Red Soul Girl

Bedtime

2011-12-17T21:41:00.002-05:00

The mere thought of bedtime brings memories of my father tucking us in at night. As I grew older, bedtime was more a struggle. The teen years brought bedtime as a time to sneak out, living in the basement....made it much easier, I'll admit. Then in college bedtime was a permanent challenge for me, who would be beside me, who would I share the intimate shadows of the ever waing moon with? And then I found love. Or what I believed was love. That sustained me through graduate school, and even a few years later. The Upper Peninsula was a magical place where all the demons of bedtime disappeared. And then they returned wirh a vengeance ten years ago.
Of course there were years where bedtime was early, for my daughter, my one true love in this world. Then, there were years where it meant nothing but a challenge to see who I could entice and discard quickly. Now, bedtime is a glass of red, a good book, a kiss from my husband, a giggle and a sigh from my daughters. Bedtime has taken a calm pallor from the days gone by. However, every once in awhile she rears up and demands an encore of those earlier days. It is then I raise my glass in salute to her, a bold, wild girl of years past, and say "prozits" and grin from ear to ear because I am older, wiser, but defintely not in it for the long run.

Simple's Hard Enough Now Anyway...

2010-11-07T18:18:00.002-05:00

Quiet evening, glass of wine, indie film...and these damn song lyrics. In a black and white film love seems simpler. The girl's hair is messy, her lipstick's smudged over her bee-stung lips, and her idiosyncrasies aren't cloying but clever. The boy hasn't showered, he's walked all night through rainy city streets, and the cigarette he stubs out while standing in the street outside her window is sexy.

Art is a lie that tells the truth.

I don't remember who said that, and I may be misquoting. Years ago I worked so hard at being affected. I wanted to be that girl in the film, sometimes so badly I could taste the bitterness on the back of my tongue. As a teenager, I think Q. was the closest I ever got, a truckstop coffeeshop amidst the steelyards, a cigarette, scribbling poetry on napkins. A roadtrip to grad school only landed me in a frozen tundra of mediocrity.

There are no grand gestures. My name isn't linked to another scrolled across an overpass or carved into a redwood. I never actually thought it would happen. Simple's hard enough now anyway.

Vagabond Seeks Nomad for Endless Travels...

2010-08-23T18:18:00.004-04:00

That's what my personal ad might say...if I needed one. I am officially married now, which does not make me tied down. On the contrary, this kite has found her string and he's just as excited to float above the earth as she is. It's only been a few short weeks of marriage, but already I find myself learning new things about him. He always has a back up plan. He can charm anyone, even the crankiest of people. In my darkest hour, he made me smile, even when all I wanted to do was cry. He keeps his emotions well below the surface, though once in awhile he lets me see them. I am more in love with him now than when I met him. And plain and simple...I am happy.

I've missed a few months of blogging, hell I've missed most of my summer in New England! I've been off with the new husband gallavanting around the country. A wedding in San Antonio (not ours), beach days in Maine with my darling daughter, family whirlwind to DisneyWorld in Florida, some heartfelt Hoosier time in Indiana, our wedding/honeymoon all in one in Arizona, and I'm finally home again. Just in time to start a new year of school. Back to that little thing called work. I wonder if the students realize that we teachers are just as unhappy that summer is ending as they are? Ahhh well, the crispness of September is just around the corner and Autumn in New England is a sight to behold.

Here's to many great new beginnings!

The ice is melting...

2010-03-05T13:25:00.003-05:00

Call it Spring Fever, call it Cabin Fever, call it whatever you'd like, but I have wanderlust. And the lust of late is Iceland. Yes, Iceland....the girl who loves nothing better than a tropical island with white sand beaches and palm trees wants to go to Reyjkavik.

Fact #1: Iceland is warmer than Greenland. Those darn Vikings had everyone fooled when they claimed and named the land.
Fact #2: Iceland is a volcanic island and filled with hot springs. Apparently you can pull over on the side o' the road and hop in for free!
Fact #3: The Northern Lights (need I say more?)
Fact #4: It has the world's longest lasting democracy and no need for an armed forces
Fact #5: It's cheap right now. And I live right now.

I'm not running away from anything this time....no, this time I'm running to somewhere. And more importantly, I want to take Dan and Lauren with me. I know that my friends, my family, my colleagues will all say that I take too many vacations as it is, and that I spend too much money travelling, but there is a big world out there, and I am one small human. The race is long and if I don't keep up the pace now, I won't finish it.

Unfinished Endings

2010-02-01T22:11:00.002-05:00

It's been a long day, new semester, new students, too many portfolios to grade, too many worries about household expenses and health concerns, lost friends, new relationships, and I was bone tired when I came home tonight. Now it's late and I cannot sleep. I'd like to believe that this too, is just a symptom, a side effect of stress. The world is moving too fast these days and it's been too long since I've turned to the pen, my blog.

I don't quite know who I am anymore.

The girl I was when I moved here ten years ago has all but disappeared. There was so much I wanted then, and those things haven't gone away, just been pushed aside for more practical purposes. The whimsical workshops, classes in jewelry making and gourmet cooking replaced by workshops to certify for ELL trainings. Weekends in a little trailer by the seaside replaced by luxury vacations in Hawaii, Vegas, and Arizona. Tiptoeing around a house that was never mine, fighting for every inch of space, only to have three floors to call my own now. I remember dancing around my kitchen late at night with the cat in my arms, and then my daughter. Now they both have grown up, grown independent from me. I swirled around a universe with many stars , gathering them all close to me, and I've let many of them go, friends of ten years have fallen into that black hole of space.

It surprises me to see what I've become, a mother, a teacher, a girlfriend, a daughter, a neighbor, a friend...but there were so many possibilities. What happens to the unfinished endings? Do they drift floating in limbo, just waiting for someone to finish them up or do they dissolve, like salt crystals in seawater. There are threads hanging from every life, and my mother always told me not to pull them, for fear of unraveling the entire piece. Somedays I would like to take the scissors and cut them off, searing the edges, but that would be too easy.

Yes, that would be too easy.

Part Two

2009-11-15T16:54:00.004-05:00

Hemingway wrote a small poem called "Part Two" in his book A Movable Feast," and tonight reminds me of that poem. I stood on my kitchen deck and looked out upon the early November dusk and wondered where my summer went. I haven't posted on my blog since June, my once a month post taking a hiatus for California, Hawaii, Indiana, Arizona and a little bit of mental craziness. So here it is, November, and I've missed almost all of Autumn in New England.
The trees have all shaken their coats of leaves to the ground, most of which I painstakingly raked up (and I have the poison ivy to prove it).

So Hemingway expresses this expectation of sadness in Autumn that permeates the soul, fixates upon every breath, seems to hold on a little too long and a little too tightly. Every wind whispers through the trees, winter is coming, winter is coming. And tonight as I watched the lava flow of color in the sky, brilliant oranges, pinks and ensuing purples and deep blues, I took a long sip of my wine and thought about pervasive sadness. About the winter and the melancholy it brings for some. There is a tough season for all. There are rough patches that we must learn to weather and not give up quite so easily. Because as Hemingway reminds us, the Spring will come again and the rivers will flow again.

I was inexplicably sad, even though the temperature was especially balmy for a November evening, because somewhere in all the chaos of life, somewhere in all of my lists and my planning, I lost something vital. But I know it will come around again.

Graduation Day

2009-06-07T20:07:00.002-04:00

Tonight is the quietest night, the air is still and there seem to be no trains in the distance, no birds twittering in the twilight. Even my neighbors are silent. It's as if the world has taken in all the excitement and let it out with one enormous hushed breath.

I left graduation this afternoon with a feeling of elation I couldn't explain, not to my parents nor to Dan in the voicemail I left for him. They aren't my children, but they were mine. For four years, they were mine. And today, I let all 360 of them go.

A glass of wine in an empty house seemed the way to mourn their leaving. And I am inexplicably sad. I know that each and every one of them will go on to do amazing things, some more amazing than others, but each in their own unique way. Last week, my class president asked me to give the class of 2009 advice on film, to be recorded for senior night and for reunions to come. I was caught off guard, told them I loved them, shared my favorite quote by poet Mary Oliver, and wished them well.

Now, there are things I wished I had told them.

1. Hold out. Hold out for true love, not the idea of love. For the right time to have kids. For someone who will take care of your heart like they do their own. Hold out for good champagne, cheap stuff will give you a headache. Hold out for friends who will support you and keep your integrity.

2. Travel. Alone. At least once. Find your own adventure.

3. Get a theme song. Play it in your head when you walk into a room.

4. Party like a rock star. Don't let the moment go by and wish it back later.

5. Drink. Even if it's only a Seagrams Cooler or more orange juice than vodka. Enjoy the small things in life like a pre-dinner cocktail.

6. Dance every day.

7. Rock those jeans, no matter what size you are! Love yourself.

8. Listen to your inner voice. Take the time to be quiet. Yoga.

9. Let yourself float high, but never lose touch with the earth.

10. Do one thing every day that scares you.

I stood on that stage this afternoon, called out each name with joy and reverence. This was a new experience for me, to be on the other side of the podium for once. To know what it is like to look out upon the potential of our future generations...that is something I will never lose, something that is mine to hold. For this, I am grateful.

This is My Religion

2009-05-05T12:27:00.004-04:00

Lately I have been thinking about religion. Two months ago I stopped by St. Mary's church on my way home from work, dragged my daughter through the church basement, up past the after school program, across the parking lot and into the rectory offices demanding to know when ccd started. I was like a woman possessed....but by what? Religion? Catholicism is something I am sentimenal about, not passionate about. I signed us up as part of the parish and left, never having returned since.

I thought about church, felt guilty about not attending. Wondered if I was somehow harming my daughter by not allowing her that foundation, questioned whether or not I could provide it for her from my own memory. I could tell her the bible stories, I reasoned. Selfishness set in. Why should I give up my time at the gym on Sunday mornings? Doesn't every person need to do something good for herself?

I lay in bed on Sunday morning, the whir of the ceiling fan and the sounds of the wind in the pines bringing me to consciousness. The gently moving Spring air stirred the tiny golden hairs on my arms and I turned over to see the man I love lying next to me. I listened to his breathing, deep and relaxed. My daughter was sound asleep in her room down the hall, and I felt an overwhelming sense of peace. I didn't need to be sitting in a church pew, listening to someone tell me how to be a good person or how to save the world. I had my very own little world right next to me. This I realized...this is my religion.

Potentiality

2009-03-05T20:52:00.001-05:00

A tiny flame grows into a roaring fire in seconds plus oxygen. A simple wish becomes a lifelong dream with every 11:11 I encounter. My daughter is five in the blink of an eye. I'm afraid to close my eyes anymore.

There is a little stone house amidst the lavender fields in Provence that could have been mine. A cottage by the sea in Nantucket that called out to me. A cocktail waitress job on the beaches of Fiji I passed by. An orange grove in Key West caught my eye, and a tiny bookstore in the Upper Peninsula whispers to me, even now.

There was a life waiting on a mesa in New Mexico, and one in the valley of Boulder Colorado. Tumultuous waves reached for me on the shores of Lake Michigan, and peaceful highways led east to the Atlantic sea.

And I have managed to embed myself in small town suburbia, the same in which I grew up. I read once that half of Americans live within 50 miles of where they grew up. I am not one of those Americans. And yet I am. I teach in a high school just like the one I attended so many years ago, we even have the same school colors. The students, they are the same ones I went to school with, only outfitted with cell phones and ipods instead of walkmans.

There is a girl with long blond hair in my creative writing class. She longs to be different, a poet, a tortured soul, an ingenue. And yet she is the same as all the other teens, growing up in a tiny bedroom town, privileged, and I recognize myself in her dreamy stares, her hand scribbled words on notebook paper. There is so much potentiality out there, so much she can fly away with, if she is brave enough.

I want to be brave. I want the happy ending. The second chance. The house on the shore. The life I know I was supposed to live. No matter how many shells I bring home or what I affectionately name my beach house in the burbs, I am far too long from the shore. The potentiality is there, so thick I can taste it like honey, golden sweet on the tongue. Spring must be around the corner, for I can hear the waves calling.

Brevity

2009-02-06T20:23:00.002-05:00

It has been too long since I last visited my own blog, my own writing, my own soul. Finding time has been my excuse, finding inspiration the reason hiding behind it. I am back to teaching creative writing. Baby steps back into my own voice as well. It is is rumored that Hemingway was once asked to write a story in six words. The result? "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

This is the ultimate in brevity. And so I have been writing my own six word memoirs. Here are some of the results:

Always taking chances on Prince Charming.

Found my soul on the beach.

Conservative English teacher: secretly a rebel.

Have cat and child, will travel.

Married, Divorced, then fell in love.

Living life as if on vacation.

Old soul at 8, young at 33.

Life got in way of writing.

Lost soul mate, found real one.

Pointillism

2008-11-06T21:55:00.003-05:00

There is this painting, housed in the museum of Fine Arts in Chicago called Sunday in the Park with George. It's featured in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, I've seen it well over 20 times in person, and yet I am still quite enamored with the entire idea of Pointillism. It is this theory that when one looks at something close up, really focuses in, he sees nothing but a series of dots. It's really the big picture that makes sense. When one stands far from the painting, each individual dot blurs into this absolutely amazing piece of art.

If one stands too close to me, will he see only insignificant dots? Every little bit of who a person is may not exactly fit who he is as a whole. Push me away a little bit and you might just see the struggling teacher/mother/artist/lover. Hold me too close and you may only focus in on the pieces of me who want the laundry folded, the homework done on time, the support in a time of temper tantrum. Is this too much? Might one only want to look from afar?

The truth lies in the little pieces, up close and personal. If you don't like what you see, it may be time to switch to Impressionism where everything is one giant landscaped blur of color.

Everyone is at War

2008-09-13T21:03:00.005-04:00

"Everybody's at war with something. I'm at war with my own heart sometimes."

--Tupac Shakur

Another September. Another back to school. Teachers measure their years in Septembers. I've had a lifetime of them, yet only 5 on record. Somehow I missed August. I know how I missed August. Somewhere between the ESL workshop, Memoir graduate class, Summer curriculum work, vacation in Arizona, and the first few days back to school, I lost August. She's gone, though she was never my favorite, I still wish I had her back.

I'm having a tough time going back to school this year. I keep telling myself to smile and nod, smile and nod, even when the students ignore me, when they fail to do their homework, I still smile and nod. I have a class whom I've (somewhat affectionately) nicknamed my "street urchins" and they are harder than most. Every day is a war in that classroom, every lesson a struggle. But they are young, most haven't learned how to hide their emotions as I have. Smile and nod. One girl has no mother at home, another has no self confidence, one lives in the shadow of his brother, and another is smart but plays dumb to fit in. Each is involved in his own internal war with something greater.

Restless. If the Santa Ana winds could blow through New England, I would swear they had made their presence known today. I feel crazy and wistful, on the verge...of what I haven't any idea. The gypsy is back. She is at war with her own heart again.

Duneland

2008-07-19T22:40:00.003-04:00

Left-of-center-people fascinate me. I had the beach all to myself on a gorgeous hot & sunny afternoon, just me and my novel. And then I noticed a man walking toward me, most likley one of the "joggers" I usually saw on the beach, I thought. He was an attractive older man in his early 60's an he stopped to say hello. And then he just kept on talking. Thirty minutes later I knew this man's entire life story. And he revealed to me that he was pentecostal. He spoke to me about god and his visions and how a non-believer became a believer. I politely listened and when he was gone, I went back to my novel.

But this guy, Vince, he came back and found me on the beach the next day as well. He asked me if I had any "insights" during the night. I laughed and told him nothing except a deep desire for Lake Michigan. My dear reader, I drove around Beverly Shores like I usually do, dreaming about living there, when I saw a for sale sign pointing down an empty beach road. I decided to follow it (the proverbial pot o' gold at the end of the rainbow) and there was a house...it was perfect. Built in 1929, one of the original that Frederick Bartlett built when he designed the town of Beverly Shores. It had the original spanish tiled roof, that ochre colored brick that just says "duneland" and an acre of land, quietly settled...I got out of the car and took one of the brochures that listed all of its amenities. I must have stared at that house for a half an hour. And then I started crying. Have you ever wanted something that badly and you knew there was such a slim chance of getting it...even now my eyes are brimming because I can't help thinking that I simply belonged with that house, that original structure of the town that takes up so much space in my heart. This amazing landscape that I swear no one else cares about like I do, and it feels so very far away. I went home and told my parents about it. They paid very little attention to me and my "silly whims," as they put it. And I felt it...another loss of that life I had simply imagined or dreamed up somewhere along the road. Am I a believer? I went back to the question...and simply found that I had another of my own to ask. What exactly is it that I am supposed to believe in?

Global Village

2008-07-06T23:16:00.002-04:00

Happy birthday America.

I've been on vacation for a little over 2 weeks and I'm exhausted. I'm starting to wonder when I can go back to school! I'm kidding of course. I'm back in the heartland, the crossroads of America, amongst the trains and the cornfields and the super friendly midwesterners who like to tell me their life stories and medical histories while I'm in line at the grocery store. (seriously)

I've had time to catch up on my reading (not the Economist as Dan would like me to read, but some good fiction and some trashy gossip rags). I've recently started a book by Bill Bryson about his travels in small town America, his search for the quintessential small town, one he would call "Amalgam." His story got me thinking...is there a perfect representation of America out there? While Dan and I were sunning ourselves on the beach at the Dunes National Lakeshore this past holiday weekend, I people watched. There we were, surrounded by languages foreign to our ears, and rarely did I hear English. It was Little Bangalore meets Little Mexico with a dash of Little Africa thrown in for good measure. Children all around me playing in the sand, peeing in the water, throwing bits of food at the sea gulls...a perfect representation of what America would become, or has become already. Are we pushing against a tide that has already swept in?

That night as Dan and I sat on the deck enjoying a wonderful South African red wine, eating American cashews, watching my brother light fireworks that were made in China, I pulled on my jacket that was made in Indonesia, kissed my boyfriend who works for a French company and listened to my father talk about the steel mill in which he has worked for over 30 years who was bought by an Indian company and just merged with a French company. We are no longer the America of post world war two, but the global village of the future.

I've always had it...

2008-05-04T22:16:00.007-04:00

When I was five my parents took me to Chicago to see the circus. There were elephants, acrobats in sparkly leotards, clowns in little cars, all under the big top, but what captivated me wasn't the glitz & glamour of Barnum & Bailey, but rather the windy city itself. There was an energy about the city, a spark that I felt in my bones. I knew from that moment on that I would never be content living in one place my entire life.

Now that I am in my thirties and my daughter is almost the age I was when I discovered a world outside the cornfield, I am settled. I have a house, a career, a relationship...never have I felt so rooted to a place. Unlike me, Lauren has been flying in airplanes since she was 11 months old. She ate sand on Cape Cod at 6 months, toured Las Vegas at 3 years old, visited at least 8 of the 50 states by age 2. I wonder if she will inherit the travel bug from me or if she will feel as though she needs to have solid ground, dig in her heels, root herself in Massachusetts.

And now that my own roots are expanding and digging in deep, I'm always looking for the next great travel adventure, it gives me something to look forward to, and having just returned from a week in Spain I'm already thinking about my next trip...Vegas...Chicago...Phoenix...Berlin...Prague...bring it on! And they say that diamonds are a girl's best friend, but I beg to differ. The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page.

On my latest trip to Spain, I penned a quick snippet of a poem while wandering around Seville:

The Best Laid Plans

I plan to write. I plan to drink sangria
and think of Hemingway.
I plan to meet someone fantastically exotic,
and lose him in the same moment I met him.
I plan to wear long skirts and flip flops
and watch my students' reactions to paella.
I plan to write you a postcard,
which I will never send.

I almost missed March...

2008-03-29T08:35:00.005-04:00

The incessantly cold and rainy weather must have kept me from my post. However, if one took a look at my little planner they would see it covered in blue ink. Each day seemed to be filled to the maximum with tasks, meetings, activities, parties, and holidays. It's a wonder I had time to breathe.

Lauren turned 4 on March 24th. The night of her actual birthday, as I tucked her into bed, wondering where the time had gone she said:

"Mommy, tell me about the day I was born." I settled in next to her and laid my head on the pillow, remembering back four years ago to the night before she was born. "You were two days late," I said, and began the story.

She listened intently until the end, when I described holding her tiny little body for the first time, all cozy and wrapped in a hospital blanket. She said to me, "I am going to have a baby one day too." And she kissed me goodnight and hugged her Sprinkles to her chest.

I hope I am around to see that event.

Having her has made me realize how quickly a moment passes, how little time it takes to say "I love you" but how that feeling lasts a lifetime, and how I think I may want to do this whole thing again someday.

Give Me One Good Reason...

2008-02-19T20:58:00.005-05:00

I can give you ten:

1. Because he took a chance and flew halfway across the U.S. for a second date.

2. He can cook, and didn't say no when I handed him a recipe for Beef Burgundy.

3. My daughter painted his toes bright pink, and he let her!

4. His dance moves made me laugh, and then he swept me off my feet.

5. He sends tulips, not roses...but tulips.

6. We can kill three hours in bed, reading.

7. He always has a contingency plan, and usually a contingency for the contingency.

8. Laugh. He makes me laugh until my cheeks ache sometimes.

9. He helps make my home a more beautiful place.

10. He expands my horizons, makes me try new things. I'd never know the beauty of red wines, the amazing quiet of an underwater world, or jump off a cliff into a cenote if it weren't for him.

11. I'm in love.

A Snapshot

2007-12-15T09:43:00.000-05:00

One of my students told me that if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a ripped one is worth a million. At the time I thought that he was incredbly clever for his age, and for a moment, I wished I could be him.

A photograph is really a story told by the photographer, but lost in translation by the viewer. There is a picture in a box on my closet shelf of a man wih a little girl on his shoulders, his first time at the ocean, her hundredth. They stare out at a salty gray sea, lost in its immensity, their thoughts, that moment...and I watch them watching life. Who am I to say that they are happy. I wonder if they saw that photograph now....would they have a million other words to say?

And now he watches her grow up, a thousand miles away, in his edited version of a story of photographs he receives occasionally. In his edited version of a story between two lovers who didn't make it, he imagines a life he can almost touch...that slips away as easily as the fog he watches from his back porch, the woods he chose, dreaming only of the seaside in the early morning quiet before his family wakes.

Sometimes I wish he would rip that picture into a thousand tiny fragments.

Because I know that I can't.

Just Beneath the Surface

2007-11-12T18:40:00.000-05:00

There are weeks that go by without notice. Months. And then a rush of emotion, swells that rival the waves offshore Cape Cod. I consumed an entire novel in 2 days, and the sadness is as pervasive as if I'd lived it myself. And my friends wonder why it is that I don't read the newspaper, why I don't turn on the television, why my only source of news is an article from yahoo picked up here and there online. My breath comes in shallow tide pools and I cannot stop my fingers from pressing against my lips as if they might spill forth secrets.

I don't ask for much. The novel I read chronicled the life of a woman divorced, then widowed, then left at the altar, all before the age of 30. She didn't ask for any of it either.

The channels of the heart are long and deep. Resilient. Once I believed that if you gave away a piece of your heart, you never got it back, as if it dissipated with the feelings once held. What I've learned is that it's even worse when he gives it back to you, as if to say no thank you.

What I also have learned is that the smallest things are often the most important. The way he walked out of the dim restaurant into bright sunlight, nervous and unsure, but knowing....knowing...he had to see her again. The way she always finds a way to touch him, fingers lightly brushing up against his arm, resting on the nape of his neck when he drives, the need to feel connected to another human being.

And whether or not they say the words...

Train Whistles

2007-10-08T22:38:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I lay in bed and wonder why some people go through life easily, and others have nothing but heartache. I used to believe in karma. Fate. And I suppose I still do, though some nights it's harder than others.
I'm 32 years old today. I'm 32 years old and as I lay in a new bed in a new house with my new life surrounding me, I hear a train whistle across the dark night and I can't breathe.
I am a sister and a daughter and a mother and a teacher and a lover and a dancer and a writer and I used to believe that the trains were full of people like me, running away from one life or running to another.
There's never an easy way out.
I used to believe in the goodness of humanity. Now I believe in the small disappointments. And tonight I wanted to be near those tracks with everything I thought I knew. I wanted to feel the ground shake beneath my feet, cover my ears with my hands, and scream with the universe.
For once, I wanted to hear its voice scream back at me.

If you build it, they will come

2007-08-11T18:42:00.000-04:00

She stood 5'11 and looked me right in the eyes, her green ones to my grey. Her hair was shoulder length, brown and shiny; mine hung down my back, long and blonde. She just turned 39, I was about to turn 32. I had only just met this woman who spoke the language of my own life, and I realized just how interconnected we all are.

It was the hardest thing, she said. They had only been dating a few months. He was older and divorced twice. She told me that he said he loved her, but there wasn't a future for them. She looked on the verge of tears and said the hardest thing was knowing.

My mother used to tell me, don't ask a question if you're not prepared for the answer. This has been my philosophy all along. So I don't ask. Some might say this is a form of detachment. I disagree. The vines grow deep and strong in my soul and it takes years, lifetimes, for them to dissolve.

She began to speak about the need to reconnect with someone, anyone, and her path down the alley of old ghosts. She spent time with a boy she loved when she was 17. How it didn't work then, How it wouldn't work now. She spent time with a man she loved at 27. And then she said she would have to upload her match.com profile once again. "If I build it, they will come" she smiled at me.

I think about the man in my life now, how his smile makes his eyes crinkle up. I think of his arms wrapping around me, of lifting my chin up to kiss him, and how my favorite moments are the quiet ones, on the couch. Serenity in various forms. But I also think of this woman...and how she must have felt this very same way about her relationship. My past relationships have taught me to wait for the other shoe to drop. But this summer...I will go barefoot.

If you let her go, she might not come back.

2007-07-04T15:46:00.000-04:00

In my head I had no other choice, but my hands wouldn't release my daughter's small ones. No matter of internal reasoning could persuade the muscles to loosen. There is so much letting go in life. She will ask me to take the training wheels from her bike and she will fall down. My job is to help her up and send her off again. At the beach, she says "mommy, let go!" It is an order, a command her tiny voice makes over the sound of crashing waves. She has a life jacket on. She wants to swim, but I am terrified to let her go.

My own mother holds fear that I will leave her too. I know this because I visited my sister's sparsely decorated house yesterday. I looked at the curtainless windows, the white walls, the empty spare room and it suddenly dawned on me that my mother's touch was nowhere to be seen. My sister lives 20 miles from our mother. How could it be that my own apartment, 1,000 miles away in MA, was completely drenched in my mother's personality while my sister's stood empty? My mother is afraid that if she lets me go, I won't come back to her. My roots run deep here. But honestly, if I were to be let go from her, I don't know that I would return so easily.

There is a poem by Denise Levertov, "In Mind," about a woman who struggles with letting go. On the outside she is clean, without ostentation, and smells of apples and grass. But on the inside she is a woman dressed in rags and opal who knows strange songs and has a wild imagination, however, that woman is not kind.

We are all, at some point in our lives, that woman Denise writes about. Inside my head, there is a writer both ethereal and gypsy. She has great power, raw and dangerous power, and I am afraid to let her out. Once she tastes the honeyed nectar of freedom I do not think she will return to me. I am afraid of having nothing left to say.

Life on Parade

2007-06-01T21:19:00.000-04:00

The story. We all have one. Sometimes if we're lucky it's a novel full of infamous characters, adventures, loves, and an occasional pirate or two. When I was a little girl, my mother's best friend lived in an old victorian home in Chesterton, Indiana that always smelled of lavender. She had a daughter a few years older than me (the big sister I never had) and her story ended when she was just thirteen years old.

Just ask people what their stories are, and nine times out of ten their answer will be "chaotic." I have been busy my entire life, the tornado whirling around Northborough. Today I taught five classes, graded 30 essays, skipped lunch, spent hours with a realtor, picked up my baby girl at daycare, drove to Worcester to meet an event planner to plan a prom a year away, made dinner, and did 3 loads of laundry. Busy doesn't begin to describe it.

Over the last few weeks I have begun my journey towards the American Dream. Owning a home. It has taken over my existence. My entire life I have looked forward to this event. Peeking into others' lives, feeling the energies of a house, looking for one that fits my soul, one that has a soul of its own. Today I walked into an old Victorian in Hopedale, MA. What a grand old lady. The house seemed to breathe a sigh of welcome. The walls were covered in period wallpaper, garish birds and flowers. There was a winding staircase and heavy wooden banister perfect for sliding down. The pantry was something out of a Martha Stewart magazine and should have been in a house on old Nantucket. The house had character. The character just happened to be a weary, time traveler. I wanted to be charmed, to imagine the lives of those before me, sewing daintily in the front parlor. I wanted to pretend I could live there, but what I saw was work...lots of work. The floors needed sanding, the wallpaper was peeling, the kitchen cabinets sagged, the floors tilted. I closed the door to the dream behind me.

I am too busy for this house. And nothing makes me sadder than ending a story before it has a chance to begin.

Smatterings

2007-04-12T20:30:00.000-04:00

When I was a little girl, my favorite part of baking cupcakes and cookies was decorating them after my mom spread a thick, creamy layer of frosting across the tops. We didn't make them often because my mom worked, and baking took time.

I realize now what I liked best about those afternoons was having so many choices. My cupcakes never looked like Martha Stewart's simple, elegant creations. No, mine were smothered in silver dots, red hots, sprinkles, and a myriad of colored sugars - the veritable melting pot of a child's imagination and pure whimsy.

I sprinkle with care now. I am mindful that a well placed silver dot will get me further in life than tossing the sugars to the wind. "Watch what you say around the baby, she repeats everything." "Only ask for the favor after you've made sure his day went well." "Remember to grade essays with green and make positive comments on each one." "Don't be the first one to say 'I love you'."

Life lessons are sweetened only after experiencing the bitterness of regret from the mistake. But we shouldn't be afraid to make those mistakes. Who says that adults are perfect? The weathermen predict a Nor'easter is headed our direction, strong winds will prevail. Right now, I wish I had some colored sugar...

If You Wish it...it Will Come

2007-03-07T07:09:00.000-05:00

Subconciously, I knew the truck wasn't going to swerve. And I didn't take my hands from the wheel. Not once. The impact took the breath right out of me. Endings are always hard.

My mother used to tell me, "Be careful what you wish for, darling." Looking back on yet another disintegrated relationship, I can't help but wonder...did I somehow wish the end? In all honesty, beginnings are awkward and endings are difficult...but the middles of things require the most work.

* * * *

The other night, I dreamt of a public book reading. I was lost in the gathering crowd, and there he was, suddenly standing in front of me looking at me with such fervor in his eyes and his palms held out. A book. His book. That afternoon among the many gathered there to hear his words, he read to me, directly to me. His eyes found mine in the crowd, that unmistakable and otherworldly connection. And then I woke up. It was 4am and nothing more than a dream. I hadn't spoken to him in over a year.

But when I checked my email that morning. He had written to me. At exactly 4am. Was it fate? Did I miss him so much that I wished that email into existence?

With him, it is always something.

Precious Illusions

2007-02-14T15:12:00.000-05:00

"She said, I think I'll go to Boston...I think I'll start a new life...I think I'll start over..." I know these are merely the lyrics from an Augustana song, but I once knew a girl who uttered them long before Augustana ever played a note together. She disappeared for awhile, dropped below the equator to lie in the hamockshade of a banana tree, waiting for her soul to become shiny again. She's home now, with more resilience than I've seen from her in years.

Just the other day, a friend told me that perhaps we just learn to accept the hand we are dealt in life. I'm having a difficult time with that concept. It's not as if I haven't recently fallen into old habits myself, the restless late night drives, unclear relationship boundaries, and the inability to make a real hard and fast decision about anything, just to name a few. And although the cards in my hand are far from a full house, I laid each one down on the table yesterday. I signed each and every page of that divorce agreement and I am not afraid to ask the dealer for another hand.

So, for now I think that I will hold on to my precious illusions of rebirth, of starting over, and that summer in Boston is far closer to me than the equator.

Solstice

2007-01-13T22:27:00.000-05:00

It's late. There are a million and three other things I should be doing (like sleeping or having sex or cleaning the bathroom or watching a really intriguing foreign film) but those require a quiet mind, a cute boy, some Lysol and a cigarette...none of which I currently have in my apartment. I sat down at my computer hoping to be struck over the head by fate, blessed by one of the muses, or at least receive a potty mouthed instant message from my little sister. Alas, here I am, doing time in the blogging world.

It's been a long week. I know people say that all the time. I've been to divorce court, climbed around the (very scary) basement of a 207 year old farmhouse looking for evidence of rot, had a mini heart attack when I literally dumped a cup of coffee into my laptop, just saw the hideously expensive champagne (it's really pale brown...) bridesmaid dress I have to purchase, and collected 70 high school writing portfolios which need to be graded in the next week. I think I'm channelling Sylvia Plath or Anne Sexton.

But there are tulips on my kitchen table. Sea glass from Nantasket Beach lay on my desk. I fell asleep happy last night and woke up to the smell of coffee wafting through his house. And I know...there is a poem in there somewhere.

Dissidence

2006-12-08T08:59:00.000-05:00

I've had quite the roller coaster morning. My beautiful, well behaved, spirited little daughter decided to go to sleep as herself last night and wake up as a 13 year old hormonal teenager this morning. I honestly think that the terrible twos must have set in overnight. Is there an over the counter medicine I can buy that will counteract this??? Thirty minutes of crying, screaming even, and four outfit changes later, there was a knock on my door. The neighbor (in his pajamas no less) was checking in to make sure everything was okay (i.e. that I wasn't somehow killing my child). She literally woke up the neighbors at 6:30am. I was so embarassed. She refused the winter coat (even with snow on the ground) and then refused to leave the house. Then she refused to get into the car. By the time I finally got her buckeld into the car I was already late. I backed out of the driveway and through her tears I hear her say "no seatbelt." I turn around and she's standing up in the backseat of the car. When we got to daycare she wouldn't get out of the car. I dragged her, kicking and screaming, up to the door. I tried to give her a hig and a kiss but she hit me. So I left. My daycare provider called five minutes later with a sad little Lauren on the phone, saying "I love you mommy." This made it all better. However, I still had the problem of no coffee. If you know me at all....this is a major dilemma. I went to school and the newspaper staff was selling breakfast so I grabbed my purse and headed down, but to my chagrin there was no coffee left! I went back to my room and started a pot of coffee (luckily I had one in my room) and now I am drinking bitter caffeine but at least it's caffeine. My students will thank me for it!
Needless to say, my morning didn't start off so great....but it did get better...I took my first period creative writing students down to the art rooms where student artwork lined the halls. I had them pick a painting and write a poem from it. The art teacher came out, asked what we were doing, and offered up his room for us to "paint" pictures from our favorite poems next week. Then, he went and found the photographer from the school newspaper to come and take pictures of the students. He was in a great mood this morning...apparently HE had his coffee!!! Anyway, I now have a great little unit for my poetry class, and I will have some good artwork to hang on my walls and the kids just LOVE to play in the art rooms....so it all ended well. Now...if I could just get through the stack of Oedipus Rex essays on my desk...I know I need more coffee for that!

Praying

2006-12-01T13:24:00.000-05:00

When I was a little girl, my parents sent me to Catholic school where I’d attend mass twice a week. During mass, we’d kneel and pray. I never knew what to pray for, so I’d count in my head until the altar boy rang the bells. This is what I remember about praying - the first set of bells were longer than the second.
One day, we had to learn the Lord’s Prayer by heart. I practiced with my mother until I had it down perfectly. I went to school and the teacher sent me home that afternoon with a note to my Protestant mother, requesting that my Catholic father help me with my homework. That was the end of Catholic school for me. No more Hail Mary’s full of “grapes.” No more Protestant Our Father’s. I began public school immediately.
My father still took us to church every Sunday morning. As I grew older, I learned that we are obligated to pray for the dead, to pray for the less fortunate, the sick and the weak. And so I began each silent intention with a prayer for my grandmother. And one terrible morning I had to add Carolyn. Becky was next. Another year, I added my grandpa, and most recently, uncle Bill.
After the list of the deceased, my standard prayer for the homeless followed, because they are less fortunate than me. Lastly, I would add a small sentiment for my family, to keep them safe.
As I get older, the list grows longer. Never shorter. If I could ever truly pray for the intentions our Higher Power needed to address, I’d never get off my knees. Now that I have a daughter of my own, I struggle with prayer even more. I pray for the wisdom to live with the choices I have made, the ones she will make, and the strength to embrace the world’s suffering rather than hoisting it up and carrying it on my shoulders.

When do we roll the credits?

2006-09-26T08:21:00.000-04:00

Airports are a writer's best friend. Last weekend I flew to SanFrancisco for a friend's wedding, which meant getting to Logan airport 2 hours early, and a six hour flight to California - might I also mention that it was a child-free trip. That meant I had at least 7 hours to myself. Now this could be a good thing, if I could only get the voices in my head to cooperate with me a little bit.
But sometimes, having too much time also means I have time to hyperfocus on my life and the choices and decisions I've made. And that is exactly how I spent my time that day.
When do we call the official time of death for a relationship? Is it the moment we feel the spark flicker and go out? Or the day we gather enough courage to speak up and verbalize our feelings to our significant other, I'm just not happy anymore. What about the physical death? Or is it the day he moves his belongings out of the house, when your books are no longer lined up against his, their hard spines somehow softened. And there always comes a moment when you find an artifact from the relationship...a cd he left behind or a book of love poems he gave you. And all of a sudden, you can't breathe because the feelings are back from the dead.
I once thought that if I had the courage to erase that last voicemail he left, if I could just press 7 to delete instead of 9 to save, that would be the end. As if I could erase him along with his message. And then there is the calendar with its glaring little boxes filled with future promise. The plans we made together. The days come and pass with only that little pen mark, beach or wedding in SanFrancisco or trip to Arizona marked on them as indelible reminders that at one time, there were plans. At one time, there were anniversaries and birthdays and shared memories.
But the really difficult relationships are the ones in a coma. They've gone on for years, even though your heart may have grown back to fill the empty space left behind. These are the most dangerous of all. This is when you remember what his skin felt like under your palm at 3am, or the way he reached for you in the early dawn, and the way his eyes said everything with one glance. Those are the relationships Hollywood thrives upon and the stories told by great writers. And the ones that can destroy you.

Time of death: right now.

The Things We Leave Behind

2006-08-27T11:25:00.000-04:00

It's a gray Sunday morning, one best suited to snuggling under the covers in bed with a hot hockey player, but I digress. It's also the last day of my summer. I pick up a magazine on the coffee table, flip through it, put it back, and wander from room to room in the semi-dark. Restless. If I were to leave today and never return what might my small apartment, filled to the brim with clothes, artwork, books, my daughter's toys, say about my life? We are defined by what we do, how we act, what we've accomplished, and what we leave behind.
In my closet is a small travelling bag filled with various items people have left behind, have never returned for, and I suppose now belong to me. Over the last year they have been scattered here and there throughout my space, but last week I decided to gather them up, put them together, try to figure out the puzzle of failed relationships. It would be a challenge.
There is an incredibly soft red sweatshirt left behind by my songwriting crooner. I've never had a man write me a song before, nevertheless so many! There are the polo shirts from Abercrombie & Fitch left behind by my adventure dating boy. They smell like campfires and deep woods off. The Office dvd set and Big Chill soundtrack were left behind by my sensitive rocker boy. Memories of tequila and dancing at 3am in my living room. There is a framed picture of clouds, yes clouds, my artist boy decided while laying on a beach that the clouds were fate speaking to him when they formed the shape of a heart. He took the picture then and gave it to me. A sign, he said. A sign. There is a bottle of hair gel left over by my sweet Portugese drummer boy, and lastly a pair of very sexy boxers left by my hot hockey player.
I sifted through the pile, trying to draw some conclusions...don't date musicians? Guys with big trucks? Artists of any kind? I push the pile back into the bag and back into its corner of my closet without any answers. The things they left behind...small obejects, most likely not missed. And I wonder, where all the things I too have left behind now lie. I would like to believe that there are little altars everywhere. That each of us has our own way of defining who we are by what we have left behind.

On the Way Back Home

2006-07-13T22:57:00.000-04:00

I realize I come to this blog less than once a month. For me, writing has always been something that has come naturally and, unfortunately, sporadically to me. I am home in Indiana for a month, and when I say home what I mean is the place I grew up, for home is really a thousand miles away now in Massachusetts. No matter how long I have been away, the midwest will always fill that space in my body that longs to smell rich black earth, know wide open sky, feel the singing sands of Lake Michigan under my feet. As I drive past the old shotgun barn on Sidewalk Road, the lone shady Oak tree in Dogwood Park, or the 1933-34 World's Fair Homes slowly rotting and succumbing to the lake, I will feel the familiar tug of nostalgia for that teenage girl with her smalltown roots and big dreams.
I have always desired to know what people think of as "home." For some, it's an open road and gypsy blood and for others it's the comfort of having stability. I struggle with the idea of home, always have, and I think it will be a lifetime of discovering for me and I may never come to a personal definition. My daughter is two years old now, and she will grow up knowing a different childhood than I had. She will grow up flying in airplanes every 8 weeks, knowing the big skies of Indiana and the quaint New England stone walls that line the back roads. I cannot help but wonder what her definition of "home" will be.

Haunted

2006-06-03T22:37:00.000-04:00

The very word, haunted, conjures up images of ghosts and goblins, all hallows eve and spooky stories around the campfire. So why am I thinking hanunted, haunted, haunted in June? For me, there will always be a different kind of haunting in my life. It took one glance yesterday at the newsstand. I saw the cover of Asimov's and out of curiousity picked it up only to turn to the table of contents. There was his name. Simple block lettering. Again. His was the chosen one. Again. I read the words, recognized the story, remembered the day he shared it with me, so long ago. Was it fate? What made me turn to see the small magazine poking up from the stand? I think it was the ghost.

There are those who are haunted by their past and then there are those who are the ghosts. I would like a career change.

Lost and Found

2006-04-16T18:10:00.000-04:00

When you're a writer, inspiration often comes in many ways. For one of my friends, she finds her inspiration through her faith in the church. Another finds it in her alphabits at breakfast. One woman I know meditates and "om's" her cat's belly, which is definitely an odd sight...but one worth mentioning, after all...it is our quirks that make us interesting. I have always found inspiration in coming home. Poet Phil Levine remarked once that his adult life was rather boring so he lived in the memories of his mind to write his poetry. I have always felt that my blood was tainted, indeed I had a gypsy soul, never content to sit still or stay in one place for long. Yet, there was a part of me that held a deep reverence for roots, for the act of coming home again, for traditions. I suppose I felt that if I could be a part of them yet maintain my distance, I would have the proverbial cake and be able to eat it too (in this case, coconut for easter). This morning while I sat in the catholic church of my youth with my daughter by my side, I tested the waters of prayer, unsure if I would sink or swim. Without really thinking I allowed the thoughts to flow over my soul...take care of my family, make sure my daughter stays healthy and happy, let me find the strength I need for the coming months, I prayed for those less fortunate than myself, for those who were alone on easter Sunday, for those who were lost, and then I prayed for those who are found...and this one surprised me the most. But then I realized...sometimes it's easier being lost. And all these years I have spent so much of my time trying to "find" the right path, attempting to "find" my place in life...but I think I'll stay lost a little while longer.

Thank you Colleen...

2006-03-10T07:11:00.000-05:00

After reading a friend's post, about driving down the MA Pike and seeing an empty, white billboard, I started to think about "blankness" too...my students faces as I ask them a specific question from the reading they did not do, the empty page before I begin to worry that writer's block has permanently taken up space and is now paying rent in my mind, the generation who is now being raised on reality televsion and Xbox...the lack of original thought in our society. And it isn't until I see the smile on my daughter's face as she picks up Good Night Moon for the thousandth time, when I simply turn the pages and read from memory. I will not allow her the blissful ignorance of being "blank."

The weight of a memory

2006-03-04T08:15:00.000-05:00

Nostalgia is a word that can kick your ass and you'll never see it coming. I feel the same way about her as I do about fate. Step lightly. As I was driving in the early dark of this morning I passed by a little silver bullet of a diner. It was a brief glance back in time. The emotion was a swift kick to the gut, and I felt as if I were losing something vital. It couldn't have been more than six seconds, but in those six seconds I saw the red neon light in the early dawn that burned "Chet's Diner" into the lightening navy sky. The parking lot was full. And inside was a row of men sitting on stools, I imagined they were reading the paper and drinking their coffee, eating greasy bacon and scrambled eggs. Almost instantly, I remembered the Triple XXX.

The Triple XXX is an infamous diner in West Lafayette, Indiana. Home to the best sausage gravy and biscuits in the state. The orange and brown building sits precariously on the side of Chauncey Hill. I always imagined that one morning after a night of drinking I would walk down the hill only to find it at the bottom, having finally broken free and slipped down with a glorious "wheeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!" The diner is a "walking" excursion only, for the fact that there are maybe three spots behind it under the carport.

The rusty screendoor banged shut behind me every time. I always wondered why the owner had never fixed the hinges, or cleaned the grease filled screen for that matter. The walls were a dingy, muted yellow from years and years of cigarette smoke, the linoleum counters were cracked, and the floors were heaving up, angry after carrying the weight of so many for so long. It would be a dismal greasy spoon if it weren't for the liveliness at all times of the day and night.

Weekend mornings saw hungover college students, who stumbled down the hill for a bite to eat. Weekdays, the "regulars" a.k.a. "old-timers" were never far from the counter, strong, black coffee in hand. The lunch crowd was usually full of students, professors, and local businessmen. Dinners were usually a family affair with kids begging for ice creams and parents telling them to eat their burgers. The witching hour was always my favorite though. That hour right around three am. You never know who would be there. Sometimes I swear I saw the ghosts of Kerouac and Bukowski.

Since opening in 1929, the diner has not lost an ounce of its flavor. The building, owners and patrons may have changed, but the name and the nostalgia remains as strong then as it does now. Hmmm....and now I am nothing but homesick and hungry.

http://www.triplexxxfamilyrestaurant.com/index.html

Adventure Dating

2006-02-14T10:16:00.000-05:00

So, anyone who knows me...knows that my idea of a "hike" includes a mall, a credit card, and a hot pretzel. I am dating a guy who lives in western MA, and I went out to his place on Saturday. We had quite the adventure. One of those things I should probably write to match.com and tell them about. He drives a huge truck, and he wanted to take me around the Berkshires and show me his favorite spots. So we first stopped at a place where you could walk a little ways in and see dinosaur footprints. Very cool. Then we went to Amherst and bought a bottle of wine and cheese and crackers. We continued on, and he said I distracted him and he took a wrong turn and we ended up out in Chesterfield, MA, which wasn't on his planned "tour" but he loved the Chesterfield Gorge and decided he'd show me that as well. The road into the gorge was barricaded by a snowpile with a sign that said closed for winter. He decided his truck could jump the barricade and with 4 wheel drive we'd be able to get back in there. So, we did. The road was a rutted, icy, muddy, snowy, mess. We get about a mile down into the gorge to the spot Nate wanted to show me, and he tried to turn the truck around and we got stuck! He was so cute, trying to get us out. He felt really, really bad, and I figured he'd just dig a little bit and then we'd be golden. Well...not so much. He didn't have a shovel in the truck, just a hammer. He was dressed nicely but had old clothes in the truck so he changed and then went to work trying to dig us out. He tried everything. I walked down to the gorge and it was cold, but sunny and an overall nice day, but the big storm was coming. They predicted 18 inches and he knew if he didn't get the truck out it'd be stuck there until Spring. He worked for 3 hours...even tried using a power winch (sp?) but kept snapping the rope. Poor guy, he was covered in mud and so we had to hike the mile back out of the gorge. We grabbed the wine and cheese and went to it. He apologized the whole way and said he was going to take me to a nice dinner. Then he told me about all the things he had planned for the day...I told him he owed me another date. So, we got out and there was only one house, a log cabin llama farm, near the gorge. So we stopped and asked if we could use the woman's phone. She didn't trust us one bit. Very backwoods...she reluctantly let us use the phone (no cell service out there) and we called a towing company, and they wanted a callback number. He explained his cell didn't work and the woman wouldn't give us her phone number. So the tow guy said someone would be there in 45 minutes. We walked back to the little "rest" area where the sign for the gorge was and waited. It was getting dark and very cold. So Nate built a fire right there in the snowy lot. We ate the cheese and crackers and drank the wine, waited for over an hour, the moon was out, pitch black and I started to get a little scared, so we went back to the llama farm and asked ot use the phone again. The woman let us in, said she never saw the tow truck and worried about us, but didn't want to call the police because she saw we had a bottle of wine and didn't want us to get caught for underage drinking!!!! Now, he looks young, but not that young! Anyway, she let us in and she had called her husband's best friend to come over. He showed up thinking we were trouble! He explained what happened and the two of them went out to pull Nate's truck out of the gorge. What a crazy night! I was stuck with this woman for a half hour who was a little loony, but friendly enough.
It turned out to be a great night anyway, and a good story...my little boyscout! He definitely owes me another date!!!

The Box

2006-01-29T20:26:00.000-05:00

We all have one. The box. The manilla envelope. The file. The duffle bag. The place we keep our secrets. Our past lives, hidden from who we are today. We tell our friends, look how far I've come, see how I've grown. But in the back of our closets, hidden behind the bag of gift bags and wrapping paper or on the top shelf behind our sweaters, lies the box. Why do we hold onto it? Just the other day I was reaching up for my Franco Sarto "sex shoes" I call them, since I never wear them except when I really, really like a guy, and there it was, the box of my relationships past. I knew what lay inside that box. old love letters, Valentine's Day cards, a class ring, pictures, small trinkets won at the arcade, and teeny tiny ziploc bags of sand. Yes, sand. It was the equivalent of the great American novel of failed relationships. And even though I was late to the next potentially great love affair, I sat down on my closet floor and slowly removed the lid. On top were pictures from Autumn, my last great romance. Underneath was a birthday card with a sweet message, and peeking out from under the card was a compatibility test, taken at Old Orchard Beach at the arcade with the electronic fortune tellers. And so on and so forth. An archeological dig of love relegated to a box covered in pictures and poems. And I I thought to myself how utterly teen angst driven the entire scenario would be if played out on the silver screen. With that, I closed the box, slipped on the heels and clicked myself right out the door and into the arms of the next Mr. Right. The box may have been closed, but the question in my head was still the same as it had been ten years ago...When will I get to stop adding to it?

Breakfast Club

2005-11-12T09:07:00.000-05:00

Aaahhhh...Saturday morning. Think cold Autumn morning, snuggled up under piles of quilts, sunshine creeping in through the curtains...that's where I wish I was this morning! Instead, I am sitting in a classroom full of teenage delinquents. Yes, I am in Saturday detention hell. When I was in college at the illustrious Purdue University, the term "Breakfast Club" held an entirely different meaning. I've tried to evoke that spirit this morning as I pulled on a pair of comfy jeans and pulled out my faded Purude sweatshirt and headed out into the frosty air at 7:30am on a Saturday morning. Back in my younger days, breakfast clubs were held on the mornings of home football games. Illustrious college students would dress in costumes, drag, or pajamas and head out into the morning to the local bar. There, they would find waiting for them, an ice cold beer or bloody mary, good music, and other like-minded individuals who lived by the adage "It's noon somewhere!" Breakfast Club would end precisely one hour before the game started, and most of the patrons would end up precisely where they had started the morning...back in bed! And here I am, years later...sitting in a bare classroom with 14 teenagers, thinking that a bloody mary would make us all much happier!

New Beginnings

2005-10-02T18:09:00.000-04:00

New to the blogging world, a friend in my writer's group introduced me to her site. I'm about to celebrate my thirtieth birthday. As a poet, my goal was always to publish my first book by age 30. I also wanted to visit Fiji or Bali before 30. It looks as though there isn't enough time to do either unless I do them in the next seven days. Ah well, such is life. I have a beautiful baby girl and a new/old love who is also an amazing writer and makes me feel beautiful.

So I suppose I plan to use this blog as my online journal and perhaps will post some of my poems for the online world to read and comment upon if they so desired. Here's to new beginnings!