Many moons have passed since last I wrote....too many. I am a whole other person now, shaped by the pandemic and by loss, and by PTSD rearing it's ugly head.  As I sit here, I think about how much I would like to write about the easy things, about the fun things, and I realize there just are NO easy things anymore. There is getting old, being sad, worrying about the world and where it is going...there is abject terror at the loss of our county's values. I never EVER would have thought that we would become a hardened, greedy people who take delight in hurting others, yet here we are. 

I find most days I cower. I hunker down and cut myself off from news, from tv, even from social media because the hate will kill me if I allow it to. I don't want to know that people only think the elderly or the already sick people will die and that we are dispensable. I don't want to hear the judgement that accompanies conversations about our value and worth and humanity. "She's too big..." "He doesn't make enough money..." "I can't believe they live in that tiny rundown house......"I do not want to hear it. I want to hear clever, articulate people talk about creativity and character and lovingkindness.  Maybe I like my echo chamber. (If you can hear me, shout out to me so I will know I am not alone in the abyss...."

I am reminded frequently of late, of other times in my life, how innocent they seemed and how far away this time would be.  I am not the person I was at 50, or 40 or 30, or even 60.  I am frighteningly aware that the time to do is now. the time to be is now. The time to speak is now. I will speak. I will speak my own personal truth to anyone insane enough to listen. I can no longer worry about their opinions, their distaste, and their deep need to silence me rather than hear the uncomfortable truths.

We can't go back. We cannot go back to a time when some people mattered and some people did not, where us whiteys were priveledged, based solely on the color of our skin and not the content of our character. We were blind, truly, to the racism and the hatred of the people with brown skin, and we cannot go back.  It is not enough to say, "I am not a racist." We must ACTIVELY change the world we are living in to include all people in all shapes, all sizes, all colors, all religions, all sexual and gender identities. It is only then when we can tap into the talent and skills of every one of us. We need to each take personal responsibility for raising a nation of children who care about the world we live in and the other people we share it with.

I told my daughters I was afraid if donald trump were elected, it would change the world we live in and drag us back in time. I realize now, we were already being pulled down that road, before his election by the people who support him, the people who are galvanized by fear and change. 

I won't be that person, not today, not ever. I seek to live my life with my eyes wide open and when I am troubled or fearful, I will not hide from it and demonize others to protect myself. I will simply ask for help. 

So,....after many, MANY years, I am back, trying like hell to form words that might resonate with someone, or maybe just myself.

Thank you Nadine for being my life jacket.

My grandbaby girl...the next generation.

Goodbye 2014

Here we go.....AGAIN!
I remember when I was about 20, or even 15, thinking ," When the year 2000 arrives I will be OLD" And here I am this afternoon on the precipice of 2015, as I work, knit, cook, eat, play, and love, I realize that life is not much different.
Somehow, as a younger person, I pictured all of us living in some Jetson-like world.  By this time, I thought we would all be flying in our personal spaceships to work and to visit friends.  I supposed I had a vision that at the very least, I would be living in a glass house or something.
And yet, here I am....................living in my comfortable old house, doing the same old comfortable things with the same old comfortable people.  And maybe I am old, but it occurs to me, "If you don't feel like you are old, ARE YOU OLD?"  Kind of like the old, "If a tree falls in the forest.................."
So I am taking a reality check this afternoon...you know, asking myself some questions, trying to decide where I fall in the young-old continuum.
1.  Am I wearing all polyester pants with elastic waistbands and big pockets that hold wadded up tissues and bent bobby pins.  NO....check
2.  Is my hair grey and in the shape of a helmet?  Yes AND no.  Yes to gray, but long and luscious and filled with blonde and silver pieces to catch the light.  It is the hair of a much younger woman who has earned every single gray through work and worry and love.  Helmet shaped?  Never,......(well, okay, close, when I wear it in a bun so long on holidays that it begins to dreadlock)  check
3.  Can I use "kidspeak"?  Can I understand it?  I CAN understand it, (for the most part), but speak it??????  Hmmmmmmmmmm.....Well, let's see..."She is off the hook." (or is it) "She is off the chain."...."She is A-OK"  Okay, okay...No, I cannot speak the language either.
4.  Do I try and engage in conversations with young people?  Do they appear to wander off frequently and disengage from said conversations?  Yes, and YES!  Egads!  I AM OLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5.  Am I driving a Buick?
6.  Do I carry butterscotch hard candies in my purse?
7.  Am I fresh, relevant, informed?

So in review, I am truly realizing that "old" is not an accurate representation of me....and maybe not most of us.  I am wise and I am witty.  I am cautious and I am impulsive, impetuous.  I am open minded, and I am close minded,.................mostly because I refuse to go back in time, I refuse to give up rights hard earned by my friends, and parents and grandparents..I refuse to allow my grandchildren and their grandchildren to go back to a day where they are valued only if they are a white heterosexual male who makes alot of money.
I am trying DAILY to live a life of kindness and patience and compassion.  A life of tolerance and standing up for what I believe in, for fighting for the underdog, and practicing gratitude for the many blessings I have been given.
So, as I look forward to this new year, I WILL work on accepting myself as, well,....."older".

Life is a Highway

So it's about three in the morning, and I am up, sipping tea, with quite possibly the world's worst cold EVER.   Okay, so I am exaggerating....But ever notice how every time you get a cold, you feel shocked, surprised, as though it has never happened before.  "What?  A cold?...... Me?"  I don't know about you, but I feel as though I am above it somehow, and always feel deeply wounded that my body, nature, whoever,... has some how let me down.

So, I am wide awake, thrashing about in my bed, wracked with coughing and thinking.  Thinking about the upcoming summer, thinking about money, thinking about the people who have the job of stuffing the pimento in the olive, but mostly thinking about my children.

See, my kids are never far from my mind.  I laugh with them, cry with them, yell with them, and cheer for them.  They are the product of every good thing I have ever done, and nothing is more important to me than their happiness and well being.  When I say happiness, I don't mean your basic "I've gotten a raise" happiness, or even the "we're getting married" kind of happiness.  Not that I am not pleased for them with that kind of news....but that is really the icing on the cake,....the gravy on the potatoes.

What I want for them is contentment, peace, joy in everyday life, friends and family who never let them forget they love them just the way they are.  I want them to see themselves through my eyes.  They are these amazing people who exist in the world who have a heart and a spirit and a love for people and not things.  (Well, mostly....we are only human, after all)  When I look at them, I see each one as a beautiful creation from God, given to me to care for and nurture.  When they cry, I cry, and when they hurt, I hurt.  Someone once said that being a mother is a lot like carrying your heart around outside your body.  It is actually more like carrying it around outside your body, during a windstorm, with bombs landing all around you, while running from a fleet of tractor trailers.  It is scary stuff.

So when they need some wisdom, some common sense answers to life's dilemmas, I try to have something to share with them, something or some solution that has worked for me.  I scramble around, thinking, and allowing myself to grope back over my life and my choices to think what brought peace to me, or at least acceptance.

So I am sitting at my desk by now, nursing a cup of tea, typing with my left hand while wiping my runny nose (constantly) with my right.  Damn this cold!

Things are going on in their lives that I can't fix, things they are going through and learning through that are part of their journey.  Their journey toward their own life of joy and wisdom.  And then it dawns on me, (again) that when they hurt and feel broken, there is the same God looking out for them that looked out for me, and the obstacles, the bumps in the road are what make us strong.  Strength.  I want that for them.

And I am remembering a story an old man once told me.  "Life is a highway.  We get a snappy little sports car and jump on the road on a sunny day.  We are all driving along, blissfully unaware that this highway we are on sometimes gets potholes, needs construction, has accidents and flat tires along the way.  When we are young, the sky is blue and the sun is high in the sky.  We ride along with our parents, our siblings, our friends, enjoying the breeze on our face.
Before long, it begins to get dark and we find ourselves navigating through the darkness, not seeing our friends and family, and feeling alone and vulnerable.  When morning comes again, we sometimes realize our parents, our friends, even our children may have gotten off at a rest stop, taken the scenic route.  We may catch back up with them or they with us, but basically our journey is now our own.We drive and drive, sometimes taking detours or getting stopped for construction.  We get slowed down in heavy traffic.  Sometimes we are sidelined by a repair that can take days or even weeks or months.  We get off at exits marked" new jobs", or" marriage" and pick someone up sometimes to go along for the ride.  Sometimes we take a wrong turn, and it can be a very long time before we are aware of it..Sometimes we don't even know we took the wrong turn until someone stops up and holds up a sign and tells us "Turn around and go back the right way".  As we travel, we gain knowledge.  Sometimes we feel road weary and just need to pull into a rest stop for a nap and some good food.  Other times we actually need to stop and get a map.  We choose bumpy roads and smooth roads and scenic roads.  We learn to linger over the beauty we see from our car window, and sometimes even get out and pay the admission to get into the park.  We drive on through rain and snow and wind.  We slide around on icy roads when we should have known enough not to be out driving in the first place.  We have to remind ourselves that it is never a good idea to drive through standing water.
After a while, we decide that the interstate might not be right for us, and we get off on an old highway, like the Rt 11 of life, and we drive along companionably with the people who have ridden most of the ride with us.  Sometimes they drive while we rest.  We go on like this until we see a beautiful lake off in the distance with the silhouette of a lone mountain in the sunset, and as we drive closer and closer, we realize this is where we have been driving to all along.  As we approach our final destination, we see our loved ones who arrived before us, we see friends and co-workers arriving in all manner of conveyance.  We look back at the way we have come, and we see many roads converging in this one place, and it is then that we realize that we have all arrived at the same place, we all just used different road maps.  And it is then that we realize that the choices we made are what formed us and shaped us into who we are today....No one else's map could have done that for us.
And looking back on it, isn't it better to have arrived with a few dings and dents from off- roading in the pursuit of something beautiful and rare than to arrive in a four door sedan with nary a scratch on it and seeing only what was visible from the road."

So, after thinking about the journey we all must take, I want you to take the scenic roads, the ones that have honeysuckle vines growing on the embankments....I want you to linger as long as you like and don't let anyone hurry you.  This is your journey, not mine, and I want you to be proud of your choices.  But please, for the sake of your worried mother, park the car before darkness falls and get a good nights rest before getting back on the road in the morning, and whatever you do.....don't forget to take the road to mom's house, frequently.

I love you all more than you can possibly imagine, and even in the dark, I see your headlights.

Mama, mama, wherefore art thou?

May 11..............
I am 53 today.  And yet, somewhere, in my psyche I am 7, ...15,..............26,...........................40...I am no longer a young woman.  I often think about my mother at this age.  Was she feeling old?  Tired?  Spent?  Wasted?  I think about her life at 53.
At 53, my mom had a 15 year old daughter, (like me),.....two 25 year old daughters, a 31 year old daughter and a 34 year old daughter.  She had 8 grandchildren....She worked full-time, ran a home, and had her own social life.
How did she do it?  Did she feel like she was 30 some days and like she was 80 on others?  Did she feel like she had years left to do the things that SHE wanted to do and see the things that SHE wanted to see?
Did she spent hours, days and weeks hurrying toward some day in the future that she could call her own, while pedaling so furiously fast she was missing the landscape of today?  Did she see beauty in every day?
I think about my mother and I pray that she took the time and the care to live every moment, in the moment, savoring every taste and smell for what it was.
This is my challenge.  and sometimes I say, "Mama, mama........................where are you?"  I need to ask you these questions.  I need to know how much of me is me, and how much of me is her?  Sometimes in my head, I *become* her mother.  I feel so much older now......................and the wise me longs to take the young mom in my arms and tell her to live life slowly, and to savor every moment,...to live for herself, and that by doing so, she will be living an example for her children.
Maybe she did.....maybe she is somewhere, looking down on me and pondering what a child I am, will always be.  Maybe her message to me is the same as my message to her.
Happy Mother's Day, Mom!  Ultimately, there is only love, and while we grow, we need to think of our mothers as the bastions of strength and love,.....We ARE our mothers......and all that they learn and share, we also learn and share.  I am my mother, as she was her mother,.....I am neither older nor younger than my mom.  We just *are*

Well....here I am again, AND  in the same month.
  I am feeling a gravitational pull here, I think...I want to write, to express my thoughts, and yet............when I sit down to the computer, some times I have a very hard time capturing them, stopping them from running roughshod through my brain long enough to put them down on paper.  (if you will)

So,.....as we approach Christmas, here are my thoughts:  We spend so much time making lists, and thinking things through, and planning our shopping experiences.  So much time bemoaning the money we are spending, the time we are wasting, when all any of us want is a beautiful and memorable holiday.  Am I right?  Ask anyone, (other than a child) and they will tell you they just wish that they could sit by a fire and sip hot chocolate and watch it snow...

The Christmas season, by all accounts, (at least as told us by retailers) goes from November 1 to January 2.  That is two entire months of shopping, cooking, baking, planning, wrapping, worrying, fussing and fretting, and one entire day of spending time with our loved ones exchanging gifts, eating and making merry.  What is wrong with this picture?

So here is my proposal:  Let's just say we make December 23 a National holiday.  We'll call it Prepariboxandfretalooza day, and it will be the day when we all turn out to make each other miserable.  We'll shop till we drop, snatching and grabbing as quickly as we can off of store shelves... (perhaps this could even turn into an Olympic event), then we'll rush home to wrap, cook, bake, and fuss with one another.  There can be no merry making on this day, no pleasurable memories being made, and certainly no photographs.  It will be illegal to sit down and relax over drinks on this day, at least until after 8PM.  The only people working on this national holiday will be retail staff, and they will make triple time while they do it, and they will also be assigned their own substitute shoppers and cookers.  We will use this day to prepare our feasts for the morrow, and if we find ourselves out of a neccesary ingredient, we will have to scour the neighborhood for it, and hope that we can rely on a neighbor to kindly donate.  OR we can find our way to the nearest convenience store, where if we are lucky enough to find the missing ingredient, we will pay at least 4 times the usual price for it.
Another activity for this national holiday will be wrapping presents.  It will become an evening tradition for all to gather around together, fighting over tape and scissors, and almost gone rolls of paper.  It will go on long into the evening, and there will be at least one present in every household that gets wrapped with scraps from 3 different rolls of paper and the local newspaper, and this present is usually saved for the mother in the household.
Children are exempt from the traditional Prepariboxandfretalooza festivities, however they will probably carry the memories of short tempered mommies, daddies and grandparents well into their adulthood and so anxiously await their turn on this holiday for years to come.
The day will end with a mad rush of housecleaning, and then everyone will drop into bed dirty and exhausted, as there will be no hot water left for showers.

Now, let's talk about the rest of the holiday season.  Late mornings over coffee and breakfast will become the tradition.  There will be at least 45 days of sharing time together, of sleigh rides and snowman making (in the north) and strolling and lolly-gagging (in the south).  It'll be a time for helping neighbors with projects, for making special memories with grandma down at the nursing home.  We'll bake cookies (if we feel like it), and eat them while sitting around our Christmas tree.  We'll pick out a tree together, and take a week to decorate it, and maybe we'll each have three or four.  No single Christmas tree home will have a "theme" tree, unless that theme is kid-friendly.  Communities will have small unplanned gatherings to sing and rejoice over our blessings, as well as to give to those less fortunate.  Traditions will grow and many a family will add on to the treasured memories of yesteryear by adding a family "spa day", or "no dress day", when everyone stays in their pajamas to loll around by the fire, reading or knitting or daydreaming. We'll go out at night, carrying lanterns, and singing carols as we watch the snow fall.  Children will play, parents will smile and all will be well with the world.
The traditions will culminate on December 25, Christmas Day.  Families will come together to share a meal, and to share in their blessings.  They will spend time together exchanging small gifts, most of which are handmade, and catching up on each others dreams.  The children will all play with their cousins, taking turns holding the new baby doll or racing the new car.
As the day fades into evening, the family might load up into a wagon, covering themselves in blankets and quilts and carrying thermoses of hot chocolate and hot cider, while the horses trot through the snow and into the country.  There will be songs of gratitude, and joy and hope and peace on earth, and every child will hear the Christmas story, and learn the meaning of giving.
As the moon rises high in the sky, families will arrive back home to say a prayer together, and give thanks for this day.

That's how I want my Christmas season to be.....not stressed and overpriced.  No over expectations, and under funded.  Just plain old relaxation, love and kindness and peace on earth, starting in my family, my neighborhood, my community.

What do ya think?
National  Prepariboxandfretalooza Day?
Sign the petition here...................

A Quickie..

Just so you know, I AM still here.......................still working, still playing, still painting, still praying...I want to write, to channel the insanity from my head and heart onto paper, (or in this case, computer), but the time just does not come.
The busyness of real life intrudes, day after day, all day long, and by the time those few precious moments present themselves, I am numbing myself by stalking Facebook and eating junk food simply for the way it crunches beneath my teeth.
I know...............we hear it all of our life.  "YOU NEED TO MAKE TIME for the things you want to do"...I am virtually positive that the person who started that dirty little command had neither job, (let alone two) nor family.  And so it goes...............
We are coming up on the holidays, so maybe, just maybe I will find a little pocket of quiet, all alone and feeling inspired, to make music linguistically.............or maybe, just maybe I will find myself locked onto Facebook, (AGAIN) and chewing candy canes, over and over and over again.
In the meantime, my loves................my babies, big and small, my friends,.................those beloved ones who "get" me, my husband........................remember this:
Keep on keeping on.  One day we will meet on those golden shores again, and we will have time to talk.

Loving Life

No time for talk.  No time for chat.  No time for anything, other than art.  Spaghetti art, fish art, peace and love art.....Having the time of my life right now persuing a dream I never knew I had.  I want to have more time for my family, and I will, but for right now, we are filled with paint and promise!

Father's Day

On the eve of this Father's Day, I really need to take a moment or two to reflect on the fathers in my own life.......

Daddy.  Thank you.  Thank you for loving me when I was not so lovable.....when I snorted through my nose all the time, and keened "crocodile rock" in the car.  Thank you for loving me enough to call my husband "that boy" for a full five years after we married.  Thank you for all the times you told me, "Keep your eye on the ball, Lori", and "shine that flashlight right here"  I must have been the proudest girl ever....Thank you for taking me to the mall and buying me that sixteen dollar smock top that you said you would never buy "at that ridiculous price"...I still remember the print and the feel of the fabric.
Thank you for all the sugar cookies, cans of tuna and cheerios you bought for me and the kiddos over the years. .Thank you for showing me the beach, the mountains and the movies, places I would never have gone without you.  Thank you for trusting me enough to let me ride my bike all over South Arlington.  Thank you for never, ever forgetting how much Sundays meant to 4 little girls who missed their Daddy all week.  Thank you for wiggling my toe when you visited me in the hospital after Johnboy was born. Thank you for all of the Shirley Temple's you got us at Duffs in Winchester and every frozen custard I ever had.  Thank you for being my Daddy, the one mom blamed on me having a pound of cheese in bed with me when it was only gum, and the Daddy who sang "He's in the jailhouse now", and "Chewing Chawing Gum".  Thank you for the picnics and parties you took us to.
Daddy, my life would have been so empty and colorless without you, and I am everything I am because of you.  I am strong and loyal and loving and compassionate and sensible and hard-working and quick to laugh because of you.  When I felt ugly and clumsy, you were always the man in my life who loved me just the way I was, and that, Daddy, made all the difference.  Thank you.

To my husband....I am not sure I could be the mother I am if you were not the father you are.  When I want to run and hide and pretend, just for a few precious moments that I don't need to worry about the kids, you are the one who worries for me.  When I am the lamb, you are the lion, and when I need to shout, you keep your calm.  When the world is tumbling down around us and I don't know how we are going to feed these people, you always make a miracle happen.
You are as capable at changing diapers as I am, and as likely to buy feminine hygiene products for our girls.  Nothing shakes you, rattles you, or scares you and you make a mean roasted chicken, (thanks, by the way...dinner was great). You cook, you clean, and you cut hair.  When I need to feel like big Mama, you let me and enjoy it, and when I need to cower and shake, you hold me tight till the shivering is over.
You have been "team mom", chauffeur, and life coach, and on occasion, mother hen...when I need to work to feel good about myself, you keep our home running, and the dentist on time, and when I need to nest and be a home maker, you  keep the fires burning and the wolf away from the door.  You let me be whatever and whoever I need to be without ever losing who you are.
I love you, my beloved Michael.  You are everything to me and I am everything I am because of you, too. You are my best friend, and my yardstick for everything good in life...

So, to these two men, my past and my future, and everything right now..............Happy Father's Day.
I love you.

Saturday Observations by an old lady

or not so old....................everything is relative, right?

 

So, I wake up this morning with all the best intentions.  Planning my day, this luscious, early June morning, why wouldn't one want to clean floors, fold laundry and wash dishes?  Well, THIS one didn't.  want.to.  and so, like so many Saturday mornings before, my resolve rapidly melted and before long, not only was the regular debris on the floor, my intentions were as well.

I did manage to collect a trash bags (and I mean a contractor bag) worth of bills, junk mail, catalogs featuring thin pubescent girls modeling scanty swimwear, and old newspapers...(I know, I know, I need to recycle.....but when you are gone 12 hours a day the very LAST thing you want to do is spend a luscious June morning sorting paper goods)  but I digress..........

So, as I mentioned, I did manage to remove alot of junk off the table surfaces of at least one room.  I also threw away a variety of empty boxes, cartons, and plastic bags....Really, kids....is there even one good reason to return an empty box of cereal to the pantry.  Sometimes it feels like a dirty trick, quite frankly...I notice more often than not, it is never the raisin bran, it is that tantalizing, forbidden box of fruit loops on the top shelf that I have avoided for days, knowing that "no one can eat just one" (Yes, folks that is as true for sugary cereal as it is for Lay's potato chips).............

I'll look around, ascertain whether there are witnesses around, and then slowly, quietly reach for those fruit loops, and bam!, they are empty, and even worse, the box is sealed up like it just came off the shelf at the Safeway.

Hmmmmmmm.....A lesser woman would hide her fruit loops.....fortunately for you all, there is not enough room in my dresser drawers and living in a house that is  127 years old, there are no closets...

I did manage to "get my art on".....a project I am doing for someone I deeply admire, and though my husband laughed at it, (and laughed and laughed and laughed) I feel good about it...or maybe I don't..Sometimes I don't recognize my feelings, kwim?  Do I feel good about it or do I feel good about it being ugly?  Do I feel bad about it or bad that it isn't good enough?  Am I crazy or am I crazy to not be crazy?  (you see where I am going with this)  Think about something long enough and you won't know whether you are coming or going....and of course, everyone who knows me KNOWS I think too much.

Am I coming?  Or going?

But, what I most wanted to remember and to write were my observations tonight.  Sometimes I see things so beautiful that I feel them....I get lost in them, roll around in them, and my worst fear is forgetting them.... I have often wanted to wear a wire just so I could talk to myself so that I would remember later what I thought and said....Was I coming or going?

I am so grateful for this beautiful place that God saw fit to drop me....The dropping blue shadows that fall between the hills as the sun sets..............................the gentle mountains that frame this valley, that indigo ridge that follows me as I drive, golden sunshine warming them, and the dips and swirls of waving fields of bluegrass, and shiny fields of emerald green field corn.  It seems, when I think back on it, these are the props that have surrounded me all of my life, and for that I am thankful.

This same landscape, grey and misty on a November morning draws me to slumber, lures me into a sense of deep time and place, and reminds me that this is exactly where I am meant to be.

And so I wonder.....how can I forget this so quickly?  There are days and weeks at a time when I feel disconnected and far away, when I am unable to see that this place, this space is real life.  MY own real life. I think they say, "live in the now" for the same reason...I need to slow down every day of my life and look around.  See the glory in every tree, bush and bramble, and remind myself that while on any given day I may not "see" the glory, it is still there, always there....This is the place where my mom lived, where my Dad farmed.  This is the place where I learned arithmetic, music and first love.

This is MY land, and no one can take this history away from me.

And isn't it funny how life goes around and back and around again,and before you know it, you are back where you started, but a little older and alot wiser...

All of my roots run deep, and when I grow away, I come back and grow again, and oddly enough, in the same spaces and places....seeds spread deep into fertile soil.

Funny enough, I am teaching less than 2 or 3 miles from my old primary days....I live in the town where my children's father was a boy scout.....I am so far removed, and yet so deeply attached, and any detachment I feel is of my own doing. (although overpopulation by the newly arrived herd doesn't help)

I won't do it.  I will not give up my heritage, my poor man's working class love of the land,  and respect for the land that bore me, fed me, and nourished and nurtured me, body and soul. What I will do is love this land, in the moment, every moment, and stop thinking about it so much.  It is.  It just is.  No other explanation is required.

Now that I have reflected on my overactive and oft times hyper-stimulated thought processes, I am quite hungry.  Think I'll have some fruit loops...

The 22 things I have lied to my children about...

and, before I begin, I *will* say this.......................some of these were lies of omission, some of them not lies, really, just misinformation I thought was true at the time....

1.  SUGAR IS A VEGETABLE.  Sugar is not, in fact, a vegetable, and I knew it all along.....but it is vegetative, and I do think, (much like carrots supply us with a necessary nutrient) that a certain amount of sugar each day is essential for good spirit development.

2.  YOU CAN DROWN IN A TEASPOON OF WATER.  In my defense, this lie began well before I became a mother,........and if it kept you all from falling asleep in a swimming pool, I will not apologize.

3.  IT'S AS EASY TO LOVE A RICH MAN AS IT IS TO LOVE A POOR MAN.  This could not possibly be anything but a lie, as noone, and I mean NOT ONE SOUL that I have ever known has fallen in love with a rich man.

4.  NICE GIRLS DON'T WEAR THONGS.  Nice girls DO wear thongs.....if they feel like it. They wear granny panties, bikinis, the occasional pair of men's boxers, and even no panties at all.  "Nice" is a function of the soul, not the behind.

5.  UNSWEETENED TEA IS ILLEGAL IN 8 STATES......(refer to lie # 1)

6.  OUR REFRIGERATOR IS A TEST GROWING SITE FOR THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS OFFICE ON HOMEGROWN ANTIBIOTICS.... Not..........Mommy has no time to clean the refrigerator, but it felt like you all would buy this lie. Mold after all is intriguing.

7.  A CLEAN HOME IS A SIGN OF A SICK MIND....Truthfully, a dirty home is the sign of ADHD run amuk....................the only thing sick about someone who can manage their life, their job, AND their home is that they often run in families, and alas, not ours.

8.  "THE FORMULA"...(Girls, you remember this.......when you buy something, and then have to explain the cost of it to your husband, you subtract 70% of the purchase price, then add 1.87 for the total that you tell him)...  It is 2012.....you deserve it whatever the cost, and it is alright to tell the truth..however, a brief mention of an overstock sale can still go a long way.  Also, the purchase of some small incidental for said husband can really smooth the way for your new purchase.

9.  MOM'S SPECIAL RECIPE................one word here............"butter"  If it tastes better when mom makes it, it is just the addition of one little ingredient...

10.  "I NEVER INHALED"  ....................enough said....

11.  CHOCOLATE IS A DAIRY PRODUCT.....just because some of it is called "milk chocolate" does not mean you need 3 servings a day.

12.  DUCT TAPE IS A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND.... a loving, caring and kind husband is a girls best friend, but without a doubt duct tape IS a girl's best thing to have in an emergency.

13.  A BUBBLE BATH WILL RELAX YOU MORE THAN ALCOHOL... all those long baths you remember mommy taking?  can we all say amaretto sours?...(I am kidding, kids.....kidding!!)

14.  LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE....money is actually the best medicine.  It can buy real medicine, good food, a night on the town, a good night's sleep and a night at the comedy club....

15.  THEY CALLED ME EINSTEIN WHEN I WAS IN SCHOOL....No, they didn't....they called me "short bus, Lori"

16.  MY FAVORITE GIFTS ARE CHILD MADE MISSHAPEN CLAY ASHTRAYS.  My favorite gifts are grandchildren.

17.  PRETTY IS AS PRETTY DOES..really?  This lie has been told for generations.......let's face it, we all know that beautiful woman who routinely lies and cheats and steps on everyone in the name of attention, and has anyone EVER said, "that woman is just soooo ugly"?

18.  YOUR TEACHER KNOWS WHAT SHE IS TALKING ABOUT....she might just be fudging to get through the day to that bubble bath.

19.  REAL MEN EAT QUICHE.....none of the real men I know do...............they eat meat that has been drug through the yard by cats, cookies left in the oven for days, and cereal after all the marshmellows have been picked out, but they do NOT eat quiche.

20.   IT'S THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS....only to your mother.  Everyone else wants cold hard cash.

21.  GRAY IS THE NEW HOT....this is the desperate claim of a not so gracefully aging Mama..

22.  IT'S NOT FAT, IT'S RELAXED MUSCLE.  It IS fat....( and I apologize for the genetics you have inherited...

and HERE is the list of something that has never been a lie................NEVER HAS, NEVER WILL.

I love you all more than you can imagine,.....more than all the sands on all the shores of all the seas..
more than I ever thought possible, and YOU, all of you, are my crowning jewels, and nothing you can ever do will change the amount of love I have for you.

(disclaimer....regarding number 13.....I never drank......wasn't safe to keep in the house with you all.)

Broken hearted

So yesterday..............Friday, my in-laws took us out to dinner.   (by the way, I HIGHLY recommend the crab cakes at the Blue Ridge Grill).....It had been a glorious Friday.  A sunny beautiful end to a tiring week.  All things considered, not a bad week......but a tired week.  Five straight days of toiling away, doing jobs I like (mostly), but don't love....or to be more specific, I love and yet oft times don't truly feel like myself when doing.

So we are lingering over coffee and dessert, and I hear a small child-like voice behind me, "it's my art teacher"....Then I look up to see this beautiful child, and her family and the mama says, "oh my goodness, look Reagan,....................it is your art teacher"  And then came the hurtful words:
"We'll see you in a few weeks....Reagan has signed up for your class again".............I smiled, said the appropriate words, even joked a bit with Mom and Dad, and told Reagan that she mostly clearly had become a successful artist, since she was wearing something pink and shiny.

The heartbreak?  I am not teaching art this summer....and sadly, may not ever again...not exclusively..
And then it hit me....

I can remember feeling the paint flow through my fingers like cool blood.......giving life to everything in my soul......and giving a voice to all I want to do.  The sound of fingers rubbing oils into pastels, making them into colors that only I have names for.....the way that wet clay opens itself up to you to become anything you choose it to be, (or...if you are like me, anything IT chooses to be)....
I remember a class last year with only 4 girls....we spent every idyllic summer day that week in quiet rhapsody, each of us moving from station to station, going where the spirit moved us in open studio.
Music played low in the background, and there was the gentle murmur of quiet conversations, spoken to oneself, mostly, or now and again to the artist working beside you.

It was during that week when I made the realization that all of us, every thinking, creating one of us is an artist, deserving to be heard and seen and understood, no matter what our age or our station in life...and these girls taught me that.

When I think about my teaching, and about where I am now and what I am doing....I feel this salty, gritty lump rise up in my throat.  It feels like I am struggling to breathe, as I writhe against it...Sometimes I show my kids art, how to make it, who else makes it, how people think about it, but I never truly am one with them in spirit, and in the spirit of the art these days...

I lay out the paints, the paper, the tools of my passion, and then I take as much time as I can to tell them what we are "trying" to do, but time, that cruel stealer of all things worth caring about is a harsh taskmaster, and while I try so desperately to say this:

"You are the master of your own art destination.  You can go there in any color you wish, in slow motion or at a breakneck speed...you can paint yourself into your picture or anyone else...someone you love, someone you are afraid of, someone you want to be....You can feel good or bad or angry or sad or any way you choose to feel, and no one can take that away from you...There is joy in creation"

while I thinking this, feeling this, willing this for my students, I have one eye on the child in the corner, trying to put fuse beads up his nose, and one eye on the clock, so I am not late putting snack away....I am trying so hard to please the teacher, to be her helpmate and supporter, to know her needs before she even knows them herself....I am trying in my own way to be all things to all people, and in the mix, I lose the soul,...the "milk" of this art that I so dearly love, and dearly love to share with these young and talented thinkers.

So yes, it feels like heartbreak..............I am only a child myself, unable or unwilling to put away the pleasures in my own life, or at least, unable to do two things at the same time, and do them well.
I hate this...........................I hate doing something halfway..........I want to BE their art teacher....No, I don't, because in all reality, I am not teaching them anything they don't already know.  Yes, I might show them a new technique or a new material, I might introduce them to cubism, or impressionism, I might even guide them in a study of contemporary American artists, but what I really want, what I really need to do,.......I want to BE with them in that moment when they recognize a part of themselves in that crayoned landscape....I want to be a part of the fabric of creativity.  I don't want to miss a thing....I want to be a part of the conversation, and the beautiful realization that we are all together in this...There is a union among artists...It transcends age and race and gender, and most of all, I want to be THERE when these tender young artists find their voice.  I want to be the one to hear it first, acknowledge it, and give it the glory and purpose it deserves.....

But, in the meantime, I go on....the teaching assistant, a child herself.....learning to give in and give up, to show patience and dignity and kindness and tolerance, all the while stamping my foot at the gate, waiting for my race to begin...

And in the waiting, I grow......and my heart breaks......

Sunday morning (old draft, just recovered)

"You sure look fine......" It is Sunday morning, and I so wish I was one of those *mama's coming out of the church house* with their freshly scrubbed young ones,heading off to a nice lunch at a local casual french eatery, then heading home to my CLEAN (yes homes can be clean on sunday)home, where I will take off my polished cotton church dress and put on my size 8 jeans

Very short entry here, I guess, but it speaks to a state of mind.....
I want to be a nice girl, it just keeps getting harder and harder.............

Summer Heat (an old draft, just recovered)

I know..................it has been exactly one month and 17 days since I last posted.

One month and 17 days of mostly hot, HOT days.

I am tired, worn out really, and am looking forward to enjoying summer vacation. Alas, I realize it is half over and I have not even started yet. Will this be the summer I remember years from now as "THE" summer? It's funny how we never know while we are in it, while we are living it, that these may be the days we will remember in years to come, as the "good old days", or the "worst days of my life".

I want to memorize every sound I hear, every sight I see. I want to make a clay impression of my life, in my mind, so that years from now, I will remember everything that mattered, but instead, I think........................I will remember the heat. I will remember a hot wind blowing across a parched brown lawn, cracks enlarging in the dry brown dirt in my garden.

I will remember "the cusser", a young (very young) JD (juvenile delinquent) running the streets of my town, with no respect or regard for himself, let alone anyone else. I will remember his faceless obscenities, spoken to the night, his trying to make sense of the injustice of HIS life, and me trying to make sense of how one child can already be so jaded, so ugly minded that already he has lost the ability to feel anything but meanness and hatred and it so fills his mind and his heart and his spirit that he feels he must defile everyone within hearing distance by swearing and cursing and tainting the night air.

I will remember the smells of this town, especially as they linger in the hot afternoon sun, and I will remember how the smell assaulted more than our nostrils. I will remember how they tore apart the safety and loving kindness in our community, how they made us feel afraid in our own town, afraid to even be out with one another, distrustful and violated. I will remember the sadness when I realized how much life can be disrupted by strangers, and their own brand of insanity. When I remember this summer, I will remember it for it's inequity, it's violation, the taking away of something that should be intrinsically ours................our peace of mind.

I will remember the fear and desperation in my heart, I am sure, as I struggled to leave the last remaining vestiges of innocence and child-like trust on the cutting room floor. "I am afraid", I thought. Afraid of my Daddy getting sick and not recovering, afraid of him not loving me anymore, afraid of him not knowing how much I love him.

I am afraid of working so much that I feel as thin spirited as onion paper, paper that will dissolve and disintegrate when my many tears fall upon it. I am afraid of not working enough to support my family and myself and having to count change to buy milk and bread for the young. I am afraid of working my life away at a job I don't love, only to discover that when I retire, I have no time left. Mostly I am afraid of the lack of hope that permeates the very air I breathe, no hope for a brighter future for me and my family....only a certainty that I can no longer follow my magical thinking to it's logical conclusion, a dream I built on the promises of a different time.

Will I remember this as the summer that I learned the truth? The summer when I gave over my want for something more on this earth to the certain knowledge that I will never attain it? Will this be the summer that I started looking more forward to life everlasting with it's heavenly possibilities than to life among the living here on earth? Maybe, this, then, is when we finally grow up, when we reach that threshold and step over it into real adulthood.

Or,......................is this the summer that begins a new life? Will I look back and remember these hot and dusty days as the dark before the storm? Will there be a silver lining? Is there the promise of peace and prosperity on the other side? We never know...........................and in the not knowing, we continue to salvage and plunder all of the good we can glean from the here and now....

After Being Calm Despite Everyday Frustrations, Great Happiness Is Just Knowing Little Miracles Now Operate Positively Quite Rapidly Since The Untimely Vision Without Xactly Zooming.

So there..................

Mother's Day 2012

Mother's Day.....

So, once again, it has been months since I have written.....months since I have had time to write....The words in my head are bumping around, running into each other, changing their meaning, and I think, for sanity sake, I need to let them out.
Sometimes I ride in the car.....(Let's face it, between commuting between two jobs, going to visit my Dad and going to physical therapy, there is a SURPLUS of time for my mind to be alone with itself, which may or may not be a good thing),  sometimes I am driving in the car, and the thoughts are rolling out like steam from a steaming pot of Chamomile on a January morning in Maine.  Sometimes I feel that if I put up double sided tape all over the inside of the car, I could catch some of these words, these thoughts, before they go flying off into the universe.  If I am being honest, my best thoughts, my best work is going on in the car.  (not saying I am the safest driver out there),.....but then by the time I try to put the words on paper, the only words I can remember are words like "should" and "ought", and we all know that those words are the voice of someone else, certainly not me, the radical, secretly rebellious me.....
So yesterday, during my rendez-vous with obligation, I was trying, OH SO HARD to wax poetic, to formulate strong sentences, filled with positivity and wisdom, and most of the words got stuck on the figurative roof of my mouth on the way out, and what I was left with was the word blog....
Blog,......fog......smog,...........jog,.......and it occurred to me that all of these rhyming words mean something to me, (not necessarily for the good), and that when the time came, if nothing else came to mind, there was always this,....this perchance coincidence that I am one with the words.....(egotistical? ME?)

Bog....
(noun) wet, spongy ground composed mainly of decayed vegetable matter...
(verb) to sink in, or as if in a bog....example :" I was bogged down by overwork...."

(need I say more?).....I would say that bog, both noun and verb apply....

Cog (skipping a few definitions, but going directly to the heart of the matter), "a person who plays a minor part in a large organization , activity or enterprise"  example "She is just another cog in the machine"...(Do you all see where I am going with this?)

Dog (and again, skipping the obvious definitions.....)
(verb)  to follow or track like a dog; especially with hostile intent; hound
example: "She was dogged by responsibilities"

Okay, so am I sounding a little bitter?  Not meaning to,......
I think I am going to take a little break from homonyms,....(or is it homophones....how soon we forget), and get back to the subject of this entry.

Mothers Day.....the children, of both sets, (hereafter known as the "big kids", and the "little kids", though I am sure none of them want to identify with the title "little kids") have made a very nice birthday/mothers day weekend for me, as has Michael, the poor man who is unfortunate enough to have to live with me....
Last night Jboy1 invited us all over to his house for a cookout,.....which was awesome and amazing and quite relaxing, as it is set in a sloping wooded community, and when night fell, and we sat on the deck staring up at the stars between a canopy of trees...All of the kidlets were there(except A, who was otherwise previously engaged), as well as the grand kidlets....even Jboy2 who often prefers his own people, that raucous group of late teens, early twenties...
This morning, while Michael made me meat candy (bacon) of which I have not partaken of in perhaps a year), C and L went out into the garden and cut some of my beautiful roses and brought them to me in a lovely pink teapot, they sit here at my side, their fragrance reminding me of youth, and bubble baths and prom night.....
A will be arriving soon to take me to the restaurant across the street for a mother's day brunch....,
and speaking of that, I fear I must finish up, close up shop, and retire to my bedroom to dress like a mother ought to when she is going out in public with her daughter... I "should" be ready when she gets here...

There are those words again.....

Today's silly kid story

Some of you have already heard this story, so if you have, just X on out........

A cold, blustery day,............Ms. Lori is outside in the courtyard with a dozen primary students and the classroom door closes (and locks) behind her.

"Miz Lori, Miz Lori...............I need to go pee..." says M.

"Well, come on M.....hold it till we get inside" says I

We run toward the door and bang on it, hoping Ms. Nadine will open the door for us....

A. (small blonde girl, 3 years old) runs with us....

"uh- oh,.........Mz. Lori" says M.

I turn and see M. (small boy) standing in a puddle with liquid splashing out of his shoes, and steam rising off of his pants..

"I peed, Mz. Lori" says M.

A. screams........."Do something Mz. Lori.............his pants is smoking!"

I love these kids, and I love this job..............

Where else do you get such drama with so little problem?

Love, love,......love..............

Here is the thing about love...........It feels great sometimes, it feels horrible sometimes, and most of the time it feels alot like flannel sheets and fuzzy slippers. Sometimes it feels like you are drowning, and sometimes it feels like a part of your body has been severed.................sometimes there is this huge gaping hole in your heart that nothing............no amount of anything will fill.

It feels like the sun only shines on the one you love,.............

And then you grow up.

Love........no one can take it away, change the color, make it bigger, make it smaller, re-arrange it. No one can hide it in the closet, "ground" you from it, tell you have to finish your homework or your housework for it.

It can't be bought, sold or traded, and once it's yours, it is yours to keep.

Love is the thing that keeps you going when you have cleaned up after a sick child for the fifth time in one night.......it's the thing that makes you forgive,....and forgive,.....and forgive.....and it's the thing that makes you forget and go right back.

Love cannot be destroyed. No one can take it......No matter how bad love hurts, it is ours, and ours to hold, handle, throw away, bury, or treasure.

Sometimes love morphs...........When we love and lose, we don't really lose...........We just change it into another kind of love. A love that gladdens and grows........ a love that leavens our relationships, and stretches our souls.

There is romantic love, mother love, crazy love, and being in love. There is companionable love, sister love, baby love and puppy love...

We have one teacher of love........and if we listen, really listen, we can find Him all around us.

Love.......the more we give away, the more we get back.