Slate blue walls 
Gray shadows dance
Along with the tune
Of thunder.
Tan stained couch
Slumps from the weight
Of too many asses.
White noise machines
Sing like the calico
Living underneath
The porch.
I do so miss
Calico cat.
Maybe,
This is why
I am here.
Every week,
The same questions
About the cat
About the job
About you.
I mostly talk
About the cat.
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Filed under poetry
I want to live in my Pinterest world.
Surrounded by the prettiest of the pretty, I want to soak in the natural light of the photography, the artists’ muse, the whole world bursting with vibrant colors. I want to live in world that only offers pretty things. Too often, I meander through the photo galleries of Pinterest. Just gazing at the creativity, the beauty, the pretty. And I long to enter that world where I can choose each piece of my life with only the beautiful, vintage theme. As if I could recreate my pin boards magically in the “real” world, extracting their richness from cyberspace.
I want to live in a world where only the pretty exists.
But I can’t. And neither can you. The world isn’t all about pretty. I wish it were. What if we could all enter a world without disease, madness, sorrow? We could hide away in our pretty house filled with small happy things. My home would have long bookshelves, vintage library chairs in a subtle damask pattern. But can art survive on beauty alone? I see world existing only in beauty as world that has lost it muse, a means of making art, the fuel for the artist soul. Art comes from the desire to refocus the all of the ugliness into something new—something of beauty.
But art cannot survive if no one is creating it.
Maybe, one of the downsides of Pinterest and the like is I am swept away in gazing upon the beauty, but I’m not drawn into creating it. Sure, the lovely faux milk glass bottles are lovely, but it is far easier to just repin than make. Herein lies the heart of the problem, we are far too pleased to allow others to make the art, the beauty, the pretty for us than ourselves. But even after I stare at the lovely photos and pretty things, my artist soul aches to engage in its own art.
Too often, I just return to the art of others and neglect my own.
Question: What art could you create if you tried? Have you silenced your muse this week?
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Filed under Musings
Sunshine sticks to the skin through the adhesive called humidity.
Long hot days, short muggy nights. The gift of summer—watermelon days, fresh truly vine ripened tomatoes, relaxed schedules. Summer and I have a love/hate relationship. I love days by the pool, beach, or camping. Summer loves to give me sunburn, sluggishness, and a chorus of the “I’m bored’s.” But I expect these. With the ubiquitous social media presence, I have also come to expect something else—the passive/aggressive tweet, Facebook status on women’s modesty or lack thereof. Always from a male, always with subsequent comments or mentions praising the return of modesty. And like every year, a chorus of amens. Goes something like this:
Parents, we need to dress our daughters modestly so that she(always a pronoun malfunction here) doesn’t cause other young men to stumble.
(I’m always tempted to insert a snarky reply: “if all these young men are stumbling, maybe someone should get their eyesight, inner ear balance checked. Sounds like a health problem to me).
Can you hear the chorus of amens, preach it brothers?
To be clear, I am not against modesty or wardrobe limitations. What I take umbrage with are these condemning statements directed at particular woman who will never be able to defend herself from her social media assailants. Too make matters worse, most of those encouraging the “modesty” comments are from Christians. Christian men who proclaim to want to lead their families, wives, churches to be more Christi like. How is it Christ like to attack another? If you have the balls to write it on Facebook, why do you refuse to speak to said woman about the issue? I will even give you the benefit of the doubt that maybe you don’t know this person, but would she be comfortable reading your status/tweet?
When Christ confronted the woman in adultery, He never disparaged her, discussed her failings with the disciples. He spoke to her. Somehow, social media has made it so much easier for us to band together, condemn those who have trespassed on our moral code, and find others who corroborate our views. In the most passive/aggressive way, just like this post, just like those scantily clad ladies, just like those judgmental men—we all need forgiveness, we all must practice love.
Question: How are we Christians using social media to be more judgmental? How do we do something about this?
Filed under Faith, Parenthood
Today, I’m guest posting on identity over at Jennifer Luitwieler’s blog. She has been doing a series of guest post on identity which have me made laugh, cry, and think. As all good writing should at some point. So hop over to her blog for the rest of my posts on identity.
Pardon the cliché, but I wear lots of proverbial hats.
In fact, I may wear enough of these hats to open my own proverbial hat store. What hats? The usual suspects: woman, wife, daughter, stepmother, sister, reader, writer, teacher, student, cook, occasional overeater. These I wear daily, one stacked upon another, an ever-present balancing act of managing all of these various roles, their demands, without bringing the whole lot crashing down on my head. My identity makes for an interesting hat display, or does it? Am I just a whole mash-up of roles, hats, and duties? I think not.
You can read the rest of this post at Jennifer Luitwieler’s blog.
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Filed under Guest post, Musings
Plant Suicides and Matters of Faith
Carolina blue skies, thin wisps of white clouds, deep forest green leaves, honeysuckle humid air—and I sit book in hand watching this sunshiney day. Here, in this bit of quiet, I savor my brief respite from motherhood’s grand cacophony. Even now, it’s clanging soundtrack of sibling squabbles over too muck milk or cereal or being “misheard,” dishes banging, dogs barking which plays in my head almost pulling out of my front porch seat. Almost, but not quite. This brief moment of morning sweetness too precious not to enjoy.
From my red front porch chair, I swell a bit with pride. I have not killed the flowers in the hanging pots. My newest record to date—3 weeks of keeping cheap Lowe’s flowers alive. This year, I chose rust orange marigolds, yellow marigolds, and striped petunias. What was even better is these flowers lived because I’m notorious for causing undue suffering to my hanging plants(just ask the snapdragons and ferns from last year). But pride does bring one low—there next to my perfectly happy orange marigold, a space, a gap…where was the yellow marigold?
You can read this rest of this post by clicking over to Joy in This Journey. Then, go read her the rest of her blog because it is lovely and well-written.
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Filed under Faith, Guest post
I didn’t want the stigma or questioning or the wide eyed glances of “you’re crazy.” No matter, I grew up with a dedicated one. I didn’t care too much when others recognized my ability for this particular craft. I lived in denial because it is so much easier than saddling myself with this title. Being an English teacher, I discussed great poets, playwrights, novelists. I danced amongst their lively words, savored the iambic pentameter, the funny way my tongue shaped Chaucer’s words in Middle English. I thought this was enough to quench my lust for this craft. But it wasn’t.
Today, I accept this title and eye rolls and knowing glances. I’m a writer, a word-crafter(there, I said it. And now, if you be so kind as to stop treating me like I’m getting a face tattoo). Perhaps, if I looked back more carefully, I would have noticed my writing tendencies, paid more attention to the praise of others. I was young.
My writing story begins with a Kay-pro computer, 
a faux wood paneled basement, and a unicorn.
Now, I grew up with a writer in my house, my mom. I saw her every day write. I also grew up in a home with a computer. I realize this was actually kind of a big deal in the 1980′s, but I had no clue that every household didn’t have a computer. (Oh for those sweet, internet free days! But wait, my blog wouldn’t exist. Okay, fine, the internet and computers can stay.) Being a stereotypical girl, I also had a vast collection of unicorns, unicorn books in the obligatory pinks and purples. Computer plus unicorns equals New York Times best-seller, right?
Please remember this was the 80′s and this computer weighed like 300 pounds. A Kay-Pro resembled a large suitcase. Sure, it was movable if my mother lugged around in a navy fabric case for me. The screen black, the letters in an odd green. To even get to the word processing screen, codes typed and entered with more dashes, slashes than a horror film. But here I would type my masterpiece. Sitting on a folding chair, chubby fingers on the QWERTY keyboard, I wrote. My unicorn story would be a best-seller. I took great pains to describe her lovely purple mane and tail, her milky white horn, and her lovely violet eyes. There was a masterfully written plot, drama, a nail biting climax, and I fit it all into one paragraph. The rest of the page was the picture.
So, the moral of this story is: don’t let your children use the Kay-Pro, but I’m fairly certain you can only find those in antique stores. Or my parents house which is almost the same thing.
Bleach white smells. 
Ant black trails
Dead-gone.
Clean gray smooth
Countertops rid
Of pests.
Shirt speckled
Pinks where
Purple was.
Scrub tan hands
Rubbed raw
From violence.
Sterile red heart
Wiped clean
Of guilt.
Ahh, the sweet sounds of the word—FRIDAY! While I’ve been notably absent from the blogosphere, I’m picking up today’s 5 Minute Friday topic from the Lovely Lisa-Jo at the Gypsy Mama blog. The rules are simple:
Easy? Why indeed it is!
Today’s topic:
Every day can feel like a blunt force trauma to the head. Alone, quiet with nothing more than the snoring dogs and my own interior narrative. Never good companions for an unemployed, daily disheartened person. This is my every day.
Every day hope swells less and anxiety mounts. Bills need money, but I’m not “the successful applicant.” Every day begins with job searching which feels like an online dating game. Peruse the profiles, choose some matches, and apply.
Every day, I wait for phone calls from interviewers like the junior high girl waiting for her secret crush to phone her. Only to have the interviewer email me the news translated through my head—not good enough, not worthy, not what we want. Every day, this is the narrative replaying in my head.
This is my every day.
Filed under Musings
Hello, humid summer, I haven’t really missed you! 
Hazy heat blurs the green tree leaves, the stillness of the air stifles. Memorial Day evening—hot, humid, muggy…all those summer words associated with living in the South. Now, when it is this hot, I usually have my day all planned out—sit on my ass, in the A/C, and read. A lovely reading chair, books to finish and begin, and access to ice, but Little League games interfere with my perfect plan.
So, Plan B: lawn chair, battery powered fan, book(reading The Great Gatsby), and Moleskine notebook. I’m somewhat famous for bringing books and writing materials to just about every potentially boring event(a.k.a when my child isn’t playing, doing, etc. I really only care about watching my kid).
Simply put, I dislike being bored.
But then the sun blares down upon the pages, my hands sweat from holding the pen, and I’m forced to watch the game, or better watch the parents at the game. I squirm from the excess sweat hoping that when I get up from the chair that I don’t look like well…I have incontinence issues. It was really that hot, I promise. I looked like a hot mess.
That’s when it starts again.
My people watching diversion turns into compare myself to everyone else obsession. Other mothers with perfect air, lovely brown tans, sporting their spaghetti strapped tank tops. None of them playing the “check your shoulder for the bra strap” game. Aww, shit, I’m looking down at my legs white wishing I had worn shorts more before this evening. Of course, their perfect children ate perfectly well-balanced meals before the game while mine will eat what I can quickly throw together after the game.
I’m slowly wilting under the intense heat of comparison. Worst, I’m doing it to myself.
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Filed under Uncategorized
A summer like May morning, coffee and news and breakfast relax into the routine. More tornados last night, more destruction, just more hurt upon hurt. I rarely pay much attention to the morning news shows. I watch the weather—hot and humid, no rain clouds in sight.
But I see the small faces of the children in tornado ravaged cities. Candidly, discussing their friends’ broken bones, lost toys, destroyed homes. Pain mingled in innocence now sitting in a shelter with microphone shoved in their faces. Another media spectacle of pain, a montage of ruin fills the screen. A gray stuffed bunny rabbit, white belly, and bright orange carrot must have been an Easter present, but no child clinging to its gray mud covered body. Now, it lies amidst the ruins.
We forget that we live in tomorrow’s ruins.
Everything, we own today will not exist in its pristine condition. Entropy sets in, decay, then dust. The vast destruction shows how close we are to our future ruins. One storm, one fire, one flood. When ruin comes swiftly, we look upward and plead for a why, an explanation—some rational for the fragile items ripped apart. For moment, we see how weak and helpless we truly. Dependent upon the One who sends the rain and storm and winds.
Filed under Musings
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