New life revolution

Wow.

What a year.

Lots of love, lots of drama, lots of soul-searching. I haven't posted in awhile because my family has been going through some crisis. I say my family, specifically I mean my son and his wife. It hasn't been pretty. But the good news is that I'm done.

Done in a good way. Done enabling and being the middleman for a grown man and his grown wife. Tomorrow, I'm going to call a much recommended counselor and make an appointment. It's time to shed my baggage, my co-dependent tendencies, much guilt and much anger. It's time to make some goals and see them through.

I have things I want to accomplish. Writing, for one. I want to be published in something other than a college literary journal. I have new, creative avenues I want to explore and many places to visit. I have daughters who are with me for only a few more years before they make their way out into the world. They need me to be on top of my game and I need me to be on top of my game. I need to see them, who they are. I've spent way too many years getting by, coping and missing out on the joy of life. Way too many years not believing in myself. Way too many years taking care of everyone except myself.

Time for a change.

It's time for a new life revolution.

Dan the Man

I was on my way back from Austin, Texas, when I heard the news that Dan Fogelberg died yesterday, December 16th. I loved Dan. In high school, his lyrics moved me. Each night, as I fell asleep, I listened to a few select albums..."James Taylor's Greatest Hits" by none other than, James Taylor, Pink Floyd's "The Wall", the soundtrack to "Popeye" and Dan Fogelberg's "The Innocent Age".

Uber dork.

Let's face it, in the late seventies and early eighties, the music sometimes lacked in poetic lyrics. "Sha, la, la, la, la, la, my lady...in the sun with your dress undone..." That's "Thunder Island" for you youngsters. However, a few artists led the way to the sweet, contemporary, lyrical music of today of Ingrid Michaelson, Sondre Lerche, Damien Rice, Catherine Feeney, just to name a few. A very few. There's A LOT of good music out there these days. Dan Fogelberg was one of the pioneers who led the way. So much of his music told a story...remember "Leader of the Band"?

And, every year, at Christmas and New Years, the local, crappy radio stations play one of my favorite songs of all time..."Same Old Lang Syne". It always gives me goosebumps and almost always makes me cry. I don't know why. Something about reflecting on love lost and getting older and disillusioned. No wonder I cry...that's depressing. But I LOVE that song and look forward to hearing it on the radio during Christmas.

I heard it today several times but each time they played it, the dj prefaced it as a tribute to Dan. It's pretty much a guaranteed tear-fest from here on out, everytime I hear it.

I will miss you, Dan.

"And as I turned to make my way back home, the snow turned into rain..."

Thanksgiving Stuff

My husband and and my girls just got back from a whirlwind Thanksgiving trip. We squeezed in months worth of visiting with his family, my inlaws and old friends in less than 72 hours. We had mechanical problems with our car, I came back with a cold, and a car full of luggage and newly acquired stuff to unpack and sort. It's good to be home.

In the midst of the trip, I was in survival mode and didn't really have time to enjoy the moments but as we got closer and closer to home, I was overwhelmed with a sense of gratefulness for my life. I am so thankful for my loving, sweet husband. He is the most amazing person I have ever met. I finally got it right. I know what a healthy, loving relationship is like. I'm grateful for my three kids, Jesse, tall, blonde, gangly, sensitive...my only son. Stevey, also tall, brunette, clumsy, sweet, slightly neurotic, beautiful oldest daughter. Sara, not so tall, brunette, smart, outgoing, beautiful, sweet, slightly selfish and cynical baby of the family. My grandchildren, sweet, baby Brian and hilarious, active Makaila.

I need never complain, although I know I will. Read my last blog. Or don't.

And thanks, D, for the gift to the right! I love guitar girl and I know just where I'll put her...

Happy Thanksgiving!

The water's fine...really

This is my first little piece of writing for nanowrimo. I've managed to squeeze out 447 words, way below where I should be on day four, but still I'm pleased. Pleased because I started with one sentence that popped into my head that I liked and God knows, that's a miracle with all the crap that's circulating in their lately. I have always been one who warms up to new ideas very slowly, almost begrudgingly, so this is me...sticking my big toe in the water, testing the temperature....

I have never wanted to live in this house.

It was Stuart’s idea. He saw it, fell in love with it and purchased it without ever talking to me. I was content in the Autumn Street house and had been for five years. I knew every crack in the wall, which stairs creaked and how long it took for the water to get hot in the downstairs bathroom. I knew how to jiggle the key to get the front door unlocked and about the leak under the kitchen sink which Stuart never fixed, no matter how many times he tried. We called it the mystery leak. We sat a bucket under the sink and changed it periodically. Sometimes we forgot for months until one of us noticed the damp, moldy smell coming from beneath the sink.

This was the home we first made love in, the home we embarked on our first few years of marriage in and had our first argument in. The home in which we became a family. I never wanted to leave it but it’s possible that Stuart felt the house was more mine than his. I bought the home on my own before we met and have always been very proud of this accomplishment. It had character, unique space and quirky traits that felt like me.

Stuart’s purchase of the Summer Street home was out of character for him. He never made a move without talking to me first. I cannot say the same. My personality has been molded and shaped from years of neglectful relationships. I forge ahead often as if there isn’t anyone else to consider. It’s mostly out of habit but it is also a conscious effort to remain independent. Inconsiderate, yes, to Stuart but necessary for my survival. I’ve been in love before and I’ve been left before and I never want to feel that loss again.

If you’re thinking that there is a gentle, sweet foreshadowing of moving from a home on Autumn Street to Summer Street, you’d be wrong. Things aren’t always what they seem they should be and in my life, my summer’s have always been harsher than my autumns. That was my foreshadowing but Stuart wouldn’t listen. He has always said that I think too much. At times he is right, but at other times, I am right but he doesn’t hear me for all of the noise that I am constantly making. He loved me then and found my over-analytical brain amusing and endearing. Why is that the things you love the most about a person in the beginning become the things you despise most about that person later?

What we don't see...

People are so strange. I worked a booth for my job tonight at a trade show. I love people watching. Across the aisle from me was a guy selling aluminum cookware. He had the whole package. Wireless microphone, rows of seating, two stages with all of his gadgets set up and signs, signs, signs. This guy had charisma like I've never seen. I mean he went on and on about American made products, sealing the vitamins in vegetables, lifetime warranty, diabetes, and a one time only promotional. He asked everyone's names at the beginning and addressed all of them personally through his "show." I wasn't surprised to see older women in the audience, nodding their heads, tasting his chicken-n-herbs. I was very surprised, however, to see three guys, probably very early twenties, dirty baseball caps, sleeves cut out of their shirts and rolling toothpicks from one corner of their mouth to the other, completely mesmerized for the entire forty-five minute presentation. In the end, they were holding clipboards and trying to decide which package to buy. None of them looked like they even knew how to use a stove.

This guy is a bonafied salesman.

His wife helped by handling out samples, smiling at people and anything else he asked...an assistant. But towards the end of the night, I noticed movement behind the curtain. They had built a little room behind the stage and as the curtain blew open slightly in the breeze, I saw his wife. She was sitting in a chair with her arms wrapped tightly around her. Her eyes were closed and she was rocking back and forth. At her feet was a child's quilt with smiling Elmos.

I wonder what her story is?

Scavenger Hunt Tuesday

Yesterday, I was in a nostalgic, generous mood, thinking about my friends and what they mean to me and why I love them so much. And, as sometimes happens in my world, one thought leads to another which leads to another which reminds me of a particular item and before you know it, I've spent hours of the day not working but on a mad scavenger hunt to find that item. On the way, I find various other items that need to be remembered and 'ooed' and 'awwed' over, which is why I lose a whole day.

So...while I was writing my blog yesterday, I became obsessed with finding a volume of poetry that Dino had given me years ago with an inscription in the front about how one day I would publish my own volume of poetry. I was going to take a picture of it and use it in the blog, and thus the search began. I looked everywhere. The downstairs bookshelf in the living room, in the hutch that i use as another bookshelf, only displaying my most valued and beloved books, on the bay windowsill in the dining room, on the floor next to the bookshelf in the living room, lovingly lining the wall beneath a window, on my dresser where another collection is held together by an old wine bottle from my honeymoon and a cool, iron lamp...and various other places where I can sneak in a few books. I'm like a child who spreads his food around on his plate so his parents won't notice he hasn't eaten anything...maybe my husband won't notice how many books that I haven't eaten.

I became increasingly irritated when I couldn't find it because I had just seen the book about a month ago, so I began to do what everyone does when they can't find something...I kept looking in all the same places muttering under my breath damn it, i know it's here somewhere, thinking that maybe by the fourth or fifth time I looked on that same bookshelf that it would be suddenly be there. Finally, I gave up and decided to finish the blog without the picture and returned to my desk, where I began to stare out the window at my favorite squirrel who loves to play on the roof of my neighbors house...hours of fun. I noticed a small stack of books in the windowsill, with a candle sitting on top, one of which was the volume of poetry I had been searching for all morning. These are how I spend most of my days. Futile.

Finding the book lead me to thinking about how I haven't written a new poem in quite a few years, which lead me to the attic to search for a box of my work, which lead me down another memory lane when I found two notebooks that belonged to my first husband with various songs and poems he had written (I'll have to save this for another blog) which lead me to folders and folders of old work from my creative writing classes.

I began to realize that I haven't written anything remotely close to those angst ridden poems and short stories in such a long time. What happened? Kids, school, work, financial burdens, divorce...just life in general. Which made me think that I have tons, and I mean tons, of stuff to write about besides my day to day bullshit.

I found one particularly interesting and flattering critique of one of my poems entitled "What it's about" which reads as follows:

Melinda, You absolutely MUST apply for the 400 course w/rabbit. I'm not a great poet, but I do recognize it when I read it. You've got that talent most of us must learn. The ability to import emotion into an unrelative reader. I actually felt this!! You're gonna publish someday, and I'll love to write the forward. There was no distance here - I liked that. I also liked how you didn't feel you had to elaborate on everything. You stayed w/why you write. Leave the details for other poems. ~ MG

Who is MG? I don't remember. I don't remember a lot of things from that particular time in my life. But whoever you are, thank you for that. Because what you didn't know was that 12 years later, I would pick this up and remember, and become inspired to write my poetry again.

Hopefully, I will publish and make enough money to support my family after I get fired from my job for spending my days searching for inspiration.

The saga continues...

Stupid People, Little Italy and Setting Free the Bears....

Disclaimer: This entry is going to be all over the place.

Topic 1: Why don't people say what they mean?

I received an email from a disgruntled employee earlier today. My boss is very controlling and he coaches me on what to say. I don't need his coaching...I know how to reply. This is KILLING ME. I love words. Words are to me like a hammer is to a carpenter. I like to use them. I search endlessly for the exact word to fit what I'm trying to express as if my life depended on it. But I think what's getting to me the most is how she ended the email..."with warmest regards,"...is today opposite day? What she meant (did I mention she is disgruntled?) is "dietonightstupidbitch."

Topic #2: Olive St. Bistro...I met the Crystal and a couple of other friends there tonight and it was absolutely lovely. On the end of Olive St., in the middle of the 'hood, is a little taste of Italy. The Bistro is not much to look at from the outside. In fact, you could drive right past the place and never notice it. An old, small, beige house with a small, humble covered deck out front, sheltered from the street with thick, roaming ivy. The sign proclaiming "Olive St. Bistro" is barely visible beneath the climbing greenery. It leans slightly to the left, as if it doesn't care. It says to the world" Come in...or not...whatever."

But to those who come in, what a secret world awaits them! An elderly, round gentlemen in a brown, polyester suit is playing piano, an old upright..."La Vie en Rose", "Blue Moon", you name it, he plays it. Fernando, a suave man, slightly graying and tall, wearing a tweed jacket over a crisp white button-down shirt, with an incredible presence and sensual accent, is the manager. He walks from guest to guest, warmly greeting and making conversation. The food is incredible, old world, rich and colorful and the staff, warm and knowledgeable about the menu. I love this place. I feel like I'm in Italy. Or at least as close as I can get, seven blocks from my house, in the 'hood.

Topic #3: My dear friend, Dino, sent me the journal in the picture above for a newly grandmother present. I'll have to admit that at first, it sat in a corner in my office, and occasionally, I poked at it with a stick and grunted. It's completely foreign to me. It wants me to shred pages, burn pages, spill food onto pages, make paper airplanes out of pages and tie a string around it and take it for a walk. Diahn has convinced me to embrace the journal! To look at it as an adult activity book! To set myself free by totally disregarding, annihilating, writing, coloring and spitting on this book. I think I'm liking this idea. Maybe she's onto something. Yesterday, I sorta spilled cold coffee onto page one million and three...and then I did a little dance. Don't laugh, it was all staged, but I'm learning...