What Do Women Want? by Kim Addonizio

I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what's underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling all those day-old
donuts in their cafe, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from their truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I'm the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it I'll pull that garment
from its hanger like I'm choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I'll wear it like bones, like skin,
it'll be the goddamned
dress they'll bury me in.

Red

This is a poem in response to my mom's painting.

Her hips move

like a liquid pendulum,

one heel lifts, one knee bends,

one sudden look over her shoulder

glowers at the man seeping

through milky red light.

Arms float, hands flatten like stop signs,

then paddle through the scarlet fog

away from him.

The hem of her dress sways,

strains against the rhythm in her blood.

Shadowed eyelids are heavy, the body light.

When the music ends she will vanish

alone into the scorching white light

of the streets, rushing the dark alley.

In an empty apartment she'll slip

out of red silk and into nothing

until he comes.

Dr. Seuss

I did, in fact, paint whimsical pictures of Dr. Seuss characters on my newly painted bathroom walls. They were cute, but then I painted over them. We just replaced everything in the little bathroom - hardwood floors, new sink and fixtures - and then I turned it into a nursery. I didn't like it. But just to prove it - here are some of the painted over masterpieces:

One Thing that Never Changes

Just to torture myself on my spring break I've spent the last two days shopping. I am 5'2", as are many other women I know. On professional charts I am still an average weight for my height - barely. Yet, every single t-shirt, blouse, sweater and top lands half-way between my crotch and my knees. Anyone who's ever watched "What Not To Wear" knows that long tops on short people just make your legs look even stubbier! Duh! I also require some type of sleeves to keep my upper arms from waving in the wind. I scan entire aisles just by the sleeve lengths. But it must be a little known law that women are only allowed to go sleeveless all summer - and sometimes winter too. This year another style we are apparently being forced into is wearing ballet flat shoes. What if I don't want to wear completely flat shoes? No choice at this point. Of course, that also adds to the stubbiness of one's legs. My point? Fashion designers out there dictate what we can wear, how much time we will waste looking for items that don't exist anymore, and how much pain and suffering we must go through to display some sort of individual fashion sense. When I finally find some sort of summer top that has sleeves and ends at my butt it costs $98 - for a frickin' cotton t-shirt! After two days of this I feel used and abused and resigned to hate my body - just because the stores have convinced me that my body type must be freakishly deformed. So that's my one thing that will never change and that's my rant for today. The end.

Changes

As I think back on Easter I realize that I continue to grow in accepting change in my life. We all desire what's familiar and comforting to us. If you had a nice, stable, traditional childhood, maybe that makes it a little more difficult. You had an indelible image in your mind, a permanent dream in your heart of what life was going to be. I went blindly along for 35 years living in the same area, same people, same church and then Whammo! Everything changed. God made me totally dependent on Him. I had no choice - but boy did I fight it.

We have most holidays at our house and I am always grateful that everyone comes from both sides of our families and they are all wonderful people - but completely different people in a different house than I ever imagined at one point in my life. After over 40 years in one beloved church I now celebrate Easter in a new church. It's not the same. Different people and place there too. We don't sing the Hallelujah Chorus, there are no trumpets, my children are not there, my husband is not there. None of those things seem right to me. I still ache for things to be the way I think they should be. But it was still Easter in my heart.

If you are a parent you will be pushed and shoved into change. You take a little step every day as your children grow before your eyes. You know big changes will come, but you can't imagine how it will be. It will be heart-wrenching and wonderful all at the same time. Maybe God shows us through our children that nothing can stay. Nothing we have is immuned to being taken or changed - except what we believe, except love. Traditions change, children grow, loved ones die, life turns out different than we expected. That is why I can't imagine life without the one unchanging God. That is why I celebrate the eternal message of Easter.

Lazarus Heart

A poem from my life long ago - but worth remembering - maybe for someone out there.

My Lazarus heart is alive and well
and I am human for the first time.
The shriveled and unraveled rope
is woven into a virgin tapestry
of a stronger and iridescent beauty.

It is the solstice of a prolific season.
The days are revelations and
the long instruction time was needed
for the lessons to be meaningful.

The hurting time that seemed eternal
has a healing and healthy end in sight
that can never be forgotten or tempered,
my heart now dedicated to reality and truth.

I leave that previously unknown abyss,
that place without God that is now known to me.
I am on the road less traveled
and my Lazarus heart is alive and well.

Happy Easter to my blogging friends

It's Friday . . .

but Sunday's comin'.

Happy Spring

Even though we had two inches of snow
last night -as the Lion said - I do believe,
I do believe, I do believe. . . .

The Peter Pan Syndrome

The other night we had a discussion about how men in TV sitcoms are usually portrayed as adolescent, insensitive, lacking common sense and just plain stupid. Even though I am a woman, I sometimes object to the fact that men are almost always the village idiots of the television world. (I don't think it's good for young boys to watch these shows thinking they never really have to grow up.)

The next night I took my husband to a fancy upscale restaurant for his birthday. We both enjoy leisurely romantic dinners. I was pleased when we were seated in a quiet corner booth in a secluded area of the restaurant. Two men were in the opposite booth. While devouring our appetizer of mussels one of the men began talking and laughing loudly on a cell phone. Apparently the person he was speaking to was named Asshole. Then there was a commotion and somehow the cell phone ended up behind their booth in an unreachable corner. Pandemonium ensued. Only two words were basically uttered throughout - the aformentioned Asshole and f***. It must have been the most humorous thing that ever happened to them judging by the overly raucous and sustained laughter. The zany escapade went on for quite awhile, bringing servers with flashlights to the area. So much for our romantic dinner.

I really don't know how the phone ended up behind the booth in the first place, but I think it would make quite a realistic television sitcom episode after all.

I wonder if this is what Matthew meant???

Every household divided against itself will not stand.

Matthew 12:25

Going Solo

It is not easy to sing a solo, even if you know how to sing.
First, for some of us, there are the dreams:
Standing alone, facing a crowd, I am wearing
a transparent flesh-colored nightgown,
my hair ridculous because I couldn't find the shower,
or a brush, my alarm clock failing me.
I run down mysterious, dark hallways
frantically seeking a door - or my music.
I am lost on roads I have never seen.
Strangers won't help, friends are inexplicably mute.
Hopelessly late, unavoidable detained,
now the church is missing.
I open my mouth and nothing comes out.

Back in reality:
I sing along with the CD 257 times.
I kill at rehearsal. I pray relentlessly.
I lie awake that night rechecking my alarm
every fifteen minutes. The morning comes -
awash in lemon tea, cough drops and a gallon of water
I drive the familiar streets making sounds
that resemble an injured blue jay.
Then, like the sun breaking through the clouds
my dormant soprano voice makes a timely appearance.
At the church I respond to 39 queries and good wishes.
Then standing alone, at the crucial moment,
a tiny speck of mucus, like a Who from Whoville
perches atop my left vocal cord and effs it all up.
My eyes water, the world looks and feels surreal.
I look past people and focus on the stained glass windows.
I do the best I can.

For these and many other reasons I am not a professional singer!

Writing Thoughts

Henry Miller called writing divine dictation. There have been days that have felt like that - like it's Christmas morning and you've just been given an extra unexpected gift - the gift of words and ideas flowing through your fingertips. Of course, it's not always that way. The novel I am writing started that way. I don't think I was even sure I was going to write another one. I was sitting on my deck on a summer afternoon and characters began to write themselves through my pen! ( in first person too) A blessing, yes, but so far, two years of work have come along with them for the ride. Poems come to me out of some mystical place and at the most unexpected times. I sort of just wait for them to arrive most of the time. I don't know exactly why some of us are driven in this manner, but Erica Jong calls writing the first anti-depressant. Hmmmm, maybe so . . .

Here are some other writer's thoughts on the subject:

We write to taste life twice; in the moment and in introspection - Anais Nin

Writing is not a hostile act, but an act of understanding. Even when it's satirical, even when it's bitter - you only write about the things you care about. Indifference doesn't need to be put into words. Henry Miller

If you're a singer, you lose your voice. A baseball player loses his arm. But a writer gets more knowledge, and if he's good, the older he gets, the better he writes. (or she!) Mickey Spillane

Inspiration usually comes during the work, rather than before it - Madeleine L'Engle

(And my favorite) If God gives you something you can do, why, in God's name wouldn't you do it? Stephen King

On A Lighter Note . . . .

Yes, I will be decorating my bathroom with a Dr. Seuss theme. I find some of his text to be quite philosophical. These wise words may adorn the walls:

You have brains in your head
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own
and you know what you know.
And you are the one
who'll decide where to go.

You'll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You'll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step
step with care and great tact,
and remember that Life's
a great balancing act.
Just never forget to be dextrous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.

From Oh, the Places You'll Go

And speaking of Dr. Seuss. I was the guest reader in the kindergarten this week. I read Fox in Socks and it is the hardest book I've ever read!!! If you don't believe me, go on over to Border's and sit down and try to read it out loud without making any mistakes. I dare you.

I Will Sing

I walked the relentless winter streets, past smothered sidewalks with hands so tired of being cold, pulled up into sweater sleeves where they don't belong. I brought my pressure cooker brain with me. It shouted how much I'll miss angel-winged Jacquie, how much I miss my precious daughter-friend. It whispered of all I've never known.
I yearned to keep walking
away from
the afternoon of difficult children
the expectations of the night
the questions about us
the disappointment of me.
Brain said keep walking and don't look back
until Palm Sunday.
I will sing Domine Deus, Rex Coelestis
O thou our Lord God, King of Heaven
Yes, I will sing.

Full Life

Today my heart is sad after seeing my friend's lifeless body in a casket - because she was so full of life here on earth. She couldn't get enough of life. She insisted on seeing everything and doing everything, no matter how difficult or inconvenient it was from her scooter. At the funeral home it wasn't just the weirdness of seeing a body - it was, that of everyone there, Jacquie would have been most likely to be in the middle of the crowd, enjoying, mingling, talking. It reminded me of this very old poem of mine:

This is a solitary journey
to spiritual heights unknown.
The creation of a new life form,
the harbinger of heaven.

In the essence of being
pain intermingles with joy.
Without tears, without doubts
the pursuit is meaningless.

There is iniquity without an alibi,
there is breath without thought.
There is awe beyond comprehension,
gratitude beyond words.

In the creation of me
is a continuous changing vision
of my consecrated life
and aching for what was never known.

Too Late

I just had to erase my friend Jacquie's name from the list of things I was going to do on Spring Break. Jacquie, age 55, died Friday of muscular dystrophy. She had been in and out of the hospital since October. I visited a few times, but not enough. Now it's too late. My advice - don't ever have to erase a friend from a list of things to do. Just do it. Her husband's email was entitled - Jacquie's got her wings - yes she does - and no one deserves them more.

Good News Bad News

The bad news is that it refuses to stop snowing around northeast Ohio and this would have most definitely been another SNOW DAY! Alas, it's Saturday. Not sure I'll even get to church tomorrow it's so bad. The good news is that I have someone special to snuggle up with tonight. He's making corned beef and cabbage for dinner too. Cooked cabbage is comfort food in my book - even though it stinks.

The other bad news is that something is wrong with my little dog, Stella. For about five days she has been acting strangely. She intermitently starts shaking and panting and acting frantic. She tries to get as close to me as possible or she looks like she's trying to find a place to hide. She's taken flying leaps into my lap (at 35 pounds - not a lap dog.) She comes into the bathroom with me. She wants to go out, then turns around and comes back. She hides in places I've never seen her go before. Tuesday I took her to the vet. Unfortunately she always acts like that at the vet - terrified and uncooperative. He said maybe something scared her and gave me two sedatives. Well, five days later I'm still watching her suffer.

The good news is today I called a vet from my church and he was kind enough to actually take the time to try to figure it out -not like my former vet. He said dogs act like that when they're in pain or uncomfortable. The panicky behavior is that they are trying to get away from it. He said it's common for a dog to have a pulled muscle in her back or a pinched nerve in the neck. I gave her a piece of a sedative today and he said I could give her half an aspirin. Then she might need doggie anti-inflammatories. Poor sweetie.

The good news is that, being snowed in today, I got our half-bathroom painted. The bad news is that I chose a peach color, and in the tiny room with no natural light it looks like neon orange. We may have to hang sunglasses outside the door for visitors. I like this bathroom to be whimsical. Once I drew Shel Silverstein pictures all over the walls. Then I painted a window looking out at the ocean and had birds on the adjacent walls. ( see picture) I'm thinking about Dr. Seuss drawings this time. Either way it'll be unusual - hey, it's a bathroom!

Joshua

There is a wonderful book called Joshua by Joseph F. Girzone, a former priest. There are other Joshua books that followed but I liked the first one the best. Joshua is a present-day Jesus figure. Today I'm just going to share some passages from this book that make a lot of sense to me.

We all have to be content with slow progress, Joshua reminded him. Human beings are like plants. They grow in stages and those stages can't be accelerated. In due time plants bear fruit, and with human beings it is much the same. In the proper time and at the proper pace we grow into what God intends us to become. Events take place and strangers cross our path that force us to think. All these things God uses to teach us and suggest a different way of understanding things. So we grow, gradually, imperceptibly, under the subtle guidance of God's own spirit. Being conscious of our success is not important. The left hand should not know what the right hand is doing. That can lead to vanity.

People are so frighteningly rigid and limited in their understanding of things. Do you realize that God can be present in many different ways? In whatever form he uses we should be careful not to prejudice ourselves and say ' He can't come in that form or in this form' because if we do we reduce God to our own limited image, and in doing that run the risk of rejecting him if he comes to us in a way we don't expect. God may be one and he may be simple, but he can also manifest himself in many facets of his greatness.

Tori Day

Today is a Tori day - just need to hear her all day. I've had many Tori days. . . . But tonight I have to go to choir and sing Vivaldi's Gloria - gotta love the musical paradox.

Kinda like my life right now - beauty and two varieties of pain.

Coexist VI -The Sexes

I believe in the equality of all human beings and in coexisting, but I have never felt the need to label myself a feminist. I think that's because it's so obvious that God made men and women with different abilities, strengths and desires. Feminism sort of said to me that I was supposed to be more like a man. We all raise our children to be "anything you want to be." But maybe we should say - find your strengths and do something you can do well. I know so many twenty-somethings having so much trouble being anything that they can't choose something!

With the possiblity of a woman president, the question of strengths arises for me. Would a woman be a good president? Maybe. But how differently will she handle the job then men have? At last Tuesdays debate Hilary spent valuable time complaining about having to answer the first question. Really, Hilary? Did that, in any way, further your quest to be President of the United States? It seems like you'll get a whole ton of questions once you're the Prez. Why would you even consider saying something that could be construed as whining when you're the first possible WOMAN president?

Washington Post published a piece on March 2 entitled Women vs. Women (We scream, We Swoon, How Dumb Can We Get?). In it Charlotte Allen sites women screaming "I love you Obama" while he's in mid-sentence, and other women actually fainting at Obama rallies. Allen asks if we are the weaker sex, "or even the stupider sex. Our brains permanently occluded by random emotions, psychosomatic flailings and distraction by the superficial."

Allen sites the popularity of Grey's Anatomy among women. (No offense if you're a fan. I used to find it entertaining too) She writes, "Want to be a surgeon? Here's what your life will be like at the hospital according to Grey's : sex in the linen-supply room, catfights with your sister in front of patients, sex in the on-call room, a 'prom' in the recovery room so you can wear your strapless evening gown to work, and sex with the married attending physician in an office. Oh, and some surgery."

My Grey's moment of truth was an episode when Christina was to marry ? (can't remember his name) I flipped on the TV to see her hyperventilating, pushing the wedding dress to the floor, saying, "get it off me, get it off me" I found that scene so pathetic, so offensive and repulsive that I turned it off and never watched again. Is that the way professional women think it's okay to be portrayed on TV? I know it's just a show, but, let's be honest - it makes intelligent women look as mature as their dress size.

It's scientific fact that men's and women's brains are different. In general men excel in visuospatial skills (math, abstract thinking, driving). Women usually have superior verbal skills (reading, writing, talking) My point? Maybe we should all try to be good at what we're good at - and not try to all be alike.

If women want to be taken seriously then maybe we should act grown-up (at least in public). I've had my fair share of pity parties, long cries and irrational emotions, but I've noticed I'm doing it less and less as I get older. (All it ever got me was a husband that looked like a deer in the headlights anyway.) Personally, I avoid the teacher's lounge at all costs. I can't stand all the bitching.

If a woman wants to be president she shouldn't complain about what comes with the territory. If you're an intelligent woman don't swoon over Obama. If you're raising a daughter, don't buy her Barbie dolls and tell her she's a princess, because she's not. And don't tell her she can do anything a man can do because maybe she'll spend her life trying to prove that when she'd be much better at and happier doing something else. Don't get me wrong - we're all completely capable - we're just not all the same. Feel free to disagree. It's just a thought.

Heart Consciousness

The Lakota mother teaches

her child she is related

to every living thing.

The squirrel is your brother,

the flowers are your sisters.

Experience draws us into

a kinship and bond

with our fellow humans,

our cousins and friends.

The connection is in the surviving.

The unity in the pain.

What I know now by heart

of being dead and then alive

brings me fully into the human race

and allows me more life than before.

Brought to each new awaking

is the fellowship in mere living,

the survival in being loved.

Blogging Clusterf**k

According to my "Daily Blog Tip" I should have a whole lot more people reading my blog by now or I'm doing something wrong. Apparently there are myriad ways to promote your blog out there in cyberspace. And to think I have been proud as a peacock to just get the frickin' thing up and running. I thought I was a genius when I figured out how to get photos on it.

So I spend bewildering hours reading websites devoted to blogs and there's just one problem - I have no idea what they're talking about! It's like reading Martian. Here's an example:

1. Use an FTP client to download all the site files (the Wordpress folder)

2. Log on phpMyAdmin and select Wordpress database.

3. Click on Export and make sure that all the Wordpress tables are there.

4. On the "structure" section tick "Add Drop Tables". Add AUTO_INCREMENT" and "enclose table and field names with backquotes"

5. On the "Data" section leave all the boxes unticked.

6.Tick "Save as file" and download database (you can use compression if your database is big.)

There is not one thing on that list that I understand. Do you?

Tags, RSS/atom feeds, tick, ping, blogcarnivals, Alexa rating, social bookmarking, configure counter, wrench icon, javascript, clasic template, it goes on and on. . . . . . . .

I guess it's a miracle that I've been found by anyone without knowing all that.

If anyone out there has any advice I'm willing to learn.

Freefall

Fairies lacking restraint
in a freefall to earth.

Twinkling satellites

from a fissure in heaven;

the antithesis of their

arrival point on the planet.

A bohemian coterie,

a flotilla of fun,

sometimes slower than gravity allows

or circling in a 3/4 waltz.

They are the only pure white we know,

washing the world clean

perfectly silent in the journey.

She can't live without the snow

making music in her head,

a celestial painting.

Looking out the window

is a hobby now.

Nothing as beautiful
can be humanly created.

In a quiet afterthought

a tuft will be released from a branch

carried by the cold across her path

when heaven touches earth.

Affliction

Despite the title of this post - I will celebrate the day. Another snow day - another Winter Wonderland outside to revel in all day. Another day at my laptop - the place I feel so comfortable at these days.

Yesterday was a difficult day. I had to work until 9PM for conferences and did not see one parent. Sad. The roads were horrible coming home. You would think when your car is only a few years old, has good tires and sand bags in the back that it would stop when you pressed on the brakes - but I always feel like I'm the only one sliding into intersections and pumping the pedal and saying nasty words to my little Rav. It was harrowing.

But the worst part of the day was that, for unknown reasons, I could barely walk yesterday. My left hip was in so much pain that I had to hobble slowly through the halls. Embarrassing. If I'd just sprained my ankle, say - I could just say - I sprained my ankle. But when everyone asked what happened - uh- I don't know!!! The two cortisone injections rejected their role and betrayed me. It's too long of a story to tell. Back to the doctor today.

Somehow I am slowly realizing how this experience is changing me, and I have hope that I am learning something. I was reading some essays by the famous French writer Simone Weil. She wrote :

Affliction is an uprooting of life, a more or less attentuated equivalent of death, made irresistibly present to the soul by the attack or immediate apprehension of physical pain. . . and nothing else has the power to chain down our thoughts.

Affliction is something specific and impossible to compare with anything else, just as nothing can convey the idea of sound to the deaf and dumb. And, as for those who have themselves been mutilated by affliction, they are in no state to help anyone at all and are almost incapable of even wishing to do so. Thus, compassion for the afflicted in an impossiblity.

THAT'S what bothers me the most. The way pain causes you to be self-absorbed and unable to be of use to anyone. Yesterday when one of my students showed up at my door during my lunch crying and kicking the wall because someone took his lunch - I had to practically crawl up the stairs and down the long hallway to investigate the problem. I wasn't as interested in solving his pain as my own. I hate that.

Weil continues: Affliction causes God to be absent for a time, more absent than a dead man, more absent than light in the utter darkness of a cell.

I think she is describing depression here and I would agree. Depression to me felt like God had abandoned me. However, I am recognizing how pain can easily lead to depression.

Affliction hardens and discourages because, like a red-hot iron, it stamps the soul to its very depths with the contempt, the disgust, and even the self-hatred and sense of guilt and defilement which crime logically should produce but actually does not.

The people you love and live with get to suffer too. As much as I try not to whine and cry, my husband has commented on my tendancy to be in bad moods these past few months. I want to say "Duh!" But then again, it seems unfair that he should have to suffer along with me. Being a man, he wants to fix it, but even the four doctors I've been to can't seem to do that - yet.

I wrote this before I read Weil, but we seem to concur:

Affliction

Pain

physical, bodily pain

grinds your spirit

scarifies your soul

harasses your plans

hounds your brain

vexes your senses.

Pain

give me morphine

give me oxycontin

give me knowledge

walking, moving

spread out my limbs

give me my life again.

Pain

give me doctor

without a damned perscription

an expert on a real body

look at me, move my parts

discover my affliction

take my insurance.

Pain

make me understand

what it's for

the reason I have this human

fallible, fragile body

what can I learn

from pain?

The Rat

This is a poem about a (financially) poor single mother - me.
It brings it all back.

The animal creeping through the darkened
dining room was bigger than a mouse.

I was sitting in the dim light of a single lamp one room away
children's voices floated from the drafty upstairs bedrooms,

cold air wafted through open crevices and thresholds
as news of the Gulf War babbled from the TV screen.

It came from beneath the window seat, a hole
in the rotten floorboards by the radiator

through the pitiful damaged latticework
that was meant to hide the rust and peeling paint.

As my head turned toward the unexpected motion
my heart said mouse, but my mind knew.

Stealthily it slithered to the remnant bird seeds
under the cage on the floor of the adjacent room.

The next night
up through the hole by the cellar laundry tub drain

a trap, a loud snap
the children and I went down to look.

COEXIST V - Ideas on Faith

No matter what life throws my way I always see it through the eyes of my faith. I want to understand the bigger picture, the reason. I'm always asking God WHY, WHY, WHY? Then I wonder if asking WHY is the antithesis of faith. I am addicted to WHY, but like an alcoholic I must accept what I cannot understand or change. I do believe that I am not supposed to know everything. If I did, I guess I would be God! Albert Einstein said, The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

I get carried away with the meaning of everything that happens instead of just accepting that life is sometimes frustrating and random. It would be arrogant to suggest that I could figure it all out. The tragedies of the world, the unnecesary suffering, the innocent children I see everyday already scarred by the life they've been given - there is no explanation except that God gave the world and His children free will. And we've screwed it up royally.

This is an excerpt from a Time Magazine article entitled: My Problem with Christianism by Andrew Sullivan. It begins with: Are you a Christian who doesn't feel represented by the religious right? (Yes, I most definitely am.)

And there are those who simply believe that, by defintion, God is unknowable to our limited, fallible human minds and soul. If God is ultimately unknowable, then how can we be so certain of what God's real position is on say, the fate of Terri Schiavo? Or the morality of contraception? Or the role of women? Or the love of a gay couple? Also, faith, for many of us is interwoven with doubt, a doubt that can strengthen faith and give it perspective and shadow. That doubt means having great humility in the face of God and an enormous reluctance to impose one's beliefs, through civil law, on anyone else.

BINGO! I leave all the judging and decisions in God's capable hands. I've turned into a sort of "I'm OK, You're OK" person and if you're not, it's not up to me to decide that. To me, that is the meaning of COEXIST.

Sullivan goes on to say : As a Christian, I dissent from the political pollution of sincere, personal faith. I dissent most strongly from the attempt to argue that one party represents God and that the other doesn't. I dissent from having my faith co-opted and wielded by people whose politics I do not share and whose intolerance I abhor. The word Christian belongs to no political party. It's time the quiet majority of believers took it back.

AMEN!

Faith is not knowing it all, not understanding it all, not judging those whose shoes we have not walked in. Let go and let God.

Three Crosses

Three crosses
like three Valentines on the hill
flourishing on a green stage
reminding

fifty miles farther
into the Virginias, three crosses
like three birds on a branch
gazing down, singing

thirty miles towards Ohio, three crosses
like three grace notes
in the symphony of sheltering trees
calling

a small white wooden cross
plastic flowers, a name and a date
steps from the highway
buckle up

a palm frond cross
hangs from the mirror
my hand floats to my throat, a silver cross
saving me from myself

Happy Birthday Dad

Tomorrow is my dad's 85th birthday. My dad is the kind of dad that makes all those birthday card verses true. I can't imagine having a more loving, kind and great man for a dad. My dad was the kind of dad that got in the kiddie pool with us and let us pour water on his head. He took us on vacations all over the country and, even after spending many hours in the car with three kids, he'd go miles out of his way to find a motel with a pool and a diving board. All my friends loved my dad. He makes everyone laugh. He finds humor in almost everything. We'd play practical jokes on him all the time because we knew he' d laugh and never get mad. (Like when we wrapped 68 golf tees individually for his birthday - hey, we were kids.) I could write the longest blog post in history about what a wonderful man he is and has always been, but you get the picture.

The school building I work in is one that my father went to as a child. The first day I walked into the building 14 years ago I saw an old photo on the wall of the office. I pointed and said - that's my dad! It was a photo of him sitting in the front row of his class. The secretary at the time said - oh, that's nice - and who are you? Anyway, the photo is still there. Dad is in the right front seat. Roxboro Elementary School is now 88 years old. Sometimes I'm walking down the halls of Roxboro and I try to imagine him walking the same halls all those years ago.

Happy Birthday, Dad. You're always with me.

My Book Shelf

Okay, sorry about the weird poem yesterday. I just love words and I collect them on a regular basis. I have notepads and notebooks full of words. The Merriam-Webster Word of the Day is something you can get emailed to you daily. Mostly they are words that are unusable because no one knows what they mean, so I wrote a poem with them, just to make them worthwhile. To be honest, I can't remember what half of them mean now.

I love words and books. Check out my Shelfari book shelf on this blog. I'm going to try to keep it fresh. I've put on some old favorites and some books I've recently read. If you have any good books to recommend please let me know. If you put the cursor on the book you can get my very brief but insightful little review. Happy reading!

Merriam Webster's Word-of-the-Day Poem

I will not use a weasel word or truckle to common phrases.
It is untenable to think of the miasma
of grandiloquence in the English language.
A plenitude of fungible, sometimes jerkwater words.

Do you find me erudite? Supercilious? Or just soporific?
Please do not besmirch me,
but be lenitive with my poem of folderol.
I hope this does not rankle you or cause williwaw.
I am only displaying a protean deliquesce.

You scaramouch you! Do not jape at me
or extirpate my nomenclature!
I am only attempting to be apodictic, can't you see that?
Alas, I am a gadfly, a bodacious, syncategorematic kith,
an infranglible, toady poet who enjoys a languer of language.

Do not view this as an opprobrium, but a benison.
I have only salubrious intentions and do not mean to rankle
or appear intranspicious. I am, after all, sagacious.

This and That

Yesterday there was a very strange and unfamiliar light in the sky around Cleveland. It was eerie (not Erie). It seemed like something we remembered from long ago. At some point on the way to work I remembered - it was the sun. God gave us a Valentine. It showed up again this afternoon. Wow! Maybe we can still believe in spring.

Regarding my pain and whining - I went to a rhematologist. She gave me a long and deep injection of cortisone in each hip. I have had the shots once before so this is a last ditch effort - but I feel very hopeful. The last two days I have been hobbling around like the Tim Conway character on Carol Burnett - going oh so slow from the injection stiffness and soreness. But I'm so happy because it is a different kind of pain. I have a feeling some praying has been going on out there. Thank you.

Okay, be forewarned - a little rant is coming:

I despise the way actors and musicians are constantly awarding themselves for something they already get fame and money from. The myriad of award shows is laughable. That being said - sometimes I watch them for the fashion show and if it's the Grammy's I'm hoping to actually see a talented musician chosen to perform. This year's Grammy show did have two highlights for me. One was Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue - one of my favorite pieces of music ever - total class. The other was when Vince Gill accepted his award. A few awards ahead of him Kanye West got a Grammy. He got up and said something to the effect of - I deserve this because I'm the greatest artist there is. He went on and on in the same vein - and then when the music began to play he said it would be in bad taste for THEM to interrupt him. It was truly revolting.

So then Ringo Starr gives Vince Gill his Grammy. Vince says "Wow - I just got an award from a Beatle!" Then he smiled sweetly - looked out in the audience to Kanye and said, "Kanye , has that happened to you yet?" It was a great moment.

Love

Words from The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck:

Genuine love not only respects the individuality of the other but actually seeks to cultivate it, even at the risk of separation or loss. The ultimate goal of life remains the spiritual growth of the individual, the solitary journey to peaks that can only be climbed alone. Significant journeys cannot be accomplished without the nurture provided by a successful marriage or a successful society. Marriage and society exist for the basic purpose of nurturing such individual journeys.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

and let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but not eat from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let

each one of you be alone, even as the strings of a lute

are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together yet not too near together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

Khalil Gibran

A Beautiful Moment, A Beautiful Family

I have an amazing and loving extended family - a whole slew of first and second cousins, most were originally from Pennsylvania and now spread out all over many states. Our parents were siblings and all of that generation is gone except for my mom and dad and my Uncle Dick. This weekend we all went to PA to celebrate his 90th birthday. Uncle Dick has Alzheimer's and is in a lovely assisted living center.

On this particular day he sat quietly at a card table and did not seem to notice the din of voices around him until someone would enter his viewing range. Then he would smile and say he was glad to see you. My cousin says "he knows we belong to him ."

My Uncle Dick has always been one of the happiest, most positive people I've ever known. He raised six children and entertained us all with music - from the piano, to the trumpet, to enthusiastic singing. One of our favorite memories as children was spending New Year's Eve at our cousin's house and hearing Uncle Dick play Auld Lang Syne on the trumpet on the front porch at midnight. The neighbors would all come out to hear it.

The party was lively and noisy as all of us cousins, our families, and some of Dick's friends enjoyed conversing around him. At certain moments during the afternoon I would watch my cousins lovingly care for his needs and attend to him with such dignity and grace.

In the midst of loud conversations and laughter two voices broke through. A man was kneeling next to my uncle with his arm around him. They were singing "I've Been Working on the Railroad" in perfect two-part harmony. Everyone stopped in silence until the long (many versed) song was through. My cousin told me that's the only song he remembers all the way through. It was a beautiful moment.

Later I thought about the man kneeling next to my uncle and the sensitivity and respect he had displayed by reaching into my uncle's memory in the best possible way. It was an act of love I hope never to forget.

SNOW DAY!

Oh, the glorious phone call came last night. Earlier in the day I'd said to my husband, "We should really have a snow day tomorrow. "

He laughed in his I'm trying not to show how jealous I am that I didn't become a teacher laugh.

I said,"No really, I'm only thinking of the children - it's too cold!" More laughter - yeah right.

Early evening last night he shoved the phone at me frowning - "It's the superintendent." As I hung up the phone I did my happy dance.

There's very little snow here, but a whole lotta cold. Below zero wind chill. Too cold for the children. Really.

Whining and Pain

Today I am wondering why God made our bodies so complicated and fragile. I am not at church right now because I have a mysterious eye problem. My eyes are swollen and red and itchy for the third day. I look even older and more haggard than usual. I went to a family event yesterday and saw cousins I see only once a year. I wanted to say to everyone - I usually don't have these ginormous bags under my eyes ! But I didn't say anything.

I'm in a lot of leg-hip pain this week (and have been for the past year) My doctor had given me cortisone shots and they didn't work. He said - there's no room for pride in medicine, and I'm just going to tell you I don't know what's wrong. He's sending me to a rhematologist. I thanked him for his honesty. It was refreshing not have another useless perscription thrown at me. I will keep this doctor.

A few years ago I had back pain that continued to worsen. I was given a number of drugs and I tried rest and home remedies with no relief. I finally went to a physical therapist. He sat me on a table, had me stretch my legs out in front of me and asked me to look at them. One was shorter than the other! He leaned me back, put his arms around my body and yanked. Presto! He'd put my dislocated pelvis back where it belonged. Most of the pain was gone immediately. The doctor I had been seeking help from at the time had never even touched me or looked at me - just given me perscriptions that never would have put my pelvis back in place. Why? How hard could that have been? I struggled unnecessarily for months.

I haven't been able to do my yoga or put in my 1-2 miles of walking a day for almost 4 months and I feel like I'm in the wrong body. I'm somewhat depressed and completely lacking energy, and yet I know I have so much to be thankful for. I know that others are in much more pain and suffering than I am. It's a spiritual struggle every day between being thankful because I can carry on, I can walk (it just hurts) and having a pity party for myself because I can't do everythingI want to do right now.

I'm supposed to believe in miracles and that God can do anything, but I know He won't zap me with healing for my myriad of ailments (there are a few more). That's not the way He works. I live in the real world and in a human, fallible, vulnerable body. He'll help me get through the day, maybe guide me to the right physicians, teach me tolerance and compassion for those that suffer more than me. Maybe I'll learn to stop feeling sorry for myself or something else good will come of it. I don't know. Maybe somewhere in the blogosphere someone will read this and know the answer and we'll become life-long friends. Thanks for reading.

Oh, to be in Kindergarten

The other day I got to be the visiting author in the kindergarten class at the school where I work. It was definitely the highlight of my day. I am used to the jaded attitudes of evil and hormonal fifth graders. Their teacher, my friend Lynne, instructed them only to ask questions and not make comments (or tell long 6 year-old stories).They had obviously been well-trained in this - but you could just see their little mouths poised to tell you what was on their minds. I showed them my book Flying Over Midnight, and they really liked the pretty cover. I told them that my Mom painted it and they had lots of questions about that. One little boy asked what she used to paint it and I told him it was watercolors. He said very knowingly, "I thought it was watercolors."

I got reprimanded by another when I didn't use his name to call on him "I told you my name is Loki!" (Sorr-ry!)

Then the question I was afraid of - what is your book about? We-e-e-l-l-l - it's a grown-up book about a woman who is a mom and she plays the piano. Luckily that threw them off track and all of a sudden I heard from everyone who played the piano or knew someone who played the piano. Whew!

Then I got questions like - how did you make the words? How did I make the words? You mean how did I think of them? I used my imagination. No, how did you make them? You mean did I type them on a computer? No! I thought you would use a pen! Oh.

After we discussed using our imaginations and how writers have to practice, practice, practice, and how even grown-ups make mistakes and have to fix them - their teacher asked me if I could talk about editing. (In kindergarten???) Yes, because the kindergarteners are learning how to EDIT their work! Then I got to see some of their writing and I promised to come back and make comments on any future work they wanted to show me.

At the end of our session Lynne asked me to tell them my dog-got-sprayed-by-a-skunk-story from earlier in the week. And even though they weren't allowed to tell me stories - right at the end a little boy scooted up to me and whispered all in one breath I had a dog and he ate some paint off the chair and we took him to the doctor and he died and then he went to dog heaven.

Amen.

Some Days . . .

Here's more good stuff from Anne Lamott - to some of my friends out there in the blogosphere who are struggling with life today -

I don't know why God won't just spritz away our hardships and frustration. I don't know why the most we can hope for on some days is to end up a little less crazy than before, less down on ourselves. I don't know why we have to become so vulnerable before we can connect with God and even sometimes with ourselves. . . . .I guess we're not supposed to understand some things. Bono, of U2, who is a Christian, says that his favorite song is "Amazing Grace" and his second favorite song is "Help Me Make It Through the Night" - and most of the time I have to let it go at that.

Pee-Eeww!

Why am I posting on my blog at 1:00 in the afternoon? I went to work today but I had to come back home at lunchtime because I smelled so bad! Let me explain - I did take a shower and put on deoderant and everything - but just as I was about to leave for work I let my little dog Stella in the house from potty-time and she'd been sprayed by a skunk! Her first time. I shoved her back outside, but too late - the house was fogged with the fragrance of Pepe Le Peuw. I tried washing her out on the deck - in the middle of a thunderstorm (one of the few things I'm afraid of). It seemed like she only got it in the nose, so I lathered her up with vinegar and water,(tomato juice seemed too messy for my rush) stripped off my clothes and started the wash, got dressed again and got to work only 30 minutes late. I thought I'd really pulled it off until I realized that I stunk! My hair and my hands in particular. I tried to make the best of it, but my friend Kim said she could smell it just walking past my room. My students kept putting their sweatshirts over their noses all morning - so I decided to end the torture. In hopes of a miracle cure I perused the Internet and read that your nose experiences "olfactory fatigue" and you cannot smell it yourself after a little while. (I could smell it but it was a lot worse than I thought.) Maybe that's why you can't smell your own bad breath. The vinegar helped my skin, but I think Stella's in for a few more baths.

Rantings of a Public School Teacher

Sometimes being an educator is like being on a ferris wheel - you take off all buckled in - you think it's going to be fun - you keep going around in circles - and you end up where you started. Culture, society and families keep changing with every circumference of the circle you travel, but some traits of children remain the same. They need structure, discipline, caring adults, role models, high expectations, encouragement, love etc.

Then again, some things have changed about children. School-age kids in 2008 (most,not all)have grown up being constantly entertained and are used to immediate gratification. They have participated in sports where everyone is a winner. They have been rewarded for doing homework and learning.

How does this translate in school? : Children who want to be entertained all day, be rewarded for doing their work and who don't have the tools necessary to deal with disappointment.

Then there are video games. Excessive violence in games + domestic violence = children who learn to react violently to everything.

Some five year-olds now come to school without knowing colors, shapes, letters or numbers, and yet the bar has been raised on kindergarten. The state says children should be able to read and do basic math before first grade!

So who teaches these kids how to take turns, how to wait in line without pushing and cutting, how to follow directions and complete work without a reward? Who teaches them manners and basic information? Who teaches them that fighting is not an option and that in real life sometimes you lose the game? TEACHERS.

If you are reading this then I am certain you are a parent who instills all those values and disciplines in your children. But be aware that your child's teacher has to spend a great amount of time teaching all that, plus refereeing and motivating children who haven't had the benefit of your kind of parenting. Whew! I'm exhausted!

Gifts

I already posted today but I want to add something. Last night we had a wonderful family birthday party for my son and me. Our birthdays are two days apart (so poor Ryan has had to share every one of his birthdays with his mom) My daughter sent packages from New York for us. Her gifts were so thoughtful. For Ryan - a blanket with a Welsh dragon symbol (the Welsh flag?) Ryan identifies with being Welsh on his dad's side and races Dragon sailboats. Kate sent me a lilac candle - it's my favorite fragrance - a beautifully bound notebook -for my writing obviously - a lovely artistic glass plate (for the artist in me). Also, the white tights I've been searching for! We were able to share the evening with her through a web cam. Such an amazing invention! My parents were in total amazement that we were talking to and seeing Kate! But that was because of another incredibly thoughtful gift from my sister, Janie. At Christmas she had my name and when I opened the gift there were two web cams - one for me and one for Kate.
My brother and sister-in-law gave me a book by Amy Grant because they know I am big fan. My mom and dad gave me a tea pot and warmer. I am a tea addict and it is already sitting on a table next to me as I write today. Ryan and his girlfriend gave me a gift card to a spa (who can't use a massage?)My husband gave me a fantastic, romantic dinner out this week and a great carrying case for my lap top (which was my Christmas present and I LOVE it.)We always say it's the thought that counts - and it is. I could buy myself any of these things, but I wouldn't. All of these gifts were thoughtful and given with great love and I am so blessed that all of these people are in my life. Thanks, family.

Misty Watercolor Memories

What are the images held deeply and eternally in your mind? Which are true memories and which are memories from photographs? Sometimes I fear that much of what I remember comes from the split second someone held a small machine up - its eye to their eye - and let the shutter open on that moment in time. What about the rest of time when no one did that? What remains?

Which memories are real and true and which are changed with time? Or does it matter? My father is 85 years old and he tells stories of his youth with such clarity, his face filled with the emotion of that moment. He's feeling the impact again - 50, 60, 70 years later.

Memories are attached to emotions. How did it feel to wake up on Christmas morning as a child? (How did it feel when your mother said - it's 5 am - go back to bed!) How did it feel as the front tire of your first two-wheel bike hit a bump and you lost control, or to kiss the person you would marry for the first time, or to see a beloved grandparent in a casket? How did it feel to unwrap the blanket on your newborn child and try to comprehend that you had any part in creating a miracle?

We remember these moments because we remember how they felt, good or bad. It's, of course, all relative, good and bad. You can't have one without the other. I don't live in the past or dwell on regrets (much) but sometimes I allow myself to recall emotionally devastating moments in my life, and I recognize how far I've come and what I learned from those experiences.

The only thing I fear is not remembering my children's childhood and youth. It went so fast. Sometimes they recall things that I don't and we can share that. When they were small I didn't have much money, and film and developing were not always in the budget. A video camera was out of the question. But when I start wishing things had been different - I remember - I have THEM. My amazing son and daughter. That's what matters now. I still have them and we're still making memories.

A Faith Worth Believing

These are some excerpts from a book called A Faith Worth Believing by Frank Stella.

The opposite of faith is not doubt, but control. I seek always to be in control of life. I do whatever I can whenever I can to assure predictability. To live with faith involves dying to the self that wants to run the show. Faith asks me to trust that all that occurs in life, no matter how random, how unjust, how hurtful, how disastrous, is not without purpose. Everything is something that, if entered into with an open mind and heart, can mold and shape us into stronger, wiser, holier, more compassionate people. When I live with faith, I move through life with gracefulness, not resistant to, but accepting of what is. This does not imply acquiescence to what might be harmful to myself or others, but requires the willingness to acknowledge the reality of evil, to engage its existence, and to do what I can to lessen the impact.

**********************************

Hope does not involve either the denial of evil or its glorification; it involves a kind of sacred insanity that is willing to affirm that there is meaning in the madness.

Happy Birthday to Me!

At 6:40 am I was stepping out of the shower and my husband knocked on the door and said he'd been out at the local Panera to get me my favorite cinnamon roll - but there were fierce winds all night and the power was out there. I thought that worked out perfectly - I got the gift without the calories. Thanks, Babe.

In the Midst of Grace

In an unfathomable universe
I move in free will
Yet constrained in the journey
On the path to heaven

The iniquity I'm drawn to
Fades to prisms of merciful light
Iridescent in His presence
I am loved and forgiven

Awash in complacency
Mired in errors of omission
Transgressions are planted
In my fallow human heart

When I wake up with wings
And pure love is revealed
I revel in the divine truth
That I dwell in the midst of grace

Quote of the Day

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not. But remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for. Epicurus (341-270 BC)

Mozart's Birthday

Today is the birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, only three days before my own birthday. I feel a bond with Wolfgang because I had one of the greatest moments of my life because of him. In 2003 I was extremely fortunate to travel to Europe with a choir. My solo in the concerts was Laudate Dominum by Mozart. That by itself was wonderful, but I actually got to sing it in Mozart's church - the Salzburg Dom. The beauty of Salzburg was breathtaking and it had been my dream to go there ever since I was ten and fell in love with The Sound of Music and everything to do with it. I stood in places that Julie Andrews had stood!!!

I do not have a strong voice but I will never forget the moment of singing Mozart in Mozart's church, gazing up at his organ, my voice filling the beautiful cathedral without effort. A once in a lifetime moment.

So today I honor Mozart on his birthday. He'd be 252 years old now. He said,"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer - say traveling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep - it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best, and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not, nor can I force them."

The Dome of Salzburg Cathedral

A white city, a floweret in green hills

and mountainous sheets of rock,

a fortress of turrets and spires guarding

from above, the dome of a cathedral, survivor

of aerial bombings, conspires to heaven.

Inside I tremble before the silent divine.

Mozart's organ, in a tailored balcony

stares at me from its place in the beauty.

The voluptuous sound of music streams

through the communion peace.

Awe resurrects the spirits and I,

insignificant under the immensity of a dome

hovering with angels and saints, open my mouth

and Laudate Dominum comes, saturating a space

too vast for one voice to be heard, but it is.

Mozart's song in Mozart's church.

Nameless and tranquil I rise

into the dome to survey a

frozen moment in my earth-life,

an offering of the Almighty.

Fractions of Life

Sometimes it seems like it is not getting any easier - the (mental) institution of marriage, that is. We have absolutely nothing in common. We do not enjoy or find meaning in any of the same things. Our sole commonality is the desire to be together - so we keep talking and planning and praying and dreaming.

He is the numerator and I am the denominator and we mean something completely different when you put us together. He witnesses my inner madwoman and loves me still.

He doesn't hear the lyrics of a song, but my brain immediately zeros in on the words.

On the way home today the CD played a song with the simple refrain -

You, you have been loved by someone good.

That, I know for sure.
That, I have never doubted.
That, is more than anyone should ask for in this lifetime and more than I deserve.

What's So Bad About Sex and Violins?

by Elas Giordano

I like Sex and Violins.

I admit the music's slow
and a lot of people will get impatient...
but then, it's not a race, anyway.

OK, people do get hurt this way,
just like everybody says,
but not if your bedroom's big enough
for the musicians to stand back a little.

That way, nobody
ever gets a violin up the nose,
even if things do get out of hand,
or even if the violinist does.

I think a lot of the over-reaction to Sex and Violins
comes from a time when
noblemen blindfolded musicians
before they played - and a lot of people
were maimed.

Besides, I can't wait to get home
from a concert now.

Being Human

I have a long list of personal aberrations. Most are livable but annoying. Yet, one experience in disease changed me forever. I do not have it now, but I live with knowledge that my mind and body are capable of it. During a brief but significant period of my life I experienced clinical depression. Not a mild bout of the blues, but a descent into a black pit so deep that hope was a distant memory and I had no idea how to begin to start crawling out. There were months when fantasy and reality were almost indistinguishable, and the sole reason for opening my eyes in the morning was my two children.

Living in the world and not feeling anything is like being dead - except you're not. You are still in the world with people who love you, who have expectations of you, people who care but don't understand, and people who don't care and tell you to snap out of it. But you can't snap out of it any more than you can snap out of the flu or the chicken pox.

It was the worst thing and the best thing that ever happened to me. It changed me for the better. I journeyed out of the darkness to feel more human than I'd ever felt before. I knew myself better and it gave me a permanent ability to empathize with other human being's struggles.

I felt stronger as a woman knowing that, even with professional help and medication, I still had to create the will to live from deep inside me. I was still the one that gathered the massive determination it took to fully heal. I will always regret my children seeing me at my weakest, but I am also aware that they saw me get better and carry on in a new life. When crisis visits their lives, as it surely will someday, I hope they will remember and understand that there is always healing and hope.

Going Solo

I'm a church singer. I've spent my life singing in choirs, church musicals, weddings, funerals and strumming a guitar around (church-related) campfires. I sang a solo in church this morning. The number of times I've stood alone in front of people to sing could possibly be in the hundreds. Yet, every time I'm given that opportunity I go through about a week of emotional agony and intense self-doubt. Preparing and performing expends a huge amount of emotional and mental energy for me. That's the difference between a church singer and a professional singer.

I have a very limited range and ability. My voice is best suited for Mozart or Puccini, so if I'm at a party and there's a piano nearby I can't just belt out any old song - unless the party has a classical music theme or you enjoy singing along in Latin.

Even stranger than my limited repertoire is the fact that I can ONLY sing in church. I've tried singing at parties, bars and even at the school I work at - and I can't do it! I choke miserably and make a total fool of myself. I get the message and I'm fine with being a church singer. But I still find myself - well - I hate to even put this in writing - I find myself giving God ultimatums. Like - if my voice lets me down, if I screw up this time, well, I may never sing a solo again! I can just see God feigning to play a tiny violin with His fingers and holding back the tears.

Actually, I firmly believe that He desires and requires all of us to use what He's given us - big or small. So anyway, today, I sing my solo. All goes well. Thank you. Next the choir is up for the anthem. I am front and center. In the middle of the anthem I must have tilted my folder a little too far forward and suddenly all the music and papers fall out onto the floor in front of me. At least I made the congregation smile. Don't take yourself so seriously Diane.

Quotes of the Day

My mind is my main problem almost all the time. I wish I could leave it in the fridge when I go out, but it likes to come with me. I have tried to get it a nice hobby like macrame, but it prefers to think about things, and jot down what annoys it. Anne Lamott

Writing is easy. You only need to stare at a piece of paper until your forehead bleeds.
Douglas Adams

Aberration

I am a Cubist Picasso.
A superball whizz-banging around the room
bruising myself,

about to blow into something
not yet experienced
and spawn a full-blown regret.

I am a dart streaking from the dart gun,
a boomerang that never comes back,
a harum-scarum nomad from a tribe all my own,

an amoeba changing shape moving helter-skelter.
When peeved I will give you a blow-by-blow
description of the tumbleweeds in my brain.

Compartmentalize me and I may explode into a mushroom cloud.
I am a kernal the split second
before it pops into white light.

(This is one of my favorite poems I've ever written.)

"Timely" Quote

It is better to know where you are going than to get there quickly. Mabel Newcomber

Get Outta my Way!

I don't know why but I've always been in a hurry - my whole life. I used to blame it on being a mom, but my kids aren't around for me to hurry home to anymore, now are they? I think about it two ways: One, I get a lot of stuff done because I hate wasting time. I'm always done with my work at the crack of 3:45 (the contractual moment we can leave the building). I hurry and get all my weekly chores out of the way on Saturday morning so I can have the rest of the weekend to obsess about this blog. (At one point in my life I had to learn to be okay with forcing myself to waste a little time now and then.)

The second way I look at it is I get a lot of speeding tickets - which is bad. A relative is a cop and he generously hands out FOP cards at Christmas once in a while. I could probably win the World Record for being in possession of that thing the least amount of time. Last year it was a few weeks. This year I had it 13 days before I saw a cop coming the other way then screech his tires to make a U turn so he could follow me until my heart almost burst out of my chest. Then finally the blue lights came on. I pulled over. What the hell do they do in their car for the next 15 minutes while you are sitting there trying not to totally freak? I mean, it's just a ticket, so why do I react as though he were going to jump out his car and start beating me senseless with a billy club?

It gave me time to come up with a plan though. First, I put my seat belt on. Then I retrieved my license, my FOP card and my insurance card. When he walked up to the window I splayed them out like playing cards, with the magic card in the middle. He took them, looked, and said, "OK just slow down."

And he gave the card back to me! So technically I can use it again, but here's the thing - I think my New Year's resolution should be: Driver Slower Dummy!

PS An FOP card is a courtesy card from the Fraternal Order of Police. I guess it's uncool not to honor it among policemen - thank goodness for me!

The Scarecrow

"What will you do when Dorothy has left us?"

"I will return to the Emerald City," he replied, "for Oz has made me its ruler and the people like me. The only thing that worries me is how to cross the hill of the Hammer-Heads."

"By means of the Golden Cap I shall command the winged monkeys to carry you to the gates of the Emerald City," said Glinda, "for it would be a shame to deprive the people of so wonderful a ruler."

"Am I really wonderful?" asked the Scarecrow.

"You are unusual,"replied Glinda.

I have a statistic counter so I know how many of you out there read BLUE yesterday - and no one got the gimmick??? Come on. Try again. I'm waiting . . .

Blue

Blue is what she remembered about that day. The periwinkle sky and the way it melded into his eyes. They wrapped the Navajo blanket around them in the April chill. A blue jay cawed in the skeleton of the bare branches above. He laid her down on the blanket and she watched as his finger traced the crooked path of veins across her breasts.

She sighed and turned her head towards the violets peeking out of the dead leaves, and reached for the lapis lazuli necklace that had slid behind her head. Out of the blue a US Navy flight team demonstrated their precision in the azure beyond the silhouette of his head. After the roar of the jets dissipated she could hear Lee Ann Rimes singing on the car radio.

"That song is so sad, depressing really. Sometimes the music comes from only the dark notes, you know." She reached for her navy sweater and brushed off her jeans.

"You're not paying attention to me." He grabbed her and pulled her up off the blanket, leaving a bruise on her arm. "What can I expect from a working class girl like you?"

"If you touch me again I will call the police. If you hurt me I will call the hospital and tell them it's an emergency."

On the way home she gazed at the sapphire ring he'd given her long ago, but all she felt was blue.

If you get it send me a comment (it's not rocket science). The magic number is 20.

Now that some time has gone by - if anyone is interested - there are 20 references to the color blue in the story. Nothing profound - you didn't have to be so afraid of guessing.

Ode to Writers

Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. Anne Lamott

I imagine God looking down with his big brown eyes
filtering from his view all but the writers.
Those millions he blessed/cursed with the drive
the compelling wordneed - through the eras and ages.


God noted the spark of hope in every writer
that someone would read the words
in their singular arrangements
and behold the brilliance of the brain.

Even now we are holding pens
we are clawing at paper napkins
we are stuffing our pockets, speaking into recorders
clacking away at keyboards -

and we can't stop
and we can't stop

watching creation spew out of our minds
into our hands
splayed across the screen
something that didn't exist yesterday.

Come Back Snow!

New Year's Day morning - a trace of snow - by evening a towering 10-12" of white teetered on every surface - the deck railings, the picnic tables, the mailbox.

I've been hosting a New Year's Day party since I was a much-too-young bride many, many years ago. This year it was sunny and dry on New Year's Eve and sunny and cold on January 2. But January 1st provided a what-could-have-been snow day and a low turn-out at the party. TODAY is sunny and in the 60's and the snow is gone.

But I still say - Come Back Snow!

Loving winter, for me, has something to do with body image. I'm much more confortable in my long jeans, high-heeled boots and soft sweaters than in cellulite-revealing shorts and flabby upper-arm-baring t-shirts.

Winter's chill covers (some of) my flaws as the snow covers the flaws of our landscaping. It's just white and smooth (kind of how my skin should look).

I'm comforted by winter and the excuse to hibernate. I want to snuggle under a throw blanket with hubby on the love seat with a direct view of the snowy weighed-down branches of the evergreens out the front window.

Come Back Snow!