Picture Book…

The death of Michael Jackson marked the beginning of a personal photo project, a simple P.O.V. “thing” that makes me believe I am more important than the average creature. I am, just ask my kids… not my son, he’ll drool on you! And so, the idea is to look back on these as I have my escapades of the past, yet this time what I do matters, and the most mundane of situations are relevant enough to capture. If my life has become simpler, if my world has become smaller, if my view of the universe is still eschewed, at least someone else can bear witness. And so, on June 25, 2009, the King of Pop Michael Jackson died… I was working on a paper regarding merit and affirmative action for my Philosophy of Human Conduct class and my world kept on spinning. Still had to feed my son every three hours, still did some puzzles with my daughter, still had to figure out the positive points of affirmative action in America (yes, found some!), still had too many cigarette breaks.

Above are two great reasons as to why my creativity has taken a catastrophic hit. I honestly do not believe I will ever recover and yet, I consider myself quite a creative person still. At least I would like to believe I still “got it,” understanding how lucky I am for the opportunity. Happiness comes in the most ambiguous of packages, while philosophically, happiness could be just an over-inflated sense of accomplishment alone. I did nothing but inconvenience myself, these kids gave me some validity, while I had been walking around with too little of it. However, having young children gives you the opportunity to look at life with a wide lens and so I have found the limitless possibilities for creative intention… through their eyes and sometimes at night, through your own, fresh and clear.

Last Saturday, a few friends got together to help Aubree and John move into their new place. She is about six months pregnant with their second child, having been married almost four years. They are a great, young couple I have admired for a long time. Making marriage work, watching great indie films and raising a beautiful child, I once felt rather clumsy around them. Cynism tells me couples like them do not exist and most people go through life either never finding each other, or worse, unable to “get together” (trust me, the experience still fresh… *smile*). But I am not a cynic and truly believe it will happen for me, the holding hands so long they sweat and handwritten letters for no reason. I have never married and at this point, will NOT settle for anything else but the butterflies; I am 32 years old with two children, too much to lose and the hopes of full self-reliance going strong… so close I once lived it! My friends are in love, are yours?

Tomorrow? More pics and finding some idea as to what I am trying to do here… with the pictures, not my life!

“There is no such thing as perpetual tranquility of mind while we live here; because life itself is but motion, and can never be without desire, nor without fear, no more than without sense.” -Thomas Hobbes

Today’s Undertaking…

by M. Ward

A mighty voice
From out the clouds
To me announced
Today’s undertaking

He said go build a song
40 heartbeats long
And sacrifice it
For your love

So this one comes from
High above

There have been other songs
From out these strings
But they came out wrong
Don’t be mistaken

But this one comes from
High above

Yeah this one is dedicated to you

Thanksgiving was good, the next day was informative and cruel. North Carolina was beautiful as always, cold as I remember it. Pictures of the kid frolicking, falling, the leaves in colors unknown to Florida and pets treated as part of the family. When others hand you their agendas as proposals and as impolite as it may be, you must move on and build somewhere else quick before it gets cold enough down here. If I don’t know who I am, I know what I can do and these are the days to show yourself to have made it by working it. My life is about chances, possibility and all that shit that makes it worth the effort of breathing; I refuse to believe that living it makes me irresponsible, one does not connect to the other without proper recklessness. The kids grow and I will continue to make mistakes, all I want is the best as we “pray” for perseverance. Last night I almost gave up, then I woke up, my last morning in NC and my drive returned. Some of us are tested and when it comes down to finding happiness, I simply refuse to settle.

“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.” -Kahlil Gibran

Broken up into pieces, easier to chew

That scene from “Say Anything” I absolutely love; it made me believe in all of that romantic crap. Playing the harmonica for me, or that whole rose petals thing, if you have time please feel free to do so. If the rest of the time we have on earth you would prefer to spend it in cross-reference, well, I would like to stand nearby. But isn’t the whole point of it all to take a drink of quirks and tiny faults straight up? I’ve turned a blind eye towards what truly mattered and forgot I was looking for something that wasn’t “this.” Sleeping alone is nothing, sacred time of restful convenience, I will only appreciate these late nights/early mornings when both the mind and the soul are being fed. Mundanity has a crushing way of reminding you about responsibility and the path you have chosen. I have the worst sense of direction, yet I never forget a place. From the palm of your hand to the bottom of your heart, eastern religions tell us that it is nothing but lovingkindness. Being a human-american, I’ve come to understand that we were taught otherwise; you travel through deserts and streams, settlements of the broken-hearted as you leave your palm in search for the bottom of your heart/soul/recesses of your mind. I had this thought last night, that if you give companionship a go, it would help to have a map -albeit a tentative one- to guide you, some of us are getting too old to get lost again, am I right? When you fall asleep hoping, you wake up with new habits. If you re-arrange a few things as the days go by, there will be no need to go changing all at once, those are the ones that trick you.

I have been a mother for almost three years now, I’ve been told I will be one forever… I wonder how I’ll manage, for her sake. Me? I’ll figure it out.

“From your parents you learn love and laughter and how to put one foot before the other. But when books are opened you discover that you have wings.” -Helen Hayes

Another day, another… dollar?

I’m staring at my daughter from my office, a direct view of the couch where she sits eating her breakfast (so many things wrong with that sentence!). She’s a happy kid and even at two years old, an absolute delight to have around. When I envision our future, seeing her grow and make mistakes, I know the key to a happy life… for her. So I guess I’m here to teach her a few things, possibly to make it easier on her. The love and attention is warranted, it should be in your bones and something you never forget; it’s the gum in my purse and the rides to the mall that may be a little problematic. You see, I hate the mall and because I also hate wintergreen, not always will I be happy to send her to some “Hot Topic” knock-off to spend all of her money on. And rarely is gum vegan. But it all comes together perfectly to make way for a brand new set of circumstances, I will get a car and drive her around everywhere and never force my diet on her -although, there will be some literature and some way to explain, health and consequence in contrast with possibly her peers. “I wanna be a cool mom,” yet I prefer to be in the shadows, no kids running around thinking they can get away with things around me; I will wear MOM jeans if I have to, I am not playing! For too long I’ve worried, the loss of my spark and my style, now there’s an understanding, about how things are in comparison with how I want them to be. We can make do…

What has happened to the values of this country? Seriously, I am not preaching but there is a definite gap, between the blue and white collars, between what you’ve earned and what you actually deserve, between us… and them. I notice theses things because I love this country and until recently, there was no other place I wanted to live. Now, we worry… and learn other languages, something every american should do, after all.

“A modern democracy is a tyranny whose borders are undefined; one discovers how far one can go only by traveling in a straight line until one is stopped.” -Norman Mailer

It will better once I’m out here…

… it’s just that I never catch them in time, Max.

We have successfully moved to the country and as a certified “city girl” all of these sounds and nature have been a bit difficult to get used to; eventually, they say. The baby loves it out here, however, and there is nothing I enjoy most than spraying her with bug repellent every time we step out the door. Why is it that the stars shine so much brighter out here? The smell of the air after it rains is heavenly and those wild flowers… fucking dandelions! I haven’t written much and my days are spent getting us comfortable, the idea was that we would share something that isn’t ours in order to create our story. Now I finally understand that not even on the best of circumstances would that work, it’s like being an idealist that sees things as they are and we all know that’s not me. Sadly, that is all I know, I have felt not only out of sorts but once again searching that scares me. The person I used to be didn’t have a kid nor loved her with everything she didn’t have, so… we’re good, I’m just unhappy but that can always change. It has to.

Five minutes is never enough and for the last few lifetimes that is all I get, this borrowed time that fills a book with memories. We could let go and forever be free, remember those days of numbers and figures? I couldn’t stop looking at him and yes this is different, I’m 30 and that’s it, that’s all I got because in my head this all seems like some Freudian dream where I catch the 10:40 train to Ontario and there he is dressed in the suit my father was buried in. It also seems as if these months have become years and there I go investing too much of as little as I have in order to save someone else… sure, the promise to save myself is also on the table, but still. It could be that I think of life as the only one I’m going to experience right now and it may slip me by just as quickly as I turned 20, as quickly as I was a thirty-year old mother. What are we asking for here? You’re asking for time and I’m trying to give mine away, you’re quietly asking for space and I’m trying to give you the option. It’s true and I don’t care, my relationships with men become complicated because of my method of selection; if there isn’t a spark, it will never “ignite,” no matter how ideal the conditions are (maybe a fire joke isn’t so appropriate with all of these wildfires across this miserable state!). They’re a bit torn and even used when they reach me, having been in some recent fight and had lost, most have issues with trust. This one came attached to a hose, the sucker ran clear across town where a single woman has been working the well for almost five years. If this is your time for selfishness, just pretend I’m not here.

“Some people are settling down, some people are settling and some people refuse to settle for anything less than butterflies.” -Carrie Bradshaw, Sex & The City

The Sleep Nazi

I have this problem and today, five minutes ago, I realized how serious it is. For someone who rarely sleeps, I happen to be very particular about others around me -especially my little girl- getting their so-called eight hours. Sometimes it happens to be ten, that’s my magic number on how many hours she should sleep and unless there is illness or just as simple as a rough day, the kid should be up by eight am. I am really not looking for any input from any other parents because, honestly, I don’t care! The balance between reason and culture (I’m hispanic and our people, especially our mothers, have this mixture of folklore and modern ideas that has worked in the upbringing of great human beings throughout the generations…) is judged by the way your children act towards others, how they speak and how the eventually grow up. The point of all of this and the reason being a sleep nazi is a problem is because this is also another thing for me to become anxious over, just like her grandmother’s day-long lecture on how sugar affects their side of the family and how sensitive a child’s stomach is… I actually feel rather foolish about that last retelling, I should be glad someone is there to watch me just in case I fall, it’s just the thought that I will be stepped over on her way out the door with my child and her ideas in tow. Besides, this was her first actual Easter Sunday where she actually hunted for eggs and became acquainted with yellow bunny marshmallow peeps, she may have been allowed to overindulge just a bit; her father and I are very cautious people by nature -okay, instinctively!-, she never had “too much.” But here’s the punchline: We’re Buddhists! Whilst we read from the Art Of Happiness by the Dalai Lama, our angel did have a good night’s rest and a balanced meal this normal morning. Some problems are easier to solve than others, I guess.

Why would you mess up a good thing? Maybe because you don’t know what a good thing is.

“Beware of men who cry. It’s true that men who cry are sensitive to and in touch with feelings, but the only feelings they tend to be sensitive to and in touch with are their own.” -Nora Ephron

12345…

My daughter… this kid’s amazing and more often than not, the cure for my ills. But lately she has been testing me as well, we have been spending too much time together and I now understand she doesn’t “hate me.” We have the tantrums, the speed-running, and the repeating of every single word that comes out of our mouths. Her dad has gasped more in the last year than in the other nine I have known him at the incredible things his daughter accomplishes… he works very hard and I am with her every day, sometimes I don’t clap as hard as him or the other family members; my guilt actually fuels me, it’s like an odd Catholic-Buddhist self-flagellation ritual type thing. Regardless, she is worth the hype and it’s these quiet times when she’s fast asleep that there’s a bit of time to reason and Tabula Rasa for the next day. Wow, how the grammar changes when we all understand what I’m talking about, huh?!

I wonder why you ask me “have you been writing in your notebook?” every time we see each other, detectives pick up on that sort of thing. I wonder why crying doesn’t solve anything, just the concept of release has to count for something and who made it standard that people that can’t be together HAVE to get over each other? Was that just silly? Stupid? Foolish? He was right, love can make you do foolish things… actually, to tell you the truth, I had started to agree with him after he was willing to argue with me by using us and what we had done as an example, the balls on this guy! So far, this has ceased to be a waiting game, it has become a torturous look at each other’s sad (excluding the joy of our children) lives through the eyes of our… wagon stories.

Accidental Babies

Well I held you like a lover
Happy hands and your elbow in the appropriate place

And we ignored our others, happy plans
For that delicate look upon your face

Our bodies moved and hardened
Hurting parts of your garden
With no room for a pardon
In a place where no one knows what we have done

Do you come
Together ever with him?
And is he dark enough?
Enough to see your light?
And do you brush your teeth before you kiss?
Do you miss my smell?
And is he bold enough to take you on?
Do you feel like you belong?
And does he drive you wild?
Or just mildly free?
What about me?

Well you held me like a lover
Sweaty hands
And my foot in the appropriate place

And we use cushions to cover
Happy glands
In the mild issue of our disgrace

Our minds pressed and guarded
While our flesh disregarded
The lack of space for the light-hearted
In the boom that beats our drum

Well I know I make you cry
And I know sometimes you wanna die
But do you really feel alive without me?
If so, be free
If not, leave him for me
Before one of us has accidental babies
For we are in love

Do you come
Together ever with him?
Is he dark enough?
Enough to see your light?
Do you brush your teeth before you kiss?
Do you miss my smell?
And is he bold enough to take you on?
Do you feel like you belong?
And does he drive you wild?
Or just mildly free?

What about me?
What about me? -Damien Rice, “9″