Loss in my community

Photo link

Robert Busby died this week. It turns out he was murdered in his business. To me this gentleman represented community, leadership, and compassion. I never spent time in his presence without feeling contentment permeating from him. He was a brilliant businessman, supporter of local music, and his art gallery, Creole Gallery, felt like a piece of home to me. Some of my foundest memories of this town was reviewing the art on the walls and listening to music in his gallery. I feel this sense of loss for myself and this community. I wish I had a photo showing his beautiful smile. I once wrote that a person's death was like a drop of rain creating ripples in a river. His loss is a huge ripple that affects this whole town. He really was impactful, beyond generous in kindness. I am honored to have worked directly with him and to have been in his pressence.

We have been cheated a good soul.

Dear Diary,

There is a muffled silence outside. Snow drifts in powdery wetness. The whole day has this dreary grey ring outlining everything. I can’t help but feel it around me. I just want to take a nap, wrapping myself under blanket and quiet. Everyone in the school program seems to be feeling the way I am these days, like we are crawling towards spring break - fingers digging into the snow and ice pushing the dead weight of school forward, arms aching from the pull. Thoughts flash in my head of car rides under blue skies opening. I want to go now. Even if I weren’t going anywhere, I’m excited about a week off. Excited about just letting this heavy school, work, internship load drop at my side. Let those sidekick piles of mine collect momentary dust.

There is this huge part of myself that says that I should use the week to fine polish school projects and catch up on some readings. Be responsible. Make sure I make every penny I am paying for this program count. Yeah, no. My own personal rhetoric I’m too exhausted to live up to. I’m kicking it to the curb next week, leaving it in the dust of my wheels squealing.

That’s about it. Next stop tonight is a spinning class. Um, the bike kind. I don’t want to go. I can think of a thousand AND one reasons I really couldn’t possibly…but I know I will feel better if I go. My eyes won’t feel so worn and that dreariness outside won’t stick to my skin.

I really write that last statement for myself. I’m trying to persuade, convince…just plain make it happen.

Cheers. GoGo

free thought randomness

untitled

It’s funny how

time

can refresh the skin.

It’s funny how

time

can bring insight into our stories.

It’s funny how

time

can take the back seat

forcing some moments to last forever.

They don’t, they never do.

But sometimes they can feel like forever,

stretching on and on and on,

and I begin to wonder if anything will ever change.

Sure things always change.

I grow into this beautiful woman and self,

collecting myself in this life

like a really fuck!ng good story,

but residuals of unkempt stories linger

like broken strands of fabric frayed

by their unending-ness.

I wear these unfinished stories like

oily skin, self-doubt pimpled on the cheeks.

Then,

one moment,

random

and not planned

turns the tables,

and

I can see

what those strands are good for.

It’s funny

how random conversations

with random friends

can take

time

out of the back seat

we begin to drive somewhere else.

I did not plan this change,

did not even expect it could happen,

but here I am

exfoliated

by it.

Sunday Scribbling: Puzzled

I am about to collect myself again and hit the road. I’m not talking about the trip to the beach tomorrow, a last minute attempt to meet water and sand under winter’s view. A humbling experience of touching the ice formed at the edge of that Great Lake with trepidation’s feet and gingered thoughts before stepping backwards toward the safety of snow covered sand. I’m not talking about that trip.

I’m talking about trying once more to head out onto the long road out of town and out of State, collecting a friend and traveling outwards. My body saturated with routine living, feels weighted down by this daily grind. I look forward to that illicit movement, freeing me from all this complacent devotion to school. It’s a puzzle I have lasted this long.

I think I got this traveling bug from my grandmother - mother’s side. Throughout my childhood she moved from apartment to house, house to trailer, trailer to apartment and round again. She preferred the existence of small town living, but there is something between us that relates. Movement. The fun part about grandmama, was that by her 3rd husband, she realized that though she loved him, she really preferred to live by herself. So two love birds, traveled in twos their homes becoming bookends to loving each other. Seriously, when grandmama moved, grandpa R moved along with her, except he took the trailer across the way or the apartment next door. This behavior puzzled folks, but not me. I got what love was from this.

I also got the travel bug and I need movement soon, except I prefer short trips out then back again. I cannot wait to hit the road. I cannot wait to collect my friend and take a week to head down to NC to see friends and the ocean. There’s something about picking up, heading out, only to come back again. The road opens me like no other place. Home has new dimensions in its corners when I return. Time re-calibrates when traveling. Sometimes I like to go just so I can come back home. A puzzling statement?

One week and counting.

~~

~~

~~

This was my interpretation of this week's Sunday Scribblings prompt: puzzled.

drama and porn

seven posts in February. will people stop reading? have I lost my mojo for this page?

no, just busy....finished the CV for London. Well, until I do something else to be added. Watched Season 3 of the L-Word - hey I'm a single lesbian over my head in an MSW program with no time to date, at least that is what the last gyrl told me...I need lesbian drama and porn. Finished 2 papers and turned them in, prepared a presentation for upcoming events, and bought new socks. That's just a taste of my week. I do plan to go to the beach on Sunday after my quaker meeting. I need nature and the sunset over the Great Lake. That or a dinner and a movie with some friends.

Blah. Bad post, sorry.

compass

Time has filled itself to the brim of my day with academic obligations, work negotiations, and internship reviews. Still something has changed. Something in me and around me has moved. It feels as simple as moving a knickknack from one shelf to another, a minor detail only the owner would notice, yet I am impacted like my whole house has changed.

My internal compass twists and sways in my days ever steady, it continues to point out my direction. When I turn south it reminds me where my north still resides. With this, the pace in my days does not faze me like it once did, though I still look forward to reprieves, still defend against built up stress…still think my administration class is just plain stupid.

~GoGo

pages from the sketchbook

Words from the sketchbook, collections of life happening randomly around me, I put pen to paper and draw the moments. These are my landscapes, my profiles, my sketches.

Bent head, eye brow a stencil of thin brown perched upward like a thought, her eyes looking downward toward some distance point on the floor. This is her pausing, thinking of the next thing to say. This is a moment that silence fills with potent conversations about uncertainty, the self pausing to collect all the practical that should come with a moment like this. She is in the moment and in this moment she weighs the risks of taking things on or letting the moment walk away.
~
There is a smell in the air, fragrant sprigs of lavender and burnt sandalwood mixing in a holy union of two strangers sharing a bench. Bookends of olfactory delights mixing in the shear joy where randomly they collide.
~
She said there will be a tomorrow as sundry steps of strangers collide with the air around her. She is a wreck of cold and worn wearing on her, speaking her words to the bitterness blowing around her in this harbor of glass and metal called the bus stop. I was an accidental witness to her resilience toward some unexplained pain she was fighting on this winter’s day. I was her witness.
~
Three children sit under lamplight and morning stars passing around some mystery found on the side of the street. A prize, a treasure, a tossed out thing that has become something for them to share.
~
The wind’s blowing hard, bitter crispness whirling all around. Snow drifts.
~
A cackle and a call out for the bus to come. People talk in murmurs of resistance to the icy day. Its cold, where’s the bus already?

This little light of mine...I'm gonna let it....flicker

First and foremost, Good luck Bendingpeak!!

I’m sitting at the University library NOT writing my paper. Yes, these words are another distraction, another attempt at procrastination. My paper is a synthesis paper for this Administration class. I am to reflect on the logic model and program designs for a made up program I and my group members have created. There is nothing like pretending to do something. Did I ever write that this is the class I am not into? I’m the type of gyrl who likes challenges. I don’t enjoy anything to do with policy, so that just makes me want to work harder at understanding policy. This class where I am learning to design a program is tedious as hell though, even for me. This Synthesis paper is due tomorrow. This paper has been long put off for the sheer tediousness I feel regarding it. So, in the attempt to make writing it feel like tearing off a band-aide slowly with as much excruciating pain as possible complete with de-rooted hairs, I thought I would write something for the blog. I know I should just get at it already.

This is a sign of mild burn out, complete with “I don’t wanna” and long detours into reading fiction that has nothing to do with school. Currently, I am reading House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski. Well not currently, currently I am writing for the blog. I was reading the book earlier when I had daylight to write my paper. For those who have any sense of my herstory on this blog, you can see the distinct deterioration of my study habits. I am in fact, procrastinating BIG TIME. Anyway, this was not the best choice of books to distract me from my studies. I had to tear myself away from it. It wasn’t one to read between things. I knew that when I bought this book. That’s why I was waiting to read it when I had more time between things then I do now.

What can I say, it was sitting on my end table looking all nice and shiny. I had a few moments of not wanting to do anything and thought what could it hurt to crack the book. You know, read the copyright page, maybe flip through and read the author's bio....smell it. The next thing I know, I am reading the introduction, hands caressing the whiteness of the smooth paper, eyes dialated by the sheer joy of experiencing the read. It was all over from there.

Yeah, I’m in trouble. Oh, not because its past midnight and I haven’t started my paper. I’ll get that done tonight. Once I get started I will be fine. I’ll write something sweet. It’s the sheer inability to start it that is troubling. It’s also not my habit to procrastinate this bad with so many dstractions, which again brings me back to mild burn out.

…maybe I should leave out mild.

I ask myself, what do I need to do to rekindle my candle this semester? I know. Stop writing this and get to it?

Tomorrow is going to be a crappy sleepy day…

Editorial

No Sunday Scribblings this week. Too much to do, brain overloaded.

I just wanted to put out to blogland that my Mom posts are the sum of conversations turned into fictional dialogue for the sake of humor. Its a cathartic exercise. My mother is a beautiful, funny person, who I love and adore. I never would have thought growing up that she would really care so much about my haircut, my clothes, how long I have before I hit menopause and the inability to give her "grandbabies" (though she has two already) or when and if I settle down would effect her so much. It has though. My mother taught me to be an independent thinker, never doubted my intelligence, and has always wanted my happiness. I find it ironic that her and my definition of my happiness are so different. She has a hard time trusting me, and I have a hard time trusting she has my best interest at heart. Apparently this is a biological occurence for most parents as they have children AEB the responses. I too will wonder why my child has cut her hair the way she has, or find a Terret impulse to tell her she is my "itsy bitsy sweety," and my mother has already stated she will be there to laugh at me and give my children candy when I tell her "No".

In short, we have become a cliche. Both of us.

My mother has given me the gift of laughing at myself...and apparently her too. Thank you, Mom.

Conversation #442: Why Pi is infinite

Prologue:

Thoughts swaying with the music, words churn in my stomach, turning into something to say. Or perhaps this is just lunch digesting.

My life feels like a Picasso Painting. My life is bits and pieces scattered all over the canvas and it’s the color of me that pulls it all together.
~~~~

Act I: Two Stubborn Women Dancing -
We meet our heroine in the middle of it all.

GoGo: I’ll be there on Thursday morning, around 9am.

Mom: Are you sure, its really bad weather and I don’t want my baby to get hurt.

GoGo: (What am I suckling from your nipple still! I do not say this, I think it.) I’ve been driving in bad weather for years, Mom. I know how to slow down and scrape the windows. You are aware your baby is 30-years-old. I would prefer to not be called your baby, Mom.

Mom: You will always be my baby. I can’t help but worry.

GoGo: Thank you for birthing me and for teaching me the word Vagina instead of Woowoo. Thank you for raising me and feeding me, but Mom, I need you to see I am an adult now. I appreciate your worry, but I really don’t appreciate being called your baby.

Mom: I know you’re a beautiful woman. You’re very smart and you can make your own decisions, but you will always be my baby.

GoGo: I need you to listen to me. I need you to stop calling me your baby. I am not in diapers. I am not suckling from your breast. I am not going goo goo and gaa gaa. If you see I am a beautiful woman then I need you to show it by stop calling me your baby.

Mom: You will always be my baby.

At this point in the conversation, I am angry. I feel little and powerless and just want to call the whole damn thing off. I want to run to my teacher and tell her this was the most asinine assignment I ever had. I want to scream because I feel so unheard, so invisible, so isolated and I want to tell my Mother if she doesn’t listen I’ll never talk to her again. In short, I want to be passive aggressive and write condesending things about her on my blog. I have lost my voice, my composure, my direction. Then I remember something from class.

GoGo: How would you feel if Grandma called you her little baby?

Mom: I wish she would. I was an adult before I ate solid food. I was never her baby.

GoGo: I’m sorry you weren’t able to be a little girl. It seems important for you to be the parent you never had.

Mom: Yes.

GoGo: I need you to be a parent to a 30-year-old woman, Mom.

Mom: You’re still my baby.

Long pause.

GoGo: Fine, you're paying for my gas then.

Mom: Deal, I'll even throw in breakfast.

GoGo: I'm not wearing a bib.

Mom: Of course not, you're a 30-year-old woman.

Sunday Scribblings: The Road To Goodbye

So, I was sitting at the computer, trying to find something creative to say about goodbyes. I’ll be doing enough of that soon, none-the-less, I was committed to the endeavor to create for Sunday Scribblings…even if goodbye seemed like a subject I did not want to write about, not quite yet anyway.

At first I thought, why not write a story. A story that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with some one other then me.

The cursor blinked.

Then I thought perhaps a goodbye poem, rich in imagery and a pint of pity for some one who was saying goodbye.

I came up with this:
Going down sidewalks

Our voices huddled like

Our bodies,

Determined to let go, in

Breathless anticipation for

You and I

Ever ready to be no more.

Please note its spells goodbye…its one of those…um…acronyms?

The poem sucked so, I went in search of whether what I did was an acronym or something else and discovered the word RETROnym. Um, excuse me, but bling of a bell is so retronym. (I can’t get Astro’s voice from the Jetson out of my head when I read this word).

rretroonym...rrretrroonym.

Then I decided to look up quotes to inspire a more sophisticated prose on the subject of goodbye, and found these quotes:

"May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields. And until we meet again, May [Mother Earth] hold you in the hollow of [her] hand."

An Irish Proverb that just sounds nice!

I also l came across this handy little quote, “May you never forget what is worth remembering, nor ever remember what is best forgotten.”

Yeah, sounds about right.

But in the end, I was no closer to an entry about goodbye. I did find this quote by Henry David Thoreau: "Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes".

Ahhhh.

I’m writing that one down to keep handy when I leave this town. And yet still, no inspired goodbye story to be had. In the end though, I just gave up my futile attempt and typed this entry instead.

Goodbye. :)

~gg

5 ways to smile

Painted House 52 tagged me for a meme. 5 things that have made me smile this week.

1) My conversation with my Mom this week. In my family therapy class or as we Students like to call it SW851, we are required to do a family genome project, which is just a family tree with layers. Its not just the names and death of family members, but education level, careers, substance history, divorces, you name the thing you don't want to tell your Professor and its required. Anyway, Mom and I are planning me coming home and going through the family "history". The family secrets are already coming out. I found out that my Aunt who I thought was married 6 times, twice to the same man, had in fact lied. Apparently, she didn't want my Grandmother to know she was "living in sin." Mom and I laughed at this together. Not about her lie, but when Mom mentioned it she said, "Mothers are good at making their children feel guilty." I responded, "I hear you on that one." We just started to laugh. Then Mom got quiet suddenly and said, "I'm sorry for making you feel guilty". It just made us laugh harder.

2) The way winter stains the cheeks with a grainy sting of cold. I love the smell of the cold, though not too deep because once the nose hairs freeze it can be painful. Snow, cold, and freezing winds brought a smile to my face this week. Okay, partly because chapped cheeks have a natural grinning factor to them.

3) A coworker turned friend of mine I use to work with emailed me this week to say hello and check in. She heard I did not get my promotion, which was her job, but wanted to remind me that sometimes when we do not get what we want, it is the [universe] making room for better opportunities we cannot see yet. I believe this, but it was nice to be reminded. This person is a good friend and wise sage in my life. My job is currently being restructered and I may have to look elsewhere for employment because of many things I have absolutely no control over. Not a drop. Anyway, her words reminded me that I can let go of the stress and know its okay. I smiled while reading it. I miss working with you, Tan.

4) Coffee. Brewed fresh in the morning with the blanket around me and the newspaper on my lap.

5) Julia Sweeney's CD, Letting Go of God.

I tag 3 folks I've never tagged before:
Renovating the Heart
Ruminating in the Roses
JTL