The morning cup: Procrastination

My morning news show is on in the other room--I'm slightly pulled in but so comfortable in my chair at my kitchen desk, with my cup of coffee that I cannot be moved--more that I will not be moved.

So I write.

Incredibly good sleep last night...possibly because I was so peaceful and fulfilled at the close of my day.

I had time for writing and reading and listening to great music--I was in a yummy state when I turned in to sleep.

This morning I want to explore procrastination by looking at my own life and the ways in which I procrastinate.

It's not that I think procrastination is entirely bad or something to avoid altogether--sometimes procrastination saves us from something but then does it become hesitation...or contemplation...hmmm...how to distinguish? Perhaps by the intention behind the action or inaction--they look different, right? Moot and beside the point.

Ah, but I digress (or procrastinate).

Areas in which I am actively procrastinating:

• Developing pictures
• I'm two years behind
• I have no good excuse because I have a prepaid plan and could order anytime without having to fork out the money--money has been forked.

• Writing a business plan
• Though it is quite possible that the studio I had in mind is spoken for by people with more money than I, there are certainly other studios or even room for me to start fresh.

• Cleaning my house
• The animal hair is killing me but seems too big a problem to take on in a single afternoon (excuse).
• The living room, den and my bedroom need to dusted...desperately.
• Bathroom--gross. Don't even get me started. But technically, that's Jen's job so perhaps this should be noted on her own list.

• Arranging termite treatment
• Really? Like this is an area I need to play with? You'd think I'd have a bit more motivation.

So there it is--I've laid it all out. If I continue to procrastinate in these areas when I have so courageously admitted fault, accepted ownership, and, for Christ's sake, made a list--then I am recklessly negligent.

If I never post again on above items, you can rest assured that I took no active measures and have probably added to that list.

Ooh...the cliffhanger.

Thoughts from the journey...

I'm writing past the guilt tonight, writing through the angst, the call of me as mom--at least, the call of me as mom as I interpret it to be.

I am my biggest critic, my worst enemy, my highest peak and my toughest challenge. But as I write that, can that be half bad?

Today has been a great day--an emotional day but totally fulfilling, as if I touched every corner of my internal landscape.

I am SO in search of something right now--open to the moments as they come to me, sitting back, taking it in...doing well to ride the middle space--not tipping too far to either extreme of crushing sadness or intoxicating elation.

It's all good.

I'll be there again--next week perhaps, or in a minute. My passion overtakes me from time to time...most of the time...usually.

But here...in this time, for this period...I ride the middle--watching for signs, listening for cues, following clues...open. I remain open.

Good things are coming.

Ahh...

Anyway, it's 11:20 PM. I just finished a movie that I was hoping to be my next "Feast of Love". Sometimes, rarely, a movie speaks to me--speaks into a corner of my inside that waits for this sort of whisper. This was "Feast of Love" for me and tonight, I thought it might be "My Blueberry Nights".

No suck luck, no such chance.

It was good--interesting characters but very little pull in. I was so not impressed with Nora Jones as an actress. Like, was her musical contribution conditional? Was she doled a role for trade?

She's alright but alright does not an actress make.

Perhaps I expected too much--that's a lot of pressure for a movie to have to speak to the corners of one's insides.

That's a funny sentence.

'Night

Emotion Work

As I sit down to write, to channel my thoughts onto the screen before me, to wade through the words as I seek out the adequate, dare I say, perfect structure of expression, I feel guilty.

I am so devoted to my children, so hyper-aware of my impact on them and the opportunities inherent in each moment that I am frequently struck by guilt when I'm not with them, interacting, entertaining, educating, talking with, listening to, working for.

If only there were some sort of formula for the proper use of time toward child-rearing.

Yeah right.

So each thought that I have is interrupted by the pull, the feeling of angst building inside as they play in another room, occupying themselves while mommy writes, thinks, reads...hell, while mommy breathes. Unloads. Unwinds.

I don't have my late nights to unfold into any more--I'm too damn tired. 11:00 at night and I'm looking for my pillow through heavy lids and a tired body.

I miss my late nights--it was time that I felt I could have without feeling as if I was taking it away from someone else...them.

There's a sociological term for what I'm dealing with--I'll have to look it up.

Hmmm...Now that I've written that, my curiosity is peaked...I'll have to go scope the bookshelf. Otherwise, I'll make up my own.

Aha!

'Emotion work' coined by Arlie Hochschild.

I knew it existed man--I read her like the bible in grad school.

Emotion work: relates to the unpaid emotional work that a person undertakes in their relationships with family and friends. Examples of emotion work include showing affection, apologizing after an argument, bringing up problems that need to be addressed in an intimate relationship or any kind of interpersonal relationship, and making sure the household runs smoothly. Cultural norms often imply that emotion work is reserved for females.

SO not my words. I nabbed from the web--Wikipedia to be exact, which no good researcher ever admits but in this respect, I can because I have studied enough Arlie Hochschild and others to know that this definition of emotion work is dead on.

I'm done for now. The guilt won.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Below, what I think of love but could not muster the words for written by my new favorite poet--the love I dream of, the love I want:

"The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky."

"For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been given to us, the ultimate, the final problem and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation."

"I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other. "

"You who never arrived in my arms, Beloved, who were lost from the start, I don't even know what songs would please you. I have given up trying to recognize you in the surging wave of the next moment. All the immense images in me -- the far-off, deeply-felt landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and un- suspected turns in the path, and those powerful lands that were once pulsing with the life of the gods-- all rise within me to mean you, who forever elude me. You, Beloved, who are all the gardens I have ever gazed at, longing. An open window in a country house-- , and you almost stepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets that I chanced upon,-- you had just walked down them and vanished. And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back my too-sudden image. Who knows? Perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us yesterday, separate, in the evening... "

"Think... of the world you carry within you."

Only now

Lately, life has passed me so quickly. I can remember how days used to linger and moment-to-moment appreciation was real and something I practiced.

Perhaps it's the crazy schedule I'm keeping but I miss my children, I miss our leisure. I miss curling up with books and games and passing time.

I miss really hearing what they say. This is something I'm actively practicing today--to stop and look them in their eyes and listen. How freakin' hard is that? How busy am I that I can't look at them and hear them?

Through intention that I am cultivating moment-to-moment today, I plan to make the most of this day. First, I'm taking time for me because without a healthy and centered me, there will be no looking in the eyes for them and certainly no hearing them.

I'm reading a book with a cup of chicory--while the rice cooks. Taking the time to actually read the words and find a meaning.

Then it's lunch time--back into mom mode but I'll try to prepare the food without haste and with appreciation that it's here, that we have food to prepare and that I have children to feed.

At some point, yoga must be figured in...perhaps this evening.

But for now, I read, I breathe and think only of the moment I am in.

There's a time for looking forward and there's a time for looking back, but that time is not today. Today, there can be only now.

15 minutes 'til dinner

I am determined to write--something, anything!

Taught yoga this evening. I was teaching at the very school I certified at and, no pressure, my teacher was in class w/a new cohort of students coming through.

Sadly, I had a small class--3 students but 9 w/the teacher trainees. I had hoped to fill the place and impress her but even I have noticed my numbers dwindling in that class. I try not to take it to heart, it is summer after all but the bottom line is, I teach a different brand of yoga than the other teachers of her studio.

Less talking, less alignment language and more encouragement to go inside, stay inside, listen to your body's wisdom, etc.

I was ToTaLLy nervous with her there because I know my style has changed since I left her class--I'm gravitating toward an authentic yogic experience. Not that this particular studio is not authentic, yoga is yoga, right? I just want more, rather, I want different. I want student's to have their own experience--not one I tell them to have.

Ah well.

Got up early to talk to my daughter this morning. I have been able to tell lately that she needs me, she needs me to look her in the eyes and ask about life. I've been busy teaching and making a path for myself that I've cheated the children.

It felt good to talk to her, to really hear her and look her in the eyes.

Need to go check on dinner--it's 8 here and we're just now getting there.

Love,
Me

Passing Time...

I have neglected this blog sorely as of late, which speaks to a neglect of my soul, my self. Writing is my passion and when it falls by the wayside of life, a part of me falls there with it.

The spiritual piece of me has been moderately nourished with the concentration of yoga and yogic studies in my life. I'm practicing on a daily basis--the physical asanas and the practice of mindfulness. Meditation/quiet reflection time is something I usually incorporate into my asana practice--if I sit, I get distracted. I think of bills, the kids outside the room I sit in, the dog, "has she been walked?", dinner plans, "do I have any celery in the crisper?", money, "can I afford to buy that business?" and whatever else comes up in the silence. I need to work on this.

Breath creates space. I read this in "YinSights", a text on Yin Yoga that I'm reading. When I breathe, it certainly creates space, space that is immediately filled with thought.

The physical piece of me is nourished as well through my asana practice and my mental stimulation from the study, so what of my writing? What side of me is that?

It is my heart center. The center of me where passion lives, barely a simmer. And passion is quiet, unobtrusive--she waits her turn. Sometimes, she musters the strength to stand her ground after a lifetime of neglect and oversight and she stares into the eyes of her beholder, who, upon sensing her presence, has a quiet epiphany--a revelation too late in it's revealing. There is no more time and there is a realization of what could have been...if only.

I don't want to have to face her that way, I want for a better connection between myself and passion. I want to heed her presence, to hear her soft whisper and turn when she taps on the shoulder.

As a mother, my life is dictated by taps on my shoulder, calls for my attention, templates for my time.

As a person with an inalienable right to life and all of its living, I have to remind myself of me from time to time. There is obligation there too. More than obligation. It is inherent, it is necessity, it is akin to breathing and a beating heart.

Passion and I sustain one another and the force of that connection and preservation means that we can also be our greatest force of opposition, that which can hinder or even annihilate the other.

I don't want to finally notice her when I have little life left to live. I can't imagine the pain of knowing that I was ultimately my greatest barrier to all that I could've been, all that I could've done.

Toothcare & Plastic Yogurt Tubs?

Intrigued?

As was I.

Lately, I have become a discriminating consumer--really looking close at the companies I buy from and their products, even paying more if I need to for better ethics and practices. I let my dollar speak for me; it's a universal language.

When I was introduced to Recycline, I thought, it's about time because it was only a matter of time.

Recycline is a maker of eco-friendly household items and here are their core principles, taken directly from their website (http://www.recycline.com/):

• Preserve products are made from 100% recycled plastics and 100% post-consumer paper. By using recycled materials, we save energy, preserve natural resources and create an incentive for communities to recycle.

• All of our plastic products are recyclable, either through our postage-paid labels and mailers (toothbrushes and razor handles) or at the curb in communities that recycle #5 plastic.

• We make our products in the USA, so that we can ship them shorter distances, using less fuel and limiting our environmental footprint.

• We don’t test on animals. Period.

• Preserve products are made to last – and to look good doing it.

Recycline makes razors, toothbrushes, flavored toothpicks, tableware, food storage, cutting boards and a few other household/kitchenware items.

I tried the toothbrush which was, thanks to the forward thinking of Recycline, made from recycled yogurt cups, some of which are from Stonyfield Farms yogurt, and better than that, Recycline includes a postage paid mailer for the consumer to return the toothbrush for recycling when it reaches it's life capacity--AT NO CHARGE TO THE CONSUMER.

Check out the bristles cleaning my pearly whites lately:

http://www.recycline.com/toothbrush.html

Target is selling them for $2.04 and Recycline has coupons on their website for several of their products.

What impressed me the most is that I didn't have to sacrifice a quality toothbrush for my eco-mania, I was able to have both. Better still? The toothbrush comes in a handy travel case--no wasted paperboard or plastic casing for this brush and the case gets recycled right along with the brush to be born again into plastic lumber for picnic tables, boardwalks and decks.

Dare I say, I'm smitten?

To say the least...

as I've made a habit of doing here, my life has been busy. I have had NO time to myself and when I have managed to squelch some out, I waste it or veg from utter exhaustion.

I have become a working mom--well, I've always worked, that's what we moms do but as of late, I work a lot more outside of the house for pay. I'm teaching yoga 6 days a week and still on call as a rape advocate 1 day and 1 night a week.

I have no choice but to have this schedule of mine so racked full of paid labor--student loans are due this month. I have extended for as long as I can, no more extensions allowed in my future--it is time.

Why I have them at all is another story for another time but the sound bite is this: stay-at-home mother finds herself without the husband she once depended on, the one who vowed to stay and provide and nurture, and she returns to school for an education and access to loans enabling her to be the presence she always planned and wanted to be in her dear children's lives.

The shitter is this, if I don't pay my student loans, I will have everything in my life seized and every dollar in my future garnished. He doesn't pay child support for children he fathered and no one notices but me.

The government gets a lot of free rides from us moms--this is just one more freakin' turn on the Ferris Wheel as I see it.

Coming back from that little rant, that has clearly been sitting at the surface needing voice, I have enjoyed several weeks of relative financial freedom. Well, it's more like a vacation because when on vacation, you go away and eventually return. We've had some spurts of unexpected money that has cushioned us and in between the cushions we come right back to where we always reside--shit broke.

I have enjoyed picking up dinner here and there instead of cooking, buying a cup of coffee a few mornings a week throwing caution to the wind, stocking up on bulk items from our local Corporate-Co and paying bills that might typically be ranked in order of importance. The ride is almost over.

We have one more stimulus check coming but because of other expenses, most necessary and some frivolous, that check is paying our mortgage this month. It is spoken for and the tight reigns of my financial life pull me back in check.

It will be alright--if I look at my life from the outside in, I see these patterns. The ups followed by downs followed by ups followed by downs. The certainty is there, this certainty that I long for, this assurance or "knowing"--it has been and will forever be there all the time. When I am up, I am sure to come down yet when I am down, I am sure to come up.

The trick is finding peace in those variations, those fluctuations of spirit, mood and situation.

In yoga, I tell my students to ride the breath--when in poses that challenge your mind and your body, ride the breath, notice the breath and how it creates the subtle changes of alignment, how it focuses the mind.

So I breathe...and live.

I have always been (and still am) the person who likes hitting rock bottom in Monopoly or any other board game with colorful money involved. Every time I play I'm okay with financially sinking and in retrospect I see that I enjoy the creativity sparked from necessity. My senses heighten and my mind clears and necessity dictates my actions.

My best papers were always written the night before and my best actions come forth when the chips are down.

I am a creative soul and money, it's presence or absence in my life, will not be my demise because in pouring my heart, soul and labor into my children their entire lives, I figure, I am well into a sweet little IRA.

Mommy wants an apartment in NY with a rooftop garden plot and a monthly allowance enough to sustain me in-between your visits.

Love,
Mom

The Art of Listening

Look in their eyes, hear their words, understand how they feel--give them ALL of you for that moment they speak.

More Garden Woes

First, the weight of one of my butternut squash, that I failed to fashion a hammock for in time, snapped the vine. I lost about three feet of vine and two budding squash--one medium size well on its way to the table and one strong baby.

Lesson learned--all remaining squash are in nylon hammocks and vines secured to bamboo stakes.

Second, this morning I take my walk outside to check-in with my plot. I start with the porch garden, looking in on the seedlings, cantaloupe and butternut, then the herbs, peppers. Looking good. No frog burrows this morning from our resident porch frog. Then I make my way to the raised bed--ah. Bees burrowing their little busy bodies into the succulent centers of our sunflowers--there are about 10. Beautiful. I notice an extra splash of yellow in an out of place sort of place--I look in closer, excited by the possibility that we have a new bloom. Not exactly.

The yellow splash that I spy is not a new flower like I had anticipated but the head of a mature sunflower that has been snapped in half at mid-stem, no doubt by hungry, greedy ass little squirrels feasting on the bountiful center of seed. Argh.

Upon closer inspection, I see that they have completely removed the heads of two other dwarf variety sunflowers edging the plot. Argh. Fuckers.

I have to tell my kids, these were their babies. As sad as it is, it helps them understand the anguish I feel over the worm infestation as it devastates the plants I have nurtured from seed.

We have declared war--at least a firm resistance. They are earth's creatures after all, simply looking for food albeit overeating for sure.

Cayenne pepper seems to be the go-to measure of force to deter the sneaky rats, ah...um...squirrels.

Moving forward in our experimental gardening venture, we have grown in knowledge yet again.

But really, can't we just get there already?

My Challenge to Every Human Being...

...especially the ones groaning about the costs of food, try growing it your damn self.

No really. TRY.

Asparagus cost too much for you? Grow a bundle. Better than that, I further challenge you to grow a bundle without lading it with toxic chemicals to fend off nasty critters ready to devastate your plot.

For that matter, grow anything naturally--you'll find that you appreciate the effort involved in bringing your edibles into fruition.

I have a new found appreciation, hell, it's damn near idol worship, of farmers and gardeners everywhere.

In this one week, my poor little plot has been invaded by hornworms--the tomatoes are the real victims here as those slithery little bastards help themselves minute-by-minute to their foliage, reducing it to skeletal, web-like remains.

What the hell to do? I'm gardening organically so I can't just blast the fudgers. I did find one spray at my local corporate-big-beast-we-offer-token-organic-supplies warehouse, but get this: The spray wears a label naming it "for organic gardening" yet when you peel the sticky label back to read the real-deal, it announces that the product is TOXIC TO BEES.

Really? Toxic to bees? Bees need anymore shit right now? Aren't they just trying to keep their colonies from collapsing?

So....

I take my search to the Internet and find a spray identifying itself as "Caterpillar Killer" and apparently a recommended choice of organic gardeners and, well, bees for sure :-)

I pay 12.00 for the product and $9.00 to ship it here--Jesus-freakin-Christ. I know $21.00 seems a small price but having already sunk nearly $400.00 into my gardening venture thus far, I need a fucking life boat NOT an overpriced caterpillar kool-aid.

The best part of this chapter in my little story is this--by the time the kool-aid gets here, my plants are likely to be sucked dry of their life by the hornworms. My only option to keep some sort of reign on the fudgers is to pluck the visible ones off throughout the day and slice them in half with a stick or bludgeon them with a rock reducing them to green paste and leaving them for ant food.

Yum, right?

12 hours later in my day...

Fortunately, I scoped the foliage tonight and found less than I have been finding--only two stems packed with babies, that I ground to mush, and a few leaves with mid-sizers that I sliced in half. I am, forever more, the hornworm assassin. Tell your friends you little bastards.

This makes me think that I can potentially stall their progression until my deadly, buff kool-aid arrives.

I can only hope--other wise this has been not only a painful lesson as I mourn my lost life but an expensive one.

Growers of organic food everywhere, I bow to you and will do less wincing during my market trips from here forward AND I will enjoy the fruit of your labor, forever more, in awe of your commitment and bounty.

Down by the banks...

...of hanky panky where the butternut hangs all swanky-swanky.

Yeah. So I've been having loads of hanky-panky with my butternut flowers, delicately taking the yellow powder from the stamen of the male flowers and transferring it to the pistil of the female flowers with a small paint brush. Ideally, these fancy terms I'm throwing out here are the correct names of the the parts I'm doinking on a daily basis.

It's cool though--the female flowers that I am not able to 'pollinate' shrivel and drop off but the ones that are fertilized are plumping up like a round pregnant belly.

The Daily Grind

Surely, I jest.

I commute to work and the drive is roughly 30-45 minutes, with traffic for the first half only and c'mon, I'm driving to the beach. Not a bad gig, right?

When I arrive at the studio, I unlock the building and roll out my mat. Then it's time for my first morning break.

I begin my 'round the corner' walk to the beach and start the time when my feet hit the sand. I like to give myself a solid 30-40 minute wake-up walk.

I am in awe of the crashing waves before me, the smell of the ocean hanging heavy in the air and the feel of the sand on my bare feet. It feels like freedom and salvation all at the same time, it feels like hope and promise.

I think I stopped loving the beach a couple of years after I moved here--a single gal of 18. Where it had once represented escape and refuge for me, after my first child it represented sand in my car, sand in her diaper, a mad supply of towels to keep wet butts off my car seats, a thousand supplies stuffed into an over-capacity diaper bag equipped to anticipate 2,000 different scenarios but never actually prepared for one, watching and waiting for her to dash into water with a mind and strength of its own, the salt water in the eye cry and if her dad came along, his sandy feet in my car too and another towel for his wet bum because we know who cleaned it up after every beach outing.

I'm falling in love again. As I walk there 3 mornings a week, alone and free, I am drawn back into the refuge of this place and I know I am blessed to be here for, of all things, my 'job'.

Once I'm down the beach about 20 minutes, then I turn around for the journey back so I have time to prepare for class.

Soak it up, take it in, watch for shells under my feet but also scope the vitality of the water--the time passes like a vapor dissipating before you have any real sense that it was there.

I turn for one last look out over the beach, one last contemplation of the vast ocean and I turn to leave.

Back in the studio, I unlock the doors, light the incense, start the music as the gentle chants fill the space and then I wait.

I wait for my students and I smile because I know how lucky I am--how right I am for this.

They trickle in, we greet each other and I'm so glad they've come. I'm glad that they want this as much as I want to offer it up

We move through our practice, we breathe, they make it their own and all too soon, it's over.

I lead them into relaxation, mist their space with lavender, prepare a reading and wait for their bodies to rejuvenate in Savasana.

We close our yoga circle by coming back to the seated position from which we started, holding the final moments of inwardness. Eyes open and we bow, Namaste.

They trickle out and I walk across the street to get a cup of coffee for my drive back home from a morning's work--ah, the daily grind. Thank goodness.

Tina, Tina Quite Verbena, How Does Your Garden Grow?

I am inspired, by another blogger I've recently corresponded with, to add pictures of my own garden to my blog. This is the full-frontal of my raised bed--the pollinator seductresses clad in terra-cotta pots.

A close-up of my pollinator seductresses--how sexy and irresistible are they?

This is a side view that shows my big-boy tomatoes in the foreground and cherries (tomatoes, that is) beyond them--basically, a giant green foliage cluster!

My nasturtiums fighting for their space but doing mighty fine.

Red climbers doing what they do--they are flowering these vibrantly red flowers and vibing me to keep the butternut vine from taking them over!












Beyond the sunflower I have moved aside, you'll see my jalapeno just trying to be a pepper and fighting for a bit-o-sunshine.

Front view of the butternut going nuts.













This is the rear view of the other butternut. I have to check on these sneaky, territorials daily and unwind their vines from the surrounding garden occupants.

Here is my parsley, sprouting up from seed and to the right, an orange seed hiding under the soil, awaiting it's debut!









To the left, in order of appearance, behold my basil, cilantro sproutlets grown from seed and more basil.

Catnip grown from seed by my little man--a favorite of squirrels and stray, well, cats.

My children's father

My posts as of late have been peppered with references to him. It has been almost four years since he talked with the kids, longer since he's seen them and I found him on My Space.

I wrote earlier that we had heard from his son--the one he put up for adoption 19 years ago. This confrontation, of sorts, prompted me to talk with the kiddos about their dad--were they even still interested in knowing him, talking to him, seeing him?

Resounding YES.

Before I could even ask my questions, their answer was yes.

I was determined to find him, for them and partly, in a way, sort of, for me. I don't remember making it easy for him--and by that, I don't mean I stood in the way or didn't pick up the phone or limited his visits. I mean, I didn't make it easy for him. He's a certain sort of guy--passionate and deep and because of his life story, vulnerable to emotional panic or withdraw.

I was typical--I constantly asked about child support, reminding him of his financial obligations to the children he fathered, reminding him that I was not the only parent, that he had to assume some level of responsibility, that he should be just as concerned for their well-being as I was, that he had to be consistent. Blah, ex-wife, mother-of-his-children, blah.

Mind you, he has NEVER paid child support of any significance. The first year of our separation, my attorney had child support and alimony drafted from his income every pay day but after that year, I have maybe received a total of $300.00 from him for the last 7 years of their lives. I'm here to tell ya, I've spent a bit more than that on raising them.

Anywho--in resurrecting him from absent-father land, I resolved to let it go. He's never going to assume any level of responsibility for them, much less financial, and he's never going to take their care as seriously as I do. Bottom-line.

In the wake of my conversation with the kiddos about finding their father, I began talking to them about him, this man they knew only through faded memories of their own, pictures embodying their disconnect and what I passed along.

It suddenly became important to me that they know they came from love--regardless of what happened to him and I later down our road, they were of love. A deep, passionate love between two people desperate for each other at one time.

In retelling these stories to them, I think I became attached to a memory of him from then. My emotions were hard to categorize, they were blurred and out of context.

In my defense, I never got closure in our relationship. One day he came home from work, 8 hours late, and said he was leaving--we needed a divorce. My world crashed--I was at the lowest place I'd ever been and sinking with every action he took toward leaving us behind. He never looked back.

I didn't think I was going to surface from that--I had meaningless sex with meaningless people, drank too much, ate too little and damn near lost my will to mother my children. It was a long road back for me from that period of my life.

Then, finally, closure.

After reconnecting with their dad for about two weeks over the phone, I invited him to come stay in my home (because I knew he couldn't afford a hotel) and spend time with the kiddos for the weekend.

I stayed close. No way was I trusting him alone--after this long, I don't even know him.

We watched movies, went to little man's play--all three shows--and they slept together on the futon. I knew how important that was to them.

Saturday, when we were driving home from the last play of little mans, I asked their father to go walking with me when we got home. I needed a walk and wouldn't dare walk alone after dark.

While walking he told me that he was sorry for the way he left--he said I didn't deserve that and it's bothered him every since.

Closure.

Closure is such an odd thing really and, in the end, unnecessary. I didn't need him to take responsibility in order to know already that he had been wrong. But I can honestly say, that I just got over my divorce last year, the process and the experience that is, I've been over our lost love for longer.

But it took me that long to mourn, to mourn him, to mourn for the interuption to our family, to long for him, hate him and forgive him and to redefine my new family. In forgiving him, I think I thought I loved him like I did then but that wasn't it at all. I love him in a new way. I love him as a human being not strong enough to take the first step toward his children without me. I love him because they love him and because they resemble him and because they have certain characteristics of his--she has the shape of his face, he has his eyes. She has his toes and he has his dimples.

How could I look at them everyday, loving them everyday and harbor ANY resentment or ill-feelings toward him?

I couldn't reconcile it in my heart.

So his acceptance of blame and expression of remorse was a seal on my heart, already pieced back together nicely. And his visit was a firm reminder that I've already walked that road--the scenery hasn't changed, the path has crumbled through the years making it even more treacherous and my destination is transcendental now because the theme of my living is greatness.

I am more.

Verbal Diarrhea: Part II

I'm done.

Verbal Diarrhea: Part I

Ever been a victim of?

Ever spewed it to your ex?

Ever said SO much fucking shit AND kept talking past the point when you should've shut the FUCK up?

Ever dealt with emotions that you've buried deep inside yourself, for yourself, where you don't even know what you feel, who you feel for or why and suddenly you're on this plane of existence--it's shaky, it's foreign, it's familiar, it's real, it's illusion, it's tumultuous and crazy and inexplicable and spawned from nothing but maybe everything.

Did you ever have someone giving you advice who is SO categorically uNqUaLiFiEd? A person so unfit to speak an ounce of alleged wisdom that their tongue should be removed?

I can't explain what happened tonight, I can't explain why I opened my mouth--I think sometimes I need to hear my own words, to talk something over with myself in order to make sense of something myself, to say something out loud regardless of who I share my voice with. There seems to be but one requisite--said 'hearer' must breathe and walk and, apparently, be inextricably tied to my past. Of my past so as to be THE past, like, THE story that gets told. Whatever.

I'm not being totally honest here. In fact, I'm evading the truth because I don't want to admit the ugly truth--the awful, embarrassing, ugly, backward truth.

For one second or a few, for one day or several, if at all, I think I wanted something back--something I haven't had in a while. Something I haven't wanted in a while. Someone. Him.

It's best explained by understanding that the past few weeks have been something of a soul-shake, a breath-quake--for me, for the kids and surely my honey though we rarely talk about it.

For fuck's sake--it's been cRaZy. I can't even muster the words to categorize the level of crazy, to capture the experience for what it's really worth.

I have felt every emotion available in my arsenal of emotions and I have felt them backwards and I have felt them sideways and I have felt them deep, raw and unprotected, unguarded, exposed. Totally exposed. I have felt them alone, inside, this total internal trip because that's how I roll--this lone warrioress that I suppose myself to be.

But in this total eclipse of the heart, this total darkening, shadowing, I surfaced cleansed of all idiotic notions heretofore unspoken.

It's like, for the past couple weeks, I've had SO many questions that I didn't even know what I wanted to ask. I had so many thoughts, I didn't know what to think. And the emotions tied to all of these questions and thoughts, these emotions that crossed spans of time and criss-crossed again, making them almost current, almost relevant again, almost...real? Like I awoke from a coma where time had moved me forward but my heart was parked in another era.

Only there was no coma and time was steadfast.

"Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you when you think everything's okay"~~Alanis Morissette

Sure as shit.

I embrace my compulsion to speak what's on my mind and I even further embrace and exert my right to experiment within the spectrum of my emotions, to try them out and try them on.

There are times when I think I am a mess--a total wreck. And then there are times when I remind myself, usually in the aftermath, that I am alive. I am just alive and as such, I am open to mishaps and foibles and prone to travel the paths of various emotions, these little links to consciousness that connect us to others, to self and beyond.

As this living being that I am, I am subject to myself and all that implies.

My children's brother?

I just talked to my ex-husband's son and not the one we had together.

I'll start at the beginning.

My ex-husband is a phantom. He lives his life under the radar so it's not unusual that I would get a call from someone looking for him...like tonight.

I noticed a TN phone number on my caller id that I did not recognize but because I have family in TN, I picked up the phone.

The male voice on the other line asked for my ex-husband by his first name. Obviously, I responded that he had the wrong number and hung up.

I was marginally concerned that an individual was calling for him versus the usual business or creditor but swept it under the rug...for 10 minutes.

My heart leapt when the phone rang again from the same number. This time, when I answered, the caller apologized first and then asked if I knew ** ** (name of my ex), it was very important he said.

I explained that he was my ex but I had not heard from him in over 3 years.

"This is his son."

My heart fell--I knew of this adoption so I knew, from what he shared, that he was telling the truth.

This 19 year-old young man just had a son himself and is trying to find his father, a man that makes a life of leaving loved ones buried in the past with not so much as a glance back in their direction--even those whose diapers he changed, whose little fingers grasped his own as they were taking their first shaky steps, those whose first word was da-da and they meant it for him.

I gave him all the information I had which amounted to very little.

I didn't tell him he was chasing a ghost.

The Family has Left the House

I have been alone since about 9:00 this morning and ya wanna know something? I'm okay. I'm actually really enjoying myself. It's freakin' fantastic!

I drank coffee, wrote, read email, responded to email, checked on my garden, ate lunch, watched TV, took a shower, took a power nap on the sofa, wrote some more, emailed some more...

I'd like to have higher aspirations for my time alone but in the wake of a pretty scary migraine episode yesterday, one that impaired my vision for about an hour, I'm taking it easy today.

Chillin'

I would like to practice yoga before the night gets away from me, maybe make a run to the grocery store but in truth, I'm waiting on a call back from a yoga studio. They made me an offer and I countered their offer with my own, what I think are fair, terms~~now it's a waiting game.

I SO want this.

Sure, it's a long drive, about 40 minutes to the beach, but great experience and exposure that I really want to have under my 'yoga strap'. But I'll be okay either way~~I sort of have to be. But I really want this.

More later cuz' I got nothin' but time...