didn’t say

You sit in your spot, the dog at your feet, the children running about. We lounge, inches apart. There is nothing lacking. You are here. We are happy and the puzzle pieces fit. You didn’t say anything to cement this life you are embracing toy our own. You do say instead that you are thinking of buying a house far away. You say maybe you will finally hit the road. You say visit you. You didn’t say why you’d be so impulsive, so quick to leave this peace you’ve finally found.
I watch you rest and ease into our life, shedding the cares of your job, of your aloneness. I watch you meld into our family and I wait. I know and I didn’t say, won’t say, that I will sit here like le petit prince, coming daily to wait. I say “You know where to find me” I see you, Fox, and I will bide my time. Sitting always where you know I will be. I wait.
You move closer, cautious. And true to character, you believe you are not giving in to any desire to be found, but that you are taming me.
I didn’t say I love you. You didn’t say I love you. We didn’t say anything.
You stand to take care of the meal. The dog follows you, indignant that you dared move away from where he wants to find you. And I didn’t say you belong to the dog, you belong to this family. You feed him from the table, indulge his demands of you to be here. And you believe you are taming him.

Skee ball anyone?

I got bonked but good yesterday at Chuck E’ s by a wayward Skee ball. I do not recommend it and can only repeat how grateful I am that it wasn’t my little son who took the projectile to the noggin. It was well over 12 hours ago and I am not back to center, yet managed to connect all over North America.

I did call my Doc in Toronto and she assured me as long as I don’t have vision issues or vomit I will recover. Why a doctor in Toronto, you may well ask? 1. Cause she ain’t in Sweden right now. 2. My therapist in Texas didn’t return any of my calls!

It can get more international if you’d like — I was there with my friend from Germany and afterwards we went shopping at World Market. And for further long distance, I called my best friends in St Louis, Portland, South Dakota and San Francisco (well, I thought I was calling SF, but he was actually in NY when he picked up). All of that was after we placed a satellite call to the ship my son’s dad is a chef on. Before bed, I will try to call my other buddy in the Yukon .

I spent today on my bed, occasionally with damp washcloth over my eyes, not wanting to sit up or move much. I didn’t feel able to do many things and the one or two I did attend to were not major (eating, talking to neighbor briefly) or were not given as much energy as I’d have liked.

days like this I am glad for my Vonage phone but wish my global community were more of a local neighborhood.

longing —

sigh

sigh

sigh

Wonder what I am doing? Listening to the original cast recording of Camelot (the movie, not Broadway) and being melancholy — “never let it be forgot, for one brief shining moment” — always chokes me up. Maybe it’s how damned young Richard Harris was & how absolutely handsome he was.

Of course, it is also because it is a love story, and tonight (as happens a few nights here & there) I’d really like a love story again.

And as I am googling stuff and following tangents I found my way from Richard Harris to Richard Bach and I get angry and disappointed.

I, as so many of his {& Leslie’s} readers, was devastatedly heartbroken when they split. And however unfair (or not) we blamed Richard. And right now, tonight I am ticked at him again. What the frick is this ? Maybe I am exhausted and emotional, but c’mon — I can NOT get this to do anything.

Why were we all so angry & hurt? If you do not know I will simply tell you — theirs was a love story we told ourselves was unlike any other. Soul Mates . Beyond. Something we dreamed of attaining and damn if Richard with all his flaws (he laid them bare to us) could still manage to make it work with the wonderful Leslie, well, we the common folk had a chance for true love , too. There was hope.

I learned of the dissolution of the Bach - Parrish marriage just after a crushing end of my own relationship with the one I believed was “the One.” I was already in a low spot about true love and all that “crap” and to have seen a new book by Richard {from which it was immediately evident there was another woman in his life} had put me over an edge I had until then managed to avoid falling off of.

I remember sitting at my desk, in an office with an ocean view, reading his website and having it confirmed. I had been spending my days alone trying to find a place (not just to live, but to exist - a job, a niche, anything) for myself back here in Encinitas and my nights alone crying.

Then I had no longings for a new love story. I had no desire to ever allow myself to be heartbroken or destroyed. Many many things changed in the next few months. Among them was a tentative new relationship that I kept at arm’s length and my mother’s need to be cared for.

Fast forward and here I am - having just found a place (in all the ways - home, work, friends) for myself and I am alone again. That tentative relationship had softened me, had caused me to open up again, and it had withered and faded.

I am alone again. I do not want to ever be destroyed or be at the end of anything I believed so strongly in as I had “the One” (or to be very very honest - any of the very few I had believed were potentially the One). But I do want, I long to be open to another opportunity. I want another love story. And I have learned something which does put a huge lump in my throat as I type and tears in my eyes, but it is a truth and I have sadly and wisely learned it. They ARE love stories. And the really really perfect ones are like the ones in Camelot, and Richard {bless his mess anyway} & Leslie — they are heartbroken tales of love which can not survive forever. The only spot for “happily ever aftering” is in our souls.

Redu Part 82

I swear it feels like it’s the 82nd time I have tried to find the best way for things here at the townhouse — today I moved my home office BACK up to my bedroom (where I had it for half a day when we finally did get our internet installed).

At some point tomorrow when the roomie notices, I will very calmly & clearly explain — I HAVE to work. I tried to do that downstairs, but the 4 days a week she & her son are home, I spend more time dealing with disturbances than working. I can not put in enough hours on the 3 days they are not home. I need to be able to work first thing in the morning and as late at night as I can stay awake for some deadlines. I have to be able to work without stopping to calm the dog back down after he gets woken up and hyped up. I have to be able to make phone calls next to my computer to write articles , not try to hide in my bedroom and take written notes (my handwriting has completely devolved beyond hieroglyphics ).

If she really has a problem with this, I don’t know what else to do. I have tried & it isn’t working for my office space to be in the center of the living areas. PERIOD.

bad bad day

The living situation is not getting better.

Roommate & her son are not adjusting or trying to make things work.

My kids & I are making all sorts of routine changes to help accommodate them & their “schedule” and the chaos which ensues if the boys eat a meal together while the roommate is present or attempt to work out being two small boys living under the same roof.

- note — when I am the only adult present the boys can & do eat calmly together and can & do go to bed at the same time and stay in bed and go to sleep & we talk through any sharing issues or what-have-yous like civilized folk

Today a question asked by a 5 yr old was misheard and misconstrued and the roommate cracked, just how hard and how fully is yet to be seen, but among her words were that they were moving out ……

My work week was already curtailed by the power outage of Tuesday which lasted 12 hours plus and by a pre-arranged visit with the magic baby yesterday & the rest of that afternoon being consumed with trying to address the toy problem and the fact that everything that belongs to me or my 2 children is piled into my one bedroom [[as we wait for the roommate to move out of her bedroom and into her son’s bedroom (as per her suggestion, mind you)]] and therefore we tried to organize and manage so we can actually use the room since we end up stuck there for so much of our day.

And now it really seems as if the only way I will ever work is if I move my office BACK upstairs to my bedroom I now share with my son, the dog and everything that belongs to my daughter.

Yes … I am a bit stressed & am having a hellacious time trying to focus on major work piling up.

Unfortunately, the honest answer to the benign question my son asked my daughter “why don’t you like —- (the roommate’s son) when he is wild?” is that he is seriously affecting my work and my peace of mind, my daughter is not a happy camper to be in the midst of this drama, my dog has become justifiably nervous and upset around a child who torments him and my son can’t understand why his little buddy causes so much upheaval and I can’t keep juggling all of that and survive.

It isn’t so much that we do not like this child — we can not live around this child and the aftermath he causes .– we do not like when he is wild, Sam I am, not here or there, not anywhere.

webs and spirals and suchness

“Not the same kind of sky - still hoping I can get enough ‘left’ to shift my sight & experience the orbs. a very (too) clear sky compared to the fully fogged in one last week. They are off-kilter today and I am neither surprised, nor too concerned. ENOUGH conscious distraction — chanty time — A spider - upside down -

I right her, mark her location with a little stick in the sand & wonder if the crows would attempt to eat her.

no orbs, but arcs from the sky to the water, but not extending to the land.”

she is indeed a baby tarantula that I came across this morning at Moonlight Beach. after surfing, brother James helped me move her to the plants growing on the strata to protect her — though I know she’ll move back to the sand to hunt.

We made plans for a long drive & talk to go to the Indian Store. The talk is good and I hope he takes away somethings. Otherwise, I will have to utilize some reeds for his Zen study

He found the perfect bones to make some tools and I finally found a little dark carved wooden spider “charm” to honour the Grandmother Spider and keep her messages close to my ear.

I was just going thru the motions of the rest of the day as I was looking forward to the pagan wienie roast. Alas! The Universe decided to best I stay home and do some serious work — I began to edit MS #3 from the publisher I work for to pay the bills. They are something else I tell ya!! This writer . . . well . . . all of his characters . . . kinda hem and speak in . . . awe and . . . argh!!! AND he would love the pagan wienie roast as he firmly believes in WHICHs. Seriously, I thought I had seen all kinds but after these three — ONLY 3! I am amazed once again at how people’s brains work.

Doesn’t matter — these guys keep writing and I keep editing and I can keep this roof over our heads and food in our bellies.

hiatus over

My spin doc is pushing for me to divulge my whereabouts of the past month, plus, to my faithful readers (whom, in your great concern and dismay, have bombarded his e-mail box with untold “where has she gone” queries) — I’m just not sure how exciting it is for you to read that the sheik’s mirage didn’t have reliable WiFi.

Maybe you’d prefer my PR gal’s version that it’s very difficult to use a laptop and transmit from the middle of the Aegean Sea. My dog-walker & Reiki master both vote for the story of how I attained enlightenment in June. My intern , of course, would like me not to have so many hyperlinks for her to process. {She’s also not happy to know I have the backlog of blogs from the missing time ready to be typed, formatted & linked up.}

Really, the painfully simple truth is that moving and merging two households and working full time as a freelance writer/editor/juggler in order to provide for your children takes a lot of time and energy. AND that AT&T sucks royally and just getting my phone service and DSL up & running took an entire week that I will never get back. ….

I think I’d like to recall the past month as having taken place in my new townhouse devoid of the other inhabitants . 

The only important thing IS I am back.

the spirit jog/surf/write

I managed to fall back asleep after getting up early to go with my buds to Moonlight Beach & woke to realize I needed to be there in two minutes . Lucky me — they live literally a stone’s throw from my new home. I pulled on my grey yoga pants, grabbed a hoodie as it gets amight foggy and chill at the water’s edge .

Well, they were a little brighter and bushier tailed than I - no worries. I wasn’t even sure what I’d do — though I was sure as hell not getting in the Pacific or on the board .

Getting out of the truck, I realized I needed a pen and anything to write on. James produced some old bank statement, a pen and a telephone answering machine manual for a writing surface. Good to go.

“I see the tracks of the bipedal carbon based life forms I am supposed to be ‘connected to.’ They were here, earlier than this, which is early for me. I know it’s a late start to many. Other marking show me where a seagull retrieved something for breakfast out of the wet sands.

My shaman brother is paddling out - to ground, as I ‘instructed’ him, in the ocean. My Earth Mama sister completed her stretching and as the Golden Goddess she is, is running now along the fog shrouded shore neath the strata . I keep both in my view - my vision, my sight, my heart. They are mine, beyond family or friends - we are, we belong.

The ocean is warmer than I thought as I stand at the edge allowing my feet and ankles to be submerged. My “doc” said soak them in salt water

I chant, intone, count and begin my walking mantra. I greeted the Directions, rolled up my pants and am looking, watching the water for a message. “Do as I told James, ok- ground with the water.” I stood in the place of the North and see into the place of the South. They were many light beings - orbs and the lights here are like the ones I was surrounded by on Haida Gwaii .

Then, a bird, a pelican (the name is obstructed in my mind - I can not name him in this language, I want to call him things I do not know or understand) flies over my head and makes himself known and connects to pass something along.

There are shapes amidst the orbys and they are squiggly. They have purposeful direction - like marching in from the ocean to the land, while the little lights just bob about, fizzle and spiral about. Drawn to a section of submerged sand, I see the 3 sisters . They are washed out and an eagle forms and too is washed away.

Time is measured; we only have an allotment. That the message comes in the shifting sands just when beneath the water’s edge adds to that. Nothing is forever.

As my background is a strata - a visual reminder of how time moves & maybe leaves a record, but nothing more, when even that ‘record’ will not stand forever in some locations. To the strata I march, slowed only by a spiral shell and the sand dwellers. There is a grey squirrel ahead at my destination. Gathering my gifts I advance, The strata is worn smooth and covered by salt, tenuously preserving the exterior while plants with flowers cling and thrive upon it. Like my daisies of yore, like me.”

writers, words & wine

err, mayhap not so much vino as beers…. but yeah, in answer to a question this week put to me by a non-writer — “were you guys drinking ?”

“we ARE writers, dude. Do beers grow on trees ? oh, they don’t, eh? They f-in’ should. but c’mon wherever two or more of us congregate , in the name of Papa , there damn well best be beers.” and in deedily-doo there are beers AND bubbly, by the by, at our weekly ‘bring out yer dead’, err, I mean, ‘

Once a week the famous Ed, the infamous db & lil ol’ me knock back a few as we knock out the kinks in our writing, well, mostly theirs.

An’ every other week, should I be so blessed, I head to the O’side writers and good ol’ Hey-Hey gets me a Chronic as soon as she sees me walk in.

Mind you — we don’t neeed a nice little brew, but it sure makes being a writer easier.

and if the song is right that “in heaven there is no beer,” well, hell we gotta drink it here

fresh start

I spent my entire day scrubbing down the new house - every possible surface. Before we actually got to the house we needed some cleaning supplies & because I am really serious here I bought products from a new Green line. I LOVE this stuff!  The new house smells of coconut and citrus, plus we also used great Castile Soap from TJ’s.
That stuff smells like peppermint! And the Trader Joe’s  Next To Godliness Cedarwood & Sage Multipurpose Cleaner only added to how awesome the house smells & how deep down clean it is.

My arms were so sore after a 5 1/2 hour marathon. I scrubbed every shelf and door of every cupboard in the kitchen. I washed the oven racks & the burners on the range. I attacked the bathtub and the shower, every inch of the vanities & medicine cabinets. Swiffered the floors upstairs & a third of the stairs.

I am very ready now to pack up some stuff and start the process of hauling loads over with the help of an army of great friends! Tomorrow morning I am taking over about 3 crates of stuff & a tonne of toys & then another pal is driving us back for another quick run.

I need to charge the camera battery so i can document the slow & steady progress from empty house/clean slate to our new lives!