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“The Dress and the Snake”

The time to watch a sunset is twenty minutes.  Is it longer in Heaven?  Are the colors the same?  My heart flattens, flutters and it is hard to talk.  Speaking now, I feel as if ropes have caged my heart and made me sad.

What is underneath this sadness?  Fear?  Anger?  I am not sure.  My soul seems to be standing.  Everyone thinks I am holding up well.  So brave.

I feel weak, breathless at times

Always present

I’d like to run until I reach Egypt

But I have the responsibility of staying.

This coat I wear does not want winter to come.  The naive mind of spring bursts in my heart.  Death has no colors.

It made me feel secure thinking Dad would live on like Su Aht said.

“No die.  No die this year.”  Then, the re-calculations, like a mortality math question.

The place where my wedding dress is being made is attached to an oriental grocery store.  The sounds and scents are strange.  As I now have been in there many times, I have become friends with Su Aht – my tailor’s mother and teacher.  She has noticed my ripe tears and wounded heart.  Her English, non-existent, folds many layers; we speak silently.

Su Aht asks, What year my dad was born.  Her daughter translates in Thai.

“How old is your dad?”

“74,” I say.

“What year he born?” Pantanee translates to me, as Su Aht looks wise in the eyes.

I reply curiously, “1929.”

Su Aht sits in her corner and pulls out her Thai zodiac book, thumbing through the pages.  She settles on a page with the Chinese zodiac.  Click, clack, cluck.  She counts in Thai, her finger running in a circle.  She does it again and again circling the circle with her fingers.  I nibble on the peeled apple slices she offered.  Their sweet taste teasing me.

She looks happy; she says with a smile, “No die.  No die this year.”  Then blurts out more in Thai.  I say to Pantanee, my tailor, “We need a translator here.  She might be on to something!”

Pantanee chats with her friend in English on the telephone.  Whispers of conversation blurt out. “He’s no good for you.”  I hear her say in English.  She comes over and tells her friend to hold on.  Pantanee and her mother, Su Aht, speak in Thai, counting, clicking.  Strange sounds emerging from their tongue.  Mother tongue melting.

Pantanee starts clicking, clacking, counting.  They both look up somber, sad as if they have bad news.  “This is the year of the snake to die,” Pantanee says with quilted accent thick.

Su Aht speaks softly in Thai.  Optimism erupts from her eyes.  Pantanee translates her mother’s thoughts, “If he can make it past this year, he will have more years.”  I nod and think.  I really don’t know much about the Chinese zodiac, but think of it in a positive way.

There are pictures hanging above Su Aht.  I was looking at them as she figured my father’s cycle in this world.  She caught me look at the elder monks dressed in orange-red robes.  They looked like Gandhi.  She turns in her chair motioning with her hands clasped as in prayer.  I say to myself, “I am open to many things, but please don’t make me pray to this Gandhi like person.”  Then Su Aht reaches for a mango.

She goes on counting and clicking as I slice mango.  She offers a sauce to dip it into.  I taste to be polite.  It is gross.

I look at my dress and see so many things embroidered in it – culture, love, tradition, my father, my mother, my sister, my friends, my love for Rich, my future.

The dress hangs in the tailor from Thailand’s shop exposed to so many things.  When I step into that dress next Sunday and walk down the aisle with my father I hope Dad will walk towards another year, but accept it perhaps is time for this lovely snake who I call Father to swim to Heaven.

Author’s Note:  I wrote this essay when my father was ill with cancer in 2oo3.   I was married twice; the first time was upstairs in my parent’s bedroom on November 23, 2003.  My father was not able to get out of bed, but he was able to “walk me down the aisle.”  It was a beautiful wintry day in Wyoming.  A blizzard blanketed everything with several feet of snow the night before.  The snow glistened and looked like magic sugary crystals.  It was a beautiful day.  Today is the anniversary of his death, December 11, 2003.  December 10 and 11 are very hard days for me.  He passed away in the middle of the night.  My mother held his hand as his pulse quickened.  She had gone downstairs to get him a fresh popsicle.  He sucked all the juice from it in one gulp and looked at her, as his pulse quickened.  What a brave woman she was to be able to endure that moment for him.  I would have lost it.  But my mother is an amazing person who loved him.  They were soul mates. 

The second time I got married was after my father passed in July 2004.  It was a beautiful outdoor ceremony (photo at the top is from that wedding.)  We had a good time.  I will post photos and write about that wedding in another post.  I was very lucky to be able to marry my soul mate twice. 

Click to view slideshow.

I think of my father tonight, as there is a lunar eclipse.  Many blessings to you all if you are struggling with the loss of a loved one or the anniversary of a death of a loved one.  The holidays shove “happiness”  and
holiday cheer up our asses, most of the time unwillingly.  I am super Bah Humbug during this time.  I shake it off in about a week.  You’re not alone with your sorrow.  Just know that. 

My thesis defense got moved up two weeks.  I had planned on turning in my thesis before Christmas break, but I have to turn it in to committee members this Friday.  So it has to be edited and ready to go by Thursday for my thesis advisor to have one final look to see if it is ready for thesis defense. 

My thesis is about my experience as a new mom.  It is a collection of essays and journal entries.  There is one Facebook status update too.  The thesis was originally titled “Motherhood — The New Frontier,” but I think I am going to change the title to the first line of the first essay.  My advisor said I have more than enough material to write a book about the first two years of motherhood.  I am only including fifty pages in my thesis.  And I certainly have over 200 pages of raw writing.

I have learned that the writing process is pretty grueling, at least the editing part.  It is necessary to make a manuscript readable and enjoyable for the reader.  I have grown a lot as a mother and as a writer over the past three years.  Benjamin has been with me since the first day I started my graduate program.  I found out I was pregnant the first day of graduate school. 

So, because time is an issue and I still need to soak my old bones in an epsom salt bath, I am going to post some photos.  Our family is co-sleeping.  Ben is too big and takes up too much room now in our queen mattress on the floor.  We are trying to transition him to his new toddler fire engine bed.  But we will tackle one thing at a time.  Right now, I am focused and ready to tackle my thesis challenge.

“Rise up!”  That is what my husband says when the Patriots are playing defense.  “Rise up!”  I will rise to this challenge. 

I also hear, “Dig deep.”  That is what my Providence College soccer teammates would say during games.  So, I’m digging too. 

One of the things I have written about in my thesis is morning tub time.  It was initially started as decoy of boredom from morning play mat time when Ben was just eight months old.  The sunlight streams in our small bathroom window (about the size of six cereal boxes stacked two wide, three high).  The silhouette of the Bradford Pear tree in front of the window creates the most beautiful fluttering leaves on the bathroom wall.  It is really beautiful.  So here is a photo of that.  Click to view slideshow.

Another thing I am really grateful for on my journey through the new frontier is a group of women who are supportive of my parenting choices (extended breastfeeding and co-sleeping and Attachment Parenting principles).  But most of all, they are just cool women with kids and babies of their own who I can get together with when the loneliness of motherhood strikes and when I need some adult interaction.   It is my humble opinion that playdates are for mothers.  It is nice for the kids, but for me, playdates have been a saving grace.  I have made a new friend within this group that I really adore.  She is funny, intelligent, an art enthusiast, creative, wonderful with kids, and I think she really likes me.  She’s an old soul. 

The slide show below is from our day at the park flying a kite.  She gracefully and casually took out a colorful kite out of her grey wool coat.  It was a late November day and air was crisp and chilly.  Ben loved that kite.  I peed my pants running the kite.  But it was worth it because I haven’t flown a kite since childhood.  (Just a funny sidenote as I have no shame — I thought I needed to change Ben’s diaper when we got back in the car — it smelled pretty strong.  When we got home, I asked my husband to change his diaper.  Well, what do you think hubby said?  He said, “Nope, his diaper’s dry as a bone.”)  Looks like I need some adult diapers if I am going to be running any kites or marathons! 

My friend and I laughed about this lovely side effect of motherhood on our kite adventure.  She said, “Yeah, there’s a reason they tell you to do those damn keigels and it ain’t related to sex!”  We laughed deep from our bellies and more keigels were needed.  I love her honesty and humor.  I never have to censor with her, not that I am any good at that anyway.

Flying kites should be mandatory inner child induction.  We also walked near a cotton field and let our boys explore the picked over field.  Cotton is a beautiful crop.  The soil tells so many stories.

I remember a journal entry I wrote for my thesis about wanting to find a mom friend.  I was so lonely as I transitioned from working mom to stay at home mom(Ben was four months old when I returned to work from one month maternity leave and three months of summer vacation.  I was a teacher.  I quit my job four months later in December of 2011). 

Journal Entry March 9, 2011

I saw a mom pair today and instantly got jealous.  I wanted a mom friend.  A mom friend is a friend whose a mom with a kid the same age as your own.  They were pretty young girls, younger than me, probably in their middle twenties.

I’d take anyone for a mom friend.

I will end this post with a slide show of Benjamin and some of our recent adventures.  He is certainly my muse.  

These are photos of my thesis, Motherhood — The New Frontier.  It has been a bear.  I am so over it.  I want to give it space to breathe and maybe, only maybe, expand it into a book.  Right now, I want to douse it with gasoline and light it on fire.  I have had to condense it to fifty pages.  I have had to listen to my advisor tell me what is wrong with it.  I have had to grow.  But I feel like carrots in the ground.  I may have grown, but just keep me below the soil.  It’s warm there. 

Carrots

I don’t like the cold of criticism.  I get it.  It’s part of the process… yadda yadda yadda.

Here is one of the excerpts from my thesis that didn’t make it in.  It is a journal entry.

               3/9/11 Journal Entry

               I don’t even know what date it is (I have to look at my phone to see).

                I’m so exhausted.  My mind is mush.  It is mush from sheer exhaustion.  And I really haven’t done that much.  Well actually, I have – I swept and mopped the kitchen, Ben’s room, and the parlor room.  I walked ½ mile with my mother-in-law and ran, jogged, walked another ½ mile with the baby in the baby carriage.  I cooked dinner and I cared for a busy, crawling 9 ½ month old.

                Ben is playing fetch with himself.  I’m seated in the oak chair in the kitchen now, puke green color on the walls, the shade of lemon and lime sherbet linoleum under my chair.  Ben is sliding across the floor like a crab.  He crawls with his left knee tucked under him and his right is raised in a crab walk position.  He is stationary for this moment, enthralled with a baby blue ribbon with white polka dots.

                I’m waiting for Rich to come home from work.

                This feeling is a mix of hopelessness, desperation, and utter exhaustion.  I’d run out the door if I had somewhere to go – but I really feel so brain dead.  I feel more exhausted than I did at the end of the day when  I taught twenty-seven fourth graders, including five students on ADD medicine and one, rather large, curly haired, line backeresque girl who had autism.

                Motherhood is kicking my ass.

                I’ve decided to write in my own voice and turn my motherhood project into a journal.

The theme of my thesis seems to be the kicking of my ass.  Also, the wonderful moments and that space in-between.  My thesis ended being a collection of essays and journal entries on motherhood.  I thought it would be easier to document the many emotions of motherhood.  I found it is like trying to stuff the ocean into a sandbag.

I will walk with my classmates on December 16 and graduate with a Master’s in English with a concentration in Creative Writing.  I will defend my thesis in January and then when it passes or gets accepted, then I will technically graduate.  But I have a Phd in Motherhood just by doing it.

Photo not labeled in slideshow are from Terry Bison Ranch in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  The ones with the farm animals and wide open spaces and big sky.  Yep, that’s Wyoming. 

I found out yesterday I have to go back to the drawing board for my thesis.  I don’t totally have to redo it, but I have to reorganize, restructure and also think about it differently.  I guess. 

My thesis advisor told me my Writer’s Notes are where my voice is — where the story is, instead of my essays that focus on capturing the beauty and love of motherhood.  My advisor sees this thesis (the essays and writer’s notes) eventually as a book.  Plus 9 months of pregnancy before that and years of infertility. 

Right now, I just have to get 50 pages ready for my thesis and that means thesis quality.  I had 65 pages of essays for first draft of thesis and 75 pages of Writer’s Notes. 

But how do I pick just fifty pages when I have gone through so much in the last 18 months.  My thesis is on motherhood.   It feels like trying to stuff the ocean in a sandbag.

Pretty picture: (Can’t resist an opportunity for a picture of the ocean!)

Ocean photo by Megan Oteri Copyright 2011

* Writer’s Notes = basically a diary/journal on being a stay at home mom and pretty much raw, honest, unfiltered rants (because who seriously writes in a diary when they are feeling super happy and content, at least I don’t.  I enjoy the feeling of happy and do what happy people do – I do things.)

My thesis advisor told me my Writer’s Notes are where my voice is — where the story is, instead of my essays that focus on capturing the beauty and love of motherhood. 

The thing is, I’m honest, but I’m not sure if I really want to be that honest… ya know…at least on paper that gets bound in a book with my name on it.

Here is a pretty picture:

Kangamangus Highway in New Hampshire photo by Megan Oteri - copyright

Magnolia II Photo by Megan Oteri 2011

Budding ~ photo by Megan Oteri - Copyright 2010

More pretty pictures:

 So I will ignore the wet floor in the bathroom where my toddler poured cups of water from his Tasmanian Devil cup onto the floor.  I will ignore the laundry, so badly in need of doing, that there are no clean towels to clean up the wet floor in the bathroom, and I am wearing an outfit I would wear to work as a teacher (although I made the decision to quit my job last year around this time to stay home with my son).   I usually wear yoga pants and the same red sweater.  I have a mom uniform I usually wear too – jeans and the same black long sleeve shirt.

What I can’t ignore is my toddler’s need for food. So we’ll be back.  Maybe I won’t be so damn pissy.

Later in the day and not so pissy…

FYI:  Momzilla didn’t deserve this, but my husband, came home for lunch and I was napping with toddler (feeling sorry for myself and my damn thesis) and husband cleaned the kitchen while I napped extra.  I just laid in bed and felt sorry for myself.  But sometimes you just have to wallow.

 I’ll go back to the thesis and figure out how to scramble those eggs.  On a good note: my thesis advisor is preparing me for the caliber of writing that is needed to get published in the real world.  On a pissy note – my thesis is due before Christmas break.  So there really aren’t enough photos to post to punch through that pissiness.  But here is one final pretty picture, because tomorrow is another day.  And I do have an amazing husband and son.  And a great group of friends and family to help me crack some eggs!

memomuse, windswept by the sea

I recently went to a writers’ conference in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (South Carolina’s Writers’ Workshop).  My friend, Annie, went with me.  What a joyous time we had.

This friendship makes me feel like a giant of greatness

She is the type of friend who makes me believe in my dreams and more importantly, myself.  Our conversations touch on all kinds of subjects.  Faith. Secrets.  Love.  Loss. Letters in boxes from dead relatives.  Avatars.  Transformations.  Butterflies and their grace.  Energy healers.  Being worn out.  Being torn down.  Being build up.  Writing.  Food.  Skeletons in our closet.  Closets for our skeletons.  Energy drainers.  Friends that we shouldn’t label as friends.  Thoreau’s essays.  Books that bounce off invisible rhythms of our souls.  Serendipity.  Fate.  Circumstance.  Jobs.  Dreams.  Hopes. Love. And so much more.

Sometimes friends are gifts beyond our scope of understanding. 

Mirrors of beauty

They give us a mirror and we can see our beauty.  Annie is this mirror for me.  Maybe because I am an old soul I am drawn to older women. 

I have another friend who is 95 and we’re kindred spirits.  Her name is Jennie.  I am lucky to have a friend like her.  She takes me for what I’m.  I don’t have to censor or apologize for being me.   

Friends have no age

She baked homemade baklava for my wedding and all my guests.  She is also a writer.  I met her in a writer’s group, years ago in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  Everyone except her was salivating to get published.  Jennie just wanted to write her stories. For herself, her grandchildren and children.  One of those stories is an amazing story about being right there at Pearl Harbor before the bombing, during the bombing, and after the bombing when her husband, who was a Navy officer put her and her pregnant belly on a ship back to the mainland.  Enemy submarines following her ship the whole way. 

Jennie taught me the most important thing about writing, by example: don’t get caught up in publishing it – write to write. 

In other words, write for yourself. 

Important lesson.  A lesson I am still trying to take the test for.  I have flunked several times, as I am desperate to get published.   For someone to recognize my words, myself, my fate.  Someday, I may be on a bookshelf you can check out or maybe I’ll just have finished manuscripts on my shelf with all the other journals.  But Jennie’s wisdom sits on my shoulder when I write, whispering her words, “Write for yourself. The rest will balance out eventually.”  I listen, as she is a wise friend.

Annie, too, shares this gift of writing for herself.  She hesitates to call herself a writer, but she journals religiously or when she has time.  And oh, does she have a story.  She could have pitched her memoir to any one of those important gate-keeper literary agents at the conference and they would be all over her book.  She gets caught up in all the questions and tangles I do.  “Where do I start? Who would want to read my story?  How do I organize it?”  I am able to give her sound advice.  Advice I echo from Jennie.  “Write for yourself Annie.  The rest will work itself out.”

Annie is a spry, sexy, woman who I often forget her age. She is 72.  She looks maybe 50. 

Isn't she something!

Her energy feels like maybe 25.  We can’t help but giggle and crack jokes around each other and miraculously, I don’t get on her nerves.  Some friends can only stand me for a limited amount of time.  And I can only stand them for about the same.  As it should be.  Some friendships are deeper than others and that is ok.   

 Some friendships I try to force that round peg in the square peg. 

With some friends we depart and reconnect a week later, a month later.  But with Annie, I didn’t want to leave her side. We were together Friday (all day in the car, lost on country roads) and Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.  I felt empty when she left.  Sad.  Our connection is cosmic. 

Annie and memomuse

Annie and memomuse

 There are very few friends I can be so real with.  I am lucky to have a handful of real friends that take me for what I am. Sometimes too blunt for my own good, sometimes so creative I have a hard time containing my excitement, sometimes discouraged and heartbroken by the world and all the realities that can get a creative down, sometimes a conversation hog, sometimes a mother still adjusting to being a new mom, sometimes a writer (need I say more), sometimes a wife, sometimes a sister, sometimes a daughter, sometimes a sinner, sometimes a saint, sometimes a lady some of you know as memomuse.  But true friends really do leave footprints on our hearts.  True friends tell us to shut up and listen.  True friends tell us to keep talking.  “Go on, I’m listening.  You’re on to something.  Keep the faith.  Don’t give up.  No, you aren’t that annoying.” 

Photo by memomuse

These friends who leave footprints on our soul also are the ones who provide the intensity and depth of the ocean near by the sand.  Some friends leave muddy boot marks that make our hearts itch and scream.

I recently ended a friendship that just didn’t make me feel good. In fact, it made me feel icky.  I had to sever ties.  I ignored the instinct in my heart that this friend judged me and looked down on me.  I do understand that this friendship’s chapter ended and I am grateful to have read the book.  But I am focusing now on friendships that make me feel alive and grow and thrive. 

Photo Credit: http://newpolymath.com/business-lessons-square-pegs-round-holes-and-cabana-boys/

Life is too damn short to try to shave that thick round peg into a right-angled square peg. 

 I have realized that I have shaved parts of myself in all aspects of my life (work, creative, family, personal, etc.) trying to fit into that nice, neat square peg.  I was born for circles. As they are infinite and each point on a circle is the same distance from the center. 

After the conference was over, Annie and I sat at the hotel bar out in the bright warm sun and danced in conversation. 

Back and forth, back and forth.  Ebb and flow.  Taking turns so naturally.  Bouncing off each other’s thoughts.  Then another kindred spirit joined us, a writer.  We all gathered, sipping Bloody Marys, and soaking up the sun.  Butterflies kept dancing around us, fluttering along our shoulders.  We were in touch with this great big force of self, surrounded by the magic of friendship, of muse. 

So, I raise my glass to old friendships and new friendships.  Because they all matter.  And like a circle, sometimes they continue on, sometimes they just stay at their point in the circle.  And some, like Annie’s go round and round, with giggle storms that make your belly ache, conversations that make you want to shout to the world, and comfort, no apple pie sitting on an open windowed shelf, can touch. 

What friendships nurture you?  Do you foster them?  What friendships make you feel bad?  Do you continue to shave off your round peg to fit it into the square hole?

Journal Your Journey.

Hope. Wish. Dream. Be. wherever you go, are going, and plan on going...never look back. Journey on.

Hope. Wish. Dream. Be.

memomuse

 There is something wonderful about the quiet only nature can provide.  The birds, the leaves rustling, a child playing nearby, toddler alien language as he discovers the magic of his own wonderment. I also need to say that I have not figured out how to get the slideshows to be separate, so the slideshows put all the photos in.  So some of the photos are from North Carolina and some are from the Kangamangus Highway in the White Mountains of New Hampshire during peak foliage. 

Explore

Sometimes it is easier to just post the pictures that inspire me on my facebook page for my small circle of friends and cyber friends to see, but I usually take notice when something really inspires me.  When something moves me.  And I was moved today.

I was thinking today about how peaceful it is this time of year.  The weather is cool enough for just a jacket and not so hot your skin feels like it is melting off from the heat and humidity of the South.  (It should be noted that extreme heat makes me BITCHY and as much as I hate admitting it, extreme cold.  But you can make a cozy fire, put on layers, and sip hot chocolate when it’s cold). 

The leaves this time of year around her (Eastern North Carolina) are this deep, dark brown and magenta hue.  An earthy brown wraps around the landscape like a porch on a farm house.  I take notice.  It is just what writers and artists do.  This deep brown makes me feel centered.  So very connected to Mother Earth.  I can’t quite explain what it is.  But November in Eastern North Carolina is my version of New Hampshire in early October.  (see slideshow for mixed in photos of New Hampshire).

A writer of creative nonfiction recently posted a piece on her blog titled, “Have We Lost Capacity to Observe.”  It got me thinking about how lucky I am to not have an iphone or a phone I care to take on walks with me.  A camera is all the technology I need and I would still prefer to shoot in 35 mm film  (But I do admit I like the fact I can upload and post the same day and not have to pay any money for film development).  If I don’t have a camera, then a journal and pen will suffice.  I can’t stand to be inspired and not be able to capture it somehow. 

This post on her blog inspired me to write more about this (as I was beginning to write my own blog post on her comments section). 

I took my son to the park today, after we visited our favorite horse, Silk.  She is on the way to the park.  After our horse adventure, I was moved by the light hitting the tall trees across the street.  So we went to the other side of the park where there is a path to walk.  The gym equipment is usually empty as a bigger playground is on the other side of the park.  I sometimes really enjoy just being alone with my son.  Plus, I get a chance to take photos and gaze at the trees.  I don’t have to chase him up and down slides and open walkways that make my heart skip a beat if he were to fall.

The bigger, more awesome playground is across an open field behind it (the picture above).  Plus, he can’t climb up on the stairs on this playground so I can wander more myself, not worrying about him falling.  Helicopter mom can park the chopper. 

We started our adventure in the fridge where we got some carrots for our favorite horse, Silk.  She is in a 3 acre pasture just five minutes up the road.  She is 25 years old and just a charmer.  She makes me feel like I am in Wyoming.  Something about horses in a pasture that gets me every time.  Ben loves feeding her carrots.  Click to view slideshow.

Although it is not New England, fall in Eastern North Carolina is still lovely. I love the deep, dark colors, darker than up North (see part of the slideshow for photos of New Hampshire).  My husband is from Boston and I went to college in the Northeast, so New England falls are special to me.

I do miss the bright yellows of Aspens from Wyoming and the thick leaves of the Cottonwoods, but November’s leaves in North Carolina are something.  Darker, darker, darker.  Something about the browns and crimson hues. 

So as Ben played on the playground, exploring with wood chips and his own wonder, I played with my camera on my playground: nature.  Put me in the woods or near a lake and give me quiet.  I am happy.

 I certainly have a lot of Thoreau in me.  I have so much adoration for the man that I blindly picked a summer camp to work at that had his name in it.  Long story, for another time.

My father taught me about Thoreau without ever mentioning his name  or referencing any of his essays.  I just watched what nature did for my father.  He was a Korean War veteran — the Chosin Reservoir.  That war fucked him up.  Seriously. How could it not?  He was only 18.  He saw so many men killed.  He killed so many men.  He was a gentle soul, at heart.  This must have tormented him.  He was a devote Catholic too.  He was even an altar boy.

My father, my hero. Semper Fe

 He also had a tough childhood he never really talked about.  His family lost everything during the Crash.  In fact, the crash was pretty much his birthday party.  He was born October 5, 1929. 

My father always took my sister and me to the park.  We explored every park and playground within the Chicago suburbs.  Every weekend and sometimes on his days off, we’d explore.   He gardened as well, making our childhood home in Wheaton, Illinois an orchestra of color.  Yes, he did work us both like soldiers — weeding, picking the garden for crops, raking, you name it, we did it.  But there was something magical that happened when our hands were in the soil and cardinals sing-songed by in flight.  We were at peace.  The world seemed to stop and wonder began. We also loved being around our dad.  And the best was when it was time for break.  Dad would get us each a Pepsi long neck bottle with the swirvy, twisted glass neck.  We’d gulp down a cold Pepsi (always Pepsi, never Coke) and wipe the sweat from our brows and sink in with exhaustion and the feeling of a good, honest days work.  Blue collar all the way baby!

Now that I am a parent myself, I have such compassion for my dad.  He was damaged by war, by death, by poverty, by a childhood I never knew anything about.  By his own mother’s crippling depression, his father’s alcoholism.  But it never took his wonder away.  He always loved nature and I believe it is where he was at peace. 

The enchanted gardens of my childhood are memories I will always have.  And there are some bi-polar outbursts of my father’s that I could happily forget.  But as I grow older, wiser, I feel like my father was an extraordinary character.  An extraordinary man, of integrity, of honor, of knowledge.  Someone Charleston Heston, Paul Newman, or Kirk Douglas would play in a movie.  He was funny, a voracious reader, a war hero, and a quiet man. 

I miss him dearly, as he passed away in 2003.  I wish he could know Benjamin.  I wish he could see himself in his grandson’s beautiful blue eyes. I see myself in my father’s eyes.  I see the same wonder and poetry. I credit my father with my gift of writing. 

My mother was a verbal story-teller; my father was a poet.  Not with his words, for I never saw him write.  But I saw him write as he thought.  His silence was where he composed.  He always reminded me that Percy Bysshe Shelley  was in my  lineage. And Agatha Christie too.  ”Remember that,” he would say.  A man of few words, I listened.  I watched. I now am grateful for what he taught me — to measure joy with a beautiful sunset, to be inspired by trees, to tell a story from a cricket’s song, to be one with nature.  To listen, quietly.  Then loudly think.  Then explode with the noise of words, of wonder, of wisdom.

Although it is not possible to tell him in person, I often speak to him through the birds. 

Artwork by Marsha Parker for my "Hope" sticky note in the "The Original Journal" (become a fan by clicking on the facebook fan page badge on this website)My dad wrote this in my journal when I asked him to sign The Original Journal.My dad's journal signing in "The Original Journal." "Keep up courage and hope." ~ Dad

I send them messages to give him.  He loved birds.  Cardinals were his favorite.  They are mine as well.  He knew all the names of birds and species names. 

He was a modest man, self-taught and educated through books and history.  If I didn’t see him thinking, puffing away on a cigarette, then I saw his head buried in a book.  Not a pansy ass 100 pager.  Heavy,  thick books, like encyclopedias.  Biographies — Winston Churchill,  Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, General Patton, William Wallace.  War books – World War II, The American Revolution, Forty Years War.  Poetry – Keats, Shelley, Shakespeare.  Sports — baseball, basketball.  Just to name a few.  He read everything; he knew everything.  He was like an encyclopedia.  He would tell me, “You’ve got to read more.  You’re a writer.  Writers read, Megan.”  He’d almost look disgusted at my ignorance.  For ignoring knowledge so readily available. 

I sometimes hate myself for not understanding his genius.  His will.  His ability to self-educate.  He dropped out of school to help his family pay the bills.  But he always read. 

Me, on my dad's muse bridge

He had a bridge in the backyard where I truly thought magic elves lived.  I think he told me this once.  Or gnomes.  It was at this bridge where I would see him sit, puffin’ away curls of smoke. No hands to take a drag, just his mouth, arms at his side, comfortably tucked.  His cigarette dangling in his lips, at an angle.  He drifted off somewhere I never knew.  Somewhere he probably didn’t want anyone to know. 

Swim in the sea

So I inched closer and closer, dipping my toes at first, then my ankles.  Then retreating to the shore to write notes in the sand.  Click to view slideshow. Knowing full well, I just would not leave that great big Atlantic,without edging closer and then finally, drenching myself with her wise wet waves.  You just can’t resist her pull.  I don’t have the mountains of Wyoming, but I sure do have the ocean.

 I’m working on accepting where I am.  I am home.  Not forever home, but home in my heart. Time to cultivate this space, this land.  I have earthworms the size of giant gummy worms in my soil in Eastern North Carolina where carrots grow thick and basil so green and smooth. These earthworms are all pink and thick, like number 2 pencils.  That is something more than I had in Wyoming.  I long for Wyoming, I call to her.  But she has ridden out in the distance, leaving me alone in North Carolina, time to think.  Time to embrace this is home now. 

When I finally inched closer in the sea, my short ruler became an infinite, unmeasurable string.  The ocean welcomed me, without my swimsuit,  just a long sleeve black shirt, a black skirt and a black scarf.  I inched deeper, now my legs and torso wet.  “Why not!” I exclaimed.  In I went, head under surf, fresh sea water on my skin.  Warm, wise waves welcomed me. Fully emersed, I swam.  Riding the waves like a cowgirl, bareback on horse.  The ocean, the mountains, the forest, a garden.  Nature calls to me, calls to you.  She welcomes all spirits.  She cleanses, cleans, cultivates better selves, better beings.  That’s all I needed.  A dip in the ocean.  Inch by inch.  Then foot by foot.  Then no numbers, no measuring spoon.  I was the girl in the sea.  Click to view slideshow.

I created a video with images from The Original Journal.  Click on the link above that says, “Untitled Project” or the hyper link “video.”

How tall are your dreams? Dare to dream, dare to wish, dare to hope, dare to be…

Be…

bold

brave

beautiful

be you…

Photo Credit: http://www.unblogindue.it/?p=441 (beautiful B & W photos on this website)

I am meeting with two literary agents this weekend at the South Carolina Writers Conference.  Both of the agents, Bernadette Baker-Baughman and Sorche Fairbanks) I am meeting with are looking for gift books.  So I am really excited.  I feel that the time is right for The Original Journal.

I really believe everyone has a story to tell – a journey to journal…

If you like the video, please take an extra minute to like it on facebook (see the side panel on my website). 

Journal Your Journey ~ memomuse

PS – Hope. Wish. Dream. Be.

Writing Spider

It’s been a month since I have posted anything.  I think of all kinds of things to write about, but just can’t seem to get the space in my head or the space in silence to write.  I have a seventeen month old. 

I guess I should adjust.  Shift.  Shake it out.  Dance in the rhythm of the noise.  But I just need that quiet space.  That extended highway of silence.  The circus keeps blaring and the noise never negotiates. 

Really, most of the time I am just too damn tired to write.  The discipline is not there.  At the end of the day, I just want to close my eyes and snuggle with my husband or son.

But I hold tight to these thoughts of perfection, like a closed toddler grip.  My essay has to be perfect. It has to be edited. Has to be meaningful.  Has to be thorough.  Has to reach someone. Has to make someone smile or shed a tear.

F that.  Excuse my french.  But no other word will do.  I need to abandon that and just write for f’s sake. 

So here is a rainstorm with some soft dewy raindrops and some thick hail about my life.  I promise to post an essay soon. 

The writing spider is gone.  I went on vacation to New England for a week and when I came home and she was gone.  Only her scattered remains of her web were in the garden. 

 And the slideshow is all I am able to get out this morning as my toddler pokes the computer, grabs the computer, grabs me, demands I listen, demands I be present with him.  Ben thinks we are co-authors.  Feel frazzled and fragmented as I write this.  There is so much I want to share and update.  Like about my trip to New Hampshire and how I was in my sister-in-law’s wedding.  And the trip to the  Kangamangus Highway in New Hampshire. Click to view slideshow. And how my mom is doing.  She is still alive and in the nursing home.  She is with it mentally and when I hear her voice that is all I need to smile.  I can’t imagine not hearing her voice.  being a mom to a toddler and after a long year of being a new mom with an infant, I realize how hard it is to be a parent and the sacrifices you have to make.  I love my mom so much.  I am so grateful to her for teaching me the core values I have – to be kind to strangers, to be curious, to laugh, to tell stories, to not give up on the ones you love, to explore this great big life, to be. Thank you Mom. I love you so much.  I wish you could read this.

My Mom who I adore

Got to go – toddler take over. Biting. Crying. Head bonking. Got a little more time – I am nursing him now. Talk about multi tasking! Now back to toddler take over.  I give up.  Head bonk to the chin.  Now toddler hug.  Oh the many emotions of motherhood.  He is pretty darn cute.  And as I get ready to hit the publish button (without proofing it to be perfect), toddler is giving me bubble kisses.  Then the head bonk to the chin. He is standing between my legs as I sit in his little people chair and type at his little people table, school bus yeloow and royal blue.

Toddler

PS – I am getting ready to go to the South Carolina’s Writer’s Conference in Myrtle Beach this weekend to pitch The Original Journal (click on link on the sidebar to “like” it on facebook) to literary agents.  Two of the agents I am pitching to are looking for gift books.  So the timing could be right.  One thing I have to steer clear of is wanting a publisher or an agent to validate this project.  I have to keep believing in it.  After all, I have been working on this book project since 1996.  Here is a picture of the sticky note collection, “Just Stick Its.”  They are designed to ignite the muse and amuse the mind. Go to the facebook page to see the sticky note collection.  Image is not uploading.