Reposting(s)

(These are both from 2 years ago)

(This one because things with my son have gotten better and I want to remember and reflect)

For my son...

You know what...

I don’t have the strength
for this
I don’t want to
watch you hurt yourself
I can’t

I’d like to say
I am strong
But, I am not
Not anymore
I used to be

I used to be one of those
Lioness creatures
The ones that roared
And clawed and fought
Now I roar
But it’s impotent

I know
You think
you’re all grown up
But you’re not

You’re a boy still
A boy/king
Who can’t admit
He needs his mom

You want your freedom
Soon I’ll have no say
I suppose that’s how
Life is

And I’ll be
Left with memories
Of you
As my baby

I will cling to them
But they won’t
Sustain me or
Squelch my fears

And someday
When I am gone
I hope you will
Remember me

And all the times
I held you close
Trying to keep
The world at bay

********

(This one is also from 2 years ago - about writing)

“My dear,

That is precisely WHERE the beauty comes from - in being able to disseminate the ordinary, day-to-day bullshit; to write about it and shed light on it, and draw others into the actual simplicity, and mundaneness - and yet show just how important and beautiful those simple tasks can be - someone counts on us to do them...and, by writing about it (in all it's tediousness), Ms. Sarton HAS managed to get around to doing the IMPORTANT thing.

Our daily lives, our loves act as the colours we use to paint the canvas that is our history. Crafting words about your life, your vision, is your gift, your talent.

Even if you were to go and dig ditches, your gift of being a great writer would still be there - under all the dust.”

This is a comment I left on a friend’s blog. He is a great writer. He is a great person.

I was commenting/responding to something beautiful written by May Sarton (another great writer). What Ms. Sarton wrote struck a chord with me too…

“There were moments … when it seemed that all one could be asked was just to keep the ashtrays clean, the bed made, the wastebaskets emptied, as if one never got to the real things because of the constant exhausting battle to keep ordinary life from falling apart”

I remember when I decided to write (years ago) – I don’t know what drove me to want to do it – perhaps the ‘stories’ built up in me over the years and wanting to somehow let them out, like steam escaping from a kettle too long on the stove…

I asked a very accomplished friend about writing (she was a great person, an actress, a ballet dancer, a writer, a mother late in life (her early 40s)...her advice about writing was simple.

“One writes, by applying one’s ass to the seat of one’s chair and writing…” I’ve carried those words with me ever since – not knowing quite what to make of that advice. Until I began this blog...

So it’s become for me in a lot of ways a path down a road less traveled – a life less ordinary (not to steal book names here), something of quiet introspection to try to find a pattern so I can break some of the endless cycles I find myself participating in. Yes in some ways I’ve lived a ‘wild life’ – but I am not always sure if that makes it worth writing about – *laughs* - or worth reading for that matter.

What makes something worth writing about? What makes a writer worth reading? Like beauty – is it all in the eyes of the beholder? Does my writing make you want to read more – or make you feel like I should put down my pen and go dig ditches (*laugh*)

The times when I face this blank page and begin to set the words upon it – like painting a canvas, the paper awash in the colours that comprise my story/my life – almost like my life blood spilling out.

I used to hear stories about writers block. People who would face the blank page with terror and not joy. Most of the time I was hearing this from my ex – he seems to have felt his ‘sickness’ robbed him of his ability to write (while simultaneously complaining that the meds made him feel numb and unable to reach the place where his creativity lived) – I can answer to neither statement. Fortunately, not being afflicted in such a way.

I know that when I write – a lot of times it is a way for me to keep things in perspective, to go deep inside and try to somehow decipher all those feelings – the inner workings of my psyche. I don’t feel terror – I don’t always do it in joy.

I write because I HAVE TO WRITE. I hear that from a lot of writers too….

Sometimes I think the stuff I write is ‘dreck’ oozing from my pain and hurt like so much pus. It’s not worth reading. Yet somehow I have a bit of an audience. But that’s not why I keep writing. It’s something I know – it’s a part of me – I can no more rid myself of my inner voice than I can the body I am currently inhabiting – that is without ending my life. I don’t know if I will always be this way. I don’t know if this is a gift or an ‘affliction’ – it’s something I know in my heart ad in my soul.

It’s like the way I know the person I need to be with is going to be like me in such a way that I won’t have to explain WHO I am or WHAT I am talking about. The same way I know deep down I have a mystical/spiritual/magical side that is part of the person I am – undeniably part and parcel of ME. It illuminates and pierces the darkness, allowing me to find that small part of joy within the deepest depths of my sorrows. That which cannot by science or medicine be proven but is there all the same – like my breath – something that is a constant whisper in the back of my mind, yet part of a greater consciousness.