for better or worse...

And everything happens for a reason
And reasons are often hidden behind something hard to swallow
And hard to swallow things are oddly enough the things that will affect us most, for better, for worse

A few months back, my child learned a hard lesson about life, love and death and letting go
A few months back I did too
Since then nothing's been the same, even when I try to make it the same
Force it to be the same
Beg things to return to same
Nothing is as it was
And it's been hard to swallow
For better or worse

Though there are thousands of miles between my mother and I
And my one sister and my brothers are out of reach
Though my friends who've been my friends forever can't see me, I can feel them
And my life slides like a stone on ice from this place to that, ricocheting, rapidly spinning only to settle then get kicked into motion again
I'm as settled as I've ever been, never been

I flipped through the photos on my phone tonight.
Though I took them all, I was surprised by the last thirty or so, all of my daughter
In each she's touching the massive head of a new horse
She never looked more alive, more beautiful, more happy, no kidding...
Over and over, in each frame, she's so full of something she's never been full of
And I have just one person to thank for this
One person and one thousand circumstances,
nine hundred coincidences, eight hundred mistakes, seven hundred issues, six hundred solutions,  five hundred things, four hundred comments, three hundred plans gone awry, two hundred little tears and a partridge in a pear tree (just one person to thank for this)

This will be my sixth Christmas on my own and the start of my seventh year... not alone.
I met somebody who gave me a horse for my daughter and it changed her and she changes me

And for everything thats happened for a reason, I'm so grateful, for worse or as it happens to be, for better, I'm so grateful
And grateful for every moment thats come and gone, hard to swallow or gone down easy
I'm grateful for mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, relatives and friends near and far
For life and death
For hours and seconds
For firsts and lasts
For falling and for getting up
For holding on and letting go
For running and staying put
For buying and selling
For lost ears and found happiness
For good and Wicked
For sickness and health
For better, for worse
For Auld Lang Syne...

Pony love

Big black horse and a cherry tree....

This song would play inside my head when I watched her with him, every single time.  

You

Big

Beautiful 

Mysterious

Playful 

Boy

"I had nightmares last night" she said to me as I woke her for school this morning.  "This is going to be a bad day".

"No it'll be a good day", I promised her, but she was right.   

The big black horse unexpectedly, suddenly, so shockingly died last night and her nightmare, is that a coincidence?  

Just like who you love and who you're born to and who you don't love and what you die from; all these coincidences and other non-accidents...

The regal king of the stable is gone.   Such Agony.

They say if you give a man a fish he eats for a day, but teach him to fish and he feeds for life.

The same is true of girls and horses.   

A pony ride makes a girl happy for an hour but teaching her to ride, how to handle a horse, it changes her life and it has, it's changed hers and everything that changes hers changes mine.   

The horses opened my daughter up and filled her up and lifted her up and non more so then the big black horse.   

And when she cried tonight she cried about death and loss and pain and what ifs and whys and what fors... And even then she learned more about life from riding then I could have ever imagined... And it changed her and she changes me. 

And how we loved that big black horse and we always will, but now he's not a horse beneath a tree, he's a constellation above us, in a sky full of stars.   

                      RIP Tale 

             November 2nd, 2014 

peace signs

...sometimes we pray, my friends and I.  My friend in L.A. and the girls in NYC, we pray on the phone together.   It's sort of fun and it feels oddly powerful.   When we say our collective prayers I get filled with positivity.   A certainty takes root in me and I know the seeds we sew together will blossom into reality.   I feel peace.

In my life alone, sans beau, I sometimes get powerfully lonesome.   I seek out, pray for, look to meet up with a fella to halt my aloneness.   Inevitably I meet someone and what happens?
I hate to admit this, but as soon as I take on a partner of sorts, I lose my peace.  I'm restless, misdirected until I'm re-disconnected and on my own and then I can again feel that peace.

For about 6 months now, my son's been coping with something that no one can pinpoint a cause for.  Today in a nearby hospital for a few hours of testing I found myself utterly peace-less.   In between consultations and time killing games of eye-spy, where everything we spied was grey, black or biohazard red, I prayed silently.   I prayed for him, for his long life, his ever upbeat ways and constant smile.  I prayed as I always do for his fully restored health and I prayed for peace.

I will never take for granted health or wealth or my children, nor my friends, not my family, my home, my life and never the peace that only heaven provides me.  

Sometimes I write a blog that seems to have no point... and I feel peace.

Love, The Moon

I watch the internal struggle.   I'm a single cell organism roaming inside her, I know her so well.

I see the wheels turning slowly, halt, reverse, move forward, halt and I feel it as all of her thoughts turn then to me.  

My daughter; invited to spend the day with a friend and with the girl's family at the newly opened county fair, cannot decide if she's comfortable being in the crowd all day and more importantly if she can manage without me for hours on end.   Her indeterminate time away from me is full of possibilities and for a girl who lives her life based on certainty, this is a hard choice.

Her hard choice is also difficult for me, different reasons, but maybe not...

I do the hardest thing I do in my life and I encourage her to go out there into the world away from me.

And for him, my other child, I console him for his lack of choice in where he'll spend his tomorrow.

Mysterious plagues are plaguing my son and we are frequent flyers as of late at Doctor's offices, blood labs and more and more so at the local Children's Hospital.   He is a human pincushion with a tolerance I cannot praise him enough for.   I am in awe of him and proud of him and worried for him and grateful that I can always be beside him, now more then ever as we figure out what exactly is going on inside him.

My daughter heads off to the fair.

Throughout her day she texts me on the phone I forced upon her.   I wanted that for her, not just so I could communicate with her but so that she'd appear more typical and maybe begin to communicate with other typical girlies.   

By the end of the day, she returned to me, to us and hugged me so hard, her face a glow and her smile wide.   She gave me the play by play of her day and then pulled out her phone and showed me the sole photograph she'd taken.   Somewhere at the fair, she'd seen a quote posted on a wall and it made her think of me.   She took a picture of it.

"You may be just one person in the world, but to one person you may be the world".

Tearful as she shared it with me.   Tearful as I closed my hands over her soft, young fingers, which held the phone, which held the quote, which held so much meaning to her and now to me.

"I think I mean the world to you Mommy".

I laughed then, because I thought she related so deeply to this quote based on me meaning the world to her.

And I realized that in fact there is no difference, none what so ever; who is the world and who is the person seeing you as their world.

 I remain so very thrilled to the core of me - so thrilled to have this gift of a girl know in her heart that she is and always has been, will be forever and ever and ever the world to me.

9,000 times a day I feel the love of the world.

9,000 more I feel the love of the sun, my son.

Dear Sun and World,

I love you my children, 

Very truly yours,  The Moon

Following You...

Just like that...

  

I walked into the club called Night Moves, strolled up to him and poured  the cluster of beer bottle caps from my trembling, damp, now tin scented, cupped hands into his waiting palms.

"For your collection", I said, as if those useless tokens were a prize.

He smiled at me.

By the end of the night I was wearing his John Deere cap as we listened to the music play, standing still, our shoulders brushing as we breathed in and out, side by side, smiling.

... and we were a couple for a long time to come, years and years.

His friends, otherwise known as "The Band", were now mine 

and this, one of the songs they sang that night, became our song.

I was fifteen and he was my first love and so were they, The Band.

They say you never get over your first love and I can understand why.

Who would want to?

The other day my friend Laura told me she thought my son was in fact my true soulmate.

I think maybe she's right.

This makes me realize that I am luckier in love then I considered myself to be.

I had a first love who came with his own live music and I have a soulmate.

Lucky me.

RIP Pag. 

It will be my great pleasure to remember you always just as you were then.

  

I will stay with you... will you stay with me

my soulmate & I

Flying lessons...

There once was a man who taught me to fly.

Sometimes hearing bad news encourages us to seek the good news...

I was embarrassed in ways when I was a little girl; Catholic, small town, big family, correction - big divorced family.

The divorce-ed-ness sometimes caused me to feel a bit like a sore thumb, just kind of sticking out - sometimes.

I admire my mother.  I admire her for being true to herself and to God and to her morals and I was a firsthand witness to her dignity, strength and her love.

One of the best things my mother ever did for me growing up was, allow me to love my father with all my heart, and I do, still, always, always, always, without end.

But this is about my other father,

My step-father.

The man who taught me to fly...

At first I liked him; tan legged, Italian, tennis playing, house in the county owning, retired fellow...

but eventually I decided that it might just be best for me if he were to disappear, fly away, find someone else's mother to fall for.

I was afraid you see, afraid to give up all my mother's love and attention, after having it solely for my siblings and I for the better part of our lives.

My mother remarried when I was in my early 20's.

They took off into a life that was almost too good to be true, like something out of a movie, around the world they went...

and I let her go

They say when you love something, let it go and if it comes back to you, it's really yours.

THEY came back for me.

I don't know where in my life I acquired the idea that there were limits I should not attempt to surpass, but it was him who forced me to push beyond them.

He taught me to sail...

 Slip knots, galley cooking, tighten the jib, Joy dish soap shampoos hair in the salt water when there simply is no more shower, wait out the storm, know when to stay put, know when to let out the sail.  There is no better way to watch for shooting stars then night on the ocean, all that and more, more, more.

When you're sailing on the sea, it feels like flying.

He retaught me to ski...

Lessons, lessons, lessons, break old, bad habits, sing to yourself as you navigate down, "my big toe leads me here, my other big toe leads me here..."

No mountain is too high nor too icy, bend your knees, never forget the basics, smile when you go, all that and about a thousand other things.

When you're ascending on the lift, it feels like flying.

He got me comfortable being uncomfortable so that I would grow to be self-reliant.

He made me brave.

He made my mother very happy and gave her a life I would have wanted her to have all along, if I hadn't been kind of selfish when it came to her.

In a small bit of tough news today, I returned to the truly good news...

and here it is,

I have a second father and I love him, all the way to the moon and back.

After all, he taught me to fly.

 Pico, Vermont

a caged bird singing...

I know why the caged bird sings...
And I know why the free bird goes quiet.

Freedom is good.
Freedom is nothing to take for granted and freedom is nothing to enter into lightly.

I'm a free bird.
I shed a cage of sorts.
I look back at that place, from up high in the free sky and I view it differently.   

What is a cage anyhow?   It's a place to hold something or someone.
A cage is also a place to protect something from all those someones and unknowns.

"If every wall is a door"  then every cage is a window.

Today, free, no cage and yet the world is a cage, another sort of cage...
Exposed to everything, everyone, left to discern all things, with no bars to keep out what or who might be dangerous and no bars to hold me back from advancement or from falling
Not to mention, no one to refill my water and lovely seeds routinely.  
And then there is my nest of baby birds...

As lightly as freedom should not be taken, it should not be given back without much consideration.

Freedom comes with a price and the price is the cage itself.

Anything is possible when you're a free bird, anything good and anything hard.

And what you find out is this, it's not about the cage, it's about the bird.

"A free bird leaps on the back of the wind...
floats downstream till the current ends....
dips its wing in the orange suns rays and dares to claim the sky"

A freed, caged bird needs 4 eyes, 3 wings, 2 hearts and likely 1 new cage somewhere to fly to someday, because what the free bird learns and the caged bird doesn't dream of is, how very lonely and tryingly cumbersome freedom can become.

I'll dare to claim the sky...
Only because I remember how the caged bird sings.

RIP Maya Angelou, inspiration personified.  ILY

Be-ing

Grab A Coke and a Smile...

Remember that amazing cola commercial with that adorable jingle?  

Moving, motivating, inspiring.

In this house it's more like - Grab A Cake And A Smile...

We bake and it miraculously makes us feel good.

We laugh.  We mix and talk and make messes and mistakes which we fix as we mix.

Its good.

We bake for occasions and most occasions are rewarding period, but a cake requiring occasion is just the best thing.

Tonight we bake for teachers; boy, girl and I do.

Tonight we also bake for their Pop.  Yup.

We do, boy, girl and I.

It's a weird thing...

Divorce is.

It's weird how the people you are divorced from keep moving on in their life, having birthdays and whatnot.

   

Time doesn't stand still over anything or anyone.

Grateful as I am for the passage of time and all it brings and all it reveals and all it leaves behind for us to look back on, I sometimes wish I could split sideways, move out of time's way, escape notice, contemplate before another second speeds by.   I'd like to stop along side time and just BE.

Maybe I should take a cake with me, because I might just BE a while.

a swing and a miss...

Maybe it's because my friend Robert pointed out that I can't take a compliment.

Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that I recently swung a golf club and was reminded of how much fun it is to drive that itty, bitty, pitted complexioned ball

He's on my mind.

Can't say his name (shouldn't), but I can give you a hint...

Golf Father, whom I worked for quite a long time ago, who gave odd compliments to me and who's sadly no longer with us, son is a "wildcat" who may in fact be the best golfer of 

all time.

Got it?

My best worst job ever.

If you've read my blog over the years you may recall that I was a housekeeper.

Yep I was.

I was because I wanted to be and I wanted to be for about 900 weird reasons;

some of which were....

I liked to clean, still do.  (yes, I'm nuts)

I liked to wear Levis to work.

I liked to be alone.

I liked to work hard and fast.

I liked to see immediate results and let me tell you there is nothing better then Windex for producing immediate resulation (pretend thats a word).

I was a housekeeper because it was strangely fun.

I don't know how come, but it was fun to clean houses, at least it was for me.

And I didn't just use my hands and my often aching muscles.

I used my mind.   I daydreamed and I listened to over 1,000 audio books, all borrowed from the local library.   

Everything from Shakespeare to James Michner to Anne Rice.

I felt productive, made myself good and tired.  It allowed me to attend college full time, provided flexibility, fueled me with cold, hard cash,  funded my addiction to fashion and afforded me the more then occasional trip to Cancun and other exotic locations.

I remember when I worked for him, lets call him Earl;

It was his hay-day.

Books coming out, people clambering for his attention, interviews in the paper, appearances on Oprah and then there was good old me, folding his underwear.  

He lived alone, but thats a secret, don't tell anyone.

He was quite clever, so much so that he could get away with stupidity.

He hated cucumber and once threw one at my head to illustrate his point.   Cucumbers bounce, FYI.

He was temperamental at times.

Had a wicked sense of humor.

His laugh was infectious.

I found him unpredictable.

He liked jam on his fried eggs.

He loved frozen Snickers.

He put me in the middle of his quarrels.

I hate being in the middle.

Once he gave me a thousand dollars and told me to go buy him some plates.

I found that task daunting.

I came back with an entire kitchen; forks, knives, bowls, pans, plates and even a refrigerator's worth of food, including plenty of fresh vegetables and one flying cucumber.

I'm afraid he seemed lonely.

He loved to talk to me.

Sometimes I listened, sometimes I hid from him.

Sometimes he offended me.

He called me Whitey and Cinderella and BabyGirl and _itch.

He often asked me to live there with him and told me I was his best friend.

I think maybe at times I was.

Sometimes I got bored in the house because he rarely left his reclining chair and made little to no mess.

Once, while hiding at the back of the house, I made myself extra useful and alphabetized his _orn collection, (rhymes with "horn collection") 

Yep I did.

Alphabetization produced one of those infectious laughs of his, once discovered and yet we never spoke of it.  We wouldn't need to, you see?

Thats how we were.

It was long ago.

It was a hard job in so many ways for me.

I loved/hated it and him,

 but most days, I loved the whole disastrous position I found myself in.

I wanted that job to last forever.

The pay was good.

I had a comfort zone,

 though the company most definitely had its ups and downs.

There was always something for me to giggle about when I drove home after work.

His celebrity made him inexplicably intriguing for me.

His sexism toward me made my skin crawl, but I could handle that, some of the time.

I remember the day I quit.

Had something to do with him needing to keep the heat in the house very high, even in the hotness of summer.  I never complained, sweat pouring down my back, dripping off the tip of my nose... and then one day this suggestion, "if it's too hot for you in here, why don't you take your top off?"

Goodbye.

I never missed him.

But - today I did.

See?   

Time is powerful, it changes things.

hold please...

The least smart statement I repeatedly make is, "I can't wait"...
For example, recently I'd said to myself, over and over, "I can't wait for Spring Break" and I couldn't, because it was when I'd travel with my kids and when I'd get to see my rarely seen sister.  Though I couldn't wait, I did of course and the moment it came, the moment I saw her, wouldn't you know, immediately I began wishing that the very thing I'd waited for was still weeks away and not just happening.   That realization lead promptly to a great big stomach ache on account of the missing I'd be doing once I left her, which inevitably occurred... and my belly still hates me, because I love her so...

I wait a lot for the things I can't wait for, it seems.
When I worked as a nurse I had an abundance of patience, but only with my patients (insert laughter here)
When I was a child, I couldn't wait to grow up
get married
have babies
move away
go home
see the world
be whatever the heck I was meant to be
And still I can't wait for most of those things, though some have happened in a different order then I'd waited for them to come and some have unhappened, or may never happen, but most likely will, just not sure when, but I can't wait to see...

I can't wait for the swimwear I just ordered to arrive via two day express mail for an extra $17.99 (shhh), but the bill for those tiny bits of fabric can crawl here, far as I'm concerned

I can't wait for summer, except the ceiling fans haven't been installed in the house I couldn't wait to find, buy, close on and move into and so Summer, don't jump here just yet, despite my out loud wishing for you.   Come soon, but not just yet, wait for me to call the electrician. 

I can't wait for someone to call me and ask me out for a date or???   Or get lost, leave me alone or someone just notice me while someone else changes or grows or... or I don't know.

I often ask for advice on what I should or shouldn't wait on and then in turn I dole out more tips on sitting tight or taking leaps ... etc, etc, etc.

I think that maybe I ought to say things like  "I don't know"  more often then my well worn "I can't wait".   Your thoughts?   Never mind, I simply can't wait for you to answer me.

I roll back and forth between patience and action

I am patient, really I am, much  more so then I could have ever imagined and it's good, but it's not always right.   Sometimes you have to move and knowing the difference between patience and resistance can be tricky.

In May I'll go gluten free, but why wait?
Next week I'll talk to the financial planner.   Tomorrow is coincidentally next week; when did that happen?
Soon I'll return the tight shoes, book summer vacation, make time for my gym, leave the house past dark with a man maybe even but maybe I'll wait.   I don't know.
Soon I'll move forward
Forgive someone
Forget someone
Buckle down
Remember things better
Treat myself to a...

Soon I won't be waiting for what I waited for and then I don't know...

Yesterday, my son picked lemons for me from my father's little tree, except they were oranges, which looked a lot like the nearby lemons that hung waiting to be picked on the lemon tree just a few feet further away.    He apparently couldn't wait to begin picking and grabbed what was closer.  We laughed about the sack full of yellowy oranges.   He called them Loranges and then I named them O-mens...

Tonight I said, "lets make lemonade out of L'Omens" and we did, with the Loranges and it was incredible...and I don't know what comes next.

If patience is a virtue then what is action?  
Action is also a virtue and I have the Lorange-ade to prove it.

Do what you will, when you will, but you know, do it when I want you to, whenever that may be

I like it like that...

more then enough

s u p e r f l u o u s

Seventh grade Spelling Bee.
It was my winning word.

MEANING; excessive,  being more then is required.

Today in preparation for my daughter's upcoming Birthday party, I made a Bingo card with 25 different, carefully selected photos from her life.  These photos, each of them defining moments, I realize as I look with love and appreciation at every, unique and precious image.   The task took hours and I wept like a fool at least three different times as I worked on this project.  The pictures, that girl, her life, who she is, what she's meant to me, Oh Boy, or should I say... Oh Girl.   My love for her is superfluous to say the least and you know that saying "least" is not possible for me, because I am - well you know, (see above)

I loved seventh grade English and I loved my seventh grade English teacher even more.
When I wrote about him, in my rather bold, short story that year; the very clean shaven, small framed, impeccably dressed, tidy, eloquent, middle aged and never married fellow - who, in my essay,  conveniently and totally impossibly falls in love with his eager student - a student which resembled me in every conceivable way... I got an "A" and a comment, "You can do better".
I took it to mean that I could do better then the A.

Superfluous

Is anyone aware of defining moments as they happen or do we only understand/click into them as defining when we look back years later?

Two things come to mind -
#1) everything I do is superfluous
my love for those I love, my cooking, the gifts I give,  the way I shop, the effort I make, the way I live, even the time I waste and mistakes I make are more then is required.

AND #2)  Dear 7th Grade Teacher, Let me just inform you that, I did not and likely could not do better (yet).

someone teach me how to just give a little bit
anyone?   anyone?  

S    u      p       e         r         f          l     (heres the tricky part)             u          o           u        s...

fortune cookie...

Who rings the bell at 8:53 p.m.?

My neighbor.

Who is naked in her kitchen at 8:52 p.m.?

me.

Thank goodness for rarely used table clothes in rarely opened, weird, trunk-like things built into kitchens by previous owners, where one might store table clothes that come in handy when they decide they want a drink of water after already going to bed too early for ordinary grown ups.

I have a girl who's a Girl Scout.

A girl too shy to impose on others to try and sell her own cookies for herself, so I buy them all...

I have a son who's a mild yet confident self starter with time on his hands this week, who took it upon himself to sell those cookies in our relatively new neighborhood.

He's a little brother who wants to aid his sister, so he knocked on one door and sold cookies on good-faith.   

I have a neighbor who comes to the door with four dollars  she owes my son, who sold his sister's cookies.  A neighbor who is clear that 8:53 p.m. on a Friday night is an acceptable hour to approach a closed door with a brightly lit kitchen visible through the window.   A neighbor who thinks nothing of a mother wearing something that looks like a toga when she answers the door.

"Your son is very sweet", she says.

"You have no idea", I think to myself. 

We are the naked family.

I probably need a life.

I must be doing one thing right if I have a son who sells his shy sister's cookies for her.

Next time I want to see an example; proof of an honest to goodness, working, loving, male/female relationship, I'll look inside my own house.   

If It Takes Forever...

I think about the music my parents used to play. 
How I loved it.   How I knew and still know the words to every song from my very early childhood on...even the most obscure, even the golden oldies so old their gold is now patina, tinted green with age.  

Theres a constant soundtrack for every event throughout my entire life.
As far back as I can recall, musics playing.

There were Lay Ladies Laying on Big Brass Beds
Special Angels
Tomatoes-Tomatos 
Little Surfer Girls
Tiny Dancers
Guys With a Pin to Burst Your Bubble
Witchy Women
Wise Men Saying Only Fools Rush In
Brown Eyed Girls and Sweet Caroline


I'd like to take this opportunity to say a very heartfelt F YOU to Andy Williams, Neil Diamond, The Lettermen,  Johnny Mathis, those Beach Boys, and even Elvis.  The list goes on and on and on.   
The Beatles get an exemption on account of Back in the USSR, Happiness is a Warm Gun and Rocky Raccoon, but everyone else is quite likely in large part to blame for my heightened sense of romantisim, my unrealistic expectations and my over emphasis on LOVE and the act of being IN LOVE, which I sometimes think is truly just an act -  but, ah, not really.

I look back on the love I've known and felt, not the Love Love, not the less complicated kind like I have with my precious kids, my sibs, my pals, my folks, my pups.  Love I have for chocolate, dry chardonnay, white roses, sunset - those loves, well they're simple, they're a given, they fill me up.   What I puzzle over is the other love, the kind those mushy songs taught me about, lead me to obsess over, encouraged me to wait on, believe in, hold my breath till it came, to die for...

I look back at ALL the loves in my life.
I think about my first love and how easy that was, till I decided to complicate it, probably because it seemed too easy and as the songs say - easy love can't be real.
I think about the loves that followed, flirtations, distractions, devotions and the heart ache as well as the bliss of every relationship I've had.
I think about where I've put my energy in more recent years and on whom I pinned my hopes and why.
How I'd convince myself that I was over someone only to find that no matter what and no matter who else came along, I'd always return to just that one; that more then likely unrealistic, over emphasized,  highly romanticized and as many of those old and plenty of new love songs imply, that potentially hazardous love.

Do people make Valentine Resolutions?  If not, then how about I start the ball, or in this case, how about I start the heart rolling?

How about I resolve to never again hold out, hang on and pine for anyone who does and says anything other then.... 

Anything You Need - You Got it 

And by the way - Have I told you lately that I love you?   
 I do.
Happy Valentine's Day.