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

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

Please wake up

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

chosen one.

Good Morning my long lost loves, Oh wait....I have been missing, not all of you. I began a blog the other night, on the eve of my 42nd birthday but then something (which I cannot remember) distracted me and I was off like a rocket in a different direction. Go figure, me who finds it so difficult to sit still long enough to kick out a blog....I turned 42. I made it through the monumental forty first year. I feel both relieved and sad. That number has such significance as did, this past year of my life. I learned a lot about who I am, who I am not and what I DO and DO NOT want to become. And the craziest thing just happened....I had written about a paragraph more and suddenly it disappeared....Was that a divine intervention? Wow.......At any rate, I said that this year has proven to be mostly about becoming completely comfortable in my own skin and then....realizing that everything comes down to choice. I CHOOSE to live a certain way - or not. There are no victims, even me. And although bad things happen to good people and it feels completely unjust, there is a choice involved to handle yourself in truth and grace and gratitude or to just simply sit back in the darkness and blame. And....I have learned about myself this past 365 days and counting, that I have a dark side which I have always embraced a little to keep it satisfied, but man....There is a lot further my dark instincts would like me to go....I could really choose self destruction should it woo me with it's charms and I am sure point a finger as easily as my counterpoint....Last week I had a conversation with an old friend. He tried to convince me that "room mates" are the same as always. That the clock is ticking and time is running up, excuses are waning, time...I thought to myself, wow - I tried to warn the next victim - and for a moment I felt compelled to reach out BUT then, I thought...CHOICE. I have a choice and she has a choice and so does he. We all have choices. I am not comfortable in choices that are icky, no matter how much I may try and justify it with some piss poor excuse. I always feel as though I need a bristle brush and some AJAX to scrub myself clean. Because my dears, although there is dark in all of us, choosing dark means consequences and man do the dark choices yield dark payback. I will just wear a lot of black, dark gray, purple and merlot colors this year and call it darkness quota met constructively - we will call it healing through fashion Fall and Winter collection. I feel stronger as though the bullshit is really that and I am too smart at this point to take the bullet willingly - it feels better than it did like a month ago and that is a relief I cannot describe with words. When someone says "I love you, I miss you, soon" and that person is not capable of love in any real form - and you choose to over look that blatant fact - you CHOOSE to invite harm to your life. I chose a lot of harm this past year, a lot of harm too close to home, too close to the people who ARE capable of real love. Like my kids. My kids......God I love my kids. They are fantastic and unique and hilarity. Anyone who does not know the value in that, does not need to be anywhere near my beloved's and anywhere near me. My friends have referred to my Daughter a lot in trying to talk sense into my black abyss of a head (lately) - they have asked me "If this were Emma, what would you do?" That one has packed the punch. "What are you teaching Emma by throwing all your fantastic alongside in the gutter of life?" What have I taught my girl? Nothing good, except that you can see the light if you fight hard enough to get closer to what appears a pin hole - and that the in hole grows until eventually there is no longer a contrast. Light begets light. My Nana would like that. Yesterday me and and my brats (the little's) and my friends, the Suling's/Ramirez's went apple picking at Carters Mountain. We had crazy fun, crazy always goes hand and hand with our clan. I enjoyed myself immensely, the weather was perfection, the foliage breathtaking, Virginia was in all her glory and I was in the thick of it with friends and kids. Happiness is my Sunday. We then went to Mexican after because where else can you feed 4 kids for 8 bucks (love the boys at El Vaquero for keeping American ideals in tact, as an aside...go figure) - we laughed our asses off all through dinner and even commented once or twice on how sad it was that missed opportunity at real happiness was missing from the table x 4. Missing opportunity was probably unaware that such opportunities even exist and that somehow made my appreciation even sweeter. CHOICE my dears, I need to make the right ones and yesterday I was lucky enough to have that be old hat, normal, at my finger tips. Yay for me. I have a blessed life - this coming year it has to be all about making those blessings count even more that I have. I MUST get my childrens book published - it is such a great little story about such an important issue and I am so ridiculously proud of it - I want to share it so badly. I also, must dance again. Me and Dave are in a a dancers love affair, he has rattled the cage of my middle aged arch's, they curve and dance around the house, reborn. I would love to get Emma into a mirrored room and teach her how to feel the music in her muscles. Ahhhhh, nothing feels quite as good. I must also, SIGH, sign up for classes - a bachelors degree is not an option. I need to be back in school, especially considering where this country is headed. And I am not talking politics - I am talking personal responsibility and humanity. I want to be well versed in the history of the rise and fall of every civilization, if it turns out that there isn't much left of this one. I am a great story teller, around a fire may be the alternative to this web site. Can't say that I wouldn't find the discomfort a little comforting, just hoping that we as humans find moderation before we are taught a lesson that most of us are completely unaware is coming, hence ill prepared for. I cross the street to greet someone, so maybe I will be okay when the shit goes down? I teach my kids to do the same and although the learning process doesn't always indicate results, I think they are on track.....At any rate because I am fidgeting and need to move, this year has been a big one. Like I said when I started, bittersweet emotions are involved in the transition phase I find myself in. I am grateful to have made it through 41 and although I want to keep 41 forever, that would mean ending there and I am no where near ready to end. I will keep 41 securely plugged into my important memory file. I get to have it all it seems :) I am not perfect by any means - but I get a little closer with every lesson. I think getting closer to the unattainable is better than to have never tried to imagine it possible. I prefer this choice, thank you very much. I have no idea what I have said this morning, I hope on some level it makes sense. It will to me at a later date and I guess that too is what really matters. word of the day - CHOICE. If not for Sesame Street I would not have just said that..... Peace Out.

slave to the music

I had no intention of writing anything at all tonight, my back hurts way too much to be sitting in this hard ass chair, hunched over this laptop....I just was thinking that my life is something else. I had a week...I was a groupie and met David Gray. Coolest part was that I watched my adult sons shake his hand and thank him for the music. I told him my kids were raised on his songs, he was a lot of the background noise of our everyday existence. Very cool to be so old and still be meeting my musical idols like the groupie music freak I am. I am in possession of a lot of memorabilia - I have out my arms around a lot of them. My goal for this upcoming year is to make out with PINK!....But I digress like I so often do.....Music is the foundation my family has been built on - good music with good messages. I am proud of the love of music that I have passed on to my kids. I bet if I were to die tomorrow - my kids would talk about how they were both amused and frightened of my car dancing. I have ALWAYS been dancing, snapping my fingers and singing. I am real happy about what they have watched, watching their Mom rock out. I don't know many kids that went to their first Dave Matthews show when they were 2 and all in one night, went back stage and got drum sticks from Carter Beuford himself, pictures of a toddler in guitar pj's with Dave.... It has been a melodic ride and I am so pleased with this week and that October 28th I am going to the counting crows show, a milestone skimmed way back in the past..... I love that line I just wrote. And I think my back is done with you. Have a blessed night and listen to some music just because. Love you.

unintended extremes

I had no intention of getting on this blog site tonight...I had every intention to go straight into a coma and remain that way until 6am tomorrow morning. But....I was in the shower singing and thinking - I was thinking about my ability to read people....Like I have this uncanny ability to read people - I very quickly see who someone is and in addition what they need - or at least their terms.Then I thought, wow you think highly of yourself Miss Deb....then I thought of children and then I thought. well yeah I should be sure of myself. I know people, I know this because I know kids and although they are the most unassuming, they certainly lay themselves out in the same way that they assume nothing. They tell you who they are, if and I say if, you are paying attention. And kids are my favorite people, they are so new with themselves and untainted about anything and everything... I do kids well. I always get on their level and let them have my full attention and my capacity of patience. "oh you will love me, watch me win you over on your terms baby braticus, the decision is all yours" (Sydney) Or to Leona, "I hear you girlfriend leaves are powerful tools of persuasion and for us special girls, like you and me and your momma, they double nicely as tools of expression too" I see the human being. That is a kick ass gift.....You doubt me? Go ahead and as any of my friends with kids - I am overly interested in the baby person, more so than any other adult friend. I love that my friends kids are pieces of my friends in legacy, the torch pass, the future, the time. Today Leona was in the shop and I watched her while the new Dave played on the stereo. Rachel's eyes swollen and puffy from the nuances of the nights listen. I watched Leona go towards the music, physically, she put her self directly in front of it, she went so far as to push herself into the tightest corner by the speaker. I told her, if I were her, that is exactly what I would have done too. Then I looked at my beautiful friend Rachel who has gone from childless woman to woman with child and I thought, 'I was here before, during and would you look at that after - a baby girl self shoved in a corner by the artistry. I am lucky. I am so lucky to have so many friends with so many fantastic kids - so many co-parents in our greatest and most difficult journey. My friends kids are family - we are in for the long haul, the tears at graduations and the she's one of my Mom's dearest friends wedding invitations.... Today I saw my dear friend Gigi's daughter Taylor on the mall... She is living in Manhattan now, a model. Her mom died 7 years ago, one of the greatest losses of life I have ever witnessed.....Taylor came walking down the mall as I worked on a rack outside, I heard "Deborah" said only the way her voice would say it....I remembered her instantly a long lean dark, green eyed beauty who would say at ten "oh Deborah" with her too big for her mouth teeth making a lisp sound at very beginning of my name. We would have been disagreeing over something like the merits of a chocolate bar a half hour before her Mom would be serving her dinner.... Taylor stood before me a woman - I thought, I wish her Mom could see her now. Kids struggle and then they learn to endure - in Taylor the ability to endure has manifested in enduring beauty - she is breath taking and I miss her Mom. I paid attention and the pay off is sweet. My perspective over time is more refined than everyone else.... So sure of myself. Kids are where it is at. Watching them grow is where it will be. Being me is difficult in so many ways - my fierce perception makes the world equally painful and beautiful. I just feel both ends of the spectrum to the extreme. It is not an easy way to live. But, I don't think I would be able to function otherwise if a choice were presented and a viable option. I am me and me is all I will ever know. I will be the crazy old lady in the nursing home talking too loudly and in the middle of dinner about oral sex. I will make the quiet old ladies laugh under their breath, curt hand covering their smiles and the irritable bitty's will throw food at me in disgust and cry to the orderlies about my offensive mouth. I will also be the old lady that as you push her by in her wheel chair and she catches wind of a child, well, I will extend my old crow talon, a great wide smile will spread across my crooked dentures and my watery, cloudy eyes will see clearly for the first time since the last time I set eyes on a child.... I hope I grow old after making a lot of money because the old folks home I will be in, will have to be privately funded - I am going to make the insane amount of money they charge worth every damn penny. Kinda like my Papa did, only with a whole lot of Nana too.... I will also see Christmas trees that aren't there and accurately know all the birds business in that tree across the way from the sitting room window. I miss them. My Nana and Papa. And see, crying now. One joyful extreme to the painful other......... I live to live and die to die. I have a question?????? AND SOMEONE PLEASE ANSWER ME OR SEVERAL, OR EACH OF YOU THAT READ THIS --------- DO YOU GET WHAT I MEAN WHEN I WRITE? THIS IS IMPORTANT. DO YOU GET ME? DO I COMMUNICATE IT?

belly full.

Good Evening. And yes, yes it is. I am in a way today. This new Dave Matthews CD is doing strange things to me. I am having bursts of creativity that are exhausting, but they just keep coming and coming. okay I admit it, this is the kind of worn out that I could get used to. My brain is on overdrive....The artist in me has awakened in a way that I have not experienced since I was a teenager and YET the perfect thing is, it's that girl - on the verge of 42. There is such a richness to my spark right now, It's like watching the leaves die and scatter on a perfect Autumn breeze, with the right music score, fluttering the changes melodically. I worked my ASS of today with Rachel after coming in the store in a flurried monologue. I explained to Rach in near hysteria, that as I drove into town, I choreographed an entire interpretive dance of the song Gaucho - it involves Emma and pleading, black leotards and blonde hairs flying. I haven't seen anything so creative so clearly, in so long. I then threw up texture and color artistry all over the boutique - a frenzied fashion statement. I was worn out from all the camaraderie, ease, laughter and good taste. By the time 7pm came I was dragging my over caffeinated ass about and my posture had gone from starlet to hag. I drove home listening to Dave and eagerly I might add, as I had been tortured all day long by Rachel who would not allow me to listen to the new Dave, because she was planning on going home tonight and really giving it a ear phone, trance like listen. I get it, so I conceded. FUCKING JACK JOHNSON won't give up by the way - no matter how many times we struck him thumbs down on Pandora, that motherfucker kept on coming. I got home rejuvenated somehow and decided first thing after kicking off my cowboy boots and throwing down my bag, to move all the living room furniture out of my way and dance. Yes dance, like I have not danced in years. Daveeeeee the things you keep making me do against my will. You know what I love????? The strength in my arms and legs. So strong and muscular, athletic and yet still so graceful. No matter how big my boobs are, no matter how strong those shoulders, I still can move like the air. I want to move like the air, don't you? The kind of air that you tilt your head up into, close your eyes and deep breathe. That kind of air. yessir. AT any rate, I danced until I was dripping sweat, my hips loosening like childbirth, my fingertips extending into infinity - I danced until I was soaked. And then, cause I am me, I took it to the porch and gave a show to the neighbors. And then I sat quiet and still and listened to the nuances and imagined Rachel listening to the nuances too. And then I got overwhelmed and had to write and say whatever it is that I just said. This album has me distracted and I can honestly say that I have NEVER connected to an album this profoundly, this immediately, this completely. Every track is significant, every track is a great conversation about something totally pertinent on my current state of mind. EVERY TRACK. I am not a normal music lover - go figure. I cannot wait until the next time I see Dave here in town. I am going to hold him and say thank you until I am physically removed from his person. Thank You Dave, thank you for contributing to my life so substantially, so sustainably. I wish I had more to say, but I gotta just listen again. You should do the same. So far tracks drunken soldier and gaucho and belly full are my favs. But then there is if only...and snow outside and mercy and..... Had to stop and go find my friend and then ended up at the bar getting my kid and mingling,then we took the long way home drove around cranking.....yes - the new DMB CD. I think my kids have grown up Dave too - wait I don't think - I know. If only I could have you just the way I want you...If only. great motherfucking song. My Bob song from this album... If only. ha. Goodnight lovers. I said I was going to bed early tonight. NEVER HAPPENS life has too much going on and I'll sleep when I'm dead. I ain't dead yet.

EJC my blanket

I woke up this morning with thoughts of my step father. This happens a lot, but not quite like this morning. Today it was though he were a blanket, I felt him lift off of me as I became more conscious, aware of my surroundings. I got colder as the space where he was, became noticeably empty. I miss my Da. For those of you who don't know me, My step dad was my only Dad. We are Irish and so I affectionately referred to him as Da which is commonly used over seas, short for Dad. He called me Dot. Short for daughter. I call my own daughter Dottie sometimes, I always say it with a heart full of love and grief. I have lost a lot of people I love to death. It seems natural enough because we all die and yet, it is the most unnatural feeling to live without someone you love, someone who has always been there. I am almost forty two years old and I am still reeling over a death that happened when I was eighteen. The sadness never goes away, like the emptiness they leave behind can never be filled. I miss my Da. He was a good man. When I think of him, I wish most of all that I could hear his laugh. His smart short one, the one that would shoot out of his smile when someone said something sarcastic, unexpected, truthfully inappropriate. I miss that laugh most of all. He has been on my mind a lot lately as I try to define in my own mind why it is that I continually choose men who are bad for me and lock out all the good ones as though they are the problematic peeps. I thought of him especially the other day while driving up route 53 on my way home. The radio was on which is rare, I usually have a CD in. I was singing along with Pinks new song blow me one last kiss and suddenly as I rounded a corner, the station gave way to another and there was Elton John singing Levon. I could see me and my Da in his black Ford Taurus, driving by Boston College on our way to Chestnut Hill, it was Autumn and I was at the wheel, colors all around us as we passed the campus. We sang together at the top of our lungs "and Levon blows up balloons all day, sits on the porch swing watching them fly and Jesus he wants to go to Venus, leaving Levon far behind" I cried while I smiled, remembering that moment and longing to feel it again, if only for a split second of reality. When he died suddenly, the shock made the reality hard to comprehend. I feel like the shock is beginning to wear off - my Da is a blanket of dreams that I rouse from, not here for real anymore. He was the best man I ever knew. He is part of the reason that I write and part of the reason that I am not dead. Sometimes I think about the people who intervened in my life and gave me love when I felt none. I think that if it were not for them, instead of the artist angst I live with, instead of picking bad men who hurt me....I probably would be dead - gone to a bad drug addiction or a murder in an alley somewhere, a victim to some man that I couldn't identify through the haze of my own anesthetization. I would have surely been a statistic of a different kind had I not been intervened upon by a man like my step Father. I hope he knew that. I hope he knew that singing Elton John with him, kept me out of a dark alley. I miss his face. I miss his voice, I miss the way he crossed his legs, the way he smiled. The way that I ALWAYS FELT that I was getting his BEST. I wish he were more than a blanket I wake up with on lucky days. I wish that February 7th had come with warning so that I could have told him he was a blanket in my life back then, he preserved the garden in frost. I always think of him more in Autumn, his turtle necks and cowboy boots. He was so unexpected like that - a suit and tie guy with the most badass cowboy boots. I have them in my closet. When you are cold a blanket makes the difference. Thanks Da, I love you.