faded snapshot wednesday

The last wednesday of November 2008. Whadda blur this month was!
I have, you have, everyone has those faded snapshots of holiday dinners and candid photos of people now only vaguely recognizable. Women giving matriarchal thanks for home and family. The patriarch providing and presiding. All done with food, tension, sports, old grudges, new griefs; bolstered by half hopeful prayers of guilt and gratitude. The empty seat at the table this year, the new baby asleep in the next room this year. Husband or wife doing the hosting chores or looking snappy or looking stressed. the kids. always the kids. circling on the fringes like baby sharks.

It is all gone now. That season has passed.
There is not another one. Everyone has a faded memory that still stings or caresses. Don't let go too much and lose the flavor with the bitter herbs, but don't hang on too long and make mush of a very good blend of flavor memories.

Every Thanksgiving has been a contest between hope and weariness for me since 1980. That was the first time i died. Sure hasn't been the last time and this year is not an exception. clinging to the fact of love in whichever form, waiting for the music to be louder than the tears. It all feels so familiar though.

Power to move one's soul no matter who you think it belongs to.
I am being denied the presence and comfort of my lover this holiday. i am 'too emotional'. I am more angry that the supposed promise of his arms about me is not available. it is all a bonus anyway, so maybe it is his way of not needing me? i am confused and hurt.

Yeah, i am thankful that someone HAS the best part of me. Hope tossing out weariness. That i am desired. That i have something to offer. That together we bring out in each other what we are sometimes afraid to believe in during the long reaches of the night.

Sitting up in bed with my first cup of coffee at 4am, i write.
i love words. they come from my honeymelon essences. My world is made of words. The Ice Palace of the Snow Queen. The lunatic darkness of an empty tomb. The exhaustion of a caregiver whose charge has died in her arms. The old grudges and sick people and destructive loved ones, who share a verb whose only tense is past tense.

I will step into a season of promise.
Take a fresh look at the remains of the day! Desolation is as much a part of new truth as it is a marker of old demons. I will step into a place where my heart is enlarged. Wonderful, eclectic, dynamic. Please don't leave me alone here with my ticket, ok?

Few Americans have ever experienced true hunger.
It is not a rumbling in the stomach or a set of uncomfortable sensations
(caused by the beginning of detoxification) you know will go away after eating.
True hunger is an animal, instinctual feeling in the back of one's throat (not in the stomach)
that demands you eat something, anything, even grass or shoe leather.
unknown web quote

Last free Wednesday until holidays are over!!

edited on 11/21/08

NO MORE FUCKING REGRETS. EVER.

NO MORE STANDING AT THE SINK WEEPING SUDDENLY. SO HARD I DROP TO MY KNEES.

NO MORE COMING UP THE ROAD OVER THIS HILL AND SEEING THE MOUNTAINS AND BEGINNING TO SHAKE AND WEEP.

NO MORE TRUSTING THE GOOD INTENTIONS OF THE DEVIL.

GOT THAT? NO MORE REGRETS // EVER //

it means living my life with gulps and second winds and more heat, sir, please?

it means no living down to the regrets and the remorses that twist like a knife.

my dear lord, if i have to live a version of my previous life, complete with lack of respect and plenty of disregard, then stop me NOW, because i am done with regretting my ways.

Ok, who let me write under the influence of guilt and despair?

POint remains. It is a good one. Why repeat the relationship woes that lead to regrets.

playlist: Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Sheesh. where is jose menendez when i need his wisdom? 5:30 pm wed.
This last two entries this week actually sound like TMI in a way. like watching vampires drink each others blood. painful, gory, visceral.

Today so far
Got the laundry done, took garbage to the dump, filed bills&, finished divorce paperwork, made an app't with the facilitator, got the mandatory parenting classes registered for, ordered netzero for E., figured out 2009's FSA for dental, went to the dentist, went to the implant specialist, was on the phone like 4 effing times with DickHead.

But the ballbuster and the beauty on this Wednesday?
Going to the house and hanging out with E for awhile this morning, ostensibly to get the mail. Why is it that adults can get excused for short term disability, but kids get punished? E. really has sort of PTSD going on right now. waiting on the doctor. school is NOT waiting. Kid is incapable of going to school right now. doesn't make him either stupid or devious. he is having a fucking breakdown so leave his ass alone already!! He feels fragile like a bird.

His building is immaculate. Amazing talent. i must remember to tell him that talent finds its own venues that are not always traditional. DH and I are too conservative to deal with this one, lol.

so i cried and hugged and so did he. a good day. this wednesday turned out to be a good day even though it ripped me up for the rest of the day. Gets me through the bad months. and M isn't answering his phone..

How long is this rain gonna last?! (second Wednesday)

I LIKE THE WAY YOU'RE NOT IMPRESSED

WHILE YOU PUT ME TO THE TEST.

YOU LIKE THE WHITE STAINS ON MY DRESS.

WE BOTH LIKE OUR HANDS AROUND OUR NECKS. OH YEAH

BUT MAYBE IT IS TIME TO SEE WHO LOOKS BEST ON THEIR KNEES.. ..

 You Are My Favorite Damn Disease

That man! In the most fabulous fashion, up at midnight because of his thoughts. i played in his mindset all day, stopping long enough to tenderize, hug and moisturize the very essence of him inside me

That fire in the eye! oh egads.  classic and complete with dangerous flouncing. the kind that is jet fuel and no amount of gentle enjoinder will appease.

I know. Because i sniff that brand of fuel. Even recently. What is it about a trigger combined with a negative verbal that just rips that edge off so the RED snaps on! Usually my mouth and feet are going and the brain is blank except for that red haze. Even after i get a hold again, i have acid reflux, shaking or tremors, heart rate goes through the roof, includes vision and more..  quite the jolt of bodily endorphins.. ..imagine when the stimulus/trigger is pain and not emotion solely? wow. some balling the jack there, "lift your other butt up, it's the Wilbury twist."

Sounds like pain does it for him.

Sounds like i need to 'read' better and 'relax' more

That is the sound of a woman who has taken care of people her whole life. Now what? What to do? There was not even a real idea of a "whom". The self-abuse angle, M. quite handily recognized and pulled me out before i did get hooked up with an abusive man. For that I owe him my life and my wholeness belongs to him.

But the question remains how does one re-think one's life role and reconfigure it successfully? That is what has been a pleasure getting to know this intense man. High standards for doing it right. i dig that so fucking much. Such a challenge he set before my eyes! One he is living/has lived!

The fact of a divorce does not change the amount of good i am coming away with.. .. meant for evil and redeemed for the sake of love. oh  yeah! The message that "i am hardly worth taking care of" is a deep one. tyvmNOT, mom.

so until i learn where my assignment is next, i prolly should not succumb to either ANYONE'S contempt or my own sense of failure. Does everyone who fails at this primary relationship of marriage and parenting feel such failure? The only thing i ever set my mind to that i thought mattered.

It mattered enough that the endeavor should outlast the setbacks.  i was wrong. i can't deal with the failing, which in turn makes me underbelly soft for lion claws.. my tender heart is no accident! God and a dull meat cleaver met me in my need. Now having supplied this lovely person with me, now what?

"on the road in the rain and snow"

"lord don't give me no Buick"

memories

wishes

wants

the enunexplained

"so many obstacles to true happiness"

what a crock that is. How about some truth plain and straight?

what i want this month?

To matter. To be visible to the universe. To embrace the unexpected person of my companion. So much more than i could have imagined. i sure as hell wasn't imagining me like this. Typos, unusual usage and all.. .. Reading blogs for the last couple of days is perspective on my overall contribution to society. Ranking among the really cerebral and funny writers and illustrators out here in space? Annoying my companion to some extent for his muse-like qualities is unfortunate.

If anything, the dark and the angst tend to overweigh the cleverness if not in me, then most certainly in the writing that passes for cutting edge or relevant.

My one claim to fame is discovering a spiritual integrity(previously lacking?) and facing the consequencs of that awareness in past sowing and reaping, in future seeds, in the present? I am fully in the moment, knowing that without the truth, i am one more clever pen. M. and i spoke of integrity. really what is left if that is not there? Gave me pause to think of how i wish to be seen by my loved ones as i bump and stumble through this, beginning to matter.. .. .. again

not "*i* and i alone know what truth really is. like a terminal conspiracy... not that....

But this: Truth is know-able. Not for the priests or the elite or the supersmart or tenderly sensitive.

Truth came alive and forever after, truth became a quantifiable substantive entity with every human nerve intact. Know-able by the rookie and the rank. The disenchanted, the less-than-whole. Accessible with a bow and a hug. All attributes relate, all emotion matters.

After all, what is the most human drive after sex? TO matter. TO love. To matter so much to someone that life is never the same. Usually an unspoken wish. How many men and women, frail and battered; will ever have that grace? To know someone even as we are known.

Point being, hello and good bye alley!!!

That truth is a person, a feeling, a judgement of a rightness that is still and quiet in voice but knows us and wishes to be known.

So the more i open to that and respond, the more i have to offer. Offer the public a glimpse and a reminder that real hope is alive and well. Offer those who are on this truth journey to have the courage to persevere. Illuminate the dusty corners of loves soul "My heart belongs to me." In the process be full, be open. the most difficult of all. stay the course.

Luke 6:38
Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

another chance to put this into practice? i am truly grateful. A collar which does not chafe. a yoke which one can live with, but constant, be known.

playlist: MARC COHN. this one has found the truth. "Surely He hears less conventional prayers."