Bodies...


Do you ever see girls walking along the street pulling and tugging at their revealing clothes, trying to get the fabric to cover a half an inch more of flesh? What seems comfortable in the privacy of a dressing-room mirror becomes self-conscious in the public of a busy roadway. It's really not a difficult concept--you shouldn't wear clothes that make you feel uncomfortable. But they are in style they will say. Screw style. One problem for me regarding clothes is that my legs are so long it is difficult to find a pair of shorts that suit me-- either I feel like they show way too much thigh or else I look like a golfer. I like to wear shorts too, but there are some times when I think to myself, "This is utterly ridiculous. I don't have the body for this. I don't feel particularly comfortable letting 3/4 of the population stare at the skin right below my fat ass." I can feel them doing it, and it pisses me off.

Men do not have to go through this. I was behind a guy today, walking to class, and his baggy and comfortable pants looked fashionably cool while covering all of his legs except for half of his hairy calf. I laughed to myself as I imagined the world where we are all equal--where men struggle in a sea of too-tight, too-short clothing, a world where men are faced with choices that make them feel only fat or fatter.

I also entertain myself with thoughts of how the world would be if we were all nudists. I think that would be a healthy dose of reality. I envision a warm tropical climate, everyone has a healthy tan, are bodies are all glowing and radiant. Okay, wait, I've seen too many bacardi commercials. Still, even with our pale obese bodies flapping around in the wind, I think it would be a great dose of health to see that. To know what bodies really look like underneath the clothes. To know that only .00145 percent of the population have that "perfect" body. To be aware of ourselves in a way that we don't have to be right now. Maybe we'd get over out weird sexual obsessions while we were at it--a breast would no longer be a contraband item, a penis no longer an obscenity. We would be like the tribesmen on PBS specials, who don't stop to stare at boobs or balls. Maybe we'd even become healthier because we'd get sick of looking at our bodies being less than what they were made to be. And most importantly, clothes would stop defining us, and we wouldn't be able to hide from ourselves any longer.


Sometimes my laziness regarding my body scares me. I treat it like I treat my car--get me here, take me there--I don't care how it looks or if it's nice and shiny with a new tan paint job or freshly waxed. Give it good fuel and an ocassional check-up. My body is a good and reliable vehicle--but in regard to classes of vehicles, it's not much else. Perhaps at one point it had the potential to be a top-of-the-line offroad SUV with amazing horsepower and 4-wheel drive, but now it's just an outdated model that is not worth sporting up. It is what it is. I am what I am. I am trying to be okay with that.


I remember when I was unaware of my body. Legs and arms were just there, for playing, for running, for jumping and hanging. It was much easier to do these things before I grew and developed another 70 lbs that seem to have distributed unproportionally. I can barely hang from a bar these days. Monkey bars are truly a challenge. I feal weak. I feel disappointed.

When I was unaware of my body, I did not judge it. I still try not to, because it will only make me upset no matter how close to perfect I become. See--I just said "how close to perfect I become " instead of "how close to perfect it becomes." If I don't pay attention, my body becomes a reflection of my inner self, when really it is not so much that. I could be in anybody's body. What's disturbing about this thought is that the more I think about it, the more I realize my life would be different if I were in a different body.

If I were the most beautiful woman on earth, would I be so wrapped up in maintaining that title that I forget more important things? Would I be utterly lonely among people who only cared about my outer beauty? Would I be a snob who only surrounded myself with similarly beautiful people? Would I be rich? Would I own my own tropical island and yacht? Would my secret desire to be an actress be easily fulfilled because everyone would want me in their films? Would I win an oscar? Would the mundane concerns of the world sit under my feet as I stand on my pedestal of success and security?

If I were the ugliest woman on earth, would I have more compassion? Would I absolve myself of all vanity and material things, devoting my life to helping others? Would I not own a mirror? Would I commit suicide? Would I be a virgin and choose to marry God instead of a man? Would I find that true love has nothing to do with outward appearances? Would I cry at night because people are so mean to me and treat me like an animal?


I drove past the gym late last night. The lights were on and skinny, tanned, beautiful people were running on treadmills and sweating out their devotion to the rythm of their headphones. For a second, I wanted to be there too, making myself more perfect.

Then I decided that I don't have time for that, and me and my beat-up car made it home where I picked up Issac from the babysitter and tucked him into bed. I inspected and rubbed my body and then I hugged it and thanked it for staying healthy. My body and I have a good relationship--I try to let it know how I feel on a regular basis. I told my body that it was okay that it is not perfect, that it doesn't have to be. My body will be perfect for me and for someone else someday, and that's all that matters. It was perfect when it held Issac and it was perfect when it kicked the winning goal for the 3-A district Soccer championship in 1998. It is perfect when it feels like dancing and stretching and laughing and crying. It will be perfect when it is covered in wrinkles and my skin is paper-thin. My body sighed and said "Thank you for understanding." And I slept well last night.

Short Fiction... (I warned you)

I am sitting at a restaraunt in Manhattan. My hands are sweaty and nervous, folded neatly in my lap over a linen napkin. I am willing them to stay there so that I will not be biting my nails when my mother arrives. Any minute now a porter will open the glass gold-gilded doors for her and the maitre'd will take her perfectly manicured hand into his own gloved one and he will kiss it, speaking something in french into her ear which will make her laugh, and then she will glide over to the table and her chair will be pulled out for her and a napkin will be spread into her lap and she will sit down and smile at me as though it hasn't been three months since we've last spoken.

She sent me a whopping six letters--two of them obviously transcribed by her secretary because they were typed. "I'm so sorry you're upset with me, darling." "It really is the best decision for you, dear." Each letter was two paragraphs or less, and not one of them addressed what I wrote to her or how miserable I am or what a jerk Sister Luisa is or the lame curriculum. My mother does not have time to raise a daughter or write a real letter. She's not possibly human.

When she sits down at the table, after she smiles at me, she will look me up and down and find something bad to say. She will tell me that my hair is too short and that I shouldn't wear bangs. I won't care because I'm going to dye it purple as soon as I get back to Florida. I am also getting a fake ID and a tattoo. Maybe when the stupid nuns put me on probation she will take me out of St. Theresa's School for the Wicked . Maybe it will be fun to hang out with Niki and Theona cleaning the cafeteria after class and winking at the dishwashers, later bumming smokes from them for smoking in the bathrooms at night. Maybe I'll have sex with all of them and then she'll be sorry she ever sent me away. Maybe tonight I'll tell her that my lonliness has made me a lesbian and me and my room-mate get it on every night--that would really piss her off.

And there she is, being kissed on her hands. She is so beautiful, like Grace Kelley. She ages so well--her legs still look like a young woman's, but her face has the coldness of a woman in her 50's. She hasn't many wrinkles at all. My heart is beating faster as she glides over toward me. I don't stand up. "Liz, darling. It's so good to see you dear," she says as she stands behind me and puts her hands on my shoulders and leans down to kiss my cheek, which she then cups with her tastefully jeweled hands and tilts so that she can look into my eyes. "You look more like my daughter every day," she says and I just stare at her without saying a word and then she lets go and slides around the table where a waitress pulls out her chair for her and settles her in.

She sips her wine and even asks the waitress to pour a glass for me, which is done without question. It is gross and bitter but I don't make a face as I chug the whole thing. I stare right into her eyes, which are unflinching, showing no surprise. She is on point tonight.

"You'd look much better without bangs, dear. Who gave you that awful haircut anyways? I hope you didn't tip them well. We can get that fix tomor--"

"I like it," I say.

"Well, then. I guess it suits you," she says. Her therapist must have briefed her on control, letting-go, moving with the flow, in the past few weeks. "It's...chic."

"Yep."

The menus are in french. I'm getting a B+ in french. I don't know what everything is, but I know how to pronounce it. Chevre is goat, lapin is rabbit, boeuf is the safest--beef. I order ...

-----------------------------------------
stay tuned for more. I have to figure out something defiant that she orders and what the whole point of this story is and where its going and why its important. Why did her mom send her to boarding school? Why does she hate it so much? Why does she want to be closer to her mom even when she disdains her? Why does she want to see her mother be vulnerable? These mother-daughter things are so worn out, what can I do that is new and different in this story? That is special? How long is it going to have to be? At what point will I end it? What do I want people to think about after they read it? I have a history of making anti-heroes--people always die in my stories for no real reason and then the living character feels like a dweeb for being so mean and wasteful during the time they shared together. How can I end this story without a death (the easy way out)? How can I give dimension to the characters in five to ten pages?

Just Another Thursday...


Amazingly enough, the bus driver took her 5 minute break at my stop, which gave me just the opportunity to chase frantically after the bus banging on the door. I was able to catch a ride to school on time.

The whole reason I was late--in addition to just being late in general-- was because I cashed a check at Publix, which is becoming more of a bank to me than the bank that actually gives me my checks and monthly statements. This is sad, I know. I never take out enough money at a time--I seem to think keeping it in a vault in the bank will prevent me from spending it.

That bus driver is cool, though. I like her because she tries to read the newspaper everytime she stops at a red light.

So it's just another Thursday at the University of Florida. I am in lab learning about Photoshop 7.0 and nothing on my computer is working properly. I keep thinking that there are just four more weeks of this semester, which makes me momentarily happy until I realize that this only means I will soon be facing a hellish innundation of end-of-the-semester projects, a short break, and then a whole new schedule of the same old sh*&.

I can't...seem...to get to work. There is so much else I'd rather be doing. Like playing with Issac (I miss him so much--he's growing and changing so fast), laying in the sun or swimming in the springs or even watering my garden. Writing, drawing a picture, going on a walk. Talking to a friend. Curling up on the couch with my cat and listening to Paul Simon. Taking a nap. Will I ever grow up and force myself to do the things that must be done? I operate better in the middle of the night when there is nothing chirping outside calling my attention away. But even then there are cheesey infomercials on tv and books to read and a couch to curl on and sleep to be had.

Sometimes I think that if I'm ever going to get through school I need to be locked up in a white room with nothing but a list of assignments and a pencil. And electric shocks that stop me from doodling, which I would still be doing even if I was getting shocked.

Okay, I'm scaring myself. I don't really need that. I just need a kick in the butt. I feel like an old junker car that is just barely chugging along, not getting a good spark, about to heave and sigh and then just completely give up. Those cars always amaze me--they keep on going and going and going like that forever.

Maybe I just need a good lube. I think I'm going to go crazy. You married friends can't possibly understand the concept of sexual frustration. I know it will soon pass, but it still makes me feel sorry for myself.

Anyways, I have major writer's block (probably due to mild depression from my severe sexual frustration). Expect some short fiction in the near future. My short fiction is always ugly and crude, but it's what I resort to when I can't write anything else.

Chiao.

The Wisteria Fairy and the Lonley Queen

Wisteria. It is in the air and on the vines, climbing over the trees and defying the dusty limerock roads. It's fragrance is like a bird's song, flittering here and then there, never certain of its own location. This time of year there is more purple than green in the trees. This flower hangs and drips like bunches of grapes and spanish moss. I think the thick dark vines might grow arms and reach out to take me in.


Queen Wisteria

How many arms you have
but I've yet to see your fingers
maybe they're hidden under the
tangle of your limbs
which hug the trees in deep embrace
and grace their crowns with flowers
you looked so lonely in winter time
so desperate, so empty
hanging there limply by yourself
waiting for your lover to return
with nothing to fill the interim
but now spring is here and your lover
has returned with wreaths of green
to kiss your branches and stroke your vine
tickle the bark with tendrils of new growth
you do not begrudge his absence
and once again you hold him close
the fragrant pinnacle of your season
loving only with your tender, purple heart
loving without reason.

I love wisteria. Or is it wysteria? When we were little my cousin Mariah swore she was going to name her daughter Wisteria and I asked if we could call her "Wisty." If you wrote it "Wysty" it would look Welsh. It sounds so mystical. All things Welsh are mystical. Wist, wish, wishteria. Wisteria-- the fanciful purple spellbound fairy that simultaneously grants your wishes and gives you the proper wisdom to use them. One glance upon her delicate beauty and men can never be the same. They write songs about her--she is a secret and a muse and a legend. The fairy that seems to have it all wants only to fall in love with these handsome men but cannot because she is spellbound to the fairy realm--she is not ready to sacrifice her beauty and live in the treacherous realm of mortal men. She is jealous of the women who come to her, the women who have known love, who can know love, who are loved. Her secret desire to wade in matters of the mortal is her torment. She will never tell anyone. She wonders at the people who find her in the forest, begging to be united with a loved one, pleading with her to help them find their passion. She wonders what it feels like. She will never know. She imagines...what would it feel like if she stepped off her plateau? If she shed her fairy robes? If her heart were unprotected? She swims in the lake at night under the fog, wondering.

Love triangles...


It's all so helpless. Florida has been besieged by another cold spell and I am miserable in the early morning 50 degree weather. I just can't stand it when my nose is cold.

On the up side, I've been getting a lot of compliments on my blog and it's even been inspiring more people to enter the blogosphere. That's good.

On the down side, I am worrying about unrequited love and beginning to realize how tragic it could be. What if this totally smart hillarious handsome thoughtful intriguing beautifully perfect guy I am smitten with is smitten with somebody else? I always thought unrequited love was just a joke--if someone doesn't love you back you get up and find another. Now I understand what Cyrano meant when he said love is like an eternal bell ringing in your head. I just can't seem to get this certain person out of my mind and I envy all of my married friends who know that they can kiss the person who they think is the greatest without worrying if that person will actually want to kiss them back. They don't have to worry about hearing "Thanks, I'm flattered, but I think of you as just a friend."

I hate dating. It's too freaking stressful. Being single is becoming more of a burden than a freedom--the love triangles, rejecting people who you are not interested in, defending yourself from perverts, coming up with creative excuses, planning your nights out so that you can see all the guys you are only mildly interested in without laying a claim to one over another, going out even when you don't really feel like it because you might meet someone special, seeing happy people smooching and being disgusted and then realizing that you miss that, meeting a guy who you really really like and then becoming shy for once in your life, losing confidence in all of your magnificent beautiful qualities and living in constant terror from fear of rejection, constantly weighing the virtues of friendship against the virtues of romance, wondering what would happen if you just grabbed his hand and kissed him like you want to do everytime you are around him.

Being so vulnerable.

Actually caring what someone thinks about you.


Yeah, I truly envy my married friends. They must lie together some nights and pity me while they gloat about how they have it so good:

Alexis: Poor Melissa. I talked to her today and she's been telling me about her love life. It's so hillarious listening to her exploits and misadventures. It makes me realize that I am so lucky to have you, baby. (Kiss). You rock my world. (Kiss).
Ryan: Yeah, Melissa really deserves a great guy. Her dating disasters are definitely entertaining. I remember when I was going through all that crap--I thought I would never meet anyone and then I met you. (Kiss). Now I never have to worry about it again. (Kiss.)



I envy my married friends. But I can still go out and party all night long without having to explain...
and I don't have to shave my legs if I don't feel like it
and I can eat whatever I feel like eating whenever I feel like it
and I can dance around the house like a goon singing into my karaoke machine at the top of my lungs
and nobody but me has to be embarrassed about riding in my messy car
and I can spend my money however I want to
and I can make plans at the very last minute without consulting anyone
and I can take up the whole bed and have as much or as little covers as I like and I always get the good pillows...


Who am I kidding? It doesn't even compare. Being single is starting to suck.

Hmmm. I am facing a managerial decision. I have started giving my blog out to people--lots of people--six people this week. Previously, only my closest girlfriends and strangers read my blog. It makes me sort of shy--these tangles of my private innerworkings are becoming public to more of my personal friends and family members. What if I want to give my blog to a guy I like? Will it scare him away? Am I willing to sacrifice writing about him and how beautiful he is until I am his official girlfriend? Am I so vulnerable that I need to? Attempting to keep things mysterious on my blog is lame.

Last night my teenage cousin Matt came over and I helped him write an application essay for dual-enrollment at the local community college. He was asked to describe his career goals and interests and experiences. It was the first time in a long time that I have helped someone with English--and it was difficult for me not to write it all out for him. I had so much to say about how awesome he is.

I made him do it. It was so much fun--there I was actually teaching again. Helping someone to express themselves. To determine what it is that they want to say, helping someone to be heard. We brainstormed ideas about him and what he's done in his life and what he enjoys and why and what he imagines himself doing someday and his personal philosophy and then we put it all together. And he wrote it himself . I am so proud of him. I am proud of myself too. I can't wait to be a teacher.

This morning my aunt read it and said that it was so good and it almost made her cry and she thanked me for being present in her family's life. (Aunt Lynn, I'm sorry for ever calling your kids brats. I didn't mean it and I am sure I have deserved the label many times myself). I am so glad I know them all. I even gave Matt my blogsite so he can read my writing if he wants to.

Which reminds me of Sonoita: the evil half-sister of a city that I never knew I had--the place in Arizona to which my parents were all packed up and ready to move before the deal fell through when I was an infant--the desert place full of cacti and mobile homes that would have taken me away from all of my wonderful family in Florida that has shaped so much of who I am-- the place that is intriguing and mysterious yet dangerous and mean.

I had a very stong internal reaction when we were in the Ford Escape passing the road leading to Sonoita and my Dad casually mentioned how close they were to raising me there. How they had rented the U-haul and were all packed up when the deal fell through. He didn't see the lump growing in my stomach or how my hands became nervously sweaty as I looked out over the acres and acres of barren red dirt and prickly-pine and then up to the redeeming gorgeous purple mountains. He didn't see the lump that I choked back in my throat as I thought of what it might feel like not knowing Mariah and Kyle and Hannah and Quinn and Matt and Sam and Lynn and Neal and Grandmamma Simmons and Grandma Pat and Grandpa Alto and Grandaddy and Tommy and Lois-- but especially Mariah and Kyle. They are like my siblings.

Would I have visited them every year? Would I be the same person I am today? Would Mariah and I have instantly liked each other at the family reunions and promised to write to each other all the time and would we have traded our most valuable toys? Would we have still been inseparable? Would we have cried to our parents and insisted that we must be allowed to visit each other at least four times a year? Would I have known about all her boyfriends and poetry and would we have been there for each other through all of the miscellaneous frightening adventures of growing up and becoming women? Would Kyle have teased me about wearing polka-dots? Would he have threatened to beat up my boyfriends that he didn't like? Would he have taught me how to ride my bike and make friends and give me good advice? Would he have been there to take refuge in and laugh hillariously with when Mariah and I were fighting?

Would I have felt utterly alone in the desert in the middle of nowhere? Would I have partied in Tucson? Would I have truly been the older sister without Mariah there? Would that have forced me to be stronger and bigger and tougher? Would I have sought refuge in horses like my mom once did and be a champion barrel-racer? Would I dress in western clothes and have big silver belt-buckles? Would I have gotten out of there the first chance I got? Would I have known that only a scholarship could save me and would I have gone to Georgetown or Oxford or Berkely? Would UF be a new and exciting place to be? Would I still be single, not a mom, free to roam and adventure and pack up my bags to any part of the world?

The Miller Lite Girls and the Middle East

Brian is camping with the boys in the middle of the woods. They are roasting the 20-inch trout they caught in the river earlier in the day. The crickets are chirping and the woods smell allive. "It can't get any better than this, guys," he says as he pops a top and takes a cool refreshing sip of Miller Light. But he is wrong-- the woosh-woosh-woosh of helicopter blades suddenly come into range. The boys look up at the black sky as the chopper roars into view and hovers overhead. An entire squad of super-smart busty beautiful bikin-clad women climb down a rope ladder, led by Melissa and Monica. More women are parachuting from the sky. They have brought coolers of beer. And steak. It's party time. All is right with the world.

On the other side of the world Iraqi families are being compensated as much as $5,000 for "civilian damage." Such damage includes burned-dead wives and dead children, cluster-bomb faces and severed limbs, blinded eyes but open memories of watching your family burn to death and bleed to death and plead with death, having no way to stop the killing. They stand in long lines waiting to talk to someone. No young nervous military captains will be coming to their homes to apologize--they don't have homes after this war. They must come to a white room with florescent lights and listen to the pale captain choke back the lump in his throat and struggle to say "I'm sorry," in poor Iraqi language and then hold out his hand to give them some green paper bills. The military does not keep a list of the civilian wounded because (quote) "it's just not policy." They have no idea how many people they have killed until the Iraqis come to tell them--"look, look what you have done! Look at my grief! My life will never be the same. Don't you see? I've lost all that I have loved."

I hate war.

Dr. New says that war is inevitable--created or avoided only because of the will of man. He say's it's about preserving manhood and honor. I think it's about power and greed. An ego trip. Being the best. Ruling the world. "If we didn't do it, somebody else would, and they'd do a much worse job," seems to be the prevailing argument. I can't say I disagree, but I have to have a little faith that constant war is not inevitable. Everyone seems to think they would be a better world-ruler than all the rest. They all think that they deserve the throne. We are still having the divine fight over kings. The war of the roses hasn't ended--the kingdom has expanded to include the territory of all the earth.

Why? Oh why can't all the world be happy and have nice things? Kiss each other when unfortune strikes and find love inside security?

Why do we seem to be nothing more than over-evolved animals slugging it out with our claws and our jaws, fighting over food?

Witness this army of such mass and charge
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puffed
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
Even for an eggshell.

--from Hamlet


I think I will go party with the Miller girls while I still have the chance.

My totem animal...

Oh Crane! Is there anything more beautiful than your slender body gliding overhead? Your silver tint of feathers brushed with rose smooth against your body and the fingers of your wings spread against the sunset? You are good luck, a sign of love, made into oragami by billions. Your totem heals the sick and brings faith into the hearts of the desperate. Oh, strong bird with thin fragile legs, you stand in water and you grace the sky! You make the small into largess, the diminuitive into the great! Crane, you are not afraid to stick out your neck and fly. Beautiful Crane, your heart beats strong in your chest. You bring hope to those with no joy and peace to those in fear. When you pass in front of me like a secret I know I am special.

The ghosts of creditors past...

I am an idiot. A person should have just one password and stick with it. I live in a password mecca. I have a different one for each place (just in case the russian spies are on to me, I guess).

I think my friend Marcy and I need to take a trip to New York City. We could get side jobs and vow to use all the money on plane fare and theatre tickets. Not one dollar or quarter filtered out of the jar to be spent on gas or milk! In a few months we would have the money. Hard work but worth the saving and scrimping, the selling of blueberries and the watching of children, the staring at the money-filled jar and thinking of all the delicious books and paper supplies, furniture and thrift-store browsing it could buy if only if we just slipped out a bill or two.

We could attend a writer's workshop. Ride the subway and go to the village, to new Brooklyn. We would be filled with inspiration. We would read the Times before we go and while we were there, The New Yorker and and E.B. White.

But I have bills to pay. I have finally decided to pay off my debt. The extra money I earn from my side job is going straight to Sprint PCS, magazine collection services, Bellsouth and Avon. It will feel nice to be debt free in seven years.

When I am debt-free I can start planning trips and spending money without extra guilt. I am tired of hearing the "I shoulds" and "needtas" that whisper over my head when I make a pleasurable purchase, pick up something nice for myself. Sppprrrriiiinnnntttt will huuuaaaannnnttt you fooooorrr thiissssss it tells me. yyyyooou aaare aaaa veerrrrryyy baaaaad girrrrrlllllll. This is the ghooooost of avooooon. Repent! You have threeee dayys toooo repeennnnnt! I'm getting really sick of them.

Not another teenage mom...

I was 21 when I got pregnant--not exactly a teenage mom. But I was the only one of my friends who was going to have a baby, I had dropped out of college, I was still dependent on my parents, and I was not married. In many aspects, I still felt like a teenager--certainly not someone who was ready to be responsible for an innocent. I was barely able to be responsible for myself. Throw in an abusive relationship with the father and you'll understand why I stayed awake at night wondering what I was getting me and the baby into.

I remember breaking the news to my parents. The baby's father and I had gotten into a huge screaming fight and I retreated to my mother's house. I told her point-blank as I entered the door, crying, that I was pregnant and the father was a jerk and she held me and rocked me. She was more afraid than I was--still, her strength inspired me. It was one of the more supportive times we've shared in our relationship--I needed her and she was there for me. She did not chide me or tell me how stupid I was. She simply rocked me and hugged me.

My parents had just gotten divorced. I spent afternoons at my dad's house. One night when he was preparing dinner I told him that I had something I wanted to tell him. He was in a jovial mood, for once, and he laughed and said "Let me guess--you're pregnant? Ha, ha."
I was not expecting that. It threw me off guard.
"Yeah, actually I am." I said. His face deflated as though all the air had left a balloon. I could virtually see his heart jumping as he looked into my eyes and saw that there was truth in them. He dropped the spoon he was holding and hugged me. "Oh honey, I'm so sorry," he kept saying. He cried. I told him not to be sorry, that it was good news and I was happy about it. I wanted him to be happy too.

Later I felt guilty for putting my dad through that. He worried about me. But I remember thinking from the very beginning that everyone in my life needed to know right away: my child was too important to keep a secret. My child deserved a well-prepared reception.

The next day I told my grandmother. I remember my aunt telling me that she knew I was serious about keeping the baby once I had told grandma. I cleaned my grandma's house once or twice a week. We were in the back bedroom and she was showing me some knick-knack she had bought at a garage sale. I said "Grandma, I have good news for you--you're going to be a great-grandmother." She cried and covered her mouth with her petite hands and then she hugged me. She giggled like a school-girl. Later that day she came to me and said she was happy for me but she just wished that the baby was being born under better circumstances. I had to agree--I had the same desire. I was happy that she had said this instead of giving me the speech about sex before marriage and how dissappointed she was. Whatever feelings she had in this regard, she was kind enough to keep to herself. Things went better than I had expected.

She told my grandfather the news that night, I am sure. The next day I saw him in the blueberry field and he stopped to talk to me. My grandfather is a man of few words. His truck crawled to a stop when he saw me in the rows and he rolled down his window--my cue to walk over and initiate a conversation. "Hi grandpa," I said cheerfully. It was a warm spring day, the bees were buzzing, the clinic had just called to tell me that I was STD-free, and I was in a good mood. Grandpa didn't say much. He talked about everything except my pregnancy. So I brought it up--"Grandma told you the news, didn't she?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said, and smiled.
"Good," I said.
And that was that. He asked how I was feeling. "Fine." I remember telling him
that I was thinking as many happy thoughts as I could so that maybe I will have a happy baby. This made him laugh.

When I decided to tell everyone in my life--including the people I feared telling the most--the result was that I garnered more support than I could ever have imagined. It instantly threw me into the full pitch of motherhood. It became so very real. I had multitudes of people sharing my excitement and concerns. They made sure I always had the most comfortable seat and wouldn't even let me get up to wash the dishes or brew iced-tea.

Issac Graceson David was born December 9, 2002. He was a happy baby. I have wished that the circumstances regarding his womb-house could have be more delightful, more peaceful, more traditional. Issac's vessel was beseiged with screaming voices at 3 am, with wracking sobs and confusion and grief and sometimes pure hatred.

At times, for Issac, I have envied the fetus of the married couple, the ripe love growing between both parents as they bless the womb together, the circle of enchantment that the two cast together as they become three, the spirit of undeniable love which surrounds their child. The circle that was cast between Issac and myself and his father was a different kind of circle-a pleading with his father to behave, I covenant that I must become a stronger woman, a dissension and breaking of comfort and habit. I'm not sure who grew more during the gestation period--Issac or myself.

It is strange how something so convoluted and terrifying at first has led to so many small miracles--my dad is not in the greatest health and gets to enjoy a grandson before he dies, my mom is able to reconnect with her inner child and has a new source of joy in her life to pull her out of her depression, my relationship with my entire family has improved dramatically as we rallied together, I have become more independent and driven than ever before, I am going to graduate from college this year, I left an abusive partner and learned about my own self-worth, and I have learned how to put my best foot forward and have faith in the prevailing power of love.

Once I was weak, and now I am strong. So strong. Issac has awakened a primal force within me. I am instantaneously a tiger and a swan. I have found that fine line between protection and vulnerability. I am fierce and gentle. I demand respect and I receive it. I have experienced raw true love. I will never be the same. I am a mother, a protector, a healer, a guide. I am a statue, a monument, a rock, stability. I am a lover, a kisser, a hunter, a friend. I am direction, a vision, hope, and a home.

Ah....a vacation

A vacation and a wedding are waiting for me over spring break. On saturday I will be a bridesmaid in my best friend Alexis's wedding. I hope my hair turns out okay as I have no definite plans for how to wear it, only one vague idea, which is "up." I am nervous about being in her wedding, hoping that somehow I don't screw it all up. You know, my period could start at any minute during the ceremony and come dripping down my leg, or I could trip and fall, or go out drinking with friends the night before and have huge black circles under my eyes, or get a nosebleed. Anything is possible.

After the wedding I am driving to Tampa where I will wake up at 4am with Issac and my Dad and Lori and her daughter Chelsea and we will eat breakfast and go to the airport for our 7am 4 hour flight to Tuscon, Arizona. Issac and I will spend our vacation in and out of carseats as we drive around the state. We will stay in air-conditioned hotels but only those with swimming pools. I will recline in a white plastic lounge chair. We will go to the petrified forest and the Grand Canyon and swim in Reddington and hike around the desert mecca wearing lots of sunscreen and admiring the boldness of red clay and giant brown rocks. I will take one hundred pictures. I will imagine our life filled with mariachis and rancheros and purple cacti and horses and cattle and sexy lean cowboys and rodeos and the desert and the green valleys that cut through the mountains. The mogollon rim and the pine trees and train-tracks and caves and the clouds that make shadows on the side of the mountains. The fog and the floods and the feeling that it is still 1893.



Here is another poem:

Carnevale

classic americana
is primary colors and a coke
take your pick
of burger king blue
mcD's yellow or KFC red
of gas stations on both sides of the road
if it has flashing lights we will buy it
my mardis gras feast
of french fries
was delicious
served up hot on a big white plate
I slapped the waiter's hand away twice.

The Kingdom of God is Within You

I am a hopeless romantic. I find myself wanting to fall in love with every man I meet. I imagine our life together over the next five years, ten, twenty. The places we'll live and the romantic things we'll do and the fights we will endure run through my head in a happy manner. Then I wake up and realize that I don't even really know this person. I chide myself for walking a thin line between a lively imagination and blatant desperation. I'm not desperate.

I've met my first group of religious friends. They are not my first group of religious acquaintances, for I have known many of those. When I was in highschool I knew all the kids in Fellowship of Christian Athletes. They were all good kids. Very nice, usually. Driven, focused, successful, happy. They excuded a strength that came from knowing God was on their side, all the time, a friend to call on. They all seemed to have God's personal phone number. I was sick with envy.

I was not raised religiously. There was not a Bible in our house until I was seventeen and bought one for myself. These days, I am not envious of the happiness of my religious friends, because I have found that I, too, am very religious and through my relationship with God I have become very happy. The only problem is that I am "deviantly" religious, which traditional religious people say doesn't count. God isn't on my side, they tell me-- not daring to tell me I am going to hell because, let's face it, it's hard to tell someone they are going to hell and keep them as a friend. They are sure that if they subscribe entirely to an ancient thought system they will be saved, they will never die.

I've spent a lot of time convincing myself that God is not mad at me for choosing to believe in her a different way. This is the only part I envy--the assured blessing, the propaganda for my views instead of against them. I'm not particularly fond of always being on the outside.

I hope my new friends don't disdain my religious choice, being untraditional as it is. In past experiences, the reception of me and my beliefs is less well recieved than Judaism or Islam. Perhaps I am more threatening because I don't completely subscribe my beliefs to a single book.

It would break the hearts of the Iron River Pentacostals if they read this. My heart breaks with them.


Second-hand Faith

The one-eyed cyclops says
we will believe every word
the white walls quake
and we shake
and stomp our feet
we will believe every word
have no doubt
and celebrate salvation
Cyclops asks us questions
demands our answers
Do we feel the spirit?
our hands reach into the air
grasping desparately for some belief
some relief
our souls are in his hands.
I think he wants to eat us.
I am a wicked, wicked girl
to make such bold suggestions
but I can not bear the taste
of acidic indigestion.
I'll take my soul in
my own hands, TYVM.
This is what I say outside the church
they click tongues at my mistake
while men touch my back and
women hover over me speaking different languages
I am the center
of attention
as the pray and fret over my worthiness
why can't she be saved? Why won't she be saved?
concern
is always powerful
they conjure up spirits like the best
the voodoo dancers and all the rest
we're just inches away from snakes
I want to tell them
after, I hug them all
they promise to keep on prayin'
I hope they know that I ain't changin'
though to tell the truth, I'm not sure
I would last too long
they sing a mighty pretty song.
When sister Julia suffers my burden for me
I'm only mildly afraid and lonely
the only "unbeliever" in the crowd
FYI, I want to scream
my second-hand faith stands up proud
my second-hand faith
my protective shroud.