My friend!

My friends

My friends, not my art

I didn’t believe you because I was sure you were a lie.

Nobody ever gave without expecting something of me.

But there you were with shirt sleeves pulled up to your elbows

Stepping into my dance of horrors with a graceful heart

You expertly guided my feet as I stumbled along behind

While I asked guidance, you answered me with elbows deep in the mire.

You didn’t hesitate. You didn’t stop. You gave without askance.

After the dervish had danced, I drove you home in the night

You didn’t turn into a pumpkin. You hugged me, told me you loved me,

vanished into your home with a step lighter than air.

Again you approached our friendship but I was skittish with fear.

How many times have I placed my faith in trust only for it to disappear?

There you were with jovial laughter, warmest hugs from open arms.

“This can’t be right. This doesn’t make sense.” I argue with myself.

You tell me what you like about me, what I do, who I am.

Nobody has done that without wanting something in return.

(Rarely so).

I test a limit. You laugh. I push a button. You show me the right way.

You get pissed but you work through it like I do, using words and humor.

I feel like I’ve been shown a rare jewel in a crown that belongs to the masses.

I feel as if I may be able to trust this friendship, but I won’t lie

It scares me to allow people near to me because they always leave.

But maybe I can give enough to our friendship where I won’t want to

because of what you’ve already promised with your actions

because of what you’ve already given from your heart.

The Suitcase

“You just don’t waltz into and out of people’s lives.” I found this quote in a podcast/article by a man I respect very deeply. The entire script and podcast is found HERE.

A happy suitcase wearing a hat

A happy suitcase wearing a hat

I’ve moved all over the country. Up until I got to Oak Ridge, I’d never in my entire adult life lived in the same house for more than two years. Considering I’ll be 47, that’s not a good track record for stability or longevity but it’s also taught me a lot about change, leaving, and transitions.

Most of the time when I’ve become disgruntled, disheartened, or feeling a loss of hope are the precise times I’d pack up the bags either metaphorically or physically and set them by the door. It was not uncommon for me to check those bags periodically to see that they match my state of mind given whatever the situation I faced.

If I ended up in a relationship that I knew may end, I’d pack the bag and set it down because I knew it would fail. I knew that I couldn’t give my whole heart to anyone who wasn’t willing to love me back the way I needed. It might have been because they were violent or they were absent from the beginning, or even that they were afraid like me to give in to the commitment all the while longing for that connection. No matter the reason, there was always a pile of luggage (not baggage because that has to be lugged around), ready by the front door.

The point for me when I knew it was time to leave was the point when my heart was irreparably broken. It would happen when I knew and understood that no matter what was done or said from that moment forward “WE” could never fill that trust back up again. I’d lost hope, trust, and an ability to want to rebuild it at that point.

I try to be mindful of relationships. I struggle to maintain some that aren’t good for me. Some demand that no matter what is happening in my life that their life is far more important. It has never been about anyone else, but for them to be at that point is an astonishing progression from “I don’t matter at all”, so I try to be mindful of that. It becomes unhealthy.

I’ve tried to remain friends with people who can’t see any light, no matter how bright. They are so asleep in so many ways that the only time I’ve allowed them to re-enter my periphery is when they really are trying to make changes for the better in their lives. When they are actively seeking answers that I’d given them before, but either they weren’t ready to hear, or they needed to find without my guidance. I’m not claiming to be a guru or an expert, but I’ve messed up enough to know certain things in life.

I’ve tried to be the best I can be no matter who I’m around, but sometimes my best isn’t what someone else needs. Sometimes they need a broken person with horrible feelings of self esteem to coddle, take care of, feel needed by to make up their own value as a person. When they reject every good given, that’s when the dependent person feels lost, vulnerable, and without taking time can fall into a vicious cycle of begging to be taken back.

With each one of those, I’ve waltzed out at will and sometimes against my will, but they’ve all ended in one way or another. My packed suitcases were at the ready so the transition was easier but no less painful. I don’t like that I’ve had to, for whatever reason, walk away from various lives in my lifetime, but self-preservation has been worth it.

What I didn’t expect, after reading the article, was a glance to my door and a note that there weren’t any suitcases packed there waiting. Not a duffel bag or a backpack, not even a fanny pack laid up waiting for my itchy gypsy toes to want to hit the road. BUT WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?! And why do I feel a sudden jolt of panic?

I’m in a marriage where there is a level of reciprocity that I’ve never had despite fumbling intentions before that had all failed. I’m in a neighborhood that is distasteful, but where I find myself waving at people I like and know. People that I tell my stories to and they tell me theirs. I discovered a diamond and platinum spiritual home that has given me a stability of family that I’d been missing for eons but found on accident thanks to John Lennon and John Denver. I have friends interwoven in generational blankets of uplifting proportions that bring me to a place of stellar humbleness, gratitude, and the best teachers of compassion I’ve ever known besides my Bapa’s family.

I think it’s safe to say that sometimes that waltz from one life to the next is necessary to move into the house that will become your home. The home where suitcases are no longer necessary because it’s truly where your heart is born, grows, and can be found at any time.

25 Struggles Only ENFPs Will Understand | Thought Catalog

25 Struggles Only ENFPs Will Understand | Thought Catalog.

This article is so me it’s frightening. I had no idea I was this difficult to live with, but my husband, thankfully, has figured out my key to happiness. Let me ramble until I figure it out myself then poke a couple holes so I think some more. AND I LOVE people but LOVE to be alone too. Oh boy, if this doesn’t describe me, nothing does.

 

Thirty Something

Okay, so I’ve been working diligently to amass my work for the first display of my art on June 20th. When I was asked to do this, I’d painted this and that, but focused on writing. Having compiled a book of essays, poems, and commentary, I felt satiated enough to move into another genre. I picked up a paintbrush, charcoal, pens, pencils and sheets of fantastica.

From the Unitarian Universalist song, "You got to do when the Spirit says do!"

From the Unitarian Universalist song, “You got to do when the Spirit says do!”

Thirty-One Two pieces later I’m thinking, oh crap! Is this enough? Is this how I’m wishing to be marketed? Is it good enough? Will they like it? Love it? Hate it? Feel ambivalent towards it? Will my art, the creation of my brain from the inspirations that walk over it (like a Jamie Lopez styled painting that just drew itself while I wrote this) satisfy anyone?

You know what? I refuse to care. I wash my hands of the anxieties that are cropping up as the witching hour approaches. This means I’m doing something my mind and body consider to be questionable, dangerous, and that is why I need to do it. Even if I fail (and these thoughts are occurring to me) I’m going to do so with a collective work that glistens with the sweat of my effort. That reflect my love and light into the world in such a way that I feel nearly a sexual satisfaction of bringing these colors to life.

I have to keep reminding myself that I’m doing this for me. Yeah, it’s great if other people take a shine to what I do and even more spectacular when they want to give me money to do what I love. I mean, really. Who wouldn’t want to follow a dream, a hope, an idea all the way down the rabbit hole to see how far it goes? I suppose that’s what makes others comment my oddities to me as if I don’t exist because they’re right. I don’t.

I exist when I allow myself to be consumed by the world where art and breathing are synonymous. I am when I am so engulfed in what I’m doing I forget that I’m human. I become another entity. I love that feeling more as I embrace the whirlwind affair that is dragging me into deeper fields of challenge. But then, I come up for air in this physical world to find people doing what people do.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the people I know. I mean, I REALLY love them. They fill my heart with Rod Stewart songs (“Have I told you lately”) and promises of Moulin Rouge (“Come what may”). My head dances with inspiration from their very existence and I touch the promises of their truth with such delicate breaths that it makes me blush with the intimacy they allow me. It’s not even sexual. It’s like hanging out at someone’s house and everything they do, say, or ask is exactly the most perfect thing they could do, say, or ask of you. And with that, it’s a reciprocation of undulating commentary that ebbs, flows, waxes, wanes, drifts, waves, and hurricanes around in mystical walkways. Each word, phrase, or nothing is vibrant with understanding, love, compassion, and sometimes anger, disappointment, intolerance. Human stuff.

What I describe is not always how it is, it’s just what it’s felt like since I heard the words utter from my lips, “I am an artist.” And so I am.

Tuatha Dea inspired, "Blessed Be, Y'all"

Tuatha Dea inspired, “Blessed Be, Y’all”

Stars in her eyes

Reaching for the stars

Reaching for the stars

When I awakened from the dreamless deep,

I was shocked to realize that my eyes could not see.

I had no way of finding upon which path to set my feet,

because all I’d ever done was walk around in sleep.

But then I found the very stars of which you, longing, write,

and I followed them into the sky; into the sacred night.

Schadenfreude

I stand by love as the solution. When we can look upon one another with the same compassion we wish for ourselves, then we can begin healing our broken world together.

Mare Martell's avatarMare Martell

As I’m scrolling through my newsfeed each day, I noticed an unusually high ratio of hate. Hate Justin Beiber? That’s okay. Hate Westboro Baptist Church? That’s okay. How about Democrats? Republicans? Atheists? Gays? Women? Men? Goldfish? That’s okay too.

I am all about personal freedom. I believe that every person is entitled to their own opinions, beliefs, and ways of doing things. What I don’t understand is why the hate of such ridiculous things? If you want to hate something, what about poverty? Hunger? Rape? Acid Attacks? War? Human Rights Violations?

These are things that should be hated. These are things that should not be tolerated, but we do. We allow it because it isn’t in our own backyard. It’s okay because it isn’t directly affecting most of us, thankfully, on a daily basis. We turn our face away because we believe that people, all people, should be like we…

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Rape Culture – Cover Your Eyes

A must read for anyone that has blood in their veins. Yes, that means you too.

Dianne Wing's avatarWhile you were sleeping

little-girl-crying-39-resized

Rape culture is when I was six, and my brother punched my two front teeth out. Instead of reprimanding him, my mother said “Stefanie, what did you do to provoke him?” When my only defense was my mother whispering in my ear, “Honey, ignore him. Don’t rile him up. He just wants a reaction.” As if it was my sole purpose, the reason six-year-old me existed, was to not rile up my brother. It’s starts when we’re six, and ends when we grow up assuming the natural state of a man is a predator, and I must walk on eggshells, as to not “rile him up.” Right, mom?

Rape culture is when through casual dinner conversation, my father says that women who get raped are asking for it. He says, “I see them on the streets of New York City, with their short skirts and heavy makeup. Asking for it.”…

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PTSD: A Lost Loved Cousin

I heard taps play over picnic grass graves.

It felt good to be remembered kindly for a day

No words of hate shouted, no reminders to my face

The forgiveness of sacrifice, seen in a different way.

I wanted to go like my brothers before me

I wanted to serve with my life, if necessary.

I wanted to be the hero that my father and my uncles are

I wanted to accept their mantle, to be their shining star.

But all I could say when I returned from that place

Was, “No more. I feel like such a disaster, such a disgrace.”

I lived in terror that tore me apart, shredded me inside out.

I couldn’t look in the mirror without hating my every doubt.

I couldn’t reach out for help, because who would understand?

That I didn’t even feel real, that I wasn’t even a man.

I was a soldier without a war.

I was lost in my inner storm.

Although I lost my life, not on the battle-field

My family still stood and by my graveside kneeled.

I heard taps play over picnic green grass graves.

It felt good to be remembered kindly, if even for a day.

Homogenized television

“We ARE that change, together; me and you.”
I finished this observation with this phrase. I want to share this again because South Carolina’s Governor is abusing her office in the name of one way or no way. It’s shameful that in this time of transition in our lives, in our communities, in our country, and in the world that nobody is standing up and saying STOP!

Ladies, Gentlemen, and anyone else of reasonable mind, WE are those people whom must stand against the ridiculous oppression of our brothers and sisters no matter whether you’re for them or not. It’s not for you to judge, it’s for you to love.

Before you think, “Yeah, but you’re judging her.” I am not. I’m questioning her motives, her vision for the entire state of South Carolina, and her disregard of the rights of citizens that live in that state that are granted by the United States Constitution, the Constitution of the state of South Carolina, and the right as a human being to be who they are as it harms no other. She is doing harm. I am calling her on it.

Mare Martell's avatarMare Martell

At the store we stopped by on our way to my Mama-in-law’s, I saw a diverse snapshot of people. An inter-racial gay couple who were both very tall, an Italian mother and her daughter, a few white employees, a mixture of humans milling about the aisles selecting last minute purchases for their Thanksgiving feasts. Every person I saw greeted me with smiles and warm wishes which I firmly returned to them. I felt so alive with happiness that I wished I could hug everyone I saw. I even commented this to Ben (my husband) as we got into our car and finished our journey. I felt amazing.

My beautiful in-laws are avid fans of local station news/sports/weather and keep the litany in the background all day long. The same newscast at noon gets a tad of refresher before being the 6 o’clock news and then the 11PM news. In between…

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After the Peter Mayer concert

Peter Mayer from Minnesota playing "Blue Boat Home"

Peter Mayer from Minnesota playing “Blue Boat Home”

Okay, so if you read the previous article, you know I REALLY love me some Peter Mayer. His music is considered folk but to me it’s just excellent. He performed back in February at our Sunday Service which was really incredible in and of itself, but his warmth really stood out in my mind. He really doesn’t get why people love that he plays guitar and sings. He loves that he can make a living at it, but it truly baffles him.

Tonight, while he was playing, he forgot some lyrics from one of the songs he was performing. He glitched. He apologized but kept going. I fell madly in love with him at that moment. Not the kind of love you give to a spouse or a best friend, but the kind of love that makes that moment stand out as truly significant. He was beautiful before as I’ve gushed and fan-girled, but that moment, a tiny error of perfection exploded his colors into rich sapphire blues, deep royal purples, and such incredible beauty of humanness that I got the leaking wellies.

I sat at the back of the sanctuary weeping with the knowledge that someone I listen to, someone I know only through music and a couple of random conversations, was absolutely human just like me. It was a profound moment as I heard him asking his Sister Hawk to teach him, his Brother Whale to teach him. As the concert continued he quoted Carl Sagan that we are “…starstuff contemplating the stars…” It meshed completely with what I tell the children when they don’t feel important. I tell them, “Oh but you are, my dear friend. We are all made of stardust and oceans. If we are all oceans, we fill the world with tears. If we are all stardust, we lose our shine. But if we balance between the both of them, there is no end to whom we can become.”

That moment of his human self felt like an emotional anchor snapped taut, that in that moment, I was breathing the same starstuff as my ancestors, of his, and of everyone in the room. It was incredibly moving to me. He was even gracious after the concert when I told him of how beautiful I felt that was. I gave him an Always Beautiful card I like to share with people who move my spirit. He accepted it. I don’t think I could have gotten any more happy than I felt at that moment. Thank you Universe for arranging the starstuff precisely right tonight.

Me and Peter Mayer after the show.

Me and Peter Mayer after the show.

Again, if you want to learn more about him, visit his webpage at http://www.petermayer.net or look him up on YouTube and you’ll hear why I’m such a fan of such a perfectly kind human being.