no matter how rough it is, miracles still happen.
i’ve told you about my grandmother, the one who is currently dying slowly.
but i haven’t told you about my other grandmother. the one who died really quickly. the one i was going to spend a weekend with when she had a stroke that killed her within hours. the one who my mom rushed to be with, leaving me with my friend pierce. i didn’t tell you how when my mom came back that night, i was sad first because i didn’t get to spend more time playing with my friend in his parents toasty warm house in january. completely unaware that mom was back because she wasn’t needed by the bedside of someone who died already.
i guess i haven’t told you either that the christmas before she died, she gave me a king james bible where she had underlined all her favorite verses in red. i haven’t told you how now those lines look like blood to me.
did you know also that my mom swears to this day that i am like my grandmother? that all the deeply spiritual parts of me are from her, she says. but when i look at her picture today, the only thing i see is her eyes. and they’re dark and hidden behind her glasses. as though to really understand i’d need to put on her glasses.
the thing is that i don’t see things the way she did. i distinctly remember my grandmother literally wrestling my mother to the ground to try to keep her from marrying my step dad. or how her inscription to me in the aforementioned bible was to always be nice.
of course there are good things too. like bowls of fresh from the oven cornbread, covered in cold milk. her foam curlers scattered around the bathroom sink. the purple 80’s square sectional sofa with black stripes. the way my brother and i were so excited to visit whenever we could because she had cable and usda cheese (which we LOVED–and i have no idea why).
i guess i always thought everything was sunny. painting her picture today reminds me that she was real too. maybe we are more alike than i thought.
- someone googled “hafiz footsies” and ended up on my blog (hee hee)
- i love my friends, i love them. and i don’t know why they put up with me sometimes, but i’m so glad they do.
- my marriage is in rescue. thank heavens, i don’t have to be the rescuer
- i had a dream over the weekend that i was racing around putting out fires by spraying thick foam on everything and throwing a mattress on the flames. i was pretty tired at the end of my dream. this is relevant because i live at that pace most of the time. the truth is, i’m not a fireman.
- my little girl is amazing. and i always thought i’d want to have a boy, but pretty much, i think i’ll take whatever is given to me. but it would be really fun to have a sister for my little girl. she’d be an awesome big sister. and since i only got sisters as a grownup, i wonder what her life will be like if she gets to have one early. sigh….
- we ARE gonna pull through, there’s no such thing as cool, and we’re gonna pull through.
this morning, my word was solace. i found this image on google.
from http://www.pino-artist.com/pino-art-collections2005-2.html
today i was reminded of the story of jekyll & hyde. i didn’t realize the end of the story. i think that part must have been left out of the children’s versions i saw as a kid. anyway, did you know he kills himself? because he cannot control hyde. and he feels the only way to do it is to kill himself, which is what hyde (being the epitome of evil) probably wanted to begin with.
and sometimes i feel a lot like him. i feel despair that the things i want to do, i don’t. the things i don’t want to do, i do. and if left to my own devices i’d probably end up in the same boat.
people don’t make me crazy. I make me crazy. i try to fight and pull and tug and fix and make my world safe and okay.
it’s not safe or okay here. it just isn’t.
but there’s a way for me to not succumb to despair. there’s a way for me to live from the truest thing about me. because the truest thing about me is not the struggles i face or the evil that tries to cling to me.
the truest thing about me is that i am beloved.
THE SUN NEVER SAYS
Even
After
All this time
The sun never says to the earth,
“You owe
Me.”
Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the
Whole
Sky.
-Hafiz, “The Gift” (trans. Daniel Ladinsky)
i put up my christmas tree. before thanksgiving. i know, sinful, eh?
actually, not. i am so glad to do it. i love christmas, and i love putting out things i only see once a year, listening to special music. i love it. love it love it LOVE it. it still looks a lot like this in case you’re curious.
things i don’t love: feeling lost and confused and wondering what to do when it feels hopeless. feeling sad when my feelings are hurt. being mad and having no idea whether or not it’s the healthy “this is unjust” or unhealthy “your breathing is pissing me off” kinda mad.
man, i love christmas. i love peace and i love feeling warm and sipping hot chocolate and enjoying the moment. and there have been lots of moments to enjoy. but i am also sad. really sad, in ways that i don’t know i’ve ever been aware of. sad that this condition is so pervasive. that being here means not knowing if it’s the right thing even most of the time.
nobody has it figured out. if they tell you they do, they’re crazy as hell.
tonight. 
i got home from my week and a half of travel, tired and weary…
and……
my friends put milk in my fridge, dinner on my stove, flowers on my table and cookies in my bed (yes, they’re weird, that’s why they’re friends with me!)
sigh. it’s good to belong. i needed that.
sans internet, sans cell phone mostly…for a week makes me feel incredibly disconnected. i mean, it doesn’t have to be that way. but it is, for me.
sure there are sometimes where i enjoy turning my phone off and shutting the computer down for an afternoon. but it’s my choice. not imposed on me by rural pennsylvania.
sigh.
okay. so we’re traveling and i’ve been around someone all the time. and it’s starting to catch up with me (the extravert, i know!!) traveling is good for my heart. i love going places. but i got a cold this week and so the in and out and up and down and shaking of hands (or rather not, since i don’t want to infect anyone) is a little maddening.
i’d like to curl up in a corner and sleep for a week. me?!? the same person who just said she didn’t want to be isolated from people wants to sleep for a week.
whether or not it’s true, whether or not people mean it, there’s a real sense of hurt and pain for me around people sometimes. i mean, i have a safety net, sure places to go. but some folks (lots of folks in fact) are interested in sizing me up and weighing me (proverbally, thank God!), and deciding whether who i am is legitimate or not. i don’t like this. i don’t like feeling like i have to prove i’m a hard worker or that the things i pour myself into matter.
the truth is truly that those people don’t know what they’re talking about. the end. i can’t judge them because then i’d be just like them. but it’s really unfortunate that they’re missing out on my best parts.
i’m a good’un, i am. (is that too weird like the poofy haired guy looking in a mirror?)
i just realized that the last time i was traveling so long, i wrote a post about how i didn’t need to convince myself that i was an artist.
i see a trend developing here.
why am i so prone to caring what people think? who in the hell am i trying to please?
i am going to be free. i am free. free, indeed.
no really. okay, it’s not 5 a.m. now, but it was, and i saw it on the clock.
man!!! i hate not being able to sleep sometimes. it sucks. on the other hand, getting up this early means i have time for luxuries like blog writing!
this has been a sad week. i’m sad. the work i’ve been doing getting ready for this trip we’re taking means that i’m reading and writing and hearing stories of people whose lives are unbelievably hard. i mean, i know we all have hard things about our lives and i won’t even try to minimize that because damn…we’re in this mess together.
but in the west it just feels like people are obsessed with comfort. if they don’t have the right shoes or the right car, they feel downtrodden and oppressed. and it’s insulting to me when there are real people who experience real oppression. what would it be like for us if the richness of our lives outweighed our temporary troubles? and if we poured that richness into the real oppressed? the truly downtrodden? the poor and the needy?
it just might change the world.
i keep noticing something popping up these days: a thing of wanting to help, to do something, to mean something, to matter.
such a silly thing to wonder when you’re royalty.
