...quiet, about a lot of things...

the meeting


I can feel my soul grip like a tight little fist.

Wafer images float through my mind, wine stained words hanging loosely from their heels.

I don't want to open the window.
I don't want to let the light in.
Life is too noisy and I have a headache.
My own breathing is too loud.


As if on cue, He enters on delusion, riding it as a regal elephant. He settles His hand between enormous ears and guides by suggestion, careful to hide the barbed black crop held in His left hand.

but i see it and i know who it's meant for.
i have the thinner skin.

something has moved. now it lives in my throat. a leaping frog beating at the snug jar lid, breathlessly aiming at pin prick air.

the elephant settles gracefully to it's knees, then offers it's heart. He descends.

"you should have opened that window." His back is turned. He is close enough to whisper. "They say; get while the gettings good".

the frog inside me stills. the fist falls open,then closes tighter.

one more time. "just one more time" i am thinking,
as i hit the glass running.

wlf 8:43

The common theme....open a window.

Now on to Poetry Thursday!

Schools been back in session, now, for about 2 weeks. We are past the bubbly excitement of the first week. Now we are starting the grind of early days and tired girls. Rachel and Maggie go to different high schools, but both start class at 7:25. Butts in chairs by 7:25!! Do the administrators not read the studies on adolescent productivity?? I am BARELY functional, at this hour..teens are sub human creatures at 7:00 am.

Soccer and student council meetings have taken over our schedules. Both of my kids put in 13 hour days easily, and that's before homework. It's crazy really. It's not even Labor Day yet.

On that subject of plain insane..I was watching Dr 90210..(ok a guilty pleasure, a brief escape)..I was dumbfounded to see that one of the "hottest" plastic surgeries is..um...having "lip" work done...but not the lips on your face...Your private intimate lips..

WHAT IS GOING ON? Are all women being told to shun everything about their natural states and nip and tuck everything? Have we become a p@rn society, where little girls will grow up to dream of implants, flat tummies, and perfectly trimmed and manicured "flowers"?

Does any man really worry about this? Or is this just another case of women scrutinizing each other and desperately clawing for the next rung of beauty status...

I am not against doing what makes you feel good. How I look is a concern with me. But if I ever find myself obsessing over my crotch....and the anatomy of my "lips"...well then clearly, I have lost MY MIND!!!

This is the very first poem I ever posted for Poetry Thursday. So I will use it for the excercise/ totally optional prompt today. That circle thing again.

It was a wildly weird yet thrilling feeling waaaay back then.. I hadn't written poetry for years, and the idea of casting it to the wind, was well, at the very least, provocative! But, soon, I settled in to the place PT carved for me, the safe small chair that was always waiting for me in the corner behind Joyce and Kay.

I've become very comfortable here..and haven't once worried again about confessing into darkness. Poetry Thursday has become my wailing wall..all my poems folded in on them selves, stuffed into cracks, offered as prayer. Evidence, really of this life I am crafting, these choices I am making, and these truths I am telling.

I think God has been pleased, by this tangent, this tiny concentrated effort, this little belief in creation. Perhaps he came here also, to rest a bit and hide from the lunatics taking over the asylum....Maybe that's why I could hear him whispering in my ear.



Lineage


too much
her mothers
daughter, i fear.

yet, still
She shows
much improvement, yes?

i have
become a
good brood mare.

leaving the
next generation
this bettering of

my self.
She will
go further than

i ever did.

wlf 8:16


Go on now, trot on over to Poetry Thursday...go on now, GIT!

Labels: Poetry Thursday

songbird

a bird is not
a wordy beast
with vowels upon
its beak.

it struggles not
to find a feeble
apology or
credible excuse

to stay in bed.

it only pumps
it's wings against
thick air.
only beats it's
heart to bursting.

it merely stays afloat,
glides to rest, and points
itself toward home.

it asks no one
in particular
for permission
to fly.


wendy

Labels: Poetry Thursday

I am to bring a poem to be "workshopped" to class on Thursday....I don't know what this means exactly...Do I bring something I am fond of..and have them rip into it??...Do I bring one of my many off the cuff, less than average poems..in hopes they can help??...Or do I develop a stubborn "cough cough"..and wuss out.

I have been e-mailed this weeks critiqued poems..We work one week out....They are both good...but vague in that mystery poet sense. My poems, if you have been here long are pretty standard stuff. No IQ required. I write simple poems for I am a simple girl.....ughh..

Anyone have any suggestions?... It's on Thursday. Oh yeah...I said that already....

Dear Diary,

I really never imagined being here..a mother of two teen aged girls....Just like my mother was the mother of two teen aged girls. Sure, my life is different than my mother's. I've been married longer than she ever was. I am not a drunk. I have had only one lover for the past 2 decades. I have remained a faithful wife, all be it, not a good one at times.

And yet when I get up in the morning,I can't help but notice that my mother's face lurks in mine. Behind the creases lingering too long. Tied within the rings forming on my neck, like some old tree. Mine, I think, marked there by years on a chain held a bit too tightly..to keep me in line. To keep words from bubbling up in my throat and escaping wildly from my lips. These rings have been self inflicted, as I have always held my own chain. I have always been quick to correct severely. Only I know how dangerous I can be.

It is a strange time, now. For I do manage to rip my self away from these visions, and go about my business...only to find myself sleepy in the hall..bumping into myself again...in 17 year old skin..and a little later..in 14 year angst. I see my self just at the beginning. So blind to my beauty...so lonely for love, so hungry for nothing. Every time my girls whisper.."there's nothing to eat." I remember feeling that same emptiness and searching to fill it. I hope they stay away from some of the buffets I frequented..right around their ages.

I hope they stay away from drugs.
I hope they stay away from drink.
I hope they stay away from men and strange beds.
I hope they stay away from false friends, and false gods.
I hope they stay away from far away places and quests to nowhere for nothing.
I hope they stay away from clinics and choices too hard to make.

I wish I could hand them a magic mirror..to hold their gaze. The mirror would show them the beauty, in their eyes and their strong perfect bodies and their fresh and youthful minds. I wish they would see only the good bits of me reflected in their faces. The wink and nod of me, the harmless joker of me.

I watched my daughter gaze into a mirror once, and fretted
"she is too much her mothers daughter."

Nope,I never thought I would be here. Smack in the middle of my life(perhaps?)looking at my future and my past at the same instant. Now there's an odd feeling.

I really thought I'd be dead by now.

and instead I am alive.

I am right here.
in full bloom.

Love,
wendy


PS... There's much more snooping to be done at Sunday Scribblings....I know where they've hidden the key...It's in the left cup of the tiger print bra on the bottom......

As it turns out..I was the stupid one in the group...shocking, huh?? I was the one who was an hour late. I blame this, however on mapquest. Never mind I have lived in the "Denver" vicinity for over 9 years now and do not know the CITY of DENVER at all. (PS...some really cool parts..who knew??)

The writers workshop is in an old Victorian house with a creaky front door..and equally creaky stairs. So, I disturbed not only my group..(upstairs)..but the downstairs dining room group as well...probably advanced novel revision. They all looked pretty serious when I feebly asked "Poetry??"..."Upstairs." was all I got. WAY to make an entrance!!

The room upstairs held only women..prompt women, adult poet type women, sitting in a circle. If this had been a play, I believe my character would have been written in as comic diversion. I stumbled in, found a seat closest to the door and crossed my legs at the ankles.

I could share all the gory details but I'll spare you. I'll end as it really ended. The leader handed me a packet of papers stapled at the corner. We were to read the first poem for next week. There was no title...and a hand written name on the bottom.

"Oh, a local poet??" I asked. "Ancient Greek." she answered. Great. WAY. TO. SCORE. POINTS.

On the way home, I cried....I told you I would. I considered writing a post today titled F@CK..F@CK..F@CK... but decided that was not very literary.

The only chirpy thing to say..cause I am often a chirpy cheerleader for myself...is that I went. I wanted so badly to turn around and go home. I was lost. I had had the day I had...(see,wicked language skills huh?)BUT.. I made myself find the damn place and go.

That's all I got. That's all there is.

At 6:30 AM my daughter rushed into my room, where I was lying in that vulnerable space between dream and real..and yelled she had broken the right rear view mirror of her car. She in a newly licensed driver and was nearly hysterical. I told her not to worry, and reassured her that it was indeed a tricky angle out of our garage. I sent her on her way.

As I drove my youngest to school, twenty minutes later, I noticed the broken mirror glass swept to the side of my driveway. Five minutes later, I came really close, leaving rubber close, to an accident myself. A fender bender caused by two car loads of teenage boys. I thanked God that I had been driving this time, and not my daughter.

The day was not looking good.

And it just got worse. Poetry Thursday is calling it quits. Liz and Dana have taken this fine venture from seed to sprawling thicket..and I am guessing they need to prune a bit..so they can find the doors back to their own lives. I am happy to clear the way for them. They deserve a soft landing and an easy exit. I will miss this project so much....I can't tell you.

So thank you Dana and Liz.This doesn't seem sufficient. I need to tell you that because of you, I am writing poetry again. Because of you I am, just this very evening, starting to participate in a "REAL HUMAN" poetry workshop...actual people with eyes and ears and faces..not just words and thoughts and air. I am not sure that they will have the nurturing rules that you girls did. It may be brutal. It might be intimidating. I know it will not feel as safe as this whorl of the time space continuum has. It may be sharp and thorny.

I know I will feel hot. I know I will blush and stutter. I know I will want to cry. I will have to push myself out of my car.

You see, this is the real me...the QUIET me. The one you would never notice.

But it's time, girls, for all of us. It's time to leave the nest and leap. Notice I did not say fly...because when you first try...you fall..plunge really into the unknown. You go on faith and an indescribable quest to grow and find more and love more and write more.

Dear Dana and Liz, you did this for me. I will forever remember you and thank you profoundly, whenever I learn to fly.



Last Song

At the start
you must
acknowledge
the finish

though the ground
between here
and there seems
vast, and
easily conquered.

You must look
the end in
it's eye.

Be respectful.

Choose to be led,
not chased
towards it.

Pray that
in you greatest
moment of joy
you will
turn around

simply
to find a
soft hand
closing

and a small
breath slowly
stilled.

merely
an instant
shorter
than you
had planned.

wlf


I'm going to bring my flowers of thanks over to Poetry Thursday....

Labels: Poetry Thursday

Summer is the time we go places. Change the scenery a bit, shuffle the deck. I say summer, because I have kids in school, but I suppose that really could be anytime, if you were working only with one schedule.

I have a love hate relationship with vacations. I do love to see new things, to taste new food and walk new streets. I do love to change my routine, step off of the path and reflect. Switch gears.

I find all sorts of new places I'd love to live for a bit. I fantasize how life would be more colorful living among artists. How life would be more relaxed living by the sea. How life could be more gentile living in the south. Or how life would just be plain different, spoken in a different language.

On the flights home, from the places I have been, I try to think of a way to keep the place I have just visited alive in me. But even as the plane wings back towards home, like a big steel homing pigeon, I feel myself letting go off what I was for a week or two to grab back at the comfort of what I am, everyday.

Orcas Island to me is heaven. Really, when I die, God, plunk me right there, please?!?. Let me play with the otters and swim with the seals. Every time I go I love it more. However,by the 5th day, I could sense others in my party going stir crazy. It's not a very big island. There's no Starbucks..(though there is coffee..its not PRIMITIVE or anything.) You could see that originally it was a hippie northwestern island. That is why I love it so much.

For even as the money from Seattle has claimed most of it's private coastline, the center of Orcas is still crunchy. I love the men and their dreadlocks.I love the women and their earth mother skirts. I loved the henna tattoo I got on my ankle at the farmers market. I love the organic vegetables and the hand spun wool. I could live with these people.

That is until I notice, that it is very hard for them to make a living here. They depend, almost exclusively, on the tourists to make their money. Very rich tourists. This is a boutique destination., much smaller than it's bigger (by comparison) cousin..San Juan Island. Less chauchki, more art. More art, more money. More money, less affordable for real people to live.

So there is the cruel truth. I could not afford to live there. Period.

I was invited this time as a guest of my brother and sister in law. We stayed at this incredible house ..and had access to the neighboring incredible house...basically a huge cove to ourselves. Really cool beyond words. The tides, the eagles, the starfish right there to touch..and no huddled masses to interfere what so ever.

So this is what it is like to be REAAALY rich..and live the privileged life. The owners of the one house were off to gather daughter from summer camp. The other estate was owned by a woman who had gone back east to the Hampton's for a party...on her private jet. Her sail boat was moored beautifully to her dock. I sat in one of her Adirondack chairs and wondered what this life would be like. I sat there for a long time. I really couldn't fathom it.

And then it dawned, quietly, that I really didn't want to fathom it. That I was feeling rather selfish on this privileged cove. I felt I was hording the all beauty. This beauty was not mine, by ownership, or theory, to hoard. I wanted to offer it to the girl at the great organic restaurant where I had just eaten for lunch. "Here's the key "...have her and all her pierced friends come down and roast marshmallow with my family that night too. I knew she had never seen this cove,sat in these chairs. She lived here, worked here..She should by All RIGHTS, get to see this. But she wouldn't. This was a private party.

The minute I thought that, I knew the time had come to go home. Home to my house in the wide open spaces of Colorado. Home to a house that is smaller than the guest houses I have just stayed in. Home to where I control the keys and could share whatever beauty I can find, with as many people as I wish. Home to the world of ungated communities and public schools.

I will always be grateful that God gave me a visitors pass to briefly enter this beautiful place, before I die. I just know I don't belong there for now..It wouldn't, couldn't be home, until everyone is invited.

The thing I want to say today...is we all have so much for which we should be thankful. The small everyday minutia of life, that often gets overlooked. Here's a couple of examples...

The first silly little thing is sucking through a straw. Yep, you read me right. This morning I was back to the dentist...yet again...to have them finish up some work...which by the way is done YEAH!!!!..They had to repair a filling that had loosened on my upper left. After the appointment I had a ripping headache..from no coffee..and too much nitrous...so off to Starbucks I went. Venti Iced Chai..All happy and numb, I proceeded back to the car, inserted my straw...and found I could not suck. Half of my sucker, as it was, was numb. Huh. So, I manually pressed my frozen lips together..and eureka!...and then experimented with using only the right side of my lips...felt very uncoordinated..but it worked. All to pucker up. All to suck a straw. Animals that can not suckle or swallow die. How nice to be able to live.

The second tiny body miracle was observed at my daughters soccer game over the weekend. She actually was in a tournament..but I only made one of the games. She plays in a competitive league (IE more intense, a lot more money)..She plays with 14-15 year old girls. By this time they have gotten pretty good..and pretty psychical. Lots of shoving and elbows and slide tackling. During the second half, a girl got tackled/tripped so hard and so quickly, she didn't even have time to get her hands out in front of her. Full speed face plant. It took a while for her to move.

Here comes the miracle. While waiting for the paramedic to check the injured girl out, I watched as Maggie, who plays striker(offensive)and her friend were keeping their ankles loose by rolling and pointing their toes. They would roll their ankles in, then out, then point their toes and stand on their cleats. All this while carrying on the secret conversations only teenage girls can have. I was memorized. I can do that with one ankle, but the other is pretty well frozen.

Everyday blessings, incredible fully functional bodies, and brains. Just the tidbits we overlook...but the things that matter most.

Today I will pay attention, and be thankful the next time I suck my straw.

I am a tingly girl. Lots of things raise the hair on my neck. When I was in LA, I was on an active spirit search. Could be because I was living with someone to whom I was serving my soul to everyday...with little nibbles disappearing every moment, I was left feeling lighter, and not better for it.

So I went looking for something to fix what was ailing me. I am not proud. I'll admit it. I tried many a thing. The bohdi tree had me on their frequent seeker list. Crystal, cards, psychics.Not much of it stuck. One thing did. The idea of humming. When all is right with me I hum. Not out loud. That can drive me crazy in the right circumstance....But I hum inside. I vibrate. Like a tuning fork. So if you stop reading now, it was nice to know you all.

But this is how I feel simpatico. I feel my "note" sync with someones different "note". This is not a sound. It is a moving tingle. A wave. A tactile glow.

It is when I speak the truth. And when I hear the truth, even though, the words may be lying. Anyway, on good days, I hum.

So it is no surprise that when I hear a building crescendo...be it a note in the music, a step in dance, or the perfect phrase, all the molecules in my body bounce so hard against each other, in some sort of wild boundless mosh pit...that I am alive. My skin pricks and aches to touch the source that surrounds me, penetrates me, becomes me. My skin reflects the ripples running full force through me.

PS.... Goosebumps big time,now.. for,as I write this, a piece on Cat Stevens has come on Sunday Morning CBS...whose very voice makes me hum.Whose words led me on many a strange path, humming all the way. Coincidence...I think not!......Shiver!

Follow this link..to hear Cat


Follow the sound of my vibration over to Sunday Scribblings...

Next to being the mother of the bride, I guess accompanying your daughter on college campus tours, is one of those"life" things that makes you sit right down on your ass, and take stock.

I am living in that season now. That season of senior portraits..(checked off...taken by wonderful me! never mind my beautiful daughter...how did I produce her???)



SAT's ACT's and touring of colleges, looking for the right fit.

I have seen some campuses that would almost make me want to go back in time. I have seen THE CAMPUS that I think is the perfect match for Rach.

But just like in Cinderella, I do not get to choose which slipper will fit my girl. Only her feet will know when it is the right shoe. This is her fairy tale, not mine. I am just the pudgy fairy god mother, waving my wand, fumbling the magic....and willing with all my might, that she finds HER OWN happily ever after.

Bippity, boppity BOO!

Just got back from the pacific northwest. No words..just some pics of the poetry that spills, with no effort whatsoever.
























I have more....but I'm going over to Poetry Thursday..Fill ya in later.