love that life is full of mirrors

So I have been swimming in frustration lately - so many places i see people shutting down - it seems like I will meet someone - find them incredibly interesting - and they will start a conversation - open a door that looks like it might lead to friendship - or something - and then just shut down - completely -

It happens over and over - in all venues and aspects of my life

and finally I was just so frustrated - I wondered what I was doing that kept people from feeling like they could let me in - What was wrong with me that people didnt want me to be a part of their world

and then it occurs to me - was it them? or was it me?

do I let people in? do I really open myself up? do I really let myself need people?

when is the last time I told someone I needed something?
when is the last time I let someone help me?
when is the last time I admitted that I can't do it all by myself?

I will tell you - that I rely on myself becuase i am the only person who has never let me down

but am i really serving myself by not allowing myself to ask for help?
am I just letting myself down?

If you know it, but you dont do it - then you dont know it

If you always do what you always did you always get what you always got

If I want something different in my life I have to be willing to risk living in a different way

shit

now I have to prove I know it

Hot Dog!

a new old addiction

So recently I have decided that I deserve to have more words in my life. I have been reading for as long as I can remember - I honestly don't remember not having books around.

I remember being bored with the books at school and trying to read my Dad's books, but being mysteries filled with sex and violence he encouraged me to find something different - and I spent the summer reading Agatha Christie. TONS of them.

I remember finding the Sweet Valley High Series and begging for books every week - watching my parents try to figure out how to slow down my consumption of books -because I did devour them.

And then for a long time I didnt read at all - almost like I was punishing myself - I do that from time to time

and I began reading a few years ago -but bubble gum mostly - left over detective novels from my Dad - things to fill and pass the time - nothing serious - nothing that i could get lost in - just soemthing to keep my mind busy

lately I am reading things different - and reading different things

I have been getting lost again - lost in the words - in the pictures they paint - the feelings - the people - the worlds

just lost

and I forgot what it was like to read like this

and I love it

who gets to define culture

Holy Cow!

Seriously - I almost became unglued - he said pro abortion - like there is anyone in this world who has ever had to face that decision who decided that abortion was a great solution - like there is a woman who has had to ponder that choice who chose it as easily as she chooses the coffee she buys at Starbucks or the kind of gum she wants

like it is heart wrenching to consider and even when you choose life - like your child doesn't look at you one day and ask if you thought about it - like if you choose an abortion you aren't haunted for the rest of your life - that you dont look at children and figure out how old that child would have been - i am so grateful that i haven't had to experience that myself - but I do know a few people who have - and do - they still live with that pain

and i live with the fact that i had to make the choice - i mean you have met Fele and Em - you know my choice - but do you know the nights i sat up and pondered that? the nights I sat there stroking a belly that didnt even show signs of pregnancy talking to a collection of cells and apologizing that I was even thinking of choosing my life over theirs

do you know what that does? but if I hadn't chosen this life - if I hadn't chosen those girls - if someone had told me that i had no choice in that decision - that the newly defined american culture dicated that I suck it up and raise these children - can you even imagine how angry I would be at them -because this life has been hard - how cheated I could have felt of felt like i was punished becuase the birth control wasn't effective in my case - oops guess that implant idea was not a good method - or because the condom broke - not because I wasnt careful - but becuase I was that 2%

and when I worked two and three jobs - and I went without to make sure they had - and when I stayed awake nights worrying about doing it all myself - and when I am overwhelmed and there is no one to say - hey Jenn - dont worry I got you on this one - and when the child support doesnt arrive like it is supposed to

if i hadn't been able to say - yeah - this sucks - but it was such the right choice - that this is hard, but they are so worth it - that I couldnt say - hey I am SO glad that I chose my girls.

One day my then 14 year old daughter was getting really upset over a pro-life rant that was happening on TV - my father looked at her and said- hey - your mother is pro-life - and aren't you lucky she is

my little girl looked him straight in the eye and said - nope - my Mom is pro-choice - and she knew that chosing her life is a very different thing than having to pay the price and accepting responsibility for an obligation becuase you made a mistake

that is another thing she knows - when she was little she asked if she was a mistake - and I told her that she (and her sister) were a surprise - she asked what the difference was - and I told her a mistake is something that you wouldn't repeat - a surprise is something that you didnt know you wanted until you got it.

that man sat at that table tonight running for the highest office in the land and said that we needed to change the american culture - like he had the answers for the "culture" of all the people who live in this land

and the sad thing is that attitude is so un-american - apparently he didnt watch his School House Rock


My grandmother came from Russia
A satchel on her knee,
My grandfather had his father's cap
He brought from Italy.
They'd heard about a country
Where life might let them win,
They paid the fare to America
And there they melted in.

are you singing yet?

seriously - it was just too much

can you hear ms murray

I sit quietly surrounded by the din of the alley
and watch the dance

It is a dance, repeated time and time again generation after generation.

these steps are new, but familiar
The beat has changed as new partners bring their own drummer to the party

the drummers struggle for a mutual beat

mambos follow waltzes
salsa blends with a fox trot
a little boot scoot boogie becomes a tango

the answer isn't in the ability to dance

the question is .....do they want to sustain it?

you again?

I get tired of the merry-go-round sometimes

and just when I am sure I can't deal with one more thing - I realize that if I would just learn the lesson I could get off the damned merry-go-round and play on the swings for a bit

If I would learn to recognize it before I took the bait I could have a different response - a different experience - but as long as I behave the same way with the same choices and the same concerns all wrapped up in the same fears I will forever be stuck on the merry-go-round

and once I see that the rest is easy

see the bait - ignore the bait - difuse the situation - leave thier shit on the table and own my own

and today it worked

so yea me

a late start

The cacophony of ring tones begins at 543 exactly

A quiet digital samba joined by a driving electronic rock beat
the duet playing out betweeen the blessings of snooze

My own quiet bell joins the frey and I crawl from my down-filled cocoon
Climbing over the piles of a teenage filing system
turning an ankle on a stack of clothes deceptively hiding last months Cosmo and Glamour

I make the gentle good morning noises that seem to be genetically encoded in my sleepy mind
cooing and clucking at my brood to start their day

I turn on lights
yank pillows
Ruffle blankets
tickle feet
poke bellies
stroke a sleepy head of long brown hair remembering how beautiful it was before the dye

they burrow deeper into their own cocoons
muttering about the evils of english teachers and the tortures of math tests

they are just stretching
just one more minuting
just grumbling and grousing


the hour has come
the bus will leave without you
it is a long walk


You should wake us up earlier, they tell me

630 is much to late to start

living forever, wildly in love and loved wildly

What a concept!

And it works - if you let it.

Just living in love every day - loving who you are and where you are

people respond to it - they can't help themselves - who wouldn't want to spend time with someone who chooses to be happy and live a life filled with love and respect?

I always wonder why I forget things like that...such simple things

and then I have these days that make me so sad - i mean just miserable sad - and the truth is that I forgot to be happy - I forgot to live my life like I love myself - and those around me were just picking up on it.....they couldnt help themselves - I mean if I don't want to be in my own skin - why would they want to be a part of it?

but today I remembered why I enjoy waking up in the morning. I remembered what it was about myself that makes me smile - and makes me laugh - and makes me love what I see in the mirror and hear on the phone - I remember that perfection is for someone else to worry about because where I am and what I am doing is absolutely perfect - and then once I remembered it I just believed it - and then I lived it

and it works

a new start

So, because I believe it is important to always do things that move life forward and to cut ties to things that tend to prevent personal growth - I killed my myspace profile. Long story......lots of reasons.....very important - but I lost my blog.

I loved having a place to just empty my head - a place to pour out the words that seem to bounce around like the ball in a game of pong. It is a beautiful thing, having a place to record those words. I watch the things that stop me - the things that bottle me up and prevent me from living clearly just disappear....the words start flowing...the ball starts banging around and hitting those blocks just making them disappear.

So I have started a new place - a new venue to poor out my words.

thanks for stopping by