So Much to Do!

So many things, so little time and so much feeling!

Does everyone feel the same way I do?  I feel overwhelmed, but at the same time accomplished for the tasks I have finished, and in awe of what I still have to do!

At this point in the game I have finished a month of poeming with Robert Lee Brewer and the crew at Writer’s Digest.  Now I need to read and edit my work into a chapbook and send it off to Robert for his perusal.  I’m actually looking forward to that but I’m wondering where I will find the time! 

I just finished building a gingerbread house with my family for a local contest.  If that sounds like a simple task, think again!  Besides planning it, which was easy, we had to make the gingerbread (several batches), create building templates, cut and bake, wait for cookie cutters in the mail (which took forever because we live in the middle of Nowhere’sville), make umpteen batches of icing, show kids how to decorate and then not correct them or try to tell them how to do it better (because you want them to do their own thing), deal with arguments about structural integrity and how things should be done, blah, blah, blah.  Plus take the roof off after an accident and replace it the next night after repairs.  Yes, it’s a big job and I have to give props to the folks that can do whole towns.  A barnyard scene was enough for me.

But it’s done.  I can breathe – for a second.  I also have Christmas cards to do.   Every year I say I will start making them (yes, you read that right) in July, so there will be no rush.  Every year I don’t start until December.  Why do I do this to myself???  Because my other half thinks they’re great, that people love them, and will help me make them.  We pick out four different cards, I make up the kit and show him how to put them together, and then he does.  He enables my crafting desires just so I will do this once a year.

We have Christmas concerts to attend, local book signings (not mine, no book yet, but which I view as a learning experience and am looking forward to attend), tree cutting, cookie making, gift shopping, house cleaning, etc., etc., etc.  It’s enough to make one yell Bah Humbug, if it weren’t for the fact I love the season.  I started listening to Christmas music on www.accuradio.com two weeks before Thanksgiving!  Oh yeah, and I have to find a Santa that will visit with the kids because we missed the one we normally see and there’s a particular 10-year-old that called me out on it.  As long as he still believes, I will enable.

So as the season rushes up and upon me I wish all of you what I hope for myself.  Have a good time.  Enjoy the spirit.  Take some time to reflect.  Stay up late to get things done, but don’t rush through, take your time.  Smile.  Bite your tongue.  May “good will” be your motto and the motto of those around you. 

I wish you all a very merry holiday season, and however you spend it, I hope you are surrounded by love.

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The Face of Christ - Draft

I observed you there, at the museum, watching me from the corner.

Your eyes seemed to know me,

to beckon me,

and drawn by their intensity I came to you.

Standing before you, I glanced to the left and to the right, and then,

finally,

I looked at you.

Your brown eyes, soulful, honest, knowing.

I could not look away, but I wanted to.

I knew I wasn’t worthy, I knew you were just a painting, but

Rembrandt must have captured some part of your soul

because there you were!

You seemed to know everything,

all at once,

about me. 

I stood before you, unable to look away, seeing only your beautiful face,

feeling your grace, your forgiveness.

You stared deep into me, and

for one moment I felt total. 

My eyes filled with tears as you gazed my way,

knowing that I would hold this moment forever.

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Help! Need Advice!!!

     Need a little non-writing help here.  

     My grandson and granddaughter steal once in a while.  Never money, but usually something small.  

     This last time they stole candy bars that we were selling for a friend’s daughter to support her skating.  We realized it after they left.  We haven’t spoken to them yet.  

     If it comes down to it, they may be spending their holidays with their parents who are the influence of their behavior.  I don’t want them there because we do all the fun stuff with them and it won’t happen if we don’t take them.  

     The boy is ten, the girl is twelve.  Has anyone dealt with this situation before?  It’s driving me crazy.  I’ve had him bring things back to the store and hand them to the manager, and as far as I know this is his sister’s first time.  

     Last night my boyfriend asked me what I wanted to do, and my response was to cut off one hand.  

     I’m so sick and tired of the disrespect and the disappointment.  They don’t need to steal from us.  They don’t need to steal at all.  Yet they do.  

     Any advice would be appreciated.  Help!!!

Outsiders - Draft

It was always us against the world.

We singled ourselves out of the mainstream.

We were different, and proud of it,

even though we wanted desperately to fit in.

When they chose sports, we chose art

and when they chose preppie, we chose grunge.

It wasn’t grunge then, there were a few more years before the label for that came out.

We were the living epitome of The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton, and we wanted it that way.

We wanted to be misunderstood,

too complicated for mainstream.

Posing a tragic figure was an opportunity to stand out

and also a way to blend in with the background.

No one tried to figure us out (like we were THAT complicated)

and for our part,

we didn’t want to know them either.

Our denim jackets were our shields from the outside world. 

One could see us, but they would never know us. 

Not how deep we are,

not how talented we are,

not how painful our existence is to us. 

I didn’t know it at the time, but that

angst never leaves.

It’s still there, it still whispers in my ear that I am more,

more than any of you will ever know, and there is tragedy in that.

The tragedy that will keep you from knowing me

and the missed opportunity of me

ever trying to know 

you.

Thanksgiving Prep

They slammed the cupboard doors and yelled about the filthy house.  Nothing was ready for company.

“I’ll take care of it!” I screamed. 

It had been a long week and I was extremely tired.

After they finally left, I lit the match.

Afterblock - Draft

Afterblock

I wrote a story once, about a memory from my early childhood.

It was the first time I put myself out there, published,

and when she read it she asked me if I really thought

she was that “terrible”.

I never thought she was. 

I didn’t see the story in that light at all,

but her comment effectively

shut me down.

Even now, if she read this

she would make me feel guilty

for not writing what I felt

because of her.

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For Your Own Good

Anxiety rips my chest apart and causes pain in my

heart and

non-stop thoughts in my head about

how I can make everything better,

that kissing your boo-boos will make all the bad stuff go away and

then I realize I can’t fix everything like I used to and

you are an adult with a husband and

children and

you both need to stop acting like kids yourselves and

face up to the fact that he is mentally unstable and

my grandchildren are living in that environment and

getting more and more unstable themselves when they are faced with moving yet again and

this time without more of their stuff even though their father gets to take all of his toys and

the system that is set up to protect them does nothing,

NOTHING, and

they are left on the wayside again even though

we’ve told their teachers there is something wrong and please,

please,

please report something, anything,

so they might have a halfway decent life, even if it is in a stranger’s home, and

even if we never see them again as long as they’re safe and away from him, and

then maybe you will decide you’ve had enough and

leave him too and

start your life the way you would have had you not decided to leave home at sixteen and…

…then I take a breath.  I think that this will never change.  This story will play out over and over again, and

I need to check out.  I look at the clock. 

Twilight will not make the dark circles under my eyes any brighter. 

I love you, but this is your circus. 

You chose that monkey. 

I will help destroy him, but in doing so, you and I may be destroyed too. 

As a mother

I have to tell you

– it’s for your own good.