned that appears to have made little positive difference, my twenty year old assures me that is has....He tells me all the time he doesn't know where he'd be without me.
Thanks Bri.
I know, no matter what, I will continue to be here come whatever may.
I will not abandon the nest. Will not ever not forgive and attempt to forget.
Will never not pick them back up, clean them off and try to right their stance.
I am a Mother and my kids are my number one, even when I want to kill them with my own bare hands - like I do now...
Not really, but kinda.
If you have a teenager, you probably know what I mean.
He is supposed to be here today to watch his little brother and sister while I go to work and make money to buy endless groceries that keep them well nourished.
He is absent, not present, not accounted for and so hmmmm - Thank God for Laura who will take my kiddos today and save my life....
Kevin's life is another story however.
Raising him in the last few months has been unpredictable and requires fast thinking on my feet.
I far prefer the terrible two's to say the least...
And when did it become illegal to duct tape your kids to a wall, cause right about now, that and some shackles sound like a really good idea to me????
Yes Mother I get it - PAYBACK IS A BITCH called A TEENAGER.
I hope you all have a wonderful day and is you have little ones in your house, I would start stock piling the Valium now.
Peace out - have a blessed day, and Kevin if you are reading this I am one worried Mother :(

We are the champions my friends....

I just woke up. I have trails of gold and black eye make-up streaked down my face in a tear stream pattern - I have no voice to speak of...
THE BRUINS WON THE CUP.
I have no words...
Of course I do or I wouldn't be here right? DUH.
Yesterday as I prepared for the kids swim meet, I had the phone glued to my shoulder as I spoke to Mary hurriedly and full of stress - "Can I say it aloud, is it okay to say it?" PAUSE... Hesitantly, cautiously Mary replied "I don't know"
Pause...
"I think they are gonna do it, I think they are gonna get the cup"
sigh on her end, "Me too"
From the meet I checked my cell phone constantly which btw lost battery life twice and so in the midst of trying to get my kids to clerk with goggles and caps for a total of 9 (stellar I might add) races, I was also intermittently running like a chicken with my head cut off to plug in my cell phone in the pool house office.
Last night was nothing short of a completely stress filled endeavor, if I had not had my fierce black and gold manicure going, I would have surely bit my nails down to stubs and I am most certainly not a nail biter, even under the most dire conditions.
The meet was complete chaos from my standpoint - there were so many people and my kids were hopped up on sugar and adrenaline and although I tattoo my daughter with her name down her arm in huge colorful bubble letters, I still had a hard time picking her out of the hoards of goggles and bathing capped beauties - And then there is Matt, who is hard to contain under the best of circumstances, forget amongst hundreds and hundreds of screaming, playing and racing kiddos. I was a train wreck from the minute we arrived and that state of being did little to subside as the night wore on.
What are the chances that the Stanley Cup Finals, Game 7 would be the night not only of my childrens first swim meet, but even more importantly Matthews first meet ever....
OMG.
They both showed really well in their first events, the relay - both my little munchkins showed up on the block looking ready, although a second before the race began, Matt who was the third leg, began to panic and I could see his tension building as he spoke to one of the coaches. I watched from behind the zoom lens, zeroing in on his mouth trying to access the freak out - he was doing butterfly and was desperately trying to tell the coach he was no good at it.
Dan and Brian and Gabe and Emma were all standing around me and I said out of the side of my face from behind the camera "He's panicking, someone go, he's panicking!!!"
His Father went over just as Matt got ready to climb the block, apparently nerves were not gonna keep him down, Atta Boy Matteo, fight the negative thoughts, slay the negative self esteem demon, kill it but good....
And Man did he butterfly that water like he was butterflying a filet with a sharp ass knife - smooth as silk and slicing...Arms up and around in smooth, fluid, strong strokes, torso and legs like a lifelong dolphin. NICE MATTEO, yessss son.
Nerves and self doubt be damned.
Then came individual races and this was where I was really feeling the nerves as a Mom at the pool side - I so wanted Matt to hit the wall first so that he could get one win under his belt and finally believe YES I CAN....
Emma was up first and I did what I do "EMMA CLAIRE" find me daughter, here I am honey, locate the position of my voice and BIG SMILE. BIG SMILE returned, little Emma wave and she's up and over that block, knuckles white as snow as she arches her back into the anticipated release - BUZZ, splash, screaming parents and Me "GO EMMA GO, PUSH BABY PUSH"
And she did, man did she, she amazes me - she glides through that water like she is on a slip and slide and covered in vegetable oil, she just gets to the end so fast she leaves a blaze of mingled colors behind in her wake.
FIRST, yesss, way to go Mimzy, her heat winner ribbon in hand, heat winning lollipop in mouth.
Now on to the really important race, Matt's individual...Oh Geez, did my stomach hurt.
Please let him get a first please let him get a first, please just let him get this one race as a first so he believes that he can do it.....PLEASE...
Look at the clock, half hour til faceoff time. OMG....Please let them get the cup, please just let them get it please.
I had so many please Mantra's on loop in my frontal lope that I felt like the front of my head was going to blow off and splatter right there all over the pool deck - my head throbbed and my mouth moved in silent prayers to the confidence God - please let them win....
When he got up on block, he looked really good. My oldest son Brian and I yelled his name so loudly, you probably heard us yourselves. Matt located our faces, we game him the "YEAH MATT, GET IT BUD" battle cry and he was off at the sound of the buzz.
I began to take pictures, but quickly tossed the camera when I realized, this race I must see with my own eyes, no more 3 by 5's for this race...
And I watched, mouth open "GO MATTTTTTT GOOOOOO" as he pushed through that water with so much power and force - I could feel his determination in my own bones, I could feel each pull through the water as if I were in the pool myself...
And he did it!!!! That little shitsky hit the wall first and FINALLY knew he was not the little engine that could - he is a speeding train that did....
Thank you Jesus, Allah, Buddha and Neptune.
Thank you thank you thank you thank you.
And I teared up a little to see him win it - And here is my Deb disclaimer - it's not the win on all races - it was imperative for him, he win this ONE race and he did - from this point on what he does will never eclipse this confidence building, glowing moment. That's it bud, feel that shine - feel the glow - YOU ARE CAPABLE.
And then call Mary right away and text Toto and Ash....Mary answered and was so happy for Matt, she said, "If the Bruins don't win, it's okay, Matt Poulin just got his first, first"
My reply, "If the Bruins do win, we will always remember these events together, the cup and a first ever first place for Matt" :) smile smile smile.
The night wore on and I wore my tongue out running it along my gum line from nerves and my jaw hurt from chewing my gum like a horse chews cud...The races were spaced out and I was in it for the long haul.
When the Bruins began to score and I started receiving text messages from the masses, I really got ramped up emotionally, really began to feel like I was tearing in two - the meet or the game, the meet or the game?
First meet with many more to come vs. a possible Stanley Cup Victory in my lifetime that I could actually witness if only I were home and not at the pool with a pounding head full of racing conflicted thoughts and a heart divided and sitting on a teetering scale....dipping slightly this way, oh no wait SCORE, a little more that way...
I had a really nice talk with my old friend Dropkick Josh and that served a nice distraction, what a great guy - always the teaser and always the inquirer, really cares to ask about how my life is going - God I miss our WNRN challenges Joshua, he and I had good times coming up with songs and winning dinners we never went on...Miss you Josh :)
But then despite the respite, my tension mounted and it was clear the time had come - Mary called and said it was 3-0 at the end of the second and I needed to leave NOW.
I went to Emma as she sat with all the pool mom's and begged her to understand - I must go lovey, I have waited my whole life to see this moment....
A chorus of "GO'S" came from all my pool ladies and so I did - I raced home like a freakshow, my heart beating furiously in my chest and the nagging Boston responsibility complex rearing it's ugly head - what if I watch the third period and the Canucks start scoring???
I will have ruined it all, tempted fate with the nails, the gold and black eyes, the LUCIC jersey and by watching.....
Oh please Jesus - don't let me be the bad luck hex.
But then, I called Mary and we put on speakerphones and Horton from the Boston bench poured Boston Garden water from a water bottle on to the Vancouver ice and I knew the cup was coming home with us.
I cried, I literally cried at the sight of - Horton dumping dirty water on their home ice.
Take that you bitches - hit me will ya? Ha, it was the most beautiful moment of the entire series and it rivaled watching Ray Bourque tear up at finally getting his cup even though at the time he did not wear the black and gold...It's okay, enduring love knows no teams...
When the Canucks pulled Luongo from the net with three minutes left in the third, I called out for an open net goal - I love me some open nets, the puck just goes in with no resistance, the puck says "why thank you for the invite, I think I will take you up on it" SCORE and there it was, the fourth goal...
Now please let Thomas have a shut out, please let him leave this last game in a perfect place...
And sixty seconds of regulation boomed and the asshole Canuck fans began to boo and I began to jump and yell and cry and laugh - the good ole Deb ugly laugh/cry.
OMGGGGG, they did it :)
In my lifetime, I have now seen all the New England teams bring home the ultimate championships in their respective sport - One more MUST SEE under my belt.
And no superbowl, no world series will ever mean to me, what the STANLEY CUP means for the BOSTON BRUINS...I loved hockey before I loved shoes, before I loved my kids, before I loved myself.
It is a moment I have waited for since I was a little girl hugging my best friend Bruin bear in my footie pajamas, up way too late with hurting ear drums.
I am beyond a happy girl today - I am so grateful that I have lived to see this.
The cup is coming home and so am I :)
And.... My Matt got first place the night the B's dumped Garden water on Vancouver ice....I will never forget this night - this is one for the memory bank -
And so you readers can all breathe a sigh of relief, we are soon to be through with this chapter of my life - we have just the parade left which I will neither go to or get to see in person - I hope one of my Boston peeps yells really loud for me, I will most certainly be there is spirit, no doubt. I am always in Boston is Spirit, I love that dirty water - Boston you're my home....Tear.
What a sap I am.
Being a New Englander is not something you can understand unless you are one. It comes with a pride of our immigrant heritage, our Union beliefs, our progressive spirits our risk taking confidence - our ability to get back up again and again...
I am a Bostonian at my core and although I love me some Virginia, Boston will always be where my roots are entwined, buried deep in the black soil on the bank of the Charles....
Today is a really good day....Thanks Boys for playing your ever lovin asses off - that series will go down in history as the biggest dog fight ever - and yeah, we Bostonian's really do know how to scrap.
Can't wait to come home now....

And you can tell everybody this is your song...

Well here I am again - 7:13 AM ready to seize another beautiful day....Last night at 10:00 pm on the nose, I brushed my fangs and hit the hay - a frontline special was on PBS and I was really into it, but crashed none the less...If I fall asleep while watching frontline, it's pretty safe to say I have myself on a winning sleep schedule - love me some PBS.
I seem to be waking up at least once in the middle of the night to pee, this could be old age or the 8,000 gallons of water I am drinking daily - at any rate, when I awake for my bathroom visit, I always check my phone to see what time it is (no alarm clock) and I crack myself up, when I sigh with disappointment that it is not yet time to get up and begin the day anew. What the hell is happening to me? I want to get up...I anticipate the morning with a fervent eagerness.
Mr.Woodpecker in the tree behind me is making use of his morning too, he is really beating the hell out of the wood - he must be putting out his mating call...
Funny,I woke up with lids that lingered on visions of past mates myself - I had Journey's 'faithfully' on loop in the brain and was remembering my old boyfriend Matt at the piano, singing to me as I sat in the window sill...What is that lyric? "And lovin a music man ain't always what's it's supposed to be, oh girl you stand my me - I'm forever yours faithfully?'
Yeah I think that's it.
Matt never sang Journey to me - he was more of a Beatles guy - our song was Golden Slumbers...I loved to watch him sing.
My English professor was discussing loving a music man just the other night in class - we were referencing a novel that we are reading, Zora Neal Hurstons "Their Eyes Were Watching God" - one of the main characters 'Tea Cake' sells his guitar so that he can buy his love Janie a present he otherwise could not afford.
My professor laughed and said "I don't know if any of you ladies have ever loved a musician, but if he sells his guitar for you...."
I thought - I have loved a few in fact - some of my best relationships were with music men - some of my most enduring friendships have been with those boys long after adult life pulled our love in different directions.
I know of one who would have sold his guitar for me, but I never would have let him, his music was the only gift I ever wanted....Ahhhh young love.
How lucky am I to have loved the music men?
Pretty freaking lucky - and really, maybe that is where I went wrong in my marital choices - I didn't marry any musicians damn it, what the hell was I thinking?
In my humanities project last year, I delivered a 'read and lead' to the class on the work of Emily Dickinson, one of my questions after reading a gazillion of her poems was - "Do you have to be a little nuts to be an artist?"
The consensus was "DUH" - yeah of course you do...
Without angst and conflict there is nothing of any interest to write about, paint about, sing about....Create about.
Yeah all of us artistic, creative whack jobs are a little tapped for sure - and I probably missed the mark by not marrying a little closer to my personality type.
Both husbands have been on the exact opposite spectrum of the emotion and communication wheel as me - They both have insinuated that I "over think" - Um yeah well I disagree, I think neither one of them think enough.
But they're inability to get me was not where I was going so....
Creative forces when joined usually have a lot to talk about, a lot to argue about even and that usually leads to a pretty active relationship - I had my fair share of those condensed into a particularly short span of time in my teenage years. I pretty much went from one to another - a guitar player to a base player to a singer and piano player...They all made me very happy.
What is super cool about this technologically advanced era, is that I have found a ton of people on Facebook who are from the days of old music and love....I am friends with both the guitar player and the singer to this very day - I love them as much as I did then, even though we are all married and have a slew of kids between us.
My base player, well I am friends with him too - he just comes to me in the form of prancing butterflies and orange sunsets, and even though I cannot look him up on Facebook, he is with me just the same, he and I are joined for eternity in a place more powerful than my computer screen...
My piano man will forever represent the music of the Beatles, Elton John, Meatloaf, Fleetwood Mac and Bread to me - "I would give everything I own just to have you back again" - we had such an awesome relationship - we really were best friends. Love that I can "like" his status updates and still hear his beautiful voice in my head after all these years :)
My guitar player is the music of U2 and the Police - although now, he is a doctor (who knew) and I gather rarely has time to pick up his instrument cause he is busy saving lives...
Crazy where time takes us.
My music men - really glad to have had them and have them still...
I love memories - I love that my memory is so expanse and full of such detail. I remember everything - I forget only that which I don't care to remember....A feminine trait I believe - I would agree with Ms. Hurston's assessment of the female memory bank.
One of my biggest fears is Alzheimer's - I would hate to lose this piece of my mind - the hippocampus (sp?) I would hate to forget and be really pissed off to lose the ability to form new memories - especially because as of late my life is about seizing and enjoying every freaking moment.
I hope I get spared the mind stealing diseases...that would for me, be a fate worse than death. Sigh, if only we had the power to decide or even to know our own fate...
But, since I am well aware that I do not, I will just revel in the here and now and then then and then - and all my remember when's...
Life has been good to me. I have had a lot of great music in my life - a lot of fantastic people...
And sorry Journey, but lovin' a music man has always been a great gig for me.
And with that - I call on another Journey song for my beloved BOSTON BRUINS - "DON'T STOP BELIEVING" and I say no more for fear of hexing us all....
I just ask all you New England fans who are my Facebook friends to give my little seven profile pic a rub for good luck...And with that I have said too much...
Peace out and grandest of days to you all xo