Musing, Dwellings

As she left the house, where parents eat separate dinners, watch separate shows, sleep in separate beds, dreaming separate dreams, she noticed that even the cars were turned away from each other, distant like strangers. And she realized that she had the choice to create her own place, a place filled with so much warmth and joy and love and laughter, that people would want to be a part of it and they would call it a "home."

Act IV, Scene 5

There's rosemary, that's for rememberence.
How did you do it last time?
Fog and a magic trick,
abracadabra...
Pray you, love, remember.
smile at work,
but it's raining into the dishwater.
And there is pansies...
Work a long shift,
gym twice a day,
once for yoga, once for spin.
Sit in your car,
surrounded by hair.
That's for thought.
How did that happen?
What was next?
Rue, or was it Columbines?
I would give you some violets, but they withered all... 
Come home late.
Drift amongst the Sunday flowers, rooted like a lily pad.
Exit, Ophelia.
And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?

Pickle Memories

The smell of oatmeal cookies, toffee, and buttered popcorn filled my car through the thoughtless vents as I drove by the old Miller factory last night. Let's play a game like Wheel of Fortune. Bitter Sweet Wort.

Deal or "No Deal!"

sometimes screaming "no deal" lands you with a bucket of tickets, half empty
and no one to tuck you in at night

Ticket Poems

Miss Smile, Missed Pill
Rose and Shook
the Reflection in the Lily Pool

CSA!

Many good meals from Farm Fresh To You! (Please check this co-op out! They are incredible. Excellent produce delivered to your door. And if you want to order from them, let me know. I have a discount code!)

I seriously love cooking good, fresh food. There is something satisfying about cooking and sitting down and enjoying food on a real plate.

Here was lunch (I should have snapped a photo):
Butter lettuce and radicchio salad with French dressing (dijon mustard, a dash of olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, salt, black pepper) and a cranberry stilton crumble (would have loved a few sliced almonds or walnuts...but no nuts in the pantry...)
Roasted golden beets with goat cheese
Bartlett pear
Hot green tea

Yeah. I feel pretty great and very fortunate right about now.
And almost ready to tackle that pile of clothes I've been telling myself to organize.
Back to cleaning...

Terrorfying

The tragedy of 9/11 had just passed; churches are full, a nation in mourning.

A charismatic man is the guest speaker for a youth group. An over-protective dad, like many over-protective dads, and he is trying to teach a group of high school students about the "religions of the world," namely about Mormonism and Islam.

He knows a lot and appears to know a lot, shiny and red with excitement. He talks about mountains and virgins in heaven and multiple wives. And then he says this, "You know, Muslims and Christians, we're not that different. And you know those radical extreme Muslims, they would do so much good if they were that radical for Christ. We should all be that radical for Christ."

A room full of high school students nods its collective head. How can we bring them to Christ to be radical Christians? 

And a girl on leadership who is taking notes stops. Did he really just say that? She wants a second opinion and glances around to catch some other confused stare. All she sees are nods. But something about that man's statement, the theory and urgency behind those statements, doesn't make sense. At least, she hopes it doesn't make sense. Because if it does, if that room nodded its collective nod of approval for that ideology, then that was the terror. It is the terror bred from terror. And as the room around her gears up for a spiritual war mis-waged, she knows that some will sign up to fight with guns in a war misunderstood. And so instead of nodding with the rest of that room, she bows her head to pray.

On the Wall

When you don't have any projects
And the layers peel away and you are left with the heart of it all.
Is it terrifying to realize that it's not enough?

"Finding out who you are apart from everyone else is the hardest work of all."
--A quote from my sister's childhood bedroom mirror.

Teeth-lettes Express Themselves

I had another crazy dream.
My teeth were falling out. Well, a little more than that. It went something like this:

One of the teeth on the left side of my mouth sort of loosened and crumbled into sharp teeth pieces in my mouth. Oh my gosh! My teeth are falling out! Not AGAIN! So I run to the restroom (which happens to be a men's restroom) because I can feel blood and more and more shards of teeth-lettes in my mouth and I'm gagging and my mouth is filling up with more and more of this mess. So I get to the restroom and two guys are in there, just hanging out. And I bend over the sink and start spitting the teeth shrapnel out of my mouth but more and more fill my mouth and I can't get all of them out. It's overwhelming and I'm gagging and one of the guys is like, "Hey, are you alright?" So he comes over and the sink is FULL of water and teeth pieces. "What is this," he asks, "PVC pipe fiber glass?" And then he takes a piece (that doesn't look anything like a tooth) and bites it. I'm freaking out because this guy is eating my teeth pieces and I can't answer him because I'm using my hands now to try to empty my mouth. More and more shattered teeth until I wake up.

According to dream2live.com (I know. I just googled, "What does it mean when you dream about your teeth falling out?"), this type of dream is fairly common. Here's the analysis: A dream about one's teeth falling out usually means and symbolizes that the dreamer is having a hard time or a challenge getting their voice heard, their ideas acknowledged or feelings responded to. Now, despite the poor grammar, I'll go ahead and run with this analysis. I've had other dreams where I can't speak even though I'm really trying because of something that I can't expel from my mouth. It was a truffle once; this time, it was teeth.


So, here/hear. There are things I apparently need to say!
I want a vacation.
I miss my best friend.
Working with foster students doesn't always justify a four or five hour commute.
I miss spinning class--often.
I want to write more.
I want to art more.
I like cooking.
I miss my grandma.
People need to stop dying.
I'm tired. Very very tired.
I have clothes on my floor.
I need to make my "Big Girl List" (the list of allt he things I need to do but don't really want to do):
1. Make an appointment with the dentist...

The Cylce, For My Father

He talked about the death penalty the way any high school student would: deserved, a life for a life type of lingo. "I mean, he didn't have to kill all those people or nothin'..."

I didn't say anything much, listening to this graduating senior football star formulate his thoughts.

Then he reminded me where he comes from. "And the prisons is so full anyhow that they don't have room for the ones don't deserve to live. I mean, kids here grow up without a daddy because they daddy in prison. So they look for father figures other places and get they selves messed up in gangs and drugs and everything. Then they go to jail and they kids grow up without a father. Don't got the room in prison for people like this serial killer in the paper." He holds up a small, rumpled newspaper clipping with an inch-by-inch picture of a man with a vacant face. "It's a cycle, Miss."

I nod. "Sounds like a rough cycle." Also sounds like my social justice classes and clubs in college. But all that talk in those classes hasn't helped this young man... "Do you believe that people can break the cycle, Marlon? Do you think that boys who grow up without fathers can be great men who raise their children right?"

"Yeah. I do. I grew up without a daddy. I don't got no plans to go to jail and no record either. But people who grow up in the hood, they don't come back when they got they selves together. They get away; they stay way."

"Sometimes that's true. My dad grew up not five minutes from here. He grew up with some of the problems we've talked about. He's done well for himself and raised his family up right in the suburbs, far away from the place he left."

Marlon nods, curt, determined, maybe even spiteful.

"He didn't come back, Marlon, but he let me come back. Does that count for anything?"

Looking from my polo to my Sperrys, Marlon seemed unsure. "But it was your choice, Miss, to come here and teach us. Not your dad's."

"Mostly mine. But partly his, too. He raised me the way I am. I heard the stories of growing up in South Central. And I see him today as a successful, caring man. Something in me was raised to believe, and to believe with action, that everyone deserves a chance. Everyone can make something of themselves. They just need the tools, the motivation, the determination. You believe that, Marlon?"

"Yeah, Miss. I do. I'mma go to college. But I'mma come back, too."

"Good, Marlon. You've already chosen to break the cycle."

The bell rung as if on cue and Marlon looked once more at the mug shot in the paper before shoving it in his folder. The rest of the team, rowdy in their exit toward practice, passed Marlon, who was still standing by my desk.

"And Miss, it does count."

"I'm sorry?"

"You comin back insteada your dad. It counts--for a lot."

In an Undated Entry, I Felt Political

People are bought and sold
like opinions and News
and it doesn't matter anyway
because hotels are built underwater
for the lifestyles of the rich and infamous
as we all work to afford
the gas that will take us to work tomorrow
when it will be the same
as the day she let them eat cake.

So maybe we get back to the roots
of the nation,
roots that were ripped up with Manifest Destiny.
And maybe we hold hands,
dance a rain dance
to cultivate the garden we see
to feed the neighbors we know.
Indeed, let them eat.

Semi-logical Speculation

We are a family of story-tellers. We don't even do it on purpose. Stories just come our of imagination, curiosity, nosiness, semi-logical speculation.

Sometimes we'll be driving in our car and we'll see something strange. Someone will say, "Hey! Did you guys see that (insert strange occurrence)?!"And someone else will start to make up a story about the origin of the strange thing. A typical drive can sound something like this:

Person 1: "Hey! Did you guys see that lady? She was standing waiting for the light and she only had one high-heel on."
Person 2: "Hmm. That's weird. Maybe she lost the other one."
Person 1/3/4: "Doing what?"
Person 2: "Maybe it got stuck in the mud or something."
Person 1/3/4: "Where would she be walking through the mud in high-heels?"
Person 2: "Maybe she owns some horse stables and she was just going to check on the horses before she went to work."
Person 3/4: "But one of the horses was sick...and so she had to go tell the vet but her car was broken so she had to walk. But one of her heels got stuck in the mud in the stable. But the horse is really sick, like dying, so she has to hurry to get to the vet before he closes his office."
Person 1: "Why wouldn't she just call the vet? Or why wouldn't she just call someone to give her a ride to the vet?"

By this point, we've long passed the one-shoed lady. Who really knows where she was going or what happened to her other shoe... No one really knows what her life is like, what her name is, who she loves, what she believes in...and it really doesn't matter. Because the next time we pass that corner she was standing on with only one shoe, someone in my family will un-doubtably say, "Hey. This is the place we saw that lady with the sick horse."

I like these things

Because the last couple of blogs have been "downers," I decided to focus my mind on things I like (aside from the given family, friends, etc.). Call me a hipster if you must... but each of these things touches something in me, resonating nostalgia, love, peace, beauty, connectedness, something--something good.

Trees

Dresses

Polaroids

Lace

French

Type writers

Bows

Fall Colors

Scarves

Laughing

The beach in the winter

Lavender scent

Flowers: lilacs, orchids, lilies, tulips, gardenias, etc.

Folk music

Feathers

Clothes lines

Dessert

Clip-on earrings

Dryer sheets

Water colors

Museums

Books

Cafe Au Laits

Windows

Art journals

Pearls

Details

Crayola Super-Tip Washable Markers

Malbec wine

Writing

Singing Tracy Chapman in my car with my sunglasses on and the windows down.

Anxiety

It's like the dripping of an ocean; the tension in your jaw; the constant, present feeling of that dream you almost remember.
It's like someone lifted the drain-stopper but you don't know which part of that analogy you are.
It's like that part in the movie that you know is going to change everything.
But you don't know the decision. You don't even know the genre.
It's like fightorflightorfightorflight but nothing happens.
You smile calm like a riptide, embarrassed that you misspelled your diagnosis.
It's like white noise in your whole body you don't know how to clear.
But what if you did? What would be left?

Everything is fine. It's fine. Everything is fine.

Sometimes

“How do you feel?”

“Tired,” I say.

“Tired is not an emotion.”

“I’m tired. Exhausted.”

“Synonyms of ‘tired’ don’t count as emotions either. Maybe you can draw how you feel.”

I color the whole page black.

Untitled

Picking up an expensive bottle of boutique lotion, she read the label: Calming lavender. The scent confused her more than it comforted.
She smelled the lotion and heard the moan of the old woman in a rest home bed. "Help me. Please help me. My god, someone help me." Calming lavender and the stench of adult diapers, breakfast milk sitting until dinner, the alcohol of hand sanitizer. Everyone in their own world and no privacy. "There's a scorpion on the wall." The red button to call the nurse. "You have to swallow the hole pill, Ma'am. Don't chew it." Her hands will get cold. That's when you know. Vanilla pudding, apple sauce. "How is her oxygen saturation today?" And the heavy lavender room spray, too thin to cover it all.
She put the lotion back on the glass shelf and left.

The Best Professional Compliment Ever

I have been working in Watts for the last few weeks with Carver Elementary School and the Watts/Willowbrook Boys and Girls Club. 

I was on my way out of the B&G one Friday and was stopped by the computer teacher, Mr. Sean. He formally introduced himself, though we'd been passing each other in the hall for a couple weeks.

"You're the new sub with CYFC, right?"

I nod and smile. (Dude, it's seven, already. All the kids have gone home. End of a long week. Time to clock out...)

"I've been meaning to introduce myself. I'm Sean."

Smile. Nod. "Casey."

"Yeah, I know who you are. The kids have been talking about you." He laughs. Mr. Sean's computer room faces the educational center, where I work.

"Uh-oh." I joke. (But, okay, seriously.... traffic...) I'm about ready to tell him to have a nice weekend. 

Cue: best compliment ever.

"Yeah. They've been telling me all week. 'Hey, Mr. Sean. See that lady over there? (pointing through the window toward where I teach) She a'ight (insert adorable third grade chin-up gesture).'"

Cue: Casey's heart melting. Cue: Affirmation that she's making a difference. Cue: Rejuvenation. Cue: Rays of light, mana from heaven, burning bush, doves, cherubs in neon-colored Boys and Girls Club shirts eating Flaming Hot Cheetos getting red finger prints all over Mr. Sean's keyboard--third grade cherubs with chin-up gestures.

I love my job.

I LOVE LAURIE HARTT

Me: This is what I wrote. "I found your yard sale soul; it was buried in the shit you've been spinning since you stuck your head up your ass."

Laur: Haha. What's that from?

Me: My anger issues.

Laur: I love it.

Me: I was like, "I'm so angry! I could just--write."

Laur: And it was good. Write some more.

Write A Fairy Tale About Your Life. QUICK! Don't think. Just Write:

Me, in a dress in the sun.
Me, kissing a boy.
Me, in a field of flowers.
Me, not pulling my hair out.
Me, sleeping happily at night.
Me, laughing.
Me, watching the rain.
Me, content.
Me, free.
Me, writing a novel.
Me, writing a screen play.
Me, creating.
Me, collaging.
Me, singing.
Me, sleeping well next to someone.
Me, smiling at a child.
Me,  proud of myself.
Me, living.
Me, smiling in the mirror.
Me, walking a dog.
Me, cooking with friends.
Me, loving.
Me, enjoying.
Me, feeling.
Me, passionate.
Me, celebrating.
Me, loving me.

That's the real fairy tale.
Once upon a time
In a land not so far away,
Lived a girl
Who was growing up to be a woman.

Trigger (from the archives)

Remember when we saw that shooting star?

It would have been cliché

Except that you thought it was a bat.

And that’s when I should have known

You would change and take flight.

“Family member of yours?”

I should have asked.

Instead, I laughed

And left the stardust in my eyes.