Category Archives: Dreams

Half-Truths or The Actual Woman

Dreams, essay, Feminism, Freedom, Inspiration, Love, Memoir, Nature, Photography, Poetry, Prose, relationships, Spirituality, Womanhood, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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I didn’t grow up to be who I was supposed to be. I wasn’t supposed to have oily hair or a messy bun. But I’ve settled for it. I wasn’t supposed to have unemployment, compromised driving privileges, trust issues, or a dying cat – that’s some other woman.

I didn’t grow up to be tame-haired and golden. I didn’t grow up to be worshiped by a man, doted on, a traffic-stopper, a perfect-in-every-way kind of girl. I’ve never been that.

Not only have I been to therapy, but I’ve walked away from it (that’s worse, it means I haven’t been helped yet). But this story is full of half-truths. You know, maybe I did grow up to be who I was supposed to be (how could I not? I was in control the entire time) (even that’s a half-truth).

I was supposed to be a role-model, for one. All nice girls wish to be role models, that’s how you know you’re good. But I couldn’t even pull that off (half-truth). You know you’re fucking up when a child asks you, “Are you a kid too!?” Eye.

Things have gotten better since then. I feel in control (half-truth). I accept the messy bun. I let the teenage neighbor kids see my climbing-out-of-the-car-with-two-paper-bags-of-groceries-clumsiness. I wish sometimes the girl could look at me with that want-to-be-like-her-when-I-grow-up-awe. You know the awe. But I don’t think I am that woman. I’ve accidentally watered the flowers in a see-through gown, waving at the neighbors. I’ve fallen in a hole chasing after the dog. I am someone else, slightly off-set of that woman. The alternate. The sister story. The girl with the hair falling in her eyes, needing to be washed. The girl with the floor needing to be swept, scrubbed. The woman in the gray dented station-wagon. The woman with the budding, not blooming, flower garden. The woman with $4.50 in fines at the library. The woman who just signed up for the Adult Reading Program (because she hopes to win a tote-bag). The woman who used to work in retail and now works in manual labor. The woman with a college degree, who makes $11 an hour. The woman who would rather paint and write more than anything. The woman with a few pretty dresses that she never wears. The woman who has many friends over the age of fifty. The woman who is apprehensive of parties, but loves them once she gets there. The woman who thinks she knows herself so well (but has a lot to learn). The woman who writes personal stories on her porch in the sunshine. The woman who wishes for tan legs, but won’t pay for them, or sit still long enough for them. The woman who wishes for the luxury of travel, an open road, snacks, a band to follow, cold beer…a bunch of things that aren’t really her, but maybe…The woman who has a defrosted chicken for the crockpot. The woman whose man will be home soon. The woman with her dog barking and her cat purring. The woman with the messy bun, fresh face, bare feet, tall grass, summer sun. The woman, the actual woman, I was meant to become.

A Rainbow for Moonbeam

Dreams, essay, Feminism, Inspiration, Love, Memoir, Prose, relationships, Spirituality, Womanhood, , , , , ,

It’s easy for me to be mad at a mother who isn’t around. But she is out there. I do have a mother and I always have. She’s always been a living, breathing human on the other end of my string, with a paper cup of her own, listening in as I send messages of love/hate/love/hate. It’s certainly not indifference that I offer. Not these days. And I am here to say: I do not hate her. I possibly never have.

Today, I am reaching within the well of myself to find compassion for my mother. I do not have to reach very far. Her face pops up on my computer screen at 10:33 a.m. “Happy to be back at work!” her digital post reads. My heart bulges. She tags me and fourteen other people, coworkers and my siblings. She is beaming. I cannot ignore it, nor do I want to, because just this morning I was stalking my mother’s Facebook page. I noted that she no longer listed her old job at McDonalds (a job she left, oh, maybe a year ago). I narcissistically wondered if that was because I live with an organic farmer and sometimes talk shit about McDonalds, possibly online. Was she ashamed?

Now, here she is in her work uniform saying “Just got off work n home from my first day back! Had so much fun!” and her friends—work friends— are all saying “We’re happy to have you back!” and “Yay Darlene!” and there is a name tag on her black polo Darlene and she has rainbow, a daisy, and a button that reads I Heart Port Huron on her visor. She is a person, my mother. She lives and breathes and decorates her hat. It almost surprises me.

“Feels good doesn’t it? Nice bling! heart heart” I tell her. I use two hearts for emphasis. I do not know how to make the hearts colorful. But I am proud. Four heart proud, but I don’t say it. We do not communicate any other way but Facebook. I must text my grandmother now and tell her the good news.

Every now and then my mother will post an image of a casserole dish.  Inside will be chicken enchiladas or a noodle mystery dish. I do not salivate. I do not yearn for my mother’s cooking. But I do feel envious—of the enchiladas themselves. I am always shocked in childish way that she had time to make enchiladas but not time for me? I am thirty one now. It’s time to get a grip. As a child, I likely internalized the intense emotions I felt when noting, for example, that my mother made long, dangling hippie earrings—several different sets of them. Colorful things that took so many hours of focus and dedication. These pretty colorful things had taken so much of her attention. She could focus on one thing—it could happen.

Now I’m the asshole who, about two  weeks ago, likely when she was interviewing for her old job, posted a sob story about having no mother. Real actual mother meanwhile sitting down to a Pepsi and a cigarette (that is my memory of her but PEOPLE CAN CHANGE so maybe she was drinking a cup of tea) and seeing her hurt daughter yet again going on and on and on about her. She feels ashamed. She wonders if her friends from McDonalds—other mothers, no doubt, some with upset children, some without—will see what I have written and judge her.

She does not deserve that. Nobody does.

Since I posted The Thing That Revealed So Much, I got to thinking: (a) my mother did some things right and maybe I should write about those things more and (b) my hating her for leaving me is so anti-feminist.

I got to thinking:

My mother has a great personality—I mean she’s fun to be around. People agree on that.

My father loved her, and she loved him. And I have the coauthored diary entry to prove it.

My mother is well respected by her coworkers. She should feel good about that.

My mother is super human. That sounds like a super hero—and maybe it is. Maybe she’s just yet to really unveil herself and fly. Maybe I am super human, being her daughter. I know that I am.

My mother has overcome a lot. I mean she’s still here and kickin’.

My mother had a lot of pressure on her as a child. She was raised by a strong southern woman, my grandmother, who has always asked that I call her by her first name “Peggy” instead of Grandma.

My mother maybe didn’t get the help she needed when she needed it. Instead she got babies. That is super anti-feminist. Women struggle sometimes.

My mother has very pretty eyes.

My mother never really got any help from the men in her life, it seemed.

I am an adult now, and I see clearly the struggles in life. How one moment we can be totally on-point, the other moment, well: Not. Just really fucking not.

I got to thinking:

I am unemployed. Now is the opportunity to learn something from my mother. “I had so much fun!” she said of her first day back at work. I really need that kind of enthusiasm myself.

I got to thinking:

My mother was sick, in the hospital. That was why she left her job in the first place. Did I send a card? I should have.

I got to thinking:

There is nothing more miserable than being sick, ill, or in pain. Being of healthy-body, I sometimes forget that. I should not. I really, really should not. I have a lot to learn.

I got to thinking:

My mother moved to one of the poorest economy’s in America a few years before the recession. She is a goddess for finding a job there. I should raise my mother to the level of goddess. She deserves it. We all do.

I got to thinking:

I really overdo it sometimes.

I got to thinking:

I made people cry (even men) at my last poetry event when reading about my mother and our relationship. It was really pathetic. And I brought it all upon myself. I vowed to let some of that go. And it did—it kind of up and flew away right there in the room.

I got to thinking:

I am obsessed with my mother, but it is really just an avalanche of repressed wants and desires from childhood (and especially) adolescence. I can viscerally remember pushing these feelings/wants “away” from me, little did I know they stuck around, like a monkey on my back. Like a backpack of feelings I just couldn’t leave anywhere.

I got to thinking:

I am still unloading the backpack, piece by piece. And I am So Sorry Not Sorry for the witnesses.

I got to thinking:

I would seriously like for my parents to know the deep well of love I hold for them both. If something were to happen to either of them tomorrow—I would wreck myself with the knowledge of those last few things I said to them. And that is just not fair. I want to make this right. I am going to make this right.

I got to thinking:

The intention of my working through these things in writing is to avoid the subtle self-destruction that our mommy/daddy issues can have on us in life. My parents both have these issues. I mean they could both fill books with the things their parents did and did not do. They could do the same thing that I am doing. My intention is to fill books with words and not myself with toxic substances and people and thoughts. There is a reason I do this: I am sitting and writing instead of smoking and fucking.

I got to thinking:

I got to thinking so many things I started writing them down on post it notes and the backs of business cards. I started collecting notebooks and now have so many, both blank and filled, that I feel slightly disorganized and certainly a little overwhelmed almost all of the time. But I feel rich in words.

I got to thinking:

I started writing this essay at 10:33 and now it’s 11:44 so really one hour of cutting my heart open and letting it bleed is really not so bad.

I got to thinking:

There really is a lot of time in this world. And no time at all, it seems. Time to make amends. Time to make change. Time to waste. Time is relative. Are you in a prison or playing volleyball on a sunny beach? If you are in a prison, time will be slow. If you are on a sunny beach, time will be fast.

I got to thinking:

I dreamed I was in prison the other night. I was jailed. It was utterly, absolutely the worst feeling ever. I hated it. I had NEVER FELT THAT WAY. I thought I knew but I DID NOT KNOW. It was a sickening feeling. The fact of being guilty, well that is beside the point. It was inhumane. In prison, time is torture.

I got to thinking:

If I could, I would free my mother from this imprisonment and shame. She does not deserve that, nobody does: it is inhumane. I would, in a heartbeat, pass her the key. Out, out, out! I would insist. Do not let me, or anybody else, imprison you. In essence, I forgive you. I’ve just been trying to make sense of it: for me. For wholly selfish reasons. I neglected your feelings along the way, and I am sorry. Not cool.

I got to thinking:

Of an article I read many years ago. I’ll pull it up now for good measure. “Missing Mom” it reads “Found in Florida and Taken into Custody.” Wait what? Running away is illegal? Wait, no now, that isn’t right. A mom can leave. Dads do it all the time. This woman, once “a perfect mom” was considered dead after leaving her family. A runaway mom is a taboo in our culture. My heart swelled for this woman. I could be her. This is a feminist issue. I almost want to applaud my mother now for leaving.

I got to thinking:

My brothers got the best of her. And the worst of her: this human being.

I got to thinking:

I am far too hard on others (my mother, my father, my boyfriend). I need to soften. I vow to soften. Soften or die.

I got to thinking:

How many more hours am I going to spend in self therapy?

I got to thinking:

How many dollars have I spent on traditional therapy? Zero.

I got to thinking:

I can make it all better through my writing. I have that tool. I am not scribbling anymore, tearing the page with the point of my pen like when I was a teenager. These words that I write have meaning. These black lines and curves can heal.

I got to thinking:

There is only now. There is certainly not yesterday. There is a hint of tomorrow, but not a promise.

I got to thinking:

And staring at my mother’s photo. Her smile speaks loudly. Somebody, somewhere took it for granted at some point. First, I suppose, it was the mother who adopted her out. That kind of leaves this deep gash in a person, I believe. Whether folks like to admit that or not: it’s a thing. I think the gash was passed on when somebody possibly took my mother’s mothers smile for granted, too.

I got to thinking:

We are all equally important. We of different colors and intellects. We of different degrees of guilt and shame. We of different opportunities.

I got to thinking:

The only way to heal is to treat people good now. With the knowledge that people get hurt and the hurt makes things worse and the pain and violence in turn get bigger. Me, as an adult for example, need to watch the things I do and say with children. They are watching. They will blame me, someday, for not being a better example. As I have blamed (I’m erasing that blame now and replacing it with understanding) those who were supposed to be older and wiser than me. We are all learning. We are all on a spectrum of learning.

I got to thinking:

And staring at my mother’s photo again. My little brothers know her. They “get her.” They’ve lived in the shadow of her shame due to me all their lives. Me, her first born. Her perfect daughter. Blech. Even I know she doesn’t think I’m perfect. But close. Because I’m so mysterious. I’m like that out-of-reach lover. I’m like the grass is always greener. I’m like: enough. Enough already. Swipe the slate clean, mom. I step down from the pedestal. If I could say one thing it would be this: I might’ve done the same thing as you. And, I love you. 

I got to thinking:

Have I said enough already?

I got to thinking:

I need to stretch.

I got to thinking:

Of myself. Like we all do. Like we all should.

I got to thinking:

A rainbow for Moonbeam. Hope.

I got to thinking:

Say something that will let her close that door and move on.

I got to thinking:

Say something that will let you close that door and move on.

I got to thinking:

Say something, anything, to make it better.

I got to thinking:

Stop writing and start working.

I got to thinking:

Stop working and start writing.

I got to thinking:

Do whatever it takes to make it work and make it right.

I got to thinking:

Today is a brand new day. Make it even brand newer.

I got to thinking:

Hope. Hope’s just a word that maybe you’ve said and maybe you’ve heard but that’s what you need man and you need it bad. Those are words from Bob Dylan’s “Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie”

I got to thinking:

The end.

I got to thinking:

The beginning.

Light

Dreams, Inspiration, Love, Poetry, , ,

Awakened
a spark of inspiration
in the twirl of a girls umbrella
at a school bus stop
blue and pink
it makes me think
there is a miracle
in every lighted kitchen window
at the end of every road
and inside of every home
tortured souls collide favorably
with their expectations
frightfully forgiving human nature,
through gritted teeth the choices of others
we tuck and prod and unravel ourselves
before taking for granted headlighted vehicles
we watch our hands running away with themselves again
–and the years too
we shoo the children out the door for a day with strangers
we keep the faith

Awakened
a spark of inspiration
a miracle in every lighted
kitchen window
women and children
children and men
alone, together, and illuminated

Poetry Reading at Eugene’s Barnes & Noble March 12th at 3 p.m.

Dreams, Inspiration, Poetry, relationships, Womanhood, Writing

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Poetry Reading at Barnes & Noble  Eugene (above)
1163 Valley River Drive
Eugene, Oregon
March 12, 2017

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I am pleased to remind my friends and readers of this low key poetry reading event at Eugene’s Barnes & Noble. With the Eugene Poetry Foundation as our platform, my cousin Crystal Gasser and I will be reading for fifteen minutes each, followed up by an open mic.

Being it is the fifth consecutive month of our Barnes & Noble readings, I am honored (and only mildly freaked out) to have the stage and the headline. See our flyer below. All are welcome to join! Other poets encouraged to attend!

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Windchime

Dreams, Feminism, Freedom, Inspiration, Poetry, Spirituality, Womanhood, Writing, , , ,

A windchime
shutters to life.
Little had I thought
of a windchimes need
for chaos and swirl.
“Be the windchime”
I realize
as practice closes
and in perfect timing I
am set to step into Now,
despite the unpredictable
circumstances and
clouds,
those pushing undercurrents,
life’s unavoidable buoys and lifts,
life’s twisting gates,
opening and closing
with the weather,
with storm
“Be the windchime”
I realize
Make sweet sounds
in the turbulence
of your own life
not for others this time,
but for you

You are the windchime

Home

Dreams, Inspiration, Love, Poetry

Home
the most irresistible
place, the only space
where I wither and bloom
and tincture myself with
crystals and sage
and ice cream

Home
where lamp chops
fry and soups wait patiently
on the stove top for no one
but us and company if we’re
lucky, if we’re not

Home
It’s where I
begin again
where I end
where I cannot hide
where I can
where he kisses me
and promises me things
big things, unimaginable things
that he would never utter elsewhere
but home

Home
it’s where I dream

it’s where I live the
dream too

To-Do

Dreams, Feminism, Freedom, Inspiration, Poetry, Rant, Spirituality, Womanhood, Writing, , , , , ,

Fall apart, let loose into creation
Let my hair down, like a poet would do
Dance a sexy dance, for no one
Write off my obsessions and idols
Lower them until we see eye to eye
Kiss them
Open my mouth
and let love in

Get places on time
step by step, cover the basics
Clock in and clock out
with a smile
Allow myself to fall apart,
just enough behind the scenes that
I walk away with a notecard poem
safeguard–just barely–my reputation
my job title

Forgive others
as easily as I forgive myself
Let loose the reigns
and let em go wherever
the fuck they want

Seize the moment
(cross that out)
Avoid cliches

Fear blank pages
more than scribbles
For mistakes are a sign
of progress

Live in the knowledge
that things cannot be pretty
100% of the time
A concept not limited to
my face, my body
Understand that superficiality
is the sister to vanity
and to view yourself poorly
makes you just as vain as if
to  view yourself pretty
all of the time

So you
do the dishes
tidy up
Everything
Everywhere
All of the time

But most of all you
fall apart
into poetry
even if it means
scribbles and
ink on the fingers
or your face
even if it means
mussying up a
blank page
a blank page
that will roll around
in your purse
in your car
in your junk drawer
mussying up your life
like children or dirty jobs
in general

Fall apart for creation
for a full and happy life
Fall apart for a full heart
and just write

First World Problems

Dreams, Poetry, Writing, ,

Not a whole lot of space
to write today—
at a Mexican restaurant
penning on Keno cards again.
First, praise the Mexican’s for
cost-free chips and salsa, among
many other wonderful things,
like good looks and hard work

Second,
“I just got out of prison,” the man
across the aisle says to our waiter
“How much would it cost to get
rice and beans?”
I notice he’s drinking water, does
not order soda or beer, just a
Chimichanga. I want to say something
like “You’ve been through enough,
I’ll buy your rice and beans”
But I do not.

He’s got a girlfriend who sits
across from him in a hairbun and jean
cut-offs, poking at her phone, sullen.
They look like we do sometimes,
a couple with not much to say,
even just out of prison.
I send little smiles his way and
I even cry but that’s all on me
As usual, I am invisible

My food comes first which I regret
I sit and wait for his to come…
He of piss-orange prison juice and
white slips of bread made for toddlers,
fed to men

Gosh it takes forever waiting on
that Chimichanga
I drool at my plate of
enchiladas but I do
not take a bite

When finally it comes
we lift our forks to our
mouths and my tongue gets
burnt, food still hot even after
waiting five minutes

I figure if the mouth of the man
got burnt too, he’s probably just
thanking the Gods for food
that’s so hot

Tears catch on my plate as I
contemplate Mexican’s and prisoners
and what my next step will be now that
I’ve got a full belly

See I am no different from him

A Writer With a Deadline

Dreams, Inspiration, Memoir, relationships, Writing, , ,

Things are getting messy. They are falling apart so that they can be arranged together again in a newer, better way. Most of you think I am talking about my boyfriend. I’m not. I am talking about writing.

It is painful. Oh is it painful. Not this, not pecking away at the black keyboard, not talking to you like I am talking to a friend. Not talking about writing, that is the easy part. I could talk til’ I’m blue in the face, and finally, I am. I am meeting with other writers over coffee, I am emailing them and asking them questions, I am reeling over my work, I am supporting other writers and applying for scholarships for writer’s workshops in places like Big Sur, California.

But also, it is a quiet time. It is a time when I am sitting on the back porch, summertime scorched, iced-tea’d up and happy as a clam but I am all inside of my mind. I am only inside of my mind. My hair is greasy and I do not care, for once. My boyfriend asks me if I want a cold beer. He knows I never do but I’d told him to keep on asking cause I find it amusing. But all I am thinking of is words. My words. I almost do not hear him. Like a builder building his house, I am thinking over my material. Will this page work, or is this log rotted? Is there a workable structure to my story? How will it hold up? Will it stand? On it’s own two feet?

I am devouring favorite selected memoirs and books on writing like ice cube crunchers crunch ice from a glass on a hot day. I listen to everything and anything writing; podcasts, NPR, Ted Talks. I dissect their wisdom for hours. I am snapped back to the present, if only momentarily, when my boyfriend asks “Wanna beer?” again. “No, no thank you,” I tell him. “Sorry, I’m kind of out of it. In a good way though, in a good way. I’m single-minded right now.”

He says he understands and is proud of me.

I think it a good sign that I will brew a pot of coffee, pour it into a mug, and before I can finish the mug I have finished a page or a chapter. Just a security blanket– that coffee. In the kitchen there is a sink full of dishes. “I’m going to be ignoring some things,” I’d warned Steve. “Like you,” I joked, “and maybe some chores.”

I need to shower. I don’t want to. Could derail me. Don’t have time.

I wake up these days like there is a fire in the house. Alert. I only expect this to last for a couple of days though. This is the beginning. This is the beginning of being a writer with a deadline. I’d be lucky if this wild enthusiasm kept up. I could maybe Get There if it did.

Steve suggested I buy a printer. “Genius! Genius!” I told him and rushed down to Bi-Mart. As it was I was paying 10 cents a copy and the gas and time it took to go to the library. Now I can print off a chapter, sit down to edit at the dining room table–full, cold coffee by my side–then jump back onto the computer to make the changes. All in one night. And I can do that several times again.

I have three weeks. I have three weeks and then I pass off my full manuscript to an editor I’d contacted, on a whim, several weeks ago. I get the feeling he’s kind of a big deal. He might even be reading this right now. Gosh I hope not, cause I’m just talking, I’m not really writing…..am I?

Other than hope, I am armed with a sturdy oak writing desk that was here when I moved in. It sat, sadly, in the open, unused office space under a pile of instruction manuals and green twist-ties. It was covered in dust. I asked Steve about the desk. He told me it was his old roommates desk who likened himself a writer but mainly drank a lot and chased women. He said he’d had to drag that damn heavy thing in here would love to see it finally be put to use. “Oh, I’ll use it,” I assured him.

There is a pleasant nautical-style chandelier light hanging above my head, a window that looks out into the front yard providing at least some natural light, a solid wooden floor, and a grand bookcase taking up an entire wall where Steve and I both store our personal collections–him: Kerouac, Tom Wolfe, Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens and many others; me: Janet Fitch, Lidia Yuknavitch, Mary Karr, Barbara Kingsolver, Augusten Burroughs, some of Steve’s Kerouac, and many others.

Aside from the cold mugs of coffee, writing inspiration (ie books), and the desk; I’ve got about 525 sheets of blank computer paper–a whole drawer in the desk dedicated to it–a jade plant, a jar of water for drinking, a small clay vase filled with one unsharpened pencil, two sharpies, several ink pens, and a pair of scissors; tonnnns of written work, most of it printed out, self-edited, and needing to be stitched into my memoir, eight copies of The SUN, a new, cheap, Canon printer, jumbo-sized assorted color paper clips: pink, baby blue, red; a stapler with turquoise staples, and one or two unmentionables.

I sit and write on a hard wooden stool. Steve will often drag the soft, blanketed love seat into the office to watch movies at night but I just drag it back out during the day cause I can’t write all splayed out on my back like that, else sinking down into the cushions. Yep, I am a writer now. With a deadline. I am talking to other writer’s and I am asking them “How does it feel to be a writer with a deadline versus a writer without one?” I am hoping they will tell me it’s much more painful to be a writer with a deadline. But that there is pleasure on the other side of that pain. Surely, surely there is pleasure.