Mad

Mad is a useful word. Mad at life, mad in life.

Numb and Number

When does it get easier? Does it get easier? Would it help if I believed in God, heaven and hell?

Eye-candy Books

I have read more books in the last 2 months than in the last year. They are nothing, just something to keep me from thinking, wishing too hard. Yet even the eye-candy books have a thing or two that resonate through me.

"Everyone wants to protect me (lately). My parents did too. You think if I don't hear bad things, then they won't exist anymore. But you know what? They DO exist, and I DO end up hearing them. And I wish to God that I could have heard them from the people I loved first."


Sigh.....


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Just One

Just one kiss
to say
hello and
goodbye

Just one kiss
to last a lifetime
for both

Just one kiss
closing
one life
to begin
another


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Triggers

Digging myself from this very, deep dark hole is not easy. Two shovels full out and 3 in. Before I long I will have dug my way to China.






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Hard truths

Hard truths can be dealt with, triumphed over, but lies will destroy your soul.








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Wishing

I wish you had told me
then I could have loved you
not just a child's love
for her mother

But

the love one has
for someone who
saved them and
loved just because.

I wish you had told me
I could have told you it was
worth more than birth,
it was love

that tied us
not accidental birth
but acceptance
and love.

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Boxes

The box is in the trash
with the pictures you returned
the letter I never read.

The box is gone
I can finally let it go
the memories were real, but with
no more substance.

The box is gone/broken/worn
with that part of my heart
that had held on in the hope
that you really did love me.

The box is gone
I can breathe again.
.
.
.

Shapes

Someone told me once that human children learn by putting things into groups. Alike colors go into one pile, shapes into another and then we start to mix those according to their shape and color.
We learn to read the same way. A, B, C, D, E, F, G.....able, cat, foam, god.......we learn the alphabet and then reshape the letters to form words for the group of colors and shapes that we created to learn how our world works. We start learning to speak by practicing those interesting sounds that we discovered as we play in our cribs......looking at the shadows on the ceiling. mmmm, nnnnn, ooooo, aaaaa, maaaaaa, daaaaaa, DADA, MAMA are usually our first words...then our parents smile and get that misty look as they say...."see, she said dada!!!". The baby then says it again and out of nowhere, the misty eyed parent appears and reinforces that word. Soon each time she says dada or mama, they mysteriously appear to hold and love her. Such simple words....mama, dada.

Now, when I say those words...I no longer know what they mean. I will need to learn how to relearn my shapes and colors into a new meaning. Mama, Dada...mommy, daddy, mother, father. I wonder how long this will take.

DAMN!

Adopted

This year has spun itself around me with so many emotional events. I am starting to open boxes that I have kept safe and locked for years......boxes of memories that I had to put away or go crazy.
Well, they are starting to explode open and spilling out their contents all over me. Those crazy memories that I thought I had secured safely away are now dripping down my body and clogging up my brain. Damn!

I thought I had ordered my life...in a way that I could finally have a little control over it. I know that is folly, but I was happy with the lie. No longer, no longer.....

How do I handle my self image now that I know I was adopted? What do I do now? I had just gotten comfortable with what and who I was....Zack's wife, Charles and Kat's mother, soon to be retired state worker, middle aged matron who had finally come to terms with the face in the mirror.

Adopted...that happens to other people, not me. My mother.....now my aunt; my uncle, now my father and a nameless woman who was my birth mother.....and my dad not my dad. No relation at all. All mixed up in a jumble of mismatched titles.

I know I will deal with it. But it is all so much right now....too much!

Sleep

Vacation time away from work messes with my sleep. I go to bed late, get up too darn early and sometimes go back to bed and sleep too late. Like this morning. I got the Redcup to meet with most of the usual suspects. The group was sparse, but well attended. However, we did get into an interesting morning discussion about strange foods we like and dislike. All of us declared that no matter how much someone declares that rattlesnake tastes like chicken....they are fucking deluded.

Other foods discussed were spam, sardines, corned beef hash, vienna sausages, bologna and Orange Julius. Kat went to the kitchen and made me an OJ on the spot. It was almost like the real thing.

The lines were drawn about the other food choices. Gary looked like he was going to throw up at the mention of most of them. I like a little fried spam once or twice a year. I like corned beef, but not hash. Sardines are a good snack item when I am closely following my diet. Andrea likes sardines smushed with tuna and crackers. Christopher seemed to like all of it, but not the rattlesnake. We all declared bologna a food of our childhood and I am not sure any of us has tried it recently. I know the kids ate a lot of bologna sandwiches. Ground beef was a luxury back then. Have not had a vienna sausage in ages and will never again.

What can I say sometimes our conversations take a strange twist. Christopher got up from the table and declared he was hungry!! Wonder if there is a spam sandwich on his list??

Goodbye

It has been almost 2 months since our friend Jeremy was murdered by adult children who seemed to think $42 worth of pizza was worth taking a life. Two months of wondering why something like this has happened. It has changed me in so many little ways. I no longer can watch TV, I can no longer listen to the music that I had always enjoyed. I have been reading non-stop (not a bad thing). But it is escapist reading; a way to make the hours pass.

But, have I really changed? I do not know. I know my friends mean more to me, but I do not know how to reach out to them to let them know. I am afraid they will not understand. I felt shut out several months ago and took protective action against being hurt anymore. It broke my heart, but having been urged by my daughter that it was the best choice, I took it.

So, I am boxed with wanting my friends closer to me and not sure how to make it happen and still keep what pride I have left. I feel alone even with them. I posted on my myspace profile to be careful, sometimes my smile is covering what I really think! It was true 2 years ago and it is still true now, even more so.

I smile when I do not feel like smiling, because I learned that a smile will make others not look further into me. Do I know what is under the smile, not all the time, but it is my one refuge.

Losing Jeremy in such a horrible way has shaken my belief system in ways I could not imagine.

What do I have

It seems that I am going through a bout of depression, much like a few of my friends. The highs and lows make life challenging. My challenge is letting time heal me. Time is my enemy and my friend. The two sides of the coin that gives me hope and pulls me through hell. When the thoughts of death and fear feed my soul, I sleep and cry and wait for them to pass. I wait....I wait....I wait.

While I wait......I think and dream.....the dreams often scare me and the thoughts....are better left unspoken.

I am trying to find some peace.......

Two children, wise and foolish...sweet and tart.....hope for the future
A reason to live on.....a reason to wait for the next chapter in their lives...

Hope

As a child, I searched for God
Community, acceptance
being not from their world, was pushed away,
Eyes filled with the water of baptism
fallen from newly christened hair.

As a child I attended church camp in the red hills
Of Oklahoma.
Waterfalls and sandy beaches
Bonfires and tales of redemption in the dark
Young fears shaped by biblical verses.

Baptism by storm
I watched as the rain moved over the lake
a flat line of wind and hail
Moving inch by inch
Grey rain covering the sun
Falling at last on the budding chest
Of a girl-child with purity of hope
And belief that
The rain would bring
Cleansing to her world.

I have nothing wise to say. The picture says it all.

 

Kat is almost 26. She has so much in her. I wonder where she got it.
She has more guts and intelligence than either of her parents. She has learned not to stuff her emotions which has caused her parents so much grief. I could learn a lot from that girl. I have done a lot of stupid things in this world, but she is NOT one of them.

 


This picture is of my friend Ken and me. I visited him when he was in Houston working as an entertainer at Six Flags in 1976.
The shirt he is wearing is one I bought him. I thought it was pretty smashing. He was a good friend while I was in college and we still keep in touch. I was able to visit with him when I took a trip I won to New York City a few years ago. Can you believe I thought I was fat? What was I thinking??

 

This picture of is my parents (on the right) and two men I do not know. It was taken in 1949. They were at the Sinaloa club in San Francisco. When I googled the club, I found it was a very popular Mexican club that served good food and great music.

Going thru a bunch of family pics

 


I have been going through family pictures and scanning onto a cd. It has taken almost 20 years for me to
be able to do this. Everytime I tried to open the trunks that held the pictures, I would open it up and quickly close it back again. Finally, time has soothed the rough edges of grief and I can look at the pictures with a smile instead of tears. It is a journey that I need to take.

This picture is of my parents, taken in 1949 on a sales trip to California.

I am posting a few for mostly myself, but hope a friend or two will look with me.