What is your favorite color? My Ode to Life

So, I am a childless woman. Right now, no kids. No, this is not a long winded whine complete with boo hoos and poor me(s). I really don’t mind being childless at the moment. In fact, the whole childlessness makes it real easy to pick up and move to London. I am noting my current childless existence because I myself am surprised by the number of kids who are in my life. Yes, for a no kid gyrl, I certainly get a bunch of calls and letters from this developmentally influx group. And you know what, I love this. I have my nephew, my little bo, and my cousin, all around the same age calling me or writing me. My friends in North Carolina keep me posted about their little one – she’s walking! And every-so-often, I hear about this 6-year-old out in the world.

I never expected kids to be in my life. Just didn’t. I don’t know why. I like being an adult in these kids’ lives. Okay, sometimes I like being a kid with these kids or what I like to call an extension to childhood. It’s nice.

Recently, one of these wonderful pre-adults asked me some questions. Ironically, the whole conversation felt like a funny forward sent out on email, except they were the usual questions one expects from kids. Questions were asked like what is your favorite food; do you prefer cats over dogs; and if you were a sound what would it be? (Peas, cat&dog, Bflat). One question that really made me think was “what is my favorite color?” Now, for years, since I can remember my favorite color has been red. It’s the color of hearts, the shade of love, and strawberries are red. These would have been my answers at age six. Fast forward to 30 years old and I found myself wondering if it was still true. See, there is so much more then red out there. Blue is a wonderful color, relaxing and reminds me of the word authentic. It also brings out my eyes. Orange is a sensual, warm color that just feels confident, assured, and in harmony. Purple is wise, far reaching and reminds me of the word twilight, plum, peace. Green is everywhere. She emphasizes life in breath, the whimsical in everyday, and it also brings out a nice shade in my eyes. Yellow is a surprise every time. It just is.

So, when the little one asked me what my favorite color was, I wondered which of these were true. By the way, I wasn’t allowed to answer all colors. But you know what, after thinking about it. I realized red is still my favorite color. Why? Because out of all the colors, it’s always been there for me. When I was wee, I had a head injury where a ho had slit my forehead. Um, that was a garden ho. I can remember being confused, disoriented and just plain out of it! What I also remember is the red bleeding from me was so beautiful. It was rich and pure, and life itself. Which, if we think about it, is not such a good thing. I felt at peace and was very distracted by the color. I realized out of all the colors out there, red has always had by back. Every time something bad happens and I bleed, I am okay, because I’m bleeding my favorite color. :-).

That’s why red is my favorite color. And here, read this poem, because it also explains my love for red.

This probably explains why kids like to talk to me too.

~GoGo

Week 1: Post Graduation

I just finished reading Dooce. I really enjoy reading her monthly newsletters to her daughter. I always get this warm feeling building inside me only to burst out in wetness crowding around my eyelids. Love is a beautiful thing. I've decided to write my mum for Mother's Day and its going to be titled Mom's Newsletter: Month 359.

Life post graduation has been an interesting ride. I have been staying up late watching sitcoms and reading books (that's the non-textbook version). Though I still have one class this summer, I finally feel done with the fast paced life of grad school. I also am confronting my uptightness with my life path…or rather has fondly been called my anal attentive. Yes, it is different than anal retentive. See, with the exception of going to Kalamazoo to see my Aunt in the hospital, which I will write about in a minute, I have woken at the butt crack of dawn only to sit in front of the tele complete with my cup of Joe and nasty messed up hair until noon. Sometimes I shift between butt cheeks during the course of the morning, but overall, I just sit and watch shows like Sylvia Brown on Montel, Different World, The View until I head out into the world to "do things". I have been silently beating myself up for doing nothing...distracting myself from Sylvia predicting that yet another woman is gonna find a man. I should be cleaning the house, going for a run, working out, etc.

I havealso been doing stuff with friends. It’s nice to play, talk, and discuss everything other then school stuff. Though I realize the majority of my friends and I are pretty conscientious people, so the conversation inevitably returns to politics, policies, world news, and debates regarding the practicality of commuting by bike and bus. I say very. Anyway, many of the people I know are doing the exact same thing I am – randomly moving their butt cheeks in order to avoid bed sores. What a relief. The moment I realized this, I felt this huge anal part of myself finally let go and fart. Whew. Goodbye internal commentary while I am contentedly lazy for a moment. Of course, I also realized I am doing a good number of things in my days already without all this self-flagellation. Funny how that works.

Today I spent the afternoon downloading photos for classmates. I kept promising folks pics I had taken at various function throughout this semester and after my third email from a friend who pretty much promised to disown me if I didn’t follow through, I put it on the schedule to send them out. This was an ardous task complete with sitting on my butt and rotating cheeks.

Um, what else? I researched Hypothyroidism. I have been diagnosed with it this week. I’ve known for some time I probably had it. Not because I have achieved a healthy internal dialogue with my body. Please. I’m still working on that. My Mom has been warning me for some time now that I am just like her and like her I should get checked for thyroid problems. I’ve seen the symptoms occurring during school and wasn’t sure if they were normal grad school stress or the Thyroid, so I got it checked out. I guess in a way I am listening to myself. I just have to let go of the idea that I should be able to self-diagnose as though right next to my anal attentive farter is this internal bioscanner or something.

I wish I had an internal bioscanner.

My mom and I spent last night chatting about my new medication, the tests, and how I am so much like her. I held my hands over the phone and sang “LaLaLa” over the latter part of the conversation. She also told me “I told you so” in various and rather creative ways throughout the conversation. I do love my Mom and she loves me. We've agreed I can fight her on the notion I am like her until I have successfully given her grandchildren AND built a extention to my home all her own.

I am now about to go back to Kalamazoo to see my Aunt. She has made it out of critical condition when only a few days ago the docs were preparing her daughters for the worst. My aunt got into a car accident, broke her ankle and demolished her car only for the docs to realize she had a more serious bowl obstruction. Her car accident, a very mangling experience I was told, saved her life. When I saw her earlier this week, I thought I was going to say goodbye to my third person this year only to find she had woken up and was breathing on her own. Wow! I went down to see my cousins too, worried about them, only to see two sassy stubborn women who knew life can be complicated. Within an hour of being there we were laughing. We even shared stories about our grandmother, the matriarch, and how perhaps this summer we should finally have a family reunion to honor her before I head out to London. We also cried, mourning the fear of my aunt dying.

Well, this is my life. Week 1 post graduation.

Remember to laugh, cry, and get your anal attentive side to fart once and a while.

Until next week,

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!

~GoGo

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.

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

The Question: a parody

Mother: Saw X at w*l-mart

In my home town W*l-mart seems to be the popular place to see people. Its not just my parents either. Friends will call me up and say, "Hey, I saw your parents at w*l-mart. I don’t promote the place, I’m just stating an observation.

GoGo: Yeah, how’s she doing?

Mother: Her partner and her are having a commitment ceremony.

Since I have left my home town, a good number of my friends have turned out to be queer, suspected queer, or divorcing someone who is queer. None of us mentioned even the idea we might be gay to one another while we were growing up. I suspect the high number of folks now coming out has something to do with the water.

GoGo: Wow! That’s wonderful.

I am very impressed my Mother knew the words partner and commitment ceremony.

Mother: [GoGo with a y], you know your father and I are very proud of you and love you very much.

GoGo: Thanks, Mom. That really means a lot for me to hear.

Mother: [GoGo with a y], can I ask you a question?

Does your mother have the power to turn your insides into jelly, and make you feel like your 3-year-old instantly, or turn a day full of great accomplishments into the most depressing day ever by asking you one simple question?

GoGo: Is this the question you have been banned to ever ask me, even if it had the potential to save the world from destruction? Is this the question that I promised I would tell you about if it were happening? Is this the question that ends with me running to the fridge and suckling my sorrow with too much food? Is this THAT question, Mom?

Mother: A simple ‘No’ would have sufficed.

chapter thirty: what did you say?

Sitting on the couch, watching “Please Don't Eat the Daisies" with my Dad, my brother is fiddling with some electronic thingamagig while my sister sits next to me.

“I like Doris Day”, my father says rocking in his rocking chair. Doris’ character just finished a fast paced dialogue with another character and we chuckle.

I came out to my parents years ago, while sitting at the dining room table. My hair was shaved and my Mother wasn’t pleased that I had no hair. I remember pulling in my breath, filling my veins with as much oxygen for my rapid beating heart, and came out. “Mom, Dad, if you don’t like my hair I wonder how you’ll feel about the fact that I am gay?” The response is genuinely my family, “We love you, no matter what, we will always love you.” and then the work began.

“Doris is going to sing,” I say to Dad. I get excited because though my Dad and I have little in common we both have agreed that music will be the string that connects us.

“You two are weird liking old movies,” my brother interjects moving over to Dad to show him the electronic thing.

“Your switch is upside down,” Dad tells him. “Which wire do you think you’ll have to disconnect?”

“This one”, my little brother responds then goes back to sitting crossed leg on the floor working on his project.

“And your sister and I like Doris Day. That doesn’t make us weird.”

Since coming out, my parents have asked me not to tell my brother or sister. They were afraid that if people “found out” they would get teased and beat up. Though I have learned that the way to understanding is to let others do what they will do and not change the self to accommodate, I respected their request. I don’t believe that folks should just understand something the moment they are exposed to it. I don’t hold it against my parents that they are afraid of me because of my sexuality like I don’t hold it against myself all those things I need time to understand for myself. Committed to the long-term relationship with my family, I am patient with this journey of understanding and question their pretense with love and care every chance I get. THEN I process my feelings with close friends who are on a similar journey with their family.

“Do you think the store clerk is gay?” My Dad asks me as we watch Doris pick out fabric for the new home.

“I don’t know. Do you think he’s gay because he is a male working in a fabric store?” I answer, patiently.

“Well, you know if this movie was made today, they would make the character obviously gay.” My Dad responds, pauses and then says, “Do you ever get mad that people make gay people stereotypically gay on TV?”

I am shocked. I don’t know how to respond. There are so many ways to respond. “I…I” I try to say something, becoming very conscious of my sister and brother in the room. Very conscious that this is my father’s attempt to be open about me, very conscious that I feel responsible to do things right with all of this and not knowing how.

“I get so mad when they make fun of gay people on TV.” My Dad ignores my stumbling while we both keep our eyes on Doris running and talking and singing. “I hope it doesn’t hurt your feelings when they do it on TV.”

I am quietly dumbfounded and caught off guard. My brain wants to control this moment, my heart tells me to let it be as is, to trust it will be okay.

“Why would it hurt [GoGo]’s feelings, Dad?” Little Bo chimes up. He has completely taken his electronic thing apart and is starting over.

“Because she’s gay, you squirt”. My sister who has been engrossed in the movie the entire time speaks up and tells him.

I can feel my mouth is opened, eye brows raised, and I think I stopped breathing.

“Oh yeah, I knew that.” Little Bo says at me then looks at my sister, “Don’t call me a little squirt, just ‘cause your older doesn’t mean you can call me names.”

“[Little Bo], why did you take the whole board apart again? You just had to remove the wire and flip the switch,” Dad tells my little Bo.

"Because I want to do it the way I want to." Bo tells Dad, rolling his eyes like he couldn't possibly understand. Go Bo! Little Bo is on the verge of moving from kid to teenager and suddenly he seems to know more then anyone else. I remember those years.

“I thought you weren’t telling them I was gay, Dad?” I kind of blurt out in a whisper, like Bo and my sister wouldn’t hear as Doris begins to sing “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies” to a school yard of kids.

“Why wouldn’t I? There is nothing wrong with you being gay.”

"we'll i ain't got no more bull shit to feed you": in memory of

I’m listening to this new CD, Chris Bathgate - Throatsleep. Well, it’s been with me for a few weeks but I like to absorb my music, so this is the first time I have popped it into the CD player. I only mention the artist and album title in case there are other folks out there who appreciate random finds now and again. I know I do. In fact, I only knew about this artist because a friend of mine introduced me to his music.

This is where I want to become concise in my ramble on this page. I want to mention that there is a song on this album that I have heard before. I want to talk about how this wonderful/insightful/artistic and talented friend makes me road trip CDs when I travel and how Chris was on a few of the compilations I’ve received. I want to talk about how it was great to see him perform live a few weeks ago and get a slew of albums from him – to pass along and share. I want to share about how this friend, who introduced me to his music, makes the best compilations and her attentiveness to the song list never escapes me. That hearing the song tonight, spurred memories of being on the road and how the music she shared accentuated the trips. Finally, I want to mention one road trip, when I was first introduced to C.B, and the journey itself because out of all the things I want to mention - it is this memory I want to put to page. AND A BIG THANK YOU TO kp, in case you come by this way again. And thank you for telling me you read my page.

The Memory: "love ya, kiddo"

The memory was of driving down route 9 to my grandfather’s funeral. It was an expected death that happened at an unexpected moment. I was working two jobs, trying to taper off the travel gig while preparing for graduate school the following fall.

What do I remember?

I remember the death happened during a very busy week for me. The funeral itself felt like a day off since I was working 7 days a week at that point. Getting the call from my parents that Grandpa Ray had died was the unexpected part. A month or so earlier, I had called him during a hard period in his life. Treatments were sketchy and the docs thought he wouldn’t pull through. It was the last conversation he and I would have, though a week later he had a sudden turn for the better and prognosis was good. We all expected him to pass on at some point, but at his death everyone thought he was in a good phase. His death was sudden without lingering insult or pain.

To back up to the last conversation we had, I cannot think of a better last dialogued shared. My grandfather was my nomadic storyteller. He taught me to how to read palms and appreciate a funny story. Tried to get me to chew, but that’s a story on its own. He taught me a good laugh comes from the belly and that a stagnated soul dies earlier than the body does. Our last words shared were simple ones. I told him about getting into graduate school and he was the first family member to tell me congratulation and how proud he was of me. Ray told me about his prognosis and how he had no intention of letting "those docs" predict his death. He said he would walk out of that hospital and he did, even though those docs expected him to die before the end of the week.

Ray told me he was gonna pick a day to die when no one was looking for his death, and he did just that. His last words, you know those valuable monologues we yearn for and cling to in movies, plays, and in our personal worlds, that echo in our ears for years to come, were as cherished to me as the experiences I shared with him. On his memorial card at the funeral, I wrote those words:

"Well, I ain’t got no more bull shit to feed you. Love ya Kiddo."

Driving down Route 9 to Cemetery Street where the funeral was held, a block a way from his home, those words rolled off my silent tongue channeling his voice. Even now, I can hear his voice and his laugh. The music played and my mind went wondering down all the memories of him. I practiced the words I would say at the service during his eulogy. It was my intention to share stories of him that he told to us over and over again, that made us laugh more from his own contagious laughter then the retelling of the story. I wanted everyone to know his last words to me because they were the epitome of his essence.

In the car on the way down, I didn’t feel sad for his death, though knew he was someone I would mourn. Not a sad mourning of loss and regret, but like an Irish wake I knew I would mourn with the recanting of his memory and stories he shared. I realized he was the inspiration behind my own need to be a good storyteller and my attraction to a good laugh. Being a person who has distanced herself from her family, in order to become the best of them and not the worst, Ray’s death brought me face to face with everyone in my family as I was at that moment. To honor him, I wanted to present myself as the better part in all of us, but scared I’d get lost in old ways and habits where there was no I in the situation. On that drive down, as I remembered him, I was happy to know the better parts of me included him, including the storyteller and laughter.

When I stood in front of my family at the memorial service, I took on the role of canter and retold his story. We laughed together and his last words told to me became something that belonged to everyone.

This is the memory spurred by a song. That old travel music for that particular drive has become the soundtrack for that moment and that memory...and a few more, but that’s another story. And if I had any wrap up to this ramble, I would say that life is a layered thing.

Embrace those layers.

Don't Anyone Tell My Mom I Said This

Growing up, my Mother was big on us kids deciding where our faith lied. She exposed us to different philosophies and asked us to decide our church when we reached the final days of our adolescence. Our exposure to faith was limited to what she understood, spending Sundays at a NonDenominational church and our summer’s in Methodist and Baptist Bible Schools. Ever-so-often our exposure was broaden by our friends’ churches, my Mother always willing to let us go when we were asked. Hmm. Some of those churches I visited are stories of their own complete with a convulsing parishner I confused as having a seizure and stood up yelling, “Will someone stop praying and help this woman!” I’m just saying, if convulsing is a normal occurrence in church, there should be signs that give unknowing 10-year-olds a heads up.

When I came home with Sutra’s of Buddhist text in High School, she never told me to stop reading, though I was convinced I was rebelling against her. Even when I left the church a year after being baptized my Mother never stopped me, just saying that she hoped that though I stopped going, whatever I pepper my time with, it is imperative to feed the soul. I thought she was trying to guilt me back to “the faith”, but it wasn’t. Had my Mom been exposed to Wiccan, Buddhism, Islam, etc. we would have been exposed as well.

I connected these words about my Mother while having a beer with a friend this week. It was one of those moments in a conversation where I found an epiphany while discussing random topics. It was one of those conversations where we went everywhere and nowhere at the same time, just filling in the blanks of what we don’t know about each other, and I found a part of my self I didn’t know in that conversation.

I’ve always been hard on my Mom because of my limited exposure of a Patriarchal concept of God, but now I realized in her world, she just wanted me to have a spiritual faith. I thought she was misguided in believing in a Christian God, but I get what she was trying to let us kids do now. Kind of dampens the “I know better then my parents” thing...................damn.

What Do REO Speedwagon, Blue Skies, the Godfather, and an Immunity Idol have in common?

I grew up in a small city that really was a big town. In our neighborhood our house and two of our neighbors’ houses stood high on a hill above the other houses. Before the neighborhood became a neighborhood, it was farmland and the barn stood where our houses are now. I learned this from the neighbor, Old Mr. Mann, 4 doors down after I tried to sell him spices and he wound up giving me a history tour of the neighborhood.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’ll do this. Given enough time, I always tell one story or another from my childhood. I admit, most the time in rambling fashion to include the minute details of the event. For the most part I had a wonderful childhood. For me growing up was like the movie "Stand By Me" without the body. There was a story in every moment and I loved the fact that I got that. Of course, I was the type of kid who thought if I could jump high enough I could see the angels on top of the clouds.

I tell you this because I’ve been thinking about my Grandmother, my father’s mother, getting lost in the details of my time with her. She died when I was six-years-old from Cancer, but I still remember her like the color of the sky. In fact, the day I found out she was going to pass away I went outside and hid between my grandmother’s garage and the neighbor’s rusty old fence and I burned the image of the sky into my brain. It was the deepest darkest blue I had ever seen. One singular cloud, no bigger than a puff, floated in the sky. I remembered thinking if I could remember the color of the sky, I’d remember her. (Hey, kid's logic here!)

Grandma was the matriarch of the family. You can tell a matriarch because like the Godfather, she ran the details of the family. Everyone yielded to her decisions; seasons and holidays were ushered in by her ritual, and family was always gathering around her. She was a proud woman who worked as a Janitor in the local High School where her children went. NO ONE dared to make fun of her or her children for it. On the weekends she was the bartender at the local American Legion, complete with sweet sass and bouncer capabilities*. The first words my sister spoke were "Son of a bitch" because "of Grandma". I know all the mothers, feminists, and any decent intellect cringes at this, but I can only offer that this was a different time... That and I loved her with my whole being, so I really don’t care.

For me, summer and my Grandmother are synonymous. I guess because we spent most our weekends at her house when she was alive. One time, I can remember listening to a REO Speedwagon 8track in my Dad’s fire orange (insert car type) with my brother and sister at Grandma's house. I believe a cousin was also involved, but mysteriously disappeared when we accidently put the car into neutral and it began rolling down the drive way. Needless to say, I remember at 5 years of age holding down the break while my brother ran to "get help". After my Dad saved the car from us kids, I remember him getting "full of spit fire" which meant he yelled so loud he was actually spitting. Grandma wouldn’t have it though. Her grandkids were not going to get yelled at for a "stupid orange car". I tell you, this woman was our immunity idol back then, and we knew that Dad could do nothing about it. [Insert Neener neener neeeener here].

She also ushered in summer with two rituals I dearly miss. First, she had all her children over to our house to plant my mother’s garden in the spring. My Mom still complains that "that woman" would have all the kids over to help plant, but she’d be damned if she could get them to weed it throughout the season too. Second, there was always a summer party because grandma wanted it. In my home town, family and friends mixed to the point that everyone had an Uncle this or Aunt that who turned out to be a friend of the family with an honored title. So, when Grandma had a party, it was an event that brought not only family, but friends of the family and their family to boot.

When she died, like a matriarch with no heir, this tradition faded with her. She was the glue that held her children together. Though my Dad and his siblings still talk, no one has stepped up to usher in the summer events or push the family to help each other plant gardens, except once. Grandma was a powerful force of spirit and courage, who always laughed and never held her tongue, even to my Dad’s Dad, a Southern Baptist Minister. He knew how to stimulate fear of G-d in men, but could not keep a G-d fearing woman from speaking her mind. Or at least that's how the family mythos goes since he died when my Dad was 16-years-old.

I miss her. But I’m not sad about this. I just think she was great woman and want to share her with this page.

*She was a bartender/bouncer at an American Legion, it wasn't Hooters!

Random Findings While Reorganizing

Monday, May 30, 2005 - 5:39am
Sitting here watching time go by
while writing these lines.
Watching people sleep
while cleaning their messes.
Tired of waiting for me
to get through this mood.

Today's to do tasks
awaits me when this shift is done.
Clean the house, clean the laundry,
clean my mind of the past.
Miss Ray and Chad all in the same day.
This mood has become my metronome
to my daily task - one beat, two beat, three -
missing something - the counterpoint to time.

A neighbor of mine had an epiphany again,
that everything happens for a reason.
She shares her mantra thinking every time
is the first time. I appreciate this
redudancy in insight and love how this
un-novel novelty reinvents itself in her.

I adjust my clock by her words, trusting
everything happens for a reason.
Everyone in my life is here for
a reason, even if they are limited to a season.

I trust that death and leaving offer
impermanence and impermanence
is what will make the next two years
doable. That doesn't stop the constant
beat in my head going on and on, when
will this sadness end. When will I stop
watching time pass and away from this mood?

The Neighborhood
Casual evening at home,
sitting on the porch,
watching the night go by.
My neighbrohood is city and lights.
The stop sign, covers the Rene's
in the hairshop sign,
and from the stop
grows the branches of a tree
that hangs under the street lamp -
street light falling on the road,
like a flood of orange
fading into shadows
covering me on the porch
in a casual night at home.
5/22/05

Ghost in the Chord
A ghost in a chord
Everything there long since mourned
I’d show you the key to unlocking
Your door…but not wanting to give
Just a little bit more.
I close my eyes to nothing there,
And realized there is nothing there.
Just the manifestation of a ghost in a chord
Nothing to see, nothing to hold, just
Me giving to you, me giving to you, then giving of me
to a ghost in a chord.
Take my silence as an epitaph, a final eulogy
To this ghost in a chord.
9/10/05

Family

I want to thank my family. Thank you for teaching me courage and strength. Thank you for being different then myself so that I must learn to accept things not like me. Thank you for giving it another try and having my little brother. Everything I build in this world must be strong enough to include you.