She sits in the bookstore

She sits in the bookstore at a table with only a journal and a pencil to keep her company. She secretly wishes a stranger would ask her what she is writing. Why she is alone.
She would tell the stranger about how she is meeting someone here in an hour, but until then she is scribbling random anecdotes in hopes of capturing a brilliant line or two. These she would store away for that novel she's always wanted to write.
Instead, no one talks to her. In fact, she is fairly certain no one is even looking at her. Which is perfect since she plans to people-watch in a few minutes.
Suddenly she begins to judge herself.
She is insane.
She is insane and creepy and secretive.

Just like a writer.
Mission accomplished.

________________________________

More to come from her. Don't know when she will decide to publicly share more anecdotes, though. She is kind of self-conscious about some of them. I'll try to persuade her to post more sometime.

A Freedom Writer

I've been running away from my stress so much lately that the pounding of it's footsteps behind me are inevitable. I can't ignore it any longer. Taking a deep breath helps, but that's a difficult task when you feel like you are being smoldered by a pillow. A pillow made of sandpaper.
Don't get me wrong. Life is a wonderful thing, but the wearing and tearing is getting to be a bit much for me. I find myself wandering aimlessly in my mind, searching for something like aloe vera on a sunburnt back. Something to sooth my aching heart, something to rest my tired mind.
But I sat down at my computer and just started writing. Almost immediantly I began to feel like all of the worthless thoughts I had floating in my mind didn't matter and I could just be free. Free to succeed. Free to be someone. Free to give my ideas a voice. How awesome is that?

What do you do that makes you feel free?

Wants

I want to live and never be tamed
I want to dance and never be shamed
I want to sing and never know silence
I want a storm without the violence
I want a love without pain
I want crazy but not insane
I want to dance to my own song
I want a river to run along
I want peace
I want grace
I want hope
I want second chances
I want serenity
I want forgiveness
acceptance
life
freedom
joy.

Letters from a Hillcrest Detention

Did you know that tallow is the solid fat taken from the natural fat of cattle to my soap? I do now! I spent the past hour copying definitions from a dictionary with print too small for an ant to read. Detention is another world, my friend.
Our supervisor (we will call her Ms. Gertrude) continuously told us to "shut up" because, dad gum it, she wasn't going to talk over anyone, "especially not detention kids." Yes, "detention kids" are not like normal kids. We are bad kids. Our mothers didn't raise us like normal kids' mothers raised them.
Heaven forbid one of us shifts in our seats or so much as breathes the wrong way. No noise, or you can join Ms. Gertrude next Thursday for another exciting episode of All My Wayward Children. One guy (we will call him Fredward) whispered something to his buddy, um, Marvin and, Oh! how Gertrude squawked. Once he pulled the bird's tail, there was hell to pay. Poor Fredward didn't have a chance.
"But I wasn't talking."
"You most certainly were talking. Want me to call Mrs. Thomas up here?"
"No, ma'am, but I --"
"Do not get loud with me. Do not get loud. Mrs. Thomas would love to take you --"
"Everyone in here will tell you that I didn't even--"
[picks up handy-dandy walkie talky that they give only the cool faculty] Mrs. Thomas, Mrs. Thomas, please come to the library. Immediately." By her tone I would have thought a kid got impaled by a stray flaming arrow or internally combusted, but talking during detention would have been my third guess. At least there were no machetes. (Machetes? Yeah, a kid at out school shanked another kid after detention this semester. Go Patriots!)
I made a new friend in detention. When I walked in the library, (the artist formally known as...) Martha, said I could sit by her. I placed my bags at her table and could already tell she had been here before. She got her paper and pencil out and placed them on the table. I followed suit and retrieved my paper and pencil.
"Oh my gosh! I've always wanted to use one of those pencils!"
I looked at her, expecting her to grin smugly, insinuating a joke. Instead, she eagerly waited for me to offer my super cool mechanical pencil to her. Of course I let her use it.
Gertude's alternate ego let us out twenty minutes early. Oh, happy day!

Detention. Keeping us in line, one definition at a time.

The Marbles I So Carefully Placed

Written in a dark time. It's not random, I swear. It has meaning, but the meaning isn't going to jump out at you and slap you in the face. If it does, I apologize.

The marbles I so carefully placed in a row
have scattered.
They fall to the floor, then split to pieces.
A shard rips through my bare foot
Opening a wound from a time
When color drained from leaves.
I looked to the leaves full of hope,
Believing they would cling to the branch longer,
Until the last one fell.
I cursed the pallid sky
And resisted the frigid air,
But a wind swept me from my bed
And tossed me to a place I'd been before.
A place of fear
A place of rejection
A place I once called home.
Now the fields are green once again;
The forests teeming with life.
Still, a wind takes me to that place of desolation
Now and again,
And I wait until the tide pulls me in, drowns me,
And I'm spit back onto dry land.
My spirit is chaffed and worn from repetition.
How many times must I die to
Convince myself to accept life?

Clowns and Toast

Most people are afraid of clowns. Not so with my great-grandma. She had an entire floor-to-ceiling shelf dedicated to clown figurines. Strangely, the twisted little porcelain clowns didn't scare me as a kid.
She had many different characters around her house. On her dresser in her bedroom sat three glassy figures of women. The first was tall and slender with short brown hair, and her rosy dress lengthened to her feet. The second was slightly shorter then the latter, but equally as slender. I gave them the persona of the evil step-sisters. Then, the blond beauty with a full floral dress, a blue laced-up bodice, and a white apron was Cinderella. Every single time Cinderella attended the ball, made the sisters jealous, and fell in love with the prince (who, consequently, was a clown).
Grandma made the best toast. No, really. I still can't get my toast to imitate that golden brown, buttery goodness. She used Italian bread that she bought from Barney's Bakery, not Wonder bread. And, oh. Her eggs were amazing. We would run over from my Nonna's (pronounced "nunna") house and ask Grandma for a "dippy egg". Nonna, my mom's mom, and my grandma lived next to each other for over 30 years. Italians never seem to go far from home. Anyway, a dippy egg is an egg cooked so that the white is fully cooked, but the yolk is runny. Then you "dip" your toast in the yolk and eat it. Tastes better than it sounds.
After breakfast we all went out on Grandma's porch. Across from her porch was an elevated patio attached to a stone garage. My oldest cousin and I used the patio as a stage from as far back as I can remember. In the middle of the stone wall of the garage was a small statue of the Virgin Mary. Well, my cousin Matthew accidentally hit poor Mary with a baseball one day. Grandma ran outside hollering and scolding, and a few days later Mary was surrounded by a miniature white fence, and she looked as if she had a bad nose job. Still, Mary sat faithfully in Grandma's backyard for years after.

To be continued...

Where I Went Wrong Raising My Mother

[my mom has always told me that she wants me to write a book about her. I told her I'd have to wait until she was gone. She didn't like that too much, so here's a tidbit of what I've already written.]

Mom, for as long as I can remember, has periodically changed her hobbies/interests. There was the knitting phase, the home improvement phase, the improve the home improvement phase, the gardening phase, the Pilates-guru phase, the scrapbooking phase, the can't-put-it-down novel phase -- the list goes on. She would pour her time and effort into becoming an aficionado of her pastimes. She can tell you the stories behind each photo, the best paint (and paint remover) for just about any project, the most difficult yarn to work with, and how each Christian author taught her something new about spirituality. With each little obsession Mom worked at it a fire and passion that almost made me want to try my hand at the various activities. I suppose that's where I get my love for trying new things.


I will be adding to this in upcoming posts. :]