I've been journaling alot. They are deep and personal, much more than any other posts i've had. It's been a wild ride lately...
lots of music, helping me.
Here's a song.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Saturday, May 12, 2012
A Mother's Day weekend
It's a beautiful morning. The sun is shining bright as it rises through the sky, the air has that sweet, clean smell of early morning, the birds are singing their busy songs through their morning work...there is no place in the world as lovely as the NW on a late spring day.
My mother's favorite time of year was late spring. She was an avid gardner, the kind that breathed life into anything she touched. She chose to have the gardens of organized chaos, much like the old country English gardens. She didn't have formal, stiff and polite gardens...that didn't fit her at all. Mum was a free-spirit, a gypsy at heart, always seeking and learning. Her life had her feeling pegged and tethered and you could feel her straining against the conventions that she had to live within, everyday.
But in her gardens...well, that's where you could really see her heart. Huge daisies, calendula, irises all planted in and amongst each other, ground covered with lobelia, marigolds, petunias and then carrots, tomatoes, herbs. All growing together in such a lovely harmony. She knew the right plants to put next to each other, the ones who could be sociable and friendly together. Her gardens were anywhere there was space. She filled every place in her life, in her home, with something lovely and surprising.
Since she died, these mornings have a touch of sad emptiness for me. This is when I miss her the most. She would be out in her gardens, her yard, as the sun came up. Coffee brewing, the stale scent of her cigarettes lingering wherever she had been. These smells may turn others off and around, but they are always reminders to me of my mother and her wild and beautiful spirit.
I drink coffee, and I love the stuff, but it's partly emotional in that I do feel a piece of her with me with that first cup of the day. I used to take mine outside with me on the island while i cared for the little farm and tended the gardens. I miss those gardens and the early mornings with them.
I have a tiny space to work in now, and I feel a bit trapped. Alot of the joy is diminished still for me, but it gets better as I get used to and accept the differences. I can hear her voice talking to me about the little plants I have...i planted many of her favorites, the big Shasta daisies, the berry plants that grow so wild and are so lovely. I hear her tell me how to care for the little pots of clearance plants i buy, the ones that are dying and just being thrown away. I can sense her guidance as I take them out of their constricting containers and give them the individual attention that seems to be the correct thing to do. They always live, and often stay year after year even though they aren't supposed to. I decided long ago that this is mum's gift to me.
Tomorrow is mom's day. I don't celebrate it, really. All i ever want is to just spend time with my girls, visit mom's grave and appreciate the day for what it happens to be. Tomorrow will be sunny and I am so glad. The girls and I, and Sarina's fella Shane, are heading to Westport. After a trip to the cemetery to put all the flowers I can find on her grave, and to say "thanks, mom".
I miss her. My beautiful mom, the plains born gypsy, the roving heart, my queen of courage. I know she's around me. I just want to feel her arms around me again. Just once. To hold me close, brush my hair away from my eyes the way she did, kiss my mouth and spank my butt...her way of telling me how much she loved me and now to get busy and make it happen.
Anyway.
Love your mom. Whoever that mom is. Your mother, your friend, your auntie, your child...your father, even. Just let them know that you love them and never let them wonder.
My mother's favorite time of year was late spring. She was an avid gardner, the kind that breathed life into anything she touched. She chose to have the gardens of organized chaos, much like the old country English gardens. She didn't have formal, stiff and polite gardens...that didn't fit her at all. Mum was a free-spirit, a gypsy at heart, always seeking and learning. Her life had her feeling pegged and tethered and you could feel her straining against the conventions that she had to live within, everyday.
But in her gardens...well, that's where you could really see her heart. Huge daisies, calendula, irises all planted in and amongst each other, ground covered with lobelia, marigolds, petunias and then carrots, tomatoes, herbs. All growing together in such a lovely harmony. She knew the right plants to put next to each other, the ones who could be sociable and friendly together. Her gardens were anywhere there was space. She filled every place in her life, in her home, with something lovely and surprising.
Since she died, these mornings have a touch of sad emptiness for me. This is when I miss her the most. She would be out in her gardens, her yard, as the sun came up. Coffee brewing, the stale scent of her cigarettes lingering wherever she had been. These smells may turn others off and around, but they are always reminders to me of my mother and her wild and beautiful spirit.
I drink coffee, and I love the stuff, but it's partly emotional in that I do feel a piece of her with me with that first cup of the day. I used to take mine outside with me on the island while i cared for the little farm and tended the gardens. I miss those gardens and the early mornings with them.
I have a tiny space to work in now, and I feel a bit trapped. Alot of the joy is diminished still for me, but it gets better as I get used to and accept the differences. I can hear her voice talking to me about the little plants I have...i planted many of her favorites, the big Shasta daisies, the berry plants that grow so wild and are so lovely. I hear her tell me how to care for the little pots of clearance plants i buy, the ones that are dying and just being thrown away. I can sense her guidance as I take them out of their constricting containers and give them the individual attention that seems to be the correct thing to do. They always live, and often stay year after year even though they aren't supposed to. I decided long ago that this is mum's gift to me.
Tomorrow is mom's day. I don't celebrate it, really. All i ever want is to just spend time with my girls, visit mom's grave and appreciate the day for what it happens to be. Tomorrow will be sunny and I am so glad. The girls and I, and Sarina's fella Shane, are heading to Westport. After a trip to the cemetery to put all the flowers I can find on her grave, and to say "thanks, mom".
I miss her. My beautiful mom, the plains born gypsy, the roving heart, my queen of courage. I know she's around me. I just want to feel her arms around me again. Just once. To hold me close, brush my hair away from my eyes the way she did, kiss my mouth and spank my butt...her way of telling me how much she loved me and now to get busy and make it happen.
Anyway.
Love your mom. Whoever that mom is. Your mother, your friend, your auntie, your child...your father, even. Just let them know that you love them and never let them wonder.
Dido
Thank You
for you, Mom. We never had much, and you taught me that whatever we had didn't matter...it was what we were that said it all.
♥
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Holy Moly...how long has it been?
Long enough that I can't even remember how long, that's how long. :)
I severely underestimated how much working the two jobs and still trying to be my version of mom and run the house and take care of friends and everything else was going to take out of me. By the time H&R ended, it was all I could do to keep up with the 2 jobs and mom-dom. Everything else just went by the wayside. The money was very needed, but it took a huge toll and cost in other areas. Need to figure that one out before the end of summer, when I need to get back on the full-time, one way or another, scene.
It's been so overwhelming in so many ways that I'm not even going to try to recap. It's best if the bits that end up being important just find their own way to the surface as they need to, and if they don't then they don't matter. That's my theory anyway.
Today is what I'll look at for the moment ~
It was a bit surreal, but anything that ends up involving Masoud is surreal. Not because of anything that he does, he is just as he always has been, but because of how it plays on me and my emotions...or rather, how it doesn't.
I am still baffled at how I could have spent almost 25 yrs with this person and feel no connection at all. I know that's what I wanted, what I needed and worked so hard for, but it's still so darn odd. I could equate it to knowing that you are going to take an ice pick to your arm, grasping it in your hand, putting it against your skin and pushing it into the flesh...and feeling nothing. There's no blood, no pain, no sensation at all, just a visual awareness of what is happening and a curious fascination over how strange it all is. Remove the pick and within a few minutes, no hole.
Yeah. See? Weird.
I mean, there's a recognition of the event, of behaviors...he'll say or do things and there may be a very slight instinctive reaction and then a total stop and an unattached observation.
The only time I feel on guard are the partings, and I can't tell you why. But I've noticed that I put a distance of about 5' up and avoid all eye contact. I don't feel sadness or a rememberance of when mini and I left the house for the last time, just a wariness that I haven't bothered to analyze. Mostly because...I simply don't care to know. I'm just observing a behavior on my part.
Except for one thing. There is one thing that gets a real reaction from me. Watching him reach out for mini and seeing her response. Sometimes it's positive and she accepts the hug and hand hold, kiss on the forehead. Sometimes she resists and refuses. For so long he just didn't care about her, her feelings, her emotions, her needs, her pain, her interests. And now, he does a little.Now, when she has no interest or desire to share any of it with him. I can see that in his face, the awareness. It was something that we talked about alot long before the reality of divorce factored in, that he was responsible for the state of their relationship and the lack of one with our older girl. They stood there, waving their hearts at him, for years and he had no interest. Daughter 1 gave up. Walked away. Has chosen to keep him out of her life for nothing other than she doesn't want to be left by him again, and it's easier to not open the door to any possibility. I understand that. I took that approach with my own father, who was not just the cold and distant type but then would flare with violence. In time I chose to let him back in, on my terms and under my control and it was rigid...but it was safe. I hope that maybe eventually they'll have at least that. Regardless, it's out of my hands completely.
But mini. She is different. And their situation is different. She is a minor and can't just choose to not have a relationship yet. When they visit it is usually in a store, I wander off and do my own thing, often pushing them both away from me or just ditching them quickly and hiding so that their time has nothing to do with me. I see him wanting to bridge the distance but not being able to, knowing how to, or even completely sure that he wants to...I see her yearning for that father connection but knowing that she isn't going to have it here. When I say "see", i really mean "feel". I do see the colors and hues in their eyes (i'm a big eye watcher), but the feelings roll off of them in huge waves of emotion. Sadness rolls, truly as I said, in waves. That is it's nature of feeling. And it is very large in this situation, more so lately from him than ever before. I always felt that after 3 or so years he'd begin to process the reality of his choice and so far we are right on schedule. I hold no responsibility, but the strength of the emotion at times threatens to swamp me. I cannot begin to imagine ever making a choice to walk away from your child...but I do know the ache of wanting a relationship that you cannot just create on your own. I have to shut myself down to receiving any of those feelings and walk away.
There are so many times when I am thrilled to beyond bits to have called a situation. :) I DO like to be right. :) But not in cases like this. This kind of thing is too difficult. There is no comfort in seeing it play out as I knew it would. There is just the sadness of watching someone realize the consequence of their actions and that the bridge they burnt down so easily is not so easily rebuilt.
Ah well. I just make sure that mini is okay after an encounter. Her humor these days is to insist that he isn't her father. At first I thought she was joking around, coping, or just saying that while he is a biological being in her life, he is not her father. No. She and her sister are now adamant that he is NOT their father. I can't even tell you how bizarre this all is. I have to just laugh now, there's nothing I can do except tell them that he is.
Huh, so that all went in a different direction than I had intended. Can't believe how late it is right now, not going to edit, just post and go. Leave with a song, of course. Have to have some trademark somehow, right?
I severely underestimated how much working the two jobs and still trying to be my version of mom and run the house and take care of friends and everything else was going to take out of me. By the time H&R ended, it was all I could do to keep up with the 2 jobs and mom-dom. Everything else just went by the wayside. The money was very needed, but it took a huge toll and cost in other areas. Need to figure that one out before the end of summer, when I need to get back on the full-time, one way or another, scene.
It's been so overwhelming in so many ways that I'm not even going to try to recap. It's best if the bits that end up being important just find their own way to the surface as they need to, and if they don't then they don't matter. That's my theory anyway.
Today is what I'll look at for the moment ~
It was a bit surreal, but anything that ends up involving Masoud is surreal. Not because of anything that he does, he is just as he always has been, but because of how it plays on me and my emotions...or rather, how it doesn't.
I am still baffled at how I could have spent almost 25 yrs with this person and feel no connection at all. I know that's what I wanted, what I needed and worked so hard for, but it's still so darn odd. I could equate it to knowing that you are going to take an ice pick to your arm, grasping it in your hand, putting it against your skin and pushing it into the flesh...and feeling nothing. There's no blood, no pain, no sensation at all, just a visual awareness of what is happening and a curious fascination over how strange it all is. Remove the pick and within a few minutes, no hole.
Yeah. See? Weird.
I mean, there's a recognition of the event, of behaviors...he'll say or do things and there may be a very slight instinctive reaction and then a total stop and an unattached observation.
The only time I feel on guard are the partings, and I can't tell you why. But I've noticed that I put a distance of about 5' up and avoid all eye contact. I don't feel sadness or a rememberance of when mini and I left the house for the last time, just a wariness that I haven't bothered to analyze. Mostly because...I simply don't care to know. I'm just observing a behavior on my part.
Except for one thing. There is one thing that gets a real reaction from me. Watching him reach out for mini and seeing her response. Sometimes it's positive and she accepts the hug and hand hold, kiss on the forehead. Sometimes she resists and refuses. For so long he just didn't care about her, her feelings, her emotions, her needs, her pain, her interests. And now, he does a little.Now, when she has no interest or desire to share any of it with him. I can see that in his face, the awareness. It was something that we talked about alot long before the reality of divorce factored in, that he was responsible for the state of their relationship and the lack of one with our older girl. They stood there, waving their hearts at him, for years and he had no interest. Daughter 1 gave up. Walked away. Has chosen to keep him out of her life for nothing other than she doesn't want to be left by him again, and it's easier to not open the door to any possibility. I understand that. I took that approach with my own father, who was not just the cold and distant type but then would flare with violence. In time I chose to let him back in, on my terms and under my control and it was rigid...but it was safe. I hope that maybe eventually they'll have at least that. Regardless, it's out of my hands completely.
But mini. She is different. And their situation is different. She is a minor and can't just choose to not have a relationship yet. When they visit it is usually in a store, I wander off and do my own thing, often pushing them both away from me or just ditching them quickly and hiding so that their time has nothing to do with me. I see him wanting to bridge the distance but not being able to, knowing how to, or even completely sure that he wants to...I see her yearning for that father connection but knowing that she isn't going to have it here. When I say "see", i really mean "feel". I do see the colors and hues in their eyes (i'm a big eye watcher), but the feelings roll off of them in huge waves of emotion. Sadness rolls, truly as I said, in waves. That is it's nature of feeling. And it is very large in this situation, more so lately from him than ever before. I always felt that after 3 or so years he'd begin to process the reality of his choice and so far we are right on schedule. I hold no responsibility, but the strength of the emotion at times threatens to swamp me. I cannot begin to imagine ever making a choice to walk away from your child...but I do know the ache of wanting a relationship that you cannot just create on your own. I have to shut myself down to receiving any of those feelings and walk away.
There are so many times when I am thrilled to beyond bits to have called a situation. :) I DO like to be right. :) But not in cases like this. This kind of thing is too difficult. There is no comfort in seeing it play out as I knew it would. There is just the sadness of watching someone realize the consequence of their actions and that the bridge they burnt down so easily is not so easily rebuilt.
Ah well. I just make sure that mini is okay after an encounter. Her humor these days is to insist that he isn't her father. At first I thought she was joking around, coping, or just saying that while he is a biological being in her life, he is not her father. No. She and her sister are now adamant that he is NOT their father. I can't even tell you how bizarre this all is. I have to just laugh now, there's nothing I can do except tell them that he is.
Huh, so that all went in a different direction than I had intended. Can't believe how late it is right now, not going to edit, just post and go. Leave with a song, of course. Have to have some trademark somehow, right?
This one has been in my head for a few hours now.
Gary Jules
Mad World (lyrics below)
"Mad World"
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world mad world
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
And I feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me
And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world ... mad world
Enlarging your world
Mad world
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world mad world
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
And I feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me
And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world ... mad world
Enlarging your world
Mad world
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