Cooper Two and the Ghost Town Blues

“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.”

- John Muir

Peale, Pennsylvania

Corn::rows. Corn::rows. Corn::rows. Corn::rows. Picturesque view. Trees; rocks. Trees; rocks. Trees; rocks. Fields. Woods. Rolling hills. Picturesque view. 

There are a lot of great dirt roads to creep along on in my hometown vicinity. By that I don’t mean being a creeper in the creepy sense but rather a creeper in the Jeepy sense. Priscilla is my Jeep’s name, she’s a Patriot and she named herself. She’s been good to me so far, I try my best to be good to her. She’s white like a queen’s horse and basic like a bitch. She’s a 5-speed, she’s durable and she loves taking it slow. Dirt roads are the best, change my mind. There are quite a few to choose from around here. I usually do a Turkey Street scoot every day after getting the mail, a loop around Drain Lick perhaps. A short journey out to Sylvan Grove at times, there are some great trees out there. That’s all on Drifting side. There are several local haunts of interest for the slow traveler. When the boys fall asleep after I drop Celie off at school I just drive around back roads and let them sleep awhile lest I wake them up taking them inside. Sometimes I cut across Pearce Hollow. It’s cathartic and metaphoric, taking it slow. I get to gather my thoughts between the onslaught of noises and responsibilities that has become my life. I get “alone” time. Plus, I get one on one time. Me and Bob Dylan. Me and Tom Petty. Me and [Insert Artist Here]. Me and Podcasters. Me and the closest I can come to a near silence, filled only with the creaks of Priscilla’s bones and a slow, looped roll of rubber over dirt. Our din mimicking the antiquated sounds of a wobbly suspension on a carriage over dusty road, my white mare pulling me through the trees. There’s something wonderful about Jeep rides; not being covered in kids, listening to their cries or screams, a brief sliver of time without demands when they are restrained and harnessed and I am at the reins. I’m basically Aunt Bethany from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation: “I love riding in cars!” I like it when I’m driving, anyway. Or when someone I trust is behind the wheel, then it’s a good time. I’ve been on a few hell rides in my life, though. Luckily, I’ve been on some terrific treks as well.  

All of October I drove around taking in the foliage. Daily, I would witness these trees changing before my eyes. It seems to happen so slowly until one day you realize you are looking at the skeletal limbs and trunk of an empty tree you had just watched go through a brilliant display of transition. Full of leaves and color, a moving portrait and then bam—a few wind storms and some rain, a little drop in temperature, and they are gone. Lost forever, fallen to rot at the tree’s base, becoming nutrients for the next season’s show. It’s a cool thing to witness and I am glad to live where we get a good view of the seasonal changes but it can make you sad. It's kind of tragically heartbreaking. Imagine if you didn't know whether or not spring would come. Do you think the trees know their leaves will return? It's hard to keep in mind that the sun will swing back when it starts to move away and leaves us in darkness. The transition of fall into winter can be a hard symbol for that. The cold sets in and you can feel it in your bones.

I used to let my friend Leslie drive me around while I wrote. She’d take the wheel of my Dodge Caliber and we’d go on an adventure through the trees, into the woods, or sometimes elsewhere. She epically drove me all the way to Memphis, Tennessee for my 35th birthday. She also drove me down into Kato, once, and until then I had never been. Kato is a ghost town in her neck of the woods, accessed through Snow Shoe. It also happens to be where my paternal Pap hails from. It’s literally “a town that no longer exists”; it’s just roads through trees and some big rocks and a bridge, I believe. On August 29, 2013 Leslie and I drove to multiple locations as my daughter napped in the back seat, similar to what I do alone now with the boys napping in the back of the Jeep. I, with my trusted red-at-the-time Life Liver's Log spiral notebook in hand (to represent the Muladhara chakra, no less) wrote a song of sorts that day, still a fetus, each verse, a stop on our travels. As simple of a thing as that was, those were some of the best times I’ve had. All I ever really needed was a witness. Leslie came around a lot right at a time when I needed it the most. The years we spent together as friends will always be some of my fondest and even though they were some of my hardest, they were also some of my most "veil-lifting" times. I was writing a lot of odes and sonnets at the time. Manically writing; wound up as my base state, I could unwind and decompress on our car rides. The trees would help ground me. We were just two air signs looking for some earth. We could bullshit somewhat as well while I wrote because I am apt to and adept at dividing focus and Leslie was someone that I felt comfortable with and trusted because she was as equally forthcoming with me as I was with her. For some reason we spoke to each other, mirrored each other...understood each other? Leslie accepted me as me, whoever that was. She also put up with a shit ton of pressured speeches from me. I am grateful for her ability to witness me and for her tolerance of my soliloquies  and lectures which would take place in between the writing. She knew that I often spoke the truth so she took it even when it hurt. She was truly Rock Star about not just simply kicking my ass, though, because she could have, but she loved me and I loved her. Abrasion often rides shotgun with Truth. It polishes by rubbing and it’s often the wrong way. I was just trying to help her out, but the truth is I wasn’t always right. Sometimes I was just mad. She also once told me that I was self-centered. She wasn’t wrong; I was in the midst of an extended episode at the time. I tend to get grandiose. I also am highly distractible and can frustrate people if they need or want my undivided attention. I’ve used her comment for self-reflection ever since, because it hurt, as quipped truths often do. I have since apologized for my abrasive bluntness, or being a bitch, or what have you, and I am grateful that I did have that opportunity. She, in turn, has handed me a few hard, grinding truths as well. Leslie was a real gem, a Dusty Diamond, to be exact. She was a muse. She was a friend. We shared a true kinship. People like that are extremely rare and precious, like jewels in the junkyard of life. This I know to be true, especially when you have trust issues. Diamonds in the rough are a little dusty but shiny and priceless when given a polish. I considered her to be in my innermost circle of trust, which, at the time, only really included my husband. I told her things that I have told no other human or animal. I think it was a divine symbiosis, a mutual decompression. She, likewise, shared a lot of her secrets with me. Our companionship was just what each of us needed at the time. It was also one of the best gifts that she ever gave me and I am grateful for that. She made a real difference in my life. 

Heading back from the dust to the dirt, it’s a privilege to have so many dirt roads to take it slow and decompress on. Grassflat and Drifting are almost like sister villages, nestled on the mountaintop. I spent a bit of time there as a kid. My brother and I would ride with my father through Cooper Two to get there; it’s a dirt road that connects them named after the old Cooper Two coal mine. I’ve traveled this road many times in my youth but not as often as of late. These past months I’ve expanded the stretch of my local drives. I found Cooper Two surreally different because I always, for some reason, expect my childhood  ride home. That Cooper Two is long gone. So is that Grassflat and that Drifting for that matter. Last month during my foliage rides I moseyed out to Peale, which is connected to Grassflat but it also, in a haunting way, no longer exists. Oddly enough, Peale is the ghost town from my neck of the woods, like the mountaintop Kato. I hadn’t been down to Peale since April of this year, when I was still pregnant with Otis. People go to Peale for many reasons, mostly recreational now. The Red Mo race launches from there, of course. Four wheelers have access to Gorton through the tunnel and out to the Viaduct bridge through Peale. I used to ride out on 4 wheelers with my brother when we were kids looking for old bottles on the hillsides, pulling them out from underneath the layers of dead leaves and sediment like we were digging back in time. We found some pretty neat ones. People have camped, drove, rode, walked, and boated in Peale. Some people just come for the spirits, or in an attempt to lift or find theirs. Peale is almost a local Mecca, a local haunt for self-seeking and escape: holy ground. 

Peale, Pennsylvania was an old mining town founded in the late 1800s when the Beech Creek Railroad line was the main way into places. It once held near 2,500 people that relied on the coal mines or railroad for their bread and butter. It was owned by the coal company. After the town diminished with the active train line and mines, people slowly dispersed, some moving up into Grassflat. Several houses as well as a church are in Grassflat now that were from Peale. There were only two camps left in Peale when I was young and now there is only one, as well as a garage structure. One camp was burnt down years ago and it still makes me sickeningly sad. Only one real structure remains and the foundations of some things but you can walk out to look for the lone grave of Martha Renfrew, the only marked grave left in the Oakwood Cemetery. She was aged 14 years, 11 months by the inscription on her tombstone. This was all so fascinating as a kid. At some point, somebody put up a sign to mark the Oakwood Cemetery. I can remember this and it doesn’t seem that long ago but now the words on the sign have since been destroyed and nothing remains  aside from the side posts and a few small boards that a dark piece of fabric is tied to. The changes that this land has gone through during my lifetime alone are phenomenal. To think back farther to when it was a bustling hillside community of over 2,000 is about enough to blow your mind. 

Although not from the bustling Peale days, one structure has remained for at least my entire lifetime, and that’s the bridge, however it is really starting to show its age. Anyone local who’s anyone local has some memory of this bridge and probably that big crack in the side that seems so much bigger than I remember it being  every time I see it. But it’s a reminder that bridges will eventually crumble. Rebar protrudes from the cracking concrete, a strong skeleton that will only keep the bridge together so long. Time wears on everything; everything eventually turns to dust. I’d spent the past two months watching the leaves fall and transition, thinking of how many changes I have endured during my short lifetime alone and how many more await me. 

And so there I sat on the Peale bridge at the reins of Priscilla pondering the past with one too many ghosts riding shotgun. We try to reach back with our minds, like I dug with my brother into the dirt, excavating for any unbroken remnant to hold in our hands. Our shined up, dirt-plucked vessel can be a wonderful memento and it will even hold water but it’s place is in the past and therefore it’s a relic. 

Peale looks entirely different today than it did as a kid. The drive across Cooper Two is the same way. Entire hillsides are cleared. Peale Camp has burnt down. So many trees are gone. The landscape is drastically different and it hollows it out, making it seem less of a shelter but more of a marvel, because it opens up the hillsides to the expanse of trees and better shows the distance from here to there. You can get a glimpse of the forest through the trees now. It all seems so far away. Going to a ghost town is akin to visiting a graveyard.  Lost in time, a fog from long ago settles over your  mind. These hills used to be filled with homes, people, families...life. My gram’s sister lived in one of the last houses out here. Some were moved board by board to be reassembled in Grassflat. The church was moved. Peale was a once bustling country town set up with all the trappings of a city and is now a quiet place of refuge and recreation. The Red Moshannon has brought its race crowds, though, time has been unwinding here for decades, the mines still bleed into her beds and mark the creek with their rusted blood. Enjoy her splendor but don’t drink the water. 

The lines from the Day Song seem even more pertinent today, as well as my embryonic Dusty Diamond lines, in a ghostly way: "All alone with those inner demons...where's it hurtin' tonight girl?" In an attempt to understand the present we try to reach back into the past with our minds but the past will never come back to you. We remain haunted like these towns are by the specter of the past. But maybe it can be a friendly ghost? 

Verse 1:

I went to an old house sitting out in a field.

My body was shaking, my spirit was thrilled. 

Empty without the life that we bring.

Silent without the songs that we sing. 

Oh, but it’s still standing. 

And I think it always will. 

Verse 2:

I went to a town that no longer exists.

I give into whatever my spirit insists. 

Once upon a time, maybe we were trees.

Twin oaks, side by side, all in a dream.

Oh, but we’re still standing.

And I feel we always will. 

Verse 3: 

I went to a church that holds no services.

My spirit is pious, despite its perverseness. 

Echoes throughout with the sound of silence.

No evil, no anger, no hate, and no violence. 

Oh, and it’s still standing. 

And I believe it always will. 

Verse 4:

I went to the hilltop and gazed at the mountains. 

The clouds were rollin’ and my spirit was shoutin’. 

Open expanse of trees and sky; 

Will your memory never die? 

Oh, no, it’s still standing,

And I know it always will. 

CHORUS: 

On my way home I came to the crossroads,

I took a wrong turn into one of my episodes.

I got stuck in the mud, shed a little blood.

I’ve been having these visions for years,

Wiping tears through the forest of fears,

And I’m headin’ home the hard way. 

Make Hay While the Sun Shines

“Whan the sunne shinth make hay. Whiche is to say.

Take time whan time cometh, lest time steale away.”

 ~ John Heywood, 1546 AD

I fall down a lot of rabbit holes through my days. I have a highly distractable mind and I follow a lot of thoughts away from the party and into the woods. It can be a problem but I do explore ideas and concepts and learn a lot of new things because of it, so, all in a day. 

Recently, in exploring quotes and sayings about hay because of some photos I had taken, drawn to and interested in local hay bales because visually I think they are like giant fields of Shredded Wheat, I discovered this gem about making hay: Make hay while the sun shines. The saying apparently originally appears in John Haywood’s “A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the prouerbes in the Englishe tongue” dated 1546, although it is thought to have originated much earlier from Tudor farmers of Europe. The saying warns farmers to make their hay while the sun is shining. It is about taking advantage of an opportunity while the opportunity still presents itself. 

In Tudor England farmers didn’t have the technology that they have today to determine the weather. The best they had was “red sky at night” to help them decide. So, they had to get it whilst the getting was good, you could say. If they waited another day to make their hay they could risk it raining and ruining their harvest and the growing season would have all been for naught. This was a pretty big deal. That’s where this Proverb came in. While it was sunny and the conditions were good it was best to make the hay lest they lose the opportunity. They said this so often to remind themselves and others that it became a verbal chunk of wisdom you handed out and repeated, passing on the knowledge for posterity and, let’s face it back then, survival. Think of how important hay was back on Tudor farms when animals were relied on even moreso than they are now.  Getting your hay made was akin to getting your business done.

This saying struck me when I found it. I thought it was neat. As far as I could recollect I had never heard it before. I wondered why, after years and years of these hay bales. There are cornfields and fields of grasses galore where I’m from and I’m still here. I’ve been driving these roads since I was a kid, literally. I rode plenty a dirt road atop a cooler or in the back of a pickup. Suffice it to say I’ve seen a bale of hay or two. I remember my dad parking us on the side of the road to go out into a field and climbing up on one when I was young. Being placed on one, perhaps? Hay bales were huge as a kid, they’re fairly big to an adult but as a kid they are giant things. It felt like you were on the top of the world as a kid, sitting on a hay bale. Or at least like you were riding a horse or some other mythical creature made of grasses. It was fun and my dad knew how to have fun because he also followed ideas and thoughts away from the party and literally into the woods. He could be rather impulsive and curious; we never knew what we’d be doing. Sometimes we rode hay bales. 

Fields and fields of hay made by local farmers, we drive by it all the time. Shredded wheat, it resembles, I’ve often thought; if I were to make a diorama of a farm I think I would use Shredded Wheat as hay bales. Frosted Mini Wheats for winter scenes. Sometimes they wrap them in white plastic. This makes them look like fields of puffy marshmallows. Marshmallows would be great in a diorama too. I digress. 

I pondered this advice in my own life, for there are times that I have left my hay to rot in the field and wasted a perfectly fine harvest. Motherhood is teaching me to weed out what isn’t necessary and boil down what I need into a condensed stock of wants and wishes. I reckon that's a fancy way to say prioritize. Adding a third kid has lit yet another fire under my ass. If you want to be a breeder and a creative you need to learn to make your hay when the sun shines, get it while you can and move like you stole it. Conditions are never right for long. If you don’t move on something when the opportunity is there chances are you’re going to miss it. This sounds like a call to impulsiveness but it’s not. Much of life is about timing and yet it’s hard to tell when the time is right for anything. I am never going to have uninterrupted large chunks of time to write or create or do anything that restores me but I desperately need to do those things or I do not function properly, my soul begins to feel imprisoned. I need to take full advantage of opportunity, however elusive it may be, if I don’t want to lose myself in motherhood. This is a call to seize the opportunities that present themselves while the getting is good, whether that’s a job change, or a creative endeavor or simply getting anything done with 3 children in tow. It’s about getting your business done, finishing what you set out to do lest you not be able to finish it at all and sometimes just riding those hay bales.

A field of frosted mini-wheats this morning.

Laughing Through the Flames Together

Parenting is a lot of things. It’s an honor, it’s a blessing, it’s a privilege and it’s also a job. Parenthood can either be the most joyous time of your life or a living hell from which there is no escape. Honestly, even though we are encouraged and expected to “cherish every moment” the hard truth is that parenting is often both. Parenthood is the hardest job anyone will ever have...except for maybe that guy that gets his heart ripped out by Mola Ram and is lowered down into the firey pit on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. They aren’t without their similarities, anyway: High pressure. Sacrifice. Rip your heart out. In a cage descending into fire. Very hot. It burns!  

Okay, it’s not all that bad but it helps at times to keep things as light as possible and to not take it too seriously...even though you need to because you are single-handedly making choices that are in part forming your beloved children’s personalities that they will then be at the mercy of forever...and even though they will go forth with these personalities into the world either to make it or break it. Kiiind of totally a huge deal. But don’t worry. No pressure. “Kali maa shakti de!!” 

What could be harder than parenting? Single-parenting, obviously, would take about a thousand cakes on that one. But actually sometimes, albeit to a much lesser degree, it can also be co-parenting. Parenting is hard in general to wrap your will around but meeting another person on the same page who has their own preconceived notions of what parenting is or should be and staying on the same page when it comes to your beliefs on raising children and consistently standing by said beliefs in the face of distraction and frustration…two different heads of the same snarling beast and they both chew your face off. My husband and I can agree that this is often really shitty. Call a spade a spade. We both can also agree, however, that it is the best thing to ever happen to us so where do we meet in the middle of this? That’s the million dollar question. That’s also where the continual relationship work resides. It’s no laughing matter...except for when it is. 

This past weekend my husband and I were jokingly talking about our day, and he had an errand to run. I had the baby on the boob and the other two were being their loud and annoying selves because yes, kids are often loud and annoying no matter how many times you post their pictures on social media decreeing them your angels and your everything. I said, “You guys should go with your father,” giving him an eye and a Cheshire Cat beam. We knew I was mostly joking. His face visibly sunk in an exaggeration of protest because everyone knows it takes twice as long to do any errand with kids in tow, and he said, in a wailing womanly voice: “You haate me!” We laughed. Humor is often your saving grace. It’s also wonderful when our daughter chalks up everything that goes over her head to “adult comedy” as she calls it. We’re not entirely proud but this is where we find ourselves. Parents make jokes because you either laugh or you’ll cry. 

Later that day, after earlier having discussed how his truck has gotten him over 100,000 miles, he said how he had to go out to work on it for awhile. I teasingly accuse him: 

“You know, you’re truck hasn’t needed anything big but you SURE do work on it a lot? What are you sabotaging shit just to get out there and get away from us? ‘OOoh NOOOOoOOO my BRAKE line broke, I better get out there and FIX that today for sure!!’ Is that how it is? ...’Cause that’s what I’d be doing.”

Again, we laughed. Humor through parenthood is like saying that the knife wound in your side kinda looks like a face. It’s simultaneously both denial and complete and total acceptance. We started doing impressions of him taking out his brake lines and other truck parts because they really did go out recently and it does seem he is perpetually working on his truck during his brief time at home. It’s seemingly never ending; duties and projects drag on into a balmy eternity. Everything moves like chilled molasses because there is never enough time in a weekend. It’s funny because the poor guy is actually out there as I write this working on it again. This weekend it’s universal joints. Lucky bastard. It’s funny because it’s not funny. At least we have humor. 

I think if you can laugh together you have a lot to work with. If you can’t make each other laugh, then it’s going to be a hard road for you because it can get a tad rocky and you’re going to feel every bump and stone. If you’re laughing you kinda just roll over the top of some of them and it doesn’t seem like such a bumpy ride even if your shocks are shot. Who you have as a co-pilot traveling with you as your partner in crime on the road of parenthood matters a lot. It helps if you get along with your celly. Your partner ultimately helps to determine how bumpy the ride will be and even when you have a good one the struggle is still real. Parenthood is where relationships go to train for the UFC; it will either make your marriage stronger or take it down blow by blow. 

That poor bastard in the basket on Indiana Jones didn't survive the destructive flames in the pit. He evaporated. Kali needed her sacrifice. It all seems so gruesome. We can just say he represents your egoic parts that need to surrender to the sacrifice. In Hinduism, Kali is the goddess of death and destruction. In her earlier depictions she is often a crone with red eyes, holding weapons and severed heads, with black skin and protruding tongue, a real bad bitch. Westerners generally view her as evil because of her form and requirements of destruction and human sacrifice. But in her complexity, she is a dualistic goddess, in her later Kali Ma form she is also a symbol of Mother Nature, nurturing and benevolent. Kali is like the transformative power of tough love, your darkness transmuted. When we are breaking apart from circumstance and heading into darkness that is Kali, but when we are fitting the pieces back together and finding our light, that is also Mother Kali. From my understanding, that is. Maybe you can see where I’m heading with this metaphor. 

Dealing with the stresses of parenthood together exposes you to each other’s deepest wounds. If there is anything ugly in your core kids will pull that dark shit right out of you and cover it in glitter and boogers before shoving it directly and repeatedly into your frame of view. “Look! LOOK! Do you see this?!” Kids are Mola Ram invoking the power of Kali to tear into your chest and hold your still-beating heart in front of your face before sacrificing your ego in a pit of flames. In short: kids’ll fuck you up. You need a strong resolve to survive the destruction of the goddess Kali. It requires a tight connection, a sturdy bond to hold your relationship together in the fire as the flesh of your old selves is seared away in sacrifice. Parenthood is some serious shit. It burns a good bit but as with much of life, it helps to laugh. 

What Happened to July?

So I fucked over July like the rest of my life so far, letting it slip through my fingers, screaming the entire time while still looking the other way?  What’s wrong with me?  I just put too much on my plate; I’m like the guy at the buffet line with the salad and beans in his mashed potatoes, tiny spoons of multiple food dishes because he wants a taste of everything.  I need to get with it.  Or just start eating something? 

A lot has been going on and I NaBloPoMoed for half the month like a boss that embezzles money from their employees pensions, but I digress.

I need to take myself seriously, is what it is.  I could also use a comma and some change to that sentence.  I need to take myself, seriously, it is what it is.  There.  I just spit out the quickest forms of creations when I do anything anymore.  I wing it should be tattooed on my forehead.  It’s my motto as a mother, that is for certain!  I need practice with my writing, that is one of the points of my blog anyway, so I need to take this more seriously and use it for what it’s worth.  I need to blog it the hell up!  I have many things that I could blog about, but I’m sure I’ll just use my “wing it” attitude. I wing it with a lazy, self-sabotaging perfectionist's mind, that is.

I need to take more hobbies more seriously.  I read, I write, I paint, I draw, I graphic/web design, I photograph, I play guitar, I print, I scrapbook, I sew, I crochet, I dabble in candle and lotion making, etc.  I need to start tasting these dishes if I’m ever going to fill myself.  I need to find who I am, to let go and let it be without judgment.  Judgement.  I am the only thing holding me back from anything.  I am my worst critic; I’m such a bitch.

NaBloPoMo July 2012!!

At the beginning of the month I always think it is a good time to start something, mostly I suppose because there is always that feeling of “Oh, this month I’ll get my shit together!”.  It’s all a mirage, in the end, but it serves as a way for you to feel like Wonder Woman maybe for at least a few minutes.  Something has to motivate you in life.  A new beginning is always appealing.  “What the hell do I do now?” I say once I get going.  

I guess July's NaBloPoMo theme is Kids.  I don't have to stick to BlogHer's prompts or suggestions, but I have been neglecting my documentation as a mother.  It would be useful to focus a lot this month on Celie, especially being that she turns 2 next month!  Documentation is one of the reasons I do this stuff; again, I'm overly nostalgic.  I imagine someday I will love to look back at my blog, no matter how trivial the matter I am writing of.  

I am a mess.  I love to write and I practice whenever I can.  So I decided to participate in NaBloPoMo again.  July has just started and I think that it would be a good way to help me tend to my neglected blog.  Let’s face it, also, my blog is like my writing portfolio of sorts, and it’s also sort of my schooling.  How are we to become better writers if we don’t do the thing that we are attempting to do?  You need to write to get better at writing, so it doesn’t matter what it is---I’m going to write.  30 blogs in 30 days.  Maybe I’ll keep going then?  Maybe THIS time it will inspire me to CONTINUE.  Continuing has always been the problem.  First it’s gaining the momentum, then it’s continuing with forward movement.  Let’s see what ideas I can touch on this month, what alleys I can explore, what topics I can put my pointless twist on.  Let’s see what happens if I start writing again.  Let's see if getting back on my "therapy" wagon helps other aspects of my life.  Let's get our vent on.  Write on.  On, I go… 

'Not Giving a Fuck is Awesome!'

Monday, January 30, 2012
What new thing did you begin this past weekend?

What new thing?  I don’t think anything new.  I think it has been the same old same old, but maybe that’s entirely wrong.  The problem:  people care too much.  I am becoming more and more consumed with the “Who gives a fuck?” mentality.  Not in a self destructive way (mostly) but in an open attempt to regain something of myself I might have lost, because in the end, if you really believe we only have one life?  I mean…fuck it, right?  Who was it…Janis Joplin that said something like, “You’ve got to be true to yourself, because in the end your self is all you’ve got.”  I think somewhere down my road I haven’t been true to myself.  I think that’s why I’m tortured, unless I’m just destined to be forever tortured.  A tortured, tormented, twisted mind.  Yep.  That’s me, alright. 

Trudge trudge trudge.  I try to walk through quick sand but it brings me down.  I try to push my way past things, see the forest through the trees.  What new thing did I begin?  NOT CARING if I am crazy.  Actually, yes – sort of.  I’ve tried loosening my hold on caring.  Multiple epiphanies really get me off daily, but I had this one the one day…man.  It was a doozy.  And it was a long, hard one.  A light switch.  An acceptance.  A realization.

I might be crazy – but is that such a bad thing?  I’m trying to “cure” myself?  I’m trying to be “normal”? What is normal? Overrated people, trying to be different.  A group of people too scared to be themselves?  I’ve always been pressured to do this, because I think I was convinced it was wrong.  Oh, you know, everything, my way of thinking, acting, seeing, being.  But is it?  Wrong.  What is that even?  Can’t define it, can you?  Because it’s all subjective.  Life is subjective.  And life is unpredictable.  We try to make sense of things and have this little line we follow and a path and all this shit, but what is it in the end?  Monotony.  Droning monotony.  A droning monotony of an existence?   There’s my Miss Anthrope.   I’ve missed you. (self hug)  Why do I remember having thoughts about the monotony of life around the age of 12?  I mean, I thought kids were supposed to be happy go lucky and there I was concerned about the cold war and worrying that life was just a meaningless string of bullshit and lies.  I guess I’ve always been misanthropic.  I guess I’ve always been tortured.  I guess this is who I am? 

I was talking to my friend at the bar the other day and we were discussing life and its bittersweetness at one point.  Everything is like that, it seems; bitter and sweet, simultaneously.  And if you think about it, it really makes sense.  Yin and Yang.  Good and bad.  Positive and negative.  The whole of life is the good and the bad, the Yin and the Yang.  You can’t have the Bitter without the Sweet or the Sweet without the Bitter? 

I think most of man’s spiritual dilemma can be traced back to the fact that we struggle with control issues.  Our mind is programmed to create order out of chaos.  When you really get down to the heart of it, nothing in this world makes sense, so we seek it.  We seek things that make sense to us, that have some order.  But we want to control the order.  We can’t accept that maybe we don’t have control over everything?  It’s just that losing control is such a scary thing, isn’t it?  But recently I have come to terms with the fact that there are just simply some things we can not control.  I can control my actions and responses to things, but I can’t control these things in and unto themselves.  I can control my actions, I am told I can even control my thoughts maybe (let me know!)??, but I can’t control my emotions or my feelings.  (Or can I?)  I can only ride the waves.  I can only control the surf, control the direction of my effort.  You can’t change these waves, you can only ride them.    

I digress.  My point, if I had one, would be – I can’t be myself without accepting the crazy and riding the crazy wave.  I’m soul surfing some gnarly waves of psycho.  If my mind was given to me by whatever gave it to me, and I’m meant to give it to something – to give it back, to complete the circuit.  My soul is just trying to complete the circuit.  So I’ll just give in - and go with the flow.  And when you do that, what’s to be, they say will be.  Maybe we aren’t really in control anyway?  Who gives a fuck who is steering?  We’re just back seat driving off the cliff...

[This title was taken from the Jon Lajoie video "Not Giving a Fuck."  If you haven't seen that one, I highly suggest YTing it.]

Masked But Unanimous

Masks.  Everybody wears them, but do we all understand them?  Yes and no.  Let me explain.  I was pondering this tonight while rocking my little girl to sleep.  I suppose this is a theme that often resurfaces in my stream of thought, and it was a really good visual tonight.  My daughter hates going to sleep and sometimes the act of initiating it can be pretty difficult, although tonight she was reasonably tired.  Even though sleep wasn’t far away, she still put up her fight.  She pulls at herself fighting sleep.  She pulls at her hair; pulls at her face; pulls at her ears.  She actually pulls at her own face as if she is unaware that it belongs to her sometimes.  Like it’s not even a part of her, that face.  That’s not where she lies.  She lies within.  

I just thought that this was odd because it is a metaphor of sorts, a huge symbol.  Can it be both?  Sure.  We all have a mask, but we get lost in it and sometimes it is hard to tell where the mask ends and we begin.  But there are really multiple selves within this main Self we are striving to understand, aren’t there?  Many many many selves.  Or is it just one?  One Self.  One mask.  We really are all the same damn thing anyway, so if the point is “One Love” and all that rot, why is there such a split in the human psyche?  What’s my point again?  The mask.  

The mask is often viewed as separate of the Self, or authentic self, I guess.  But if all things are connected in the great things, then aren’t they really the same thing?  Our mask is really part of who we are.  It is included in the Self, because the Self encompasses all things.  Every part of us.  It’s the only place all of these pieces can come together and make sense; order in chaos.  

It’s not the fact that we have a mask.  It’s the fact that we fail to understand this mask.  The mask is in its creation an entity unto itself.  We become our masks and in a way our masks become us.  Only sometimes it is as though we are peering out through the eye holes and all the while we are completely unaware as to what the mask looks like to the people peering at our eyes beneath it. 

Unfinished Projections

Friday, January 27, 2012
How do you feel about unfinished projects?

Terrible. 

I Break in Routine

Obsession.  What is it?  Who knows, I’m too obsessed to look it up.   I’m having a moment so just bare with me. 

I know my mind is artsy fartsy and out there, but I’m just a normal person… I suppose my spirit is that of a writer though and that makes me a little looney sometimes.  I think too much.  I think all the time.  It doesn’t stop.  I think my husband can actually shut his mind of (half the time when I talk to him I wonder if that is what he has done! Ha.) But what a luxury, right?  Seriously!  Obsession!  Why is my mind such a baby that needs catered to with the correct stimulation?  

I am catering to my daughter on a daily basis, and I’m struggling to fulfill her daily wants and give her stimulation, while at the same time craving and wanting my own stimulation.  I have come to realize that it comes in multiple forms.  Right now I am obsessed with a break from routine, yet I continually fail to establish a routine for myself.  I’m still following the pattern.  It’s just nothing is precise.  There’s the understatement of the century.

Untitled: Something I Don't Remember Writing

In the kitchen they saw us kissing,

Our hair whirled ‘round our heads,

Like the wind was mingling with us,

And mixing our souls as we touched.

I laughed and you smiled at nothing.

I noted how often you spoke.

I missed your hands being around me.

I missed our hearts both beating broke. 

A nod of the head in your direction.

A frown smiling back at me still.

I mourn our times never aligned.

I burn for you and always will. 

[January 15, 2012]

Change, Confusion and Time

So, Change comes busting down my door recently with his buddy Confusion.

I’d been seeing him lately everywhere I go, but I thought it was an illusion.

They got me up against the wall; block my face with my hands.

They beat me bad, and then play nice, but they get me in the guts.

Man, it was fucking nuts.

Well, Change says, “Why don’t we go see what Time is doing?”

Confusion got a puzzled look on his face, like it would be an intrusion.

Time’s wasting away, sitting in the dark.

Looking for a light, searching for a spark.

Confusion trips through Time’s door, and he folds over on himself.

Shoulda watched where he was going, ol’ Time’s not in the greatest health.

“Shut the door!” Time says, dusting himself off.

“Rent’s due.  Chaos is coming, and he’ll be shittin’ rocks.” 

[February 7, 2011]

Unchecked Spelling

I ha da thought that I don't really get to post anything without editing it at least first in word or something so I thought that it would be a really interesting thing to try to type up a post without using SPELLCHECK.  

I was thinking abot how horrible my spelling had become and it's because I type too fast for my own good, I don't say that thinking I'm awesome, I just mean that I mess up tons for the amount that I type, but usually only a few words or something.  I thought that it would be interesting to see if I could write a post without using spell check for anythign.  I mean, there are going to be huge red lines all over this thing for me, but fuck it.  What do I care?  It's a blog.  This is an experiment.  Okay, I'm really not messing up as much I thought.  I am usually much better at this.  Maybe I need a subject. 

Here's a subject, I'm tied.  Tired I mean, I'm so ried. Tired.  Dammit!  I'm tried.  I'm tried. shit.  I'm tired.  Wow, didn't realize my fingers wnet the wrong way there?  This is hard typing relaly fast and not fixing things.  Okay, I'm going to try to go as fast as I can.  

I pledge allegienc eto the flat of the United States of America and to the republi for which it stands , one nation, under God, indiviisible with liverty and justice for all.   

There that one wasn't that good.  I guess the theory was a little better than the end result but I am also backspacing a bit.  Does that count?  Hey, it's not even registering the errors in red anymore?  What hapned?? Did it just get used to ti?  this is werid.  I am tiiiiiired.  I have to say that I lke my laptop, it is really cool, but it feels so different from my desktop.  I haven't even used my desk top that much since i got the LT, it must feel neglected all by itself in the dining room. 

Oh well, it was a nice theory.  Maybe if I just didn't backpsace, but it is seirously so hard not to because it is habit, shit, just did it again.  I would be messsing a lot more oup if I didn't backspace at all.  It would be hard to do this without any corrections at all.  I mean, you would make them eventually, but it's nice to make them as you go, too, especially if you are really anal or something. 

I pledge allegicale to the flag of the United States of America and to the repuclic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisibe with liberty and justic for all.  Ha!

Hm.  Pretty lam.e 

A Letter to Kenny Rogers

Dear Kenny Rogers,

Listen here, you drunk.  I think you’re kinda cool and all, I appreciate everything you do, but first off, 1.) those white suits are a little showy.  2.) You gotta leave my girl Dolly alone; I think we both know who’s the wiser.  And 3.) for the record, you can never never never never never sing We’ve Got Tonight the way that Bob Seger does.  You sing like you're trying to lure innocent women to the seclusion of your dressing room, or unsuspecting men to the bathroom.  Bob Seger coos out those words in a voice that he carved himself, like a man - out of silver and clouds, and a little bit of stone, and a dollop of butter cream.  He enunciates what needs to be enunciated, and slurs just what needs slurring.  He croons when he needs to croon.  I have heard Bob Seger sing that song approximately 10, 456 times!  My brain knows every vocal gesture, each rise and fall, each peak, each drop.  And who the hell do you think you are, Kenny Rogers??  You don’t even sing it right!  I mean, you can’t change one of the most important lines of a song and smugly sing it with multiple interchanging women and think you’re just going to get laid and paid!  Oh, what?  You can?  ‘Cause you’re Kenny Rogers?  WTF, Kenny Rogers??  Straighten up!  Quit singin’ it wrong!

Sincerely,

A Critic

P.S. I have never eaten your chicken. I might be missing out on the best part of your legacy here. Chicken and music.  Chicken and music.

How it's done:  

The Past

No matter what you say or do,

the past will not come back to you.

It slips away with the sands of time.

It haunts you like an unclaimed crime.

It laughs and mocks with unseen chances.

It lives in old familiar glances. 

It stalks the future, but kills the present.  

It boils down stews of resentment. 

It steals your minutes and your hours.

It takes away all of your powers.

It manipulates with unseen forces.

It marries minds but soon divorces.

No matter what you do or say,

The past is still with yesterday.

It leads you on then turns you down.

It leaves you looking like the clown.

It burns its bridges and jumps your fences.

It irritates all your defenses.  

It struggles with what's right and wrong.

It lets you down before too long.

No matter what you say or do,

The past will not come back to you.

[April 27, 2011]

The Beginning or End?

Friday, January 20, 2011
Which do you enjoy more - the start of a book or the end?

I have been supposed to finish Siddhartha now for, oh, a few months.  It’s pretty pathetic that I am still on chapter 2 considering it probably has 120 pages if that.  I’ve read the book before at least twice but am re reading it with a group of my friends.  It’s proven to be harder than I thought.  Okay, bear with me.  I’m having a thought.  

 
It’s a short book.  I’ve read it before.  I am actively reading other things in my free time.  Why am I not reading this book?  Is there something in there?  I already know what it is about, is that the point?  Am I putting off reading my book intentionally for a reason, is what I am wondering.

Conversational Symbolism: The Three Loves of Your Life

So I have mostly been thinking all day long of a conversation I had maybe 3 or 4 years ago with the best man from our wedding.  He is quite the interesting conversationalist and interesting person overall for that matter, and on this day in particular we were speaking of love, maybe in general, I’m not exactly sure of the details or what led to the conversation.  I do remember some of his description of the “saying” or how it is said to go, or however he put it.  He told me a tale that night that inspired a song I wrote called “3 Degrees”, which I will have to post the lyrics to here sometime, it’ll make more sense – maybe. 

Anyway, Best Man told me that in your life, you are to have 3 Loves, and I believe that he might have even described them to me but the details weren’t clearly remembered(ish) until I found this website that kind of went over it.  It is basically in line with what he explained to me, and I have been thinking of this again all day.  It’s a very interesting concept. 

Your first love or your puppy love, he told me, is the first.  The love that got away that you always have that feeling for is the second.  The third of course, the love of your life, I reckon he explained it to me.  I remember him telling me some details about his three.  In retrospect I wished I was journaling more or blogging at the time, it was a very interesting conversation, but I guess I wrote a song because of it at least. 

This site that I found that has the most accurate description as he “told the tale” says that you have many loves but three will remain the greatest – your first love, your ultimate love, and the love of your life. 

Your first love is the puppy love, the first one you usually date in high school and is said not to last that long.  I guess I spent too many years of my life on my first love and gave him the benefit of the doubt too many times? 7 years is a long time for puppy love, but he was the first love of my life. 

Your Ultimate Love is described basically as the one who got away.  I reckon the one that is probably in the end better to fantasize and ponder about than actually ever get to experience so as not to taint and poison and destroy its tender perfectness?  Anyway, that’s how I’d describe it, maybe. 

The Love of Your Life is referred to as the one.  Not Keanu Reeves, but the one that got you at your best and was able to iron out all of the messy stuff and keep you for your good parts, stitching the seams back together.  The one that settled you down.  The one that made you feel whole(ish).  But, how can you be whole if there are 3 parts of you? 

I couldn’t imagine someone having the capacity to love tons of people with the same passion someone can love a few.  But then again, I am still astounded and enthralled by the love of motherhood and I find it hard to believe that your heart could love a second child at all like you love a first one, but mothers do it every day.  That love is split all of the time.  And ideally mothers are to love all of their babies the same but the hard truth is they don’t always do.  Sometimes it’s all out of whack and you are immensely into one.  Sometimes it’s more of an even split.  Maybe it’s just a crap shoot?  Maybe it’s a tender balance. 

It’s certainly an interesting concept and idea that Best Man brought to the table.  It makes you deconstruct and rethink if you have more than that, I guess.  I think perhaps after a little soul searching and living life, you come to terms with who your three are.  Symbolism is funny that way.  Holy shit, is anything real?  I’m not even going there!

I don’t know what other people reflect on.  These are just the things I ponder on my way through.