the end

Good riddance, NaBloPoMo! I have failed you. You asked too much of me. Fie.

I think I also expected too much in return. And I think that expectations are tricky things~ sometimes they're just necessary, and other times they screw things up. I wanted to be all wondrous, posting mesmerizing entries every day and making connections with more folks in the blogging world. I thought for sure that Pogo would inspire love, and even his fuzzy little snout failed to do any such thing.

I feel lonely here at the moment. I've read other bloggers' posts about this topic, and am only mustering the chutzpah to be honest about it because others have been honest before me. But, anyhow, yes, I'm feeling needy and neglected, which probably calls for a bit of deeper delving...

Other than that, I met with a new client today and felt very good about that. I've actually met about five people today who I'd like to know better. I imagine that there's some unwritten rule about not socializing with clients until after the project is finished, but it's nice to meet new people in this town where I sometimes feel like I already know everyone. Truthfully, I have a richer, fuller social circle than I ever have before, and it's sometimes challenging to keep up with the lovely friends I already have, but there are just so many magical folks around... I met some others at a birthday dinner tonight, and we're going to get together so I can teach them to knit and crochet and have a cozy little yarn party in my tiny little nest.

Another friend has started to have weekly craft nights at her house, and I went last night with a project that needed to be finished up and a project that needed a jump-start. Success! One finished, one started, and the people there were wonderful, too.

I also got mah hair did today. By a new person, and I really like her and I really like what she did to my hairs. After leaving the salon, I took my cute self shopping for Christmas gifts. I'm buying less this year, but I really love giving gifts, so it's not something I want to do less of, it's just necessary because of my current financial state. I love making gifts, too, but that still requires supplies, and TIME, and I leave for Colorado in less than a week. And then it'll be family visits and Christmas and New Year almost all at once! Oh, 2007, where hast thou gone?

meet pogo

When I was growing up, we had some unconventional pets in our house. We had rodents: mice, gerbils, briefly a guinea pig. My sister's little gray mouse was named Fuzzy, and he was in the circus. We all were~ I was a trampoline and trapeze diva, my sister was a clown, and Fuzzy was her sidekick. He walked a tightrope and dazzled the masses without fail. It's true life! Before the High Flyers became serious, famous performers~ our very own Cirque du Soleil~ they put on a very home-grown show in the ringleader's back yard, and we were stars.

We had a juvenile delinquent crow named Binky for about two days~ he was messy and loud and fond of mulberries. He had to go elsewhere. We had a squirrel named Hickory~ our dog, Zipper, found baby Hickory in the woods on campus after a storm, and when my dad went to investigate, a teensy lost critter ran right up the leg of his corduroy pants. Hickory let all of us hold him when he was small, but pretty soon my dad was the only one who could handle him. He had his own little room, with branches and things, and my dad would hide food for him to forage. We thought he had epilepsy, but it turned out to be a case of Too Many Sunflower Seeds.

We had parakeets and newts and rabbits and toads. But mostly we had Pogo. Lucky Pogo Possum Guy. Someone found him in the road, a tiny little bean of a thing, separated from his marsupial mama~ she knew that we had fostered Hickory, so she brought us the wee lonely possum. He was my favorite. Unlike Hickory, he never unfriended me. He would fall asleep cupped in my hands, with his nose tucked in. He smelled like dog paws, which smell like corn chips. And he had those fabulous animal instincts that told him to act scary if need be~ I'd reach into his nest to scoop him up and he'd turn around and make his most frightening open-mouthed possum face... until he smelled that I was me, his friend, and then he would waddle up my arm, sit on my shoulder, and snuffle his nose in my ear.

I was so sad when we had to let him go. We had to let a real rehabber teach him about the great outdoors before he got too big, but I wanted to keep him forever. He was the Opossum O'Love and I'm glad my hippie parents let him stay with us for a while~

getting bettah

Thanksgiving was great~ the trip was actually better than any of us expected, despite the wind and rain and squeaky windshield wipers and people being sick and swapping lots of little airborne buggaboos.

I hope everyone had fun like me! I got to act like a goober with my sister and her sister-in-law (who is a good friend of mine) and spend time with my astoundingly awesome almost-three-year-old nephew and eat good food and swim in the hotel pool and sit in the really powerful hot tub and then jump back into the pool, which made us more understanding of the crazy Polar Bear Club folks. It feels really, really good.

And I'm supposed to be asleep now so that I can get up at 5:30 in the morning and also because I'm still not quite unsick, so I'll just give you this assignment and get ready for bed. (Do you notice a pattern? Of me not being in bed on time?) Ok, in the spirit of flu season and Getting Enough Vitamin C, I assign you to make and drink this very perfect stuff:

Lemon, Ginger, and Honey!

Boil about an inch of fresh ginger root in maybe two cups of water for probably five minutes or something. (This is not science.) Squeeze a lemon. Mix the lemon juice with the ginger water in your favorite giant mug. Now empty the contents of your honey bear into the mug. Breathe it and sip it until it reaches the perfect guzzling temperature and then guzzle. So, so good!

the 19th...

Last night I forgot to post. I'm still sick, coughing like a smoker, with the gravelly bedroom voice and all. Tomorrow we head to Minnesota for Thanksgiving. It's not likely that I'll be able to post until I'm back~ so much for NaBloPoMo. I don't really mind, though. As with most things that I enjoy, as soon as it became an obligation, it wasn't so fun anymore. I've been wondering how my NaNoWriMo friends are doing... and now I almost think that would be a better project. Not so public. More room for sounding really dull.

I'm sort of ok, really. Hormonal and ill and stressed out, but ok. Tuning in to the light and the shadow, trying to allow more gently for the latter to have its place. S'pose I'll share this little Langston Hughes poem and go to bed~

Gather out of star-dust

Earth-dust,

Cloud-dust,

Storm-dust,

And splinters of hail,

One handful of dream-dust

Not for sale.

day seventeen

Down to the wire almost, and I got nothin'. But thanks to Miss Heidi, here's something fun for you to play with. Now, play!

instant gratification!

I did it! I am now a juicer user! Look at the color of this stuff. That is all.

to float away

I'm having a bout of the Vagabond Blues, the Getmeouttaheres, Whiny Whiner Syndrome. I want to run away from everything, or maybe to be rescued. Yikes. I don't like it. But it's a pretty frequent feeling for me, nothing unusual, sadly, at all.

I have a recording of a speech that Jack Canfield gave last year. (He may be best known as the Chicken Soup for the Soul guy, but he's involved in all kinds of other stuff, including The Secret.) Anyhow, I think the speech is really great, and different things come back to me from time to time. Lately, it's the part where he talks about joy. I don't remember exactly what he said (the CD is currently on loan to a friend) but it's basically the idea that you can gauge the rightness of where you are by the level of joy in your life. If the joy is missing, something is out of line.

I'm mostly not feeling the joy. And I feel like I don't have time to go looking for it, whatever that would entail. And that's because I'm so scared about money. And that's so crappy!

I don't want to sound like a hypocrite or a split-personality or whatever~ with my happy "get to" philosophy right next to my hand-wringing, money-stumped, shakin'-in-my-boots joylessness. These are both very real parts of my humanness, the light and the shadow, and I'm just muddling along and trying to shift the balance and find the best answers for me.

In other news, not unrelated, I have made it to baby-step four with my juicer. I've owned the thing for two or three years, but hadn't even taken it out of the box until today. A long (LONG) time ago, I opened the box and set the accompanying audio tape by the stereo and read part of the recipe booklet. Last month, I pulled the box out from under the sink, listened to the tape and looked at the recipe booklet again and read part of the instruction manual. The box has been sitting out in the open since then, so that I see it every day. And today, today I took it OUT OF THE BOX and washed the washable parts and learned how it goes together and comes apart.

I have carrots, an apple, and some ginger root. I'm going to juice them. Right now! Maybe it will get the joy beans jumpin'...

the random

I am sick. I think I've been pushing myself too hard recently and that, combined with general stress and the fact that all four children I take care of are sick, has finally taken its toll. I am steamrollered. I am squashed. I am under this cold, cold, blustery weather.

But look at that -----------------------------^

I didn't make it today, but it makes me happy to see it today. I'm inordinately proud of it. As you can see, if you read the fine print, it was inspired by a page out of the Klutz Hand Art book. See? His trunk is my thumb, and the bumpity belly ruffles are my knuckles. And doesn't he look just like a Blue Meanie? Yes!

What else? Well, I've (sort of) made it half-way through NaBloPoMo now. And, oh, here's something I wanted to say:

THANK YOU!

Thank you to the lovely commenters who say nice things and let me know that they (you) hear me. When I had my Livejournal blog, there was a convenient little button that allowed me to reply directly to each individual comment in a nice little format. I miss that button, and I don't respond directly as much as I used to. But I want to be sure that you know I'm appreciating you and not ignoring you in my heart, not one bit.

Now, I have to tell you the thing that I did today that was very unlike most days: I scolded someone. Ok, that might not be unusual. But I scolded an ADULT. An adult STRANGER. I had to.

I was behind his great big SUV in traffic and noticed that there was a child, maybe seven-years-old or so, standing up in the back seat. We were at a red light, but when the light turned green, he didn't sit down. He was walking back and forth and the guy was just driving along... and talking on his cell phone. At the next light, I ended up next to him and motioned and rolled down my window and hollered that I was concerned because I saw that he was talking on the phone and driving while his child was walking around in the back seat. I don't know if he really quite heard me. The light changed and we drove away. But I couldn't believe it. It makes me crazy when I see people acting all invincible and putting children's safety in jeopardy. So, I said something. Eeeek.

Now I'm going back to the couch. I've cancelled everything for the next three days so that I can be well for next week. Next week is going to be manic, and I need to be strong like ox.

where I'm from

Tonight was the awe-inspiring public read-around that my writing class holds each semester. I feel so blessed to be part of that group! And I think I'll just go ahead and share the piece that I read tonight. It's an unaltered fast write that I did in class, and the form is based on a poem by George Ella Lyon.

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

I am from a welcoming womb.

From a dome in the woods in Virginia.

I am from the gooseberry bushes that always took too long to ripen.

I am from the gravel path, meandering from the barn to the pond to the cottage to the mansion and back, dotted with chamomile buds.

I am from a cardboard box, with a window cut out and a crystal in the doorway.

I am from the red brick house in the center of town, with the farmer’s market bustling in the backyard each Saturday morning, and the library two doors down, the library that was always open.

I am from choose your own adventure, girls who could fly, and girls who died, keeping my mother in tears on the old red couch.

I am from the bottom row, second aisle on the right- the boxes of penny candy in the Kirkwood Pharmacy.

I am from pink sweatsuits, hand-me-downs, shimmery feathery earrings, and K-Mart boots.

I am from a nest in a tree in a storm. Falling, falling, eyes barely open, snuffling black nose, suddenly safe.

I am from a parking lot in the dark, his father’s winter studio, a car parked carelessly sideways.

I am from words written large in the sand and sung loudly into the wind.

change your perspective...

I'm exhausted. I'm constantly stressed out about money and all its cronies. And yet, I ate medjool dates today, and played outside with munchkins.

The simple thing is this: whenever you (I) find yourself (myself) feeling overwhlemed and overrun, complaining about all the things that you (I) have to do~

Change that "have to" to "get to."

I have to go to work.

I get to go to work. I get to talk to almost-five-year-olds about the golden retrievers they dream of. Today she told me that when she's eight and her sister is five, they'll get a golden retriever. When I asked her what she would name her dog, she thought for a minute and said, "Maybe... LOVE. Or maybe Anna!"

I have to clean my kitchen.

I get to clean my kitchen. I have a kitchen to clean! I have hot running water, dishes to dirty, food with which to dirty them. I remember a cafe in Oaxaca, Mexico where the kitchen was about a third of the size of mine, and my kitchen is pretty tiny by American standards.

It works for anything, really. We forget how fortunate we are, and even though happiness is relative, there's always value in gratitude and sharp focus.

And I'm grateful for the children who drive me nuts and poop in the bathtub and clobber each other when they're tired and hungry. Because they also snuggle and laugh and create and act silly with me.

I'm grateful for the mess in my kitchen, because someone loaned me a small appliance today so that I could make something delicious for an equally delicious gathering that will happen tomorrow evening. And here is the recipe, so that you can have a messy kitchen, a happy belly, and a grateful heart right beside me and mine.

*Raw Fudge

1.5 cups raw walnuts
12 fresh medjool dates (take the pits out! and do not skimp! sub-par dates will kill your fudge.)
a dash of salt
1/3 cup unsweetened (organic if possible) cocoa powder
1 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. water, if needed
1/2 cup shredded, unsweetened coconut

You just mix each thing in the food processor in this order, adding as you go. It sort of balls up eventually and you can just smoosh it around with a spoon. You can play with ingredients~ leave out the coconut if you're not a fan, try a bit of almond or cherry extract... And when it's all nice and mixed up, blob it into a shallow container and smooth it out. Maybe 1/2-1 inch thick is good. Let it sit in the fridge and then cut it into squares. It's easier to cut and arrange the pieces if it's cold, but tastes best if it warms up a bit before you eat it.

Yum! You get to eat healthy fudge!

And I get to go to bed.

like Attila the Hun with a cinnamon bun

It's just that I'm tired and this NaBloPoMo thing is getting on my nerves. Tomorrow there won't be so much as a blip. Not a quote, not a Nellie McKay lyric, not a photo of a chocolate-covered Brazil nut hamster. Tomorrow there will be no time. But then on Tuesday we will have something to look forward to, because on Tuesday I will write about a small-yet-profound sort of happy philosophy. In the meantime, make friends with Nellie. She's kind of a genius. And also marvel at the cuteness of that hamster. I made it by accident. It's really cute!

*Mangia!*

I'm about to zip out to an Italian dinner party, and so I leave you on NaBloPoMo day ten with this wonderful piece from Brian Andreas:

"There are things you do because they feel right & they may make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each other's cooking & say it was good."

Good night, lovelies~

the ninth

It's been an odd day. I decided to stay home and rest, hoping to fend off the microbial gremlins that were trying to colonize in the back of my throat. I'd had two DVDs from Netflix that had been sitting around for ages, and finally took the time to watch them~ one was a documentary about Howard Zinn. I've wanted to read one of his books in particular, A People's History of the United States, and this documentary thoroughly renewed my interest. What a remarkable man, working with absolute dignity to bring buried truths to light.

The problem, though, is that I get so overwhelmed. Instead of just being inspired and grateful, like I imagine most people would be, I end up feeling like I've been punched in the gut. I see the images of war and hear the stories of oppression and deceit and corruption, and I'm disgusted by the world. I question everything I'm doing and feel like I'm wasting my time, and when I go there-when I get so recklessly dismal inside- I really can't do anything help anyone, myself included.

I started looking at Peace Corps and Heifer International and other stuff online~ the video clips on the Heifer site are so amazing, you should take a look. I love that organization so hard. I also had a good conversation with my sweet friend and watched this little Elizabeth Gilbert video and tried to just get centered and let myself be inspired instead of guilt-ridden and despondent. Good grief.

I know that we all have different ways of walking through the world, different gifts and passions and capacities, and as long as we do our various stuff with mindfulness, compassion, generosity, and (gosh darn it) joy, each contribution adds value to the whole. I believe this. I do. I just have to be reminded again and again and again to apply this belief to my own self.

Breathe, sleep, nourish. Allow, accept, move forward. Practice, practice, practice.

day eight, post five

Life sure the heck is interesting. Good night.

behind- already and again

To force myself to turn on the computer and post something when I finally got home last night would have been nothing short of an act of self-loathing, and I'm trying to mostly avoid those. Even so, my few short hours of sleep were painful. Physically painful. I painted a friend's room last night, wearing too-tight old jeans that are the only thing I don't care about getting paint on. And there was stuff in the room. In the small, crowded room. Where I was supposed to expertly wield brushes and rollers and an unruly drop-cloth and a chair to sometimes stand on. And all of that only after moving quite a few large and small items out of the room. My body is mad at me. My shoulder blades are stuck. My left SI joint thinks that it belongs to an octogenarian. I have painter's elbow. The arch in my left foot feels all delicate and needy.

But! I'm not actually complaining. It was fun, and the morning-after woes are just messages, little reminders that my body needs more practice at muscle-usage. I really should indulge my poor, neglected muscles and tendons and joints more often.

So I hobbled (I mean I literally hobbled) into work this morning, and my day progressed like a Ben Stiller movie, only less dumb and with more kids. It reminded me of a Baby Blues comic strip I saw years ago. It was so totally on the mark that it stuck with me forever. Basically, you have a full-time mom with a baby and a toddler and she's been home all day with the kids and dad comes home from work and their conversation goes approximately like this:

Dad: Hi, honey! What did you do today?
Mom: Well, I did two loads of laundry, played five rounds of hide and seek, ran the dishwasher, changed two poopy diapers, supervised a finger-painting project, and bathed the kids...
Dad: I don't know how you do it!
Mom: ...and then it was time to make breakfast.

Ha! It's ridiculous, and so very real. And now I really must go to bed, because tomorrow is looking just as harried as ever. And I'm going to love it, by gum.

creating family

When other people bring thickly-iced sheet cakes, my mother brings raw "fudge" made with dates, walnuts, vanilla, and organic cocoa powder. They bring the karaoke machine, she brings her recorder. They bring board games, she brings paper and markers. And she weaves her little self into their hearts~ she just does.

One afternoon during our holiday, she had several women in the group sitting around the table, tracing their hands and making turkeys. She made a very snazzy one. And then she went and filled it with our names in hearts. The next day, she pulled a similar feat... I woke up from a nap to the sound of her recorder, her laughter, and everyone else applauding.

She's a bit radical, sweetly so~ she can give a speech about anything at any moment, using big words and swooping metaphors and concepts most people have never considered. She's had the life shaken right out of her, and somehow she manages to love and love and love. Having parents who are so not status quo can be hard sometimes, but I know how lucky I am...

There has been a recent flurry of reconnections, and new connections. Mostly with the women on both sides of the family, some related by blood and some by marriage. My mother has jumped with both feet into the work of creating extended family. And I've been tagging along, admittedly apprehensive some of the time. Now I'd say that I'm officially on board, and I'm so grateful to my mom for getting me to that point. It feels like we've moved to a whole new level now. (We were never very involved with the extended family when I was growing up~ there was too much hurt that had yet to be healed~ and so it's taken a lot of time and a lot of wading to finally feel safe and confident enough to take the plunge and get to know these other people.)

(I think I'm starting to ramble now, so bear with me, if you like.) I think that it's hard to come into a family that's already established, and to let them know who you really are. It's one thing to scandalize folks that you never have to see again, but when you're trying to become part of a family that wasn't always yours, it becomes a little more delicate. Telling the truth can be risky.

I was happy and relieved to learn that some of my values and truths are shared by some people I thought disagreed with me. And that everyone in the group loves each other, up to and including their differences. I need to learn that one over and over again. I can be my real self without alienating everyone forever. And I can find the beauty and goodness in them even if they believe certain things that I don't.

And sometimes karaoke and cake, or markers and "fudge", can be just enough to get us over any bumps in the road and bring us back home again.

NaBloPoMo 3-in-1

On Friday morning, I woke up to this view. It was dark long before we arrived in Gatlinburg on Thursday night, so we missed some of the most beautiful scenery that day. Obviously, we were appeased. We stayed in a "chalet" on top of a mountain, 12 of us in all, ranging in age from 13 to 76. My family of origin didn't do things like this, so it was a little like visiting a foreign country...



I'm absolutely exhausted from the last four days of driving and wandering and visiting and eating and drinking and laughing and playing and singing and more driving. We played more rounds of Apples to Apples than anyone has probably played ever in the world. (Margaritas and pajamas make it even more fun than it already is.) And last night we sang really loud and obnoxious karaoke, which I'm sure the neighbors loved passionately.



My brain isn't functioning a lot right now. But it's day four, darn it, and I'm posting. I did write while I was away, even though I didn't have internet access. My mom found me tucked quietly away yesterday and said, in her Proud Parent Voice, "You are a writer." See?

So, even though I didn't BloPo for two days, I was productive. And even though I may be incoherent right this minute, there will be more quality postings to come.

hit the road

This is very much an on-the-run post!

Today I'm off to Gatlinburg, Tennessee with my mom. We're meeting up with some of the women in my stepfather's family for a long weekend... I was looking at a map, and there are places down there with names like:

*Piney Butt Loop!

*Boogertown Road!

*Loafer's Glory Way!

My motivation has been bumped up a few notches because of those names. I'm easy.

Also, I'm posting because it's November 1st, and it's NaBloPoMo. No, that is not National Blow Pop Month. That is National Blog Posting Month. You post every day. Like NaNoWriMo before the steriods.

Of course, I may not have any internet access while I'm out of town for the next few days. But oh well oh kay. I'll do what I can~ maybe there will be wireless in the hotel...

Happy November!