Writing Prompt

In Capstone Class last night we had writing prompt.  We had to focus on something normal and come about it in an absurd way...

How Not To Live Forever

Don't dream about the horseshoe of the Carpathian Mountains.

Don't attempt to believe you would understand the land-sea of superstition there.

Don't go to Transylvania.

Don't become mesmerized by the depths of those beautiful eyes.

Don't fall in love with his drafty Gothic mansion.

Don't wonder what's in the moat - the Vistula can't be kayaked either.

Don't hike under the moon in the Hoia-Baciu forest.

Don't trust the wine - God knows what it is, keep your mind on the Eucharist.

.

Don't tell him his pet bat is cute.

Don't kiss his neck.

Don't let him kiss yours.

Don't make love, the coffin isn't big enough and violaceous silk will stain.

Don't increase his numbers - he wants a baby.

Don't have his baby - that is eternity.

You aren't ready to live forever.

Put It Out There

Something strange has been happening.  I've long been a student of life and the human condition, both within myself and in my observation of others.  I have seen many forces at work and I find validity in all of them.  I've read countless 'odd' (I prefer cosmically fascinating!) books.  Why just yesterday a new book arrived called Ley Lines and Energy Meridians (focusing on Celts and the islands around Scotland!  I was also given a book called Science Set Free!  All seem to deal with that intangible but very real energy that surrounds us all.  So how does this pertain to my current condition of graduating and trying to formulate how to get this all going?  

Intention.

People are winding up in my path.  I don't believe it is a coincidence.  

Yesterday at work - seemingly a world away from the academic career I'm striving for  -three teachers came in at various times.  Coincidence perhaps.  But here's the kick - I have never been able to really talk about myself or my achievements - it feels obtuse? self centered?  Until lately...

It went something like this - "Oh I see you're a teacher, I'm graduating in 2 weeks and am hoping to find an alternate route position - anything in a classroom...."

And that led to...

"Here's my email!  Give me yours - I have a ton of info and tips of things to focus on!  I'm so happy for you - we need passionate teachers!! You're going to be great!"

"Oh you definitely need to try my district - they will hire, you may have to coach or run a club and it may not be tenure, but it's experience!"

"Check this website out - it's great it lists all the positions currently open everywhere - it's how I got my position and I'm alternate route!!"

Desire doesn't hurt, intention helps, a positive attitude and belief is key - it opens doors where you never even saw them.

I've also seen it at work with my professors

ME: "Hi, listen I feel very uncomfortable asking you this but the Masters Program requires two letters of recommendation and I was wondering if you would be willing to write one?  You can say No -  I won't be offended and I'm actually embarrassed to ask but..."

PROF "Oh Christine I was going to ask you if you needed one."

Things are working out, and I used to be afraid of that because, well, didn't it mean that something would eventually go wrong? 

I'm choosing to rewrite that belief - we all should.

Hope for the best.  Believe in the best.  Be pleasantly surprised.  Things will go wrong, but there are forces greater than ourselves working to try to make them right and we should work with them.

God once said to my heart 'Do all you can and I will do the rest'

Pray - Believe - Imagine - Intend - Hope - Keep Going

Namaste

An Honor

Words cannot express how much this meant to me.  Up until they called my name I was certain it was an error.  My Linguistics prof from last semester spotted me in the seating and came over to shake my hand and congratulate me.  He said it was an achievement.  I believed him. 

When I was younger I was just far too immature to understand any of this.  The words the scholars would say when they addressed the room...I always felt they were supposed to say those things, paid to say those things, they never really believed any of those things did they?  They do.  And now so do I.  I hung on every word.  I let the words burn into me, rewriting the damaging words that had been there.  I deserve this.  I worked very hard for this.  It is an achievement.  I can do this.  There's still a shadow of doubt in me, I suppose there always will be - it's part of who I am.

I was a bit emotional.  I think I still am.  I cried most of the way home.  When I showed my son he got a bit emotional and said 'Mom, I'm so proud of you - I remember when you started going back to school, I remember the books you read...I remember you reading Beowulf.  Not everyone gets that paper Mom, Not everyone can do that." Then I hugged him  This is so real.

But honestly the one thing that really got me (of all things!) Was the bookmark.  It brought me right back to a high school classroom, long ago, when I fell in love with Literature as I understand it now.

"High sparks of honour in thee have I seen."

Shakespeare (Richard 11.5 vi 29)

Keep Going

Namaste

The Taking-

Readying schoolwork for my final writing portfolio - due next week.  The following is a prose poem that I had written for a Writing Capstone class.  We were told to take risks...apparently this was a bit too risque...

The best feedback I received was from a fellow student who work-shopped the poem, "I felt completely violated...and I enjoyed it."

The Taking

Your tenor eyes match a voice like the wet sand that the spice ships slice into at dawn.  Your Mediterranean skin is smooth like avocado flesh.  Your body: sinew under culture.  I could bite that lower lip.  But where would I stop?  When would I stop?  I could tug at it with teeth as your eyes roll in ecstasy to an azure heaven where the angels spin their robes of white.  Your mouth is delicate and pliable like red wine with a second core hint of fruit.  It is to be waited for.

Beneath your collar lies you cosmic rhythm.  It is distracting, lush, and unguarded.  I could languidly move from your mouth to your neck, to your low lying lobe; where you will hear only my breath, your pulse.  Would I consume you?  Perhaps.

You taste like a guttural moment.

Like the vessels on the edge of storm, I would release that sail; your hand-stitched Moroccan shirt. Then lick the salt from your wounds and seek harbor in your shadows.  My desire is not one of creation.  My desire is one of satiety.

I will not offer you life beyond your own.  I can only offer you the air that caresses the nightshades with all its terrifying uncaring comfort.  I can only suggest to you the marble steps and writhing in full view of your ancestors - for this is the spark of living that civilization can barely recall.  Perhaps I will offer you nothing.  Perhaps I am only here to take.

It is just a thought.  It is just a moment.  It is just upon us.

Convention be Damned - Take Risks

Namaste

Magic Beans...

Today was a good day.  I did tons of laundry, cleaned the house, and met a friend who was ridding herself of a small box freezer.  The money coming into this household has dipped.  Part of my child support is finished as my son has turned 18.  I was a bit panicked but oddly enough this all seems so cosmically timed...

It's as if $ is slowly decreasing just in time for my graduation and ability to earn more of a livable wage.  But it is not without its fear.  I have a friend who says to me "When you are worried count your cans - you will find you have more than enough."  She is Polish and her family survived depressions (they were farmers) and in the old country they lived through wars untold.  She's my bootstrap friend and we share bean recipes and marvel over the waste some folks live by.  When she says she counts cans - she means it.

I look over what's on hand in the kitchen frequently and in my little prepper closet.  I've become adept at cooking with very little and can butcher my whole purchased chickens like no ones business.  I always save scraps of veggies etc to make homemade stocks and the like.  It's almost a lost art if I talk to some people.  I swear I once made the most delicious bean soup from a chunk of frozen pork, onion shreds that I had frozen, carrot & celery shreds sauteed in bacon fat (yes I save it) and a bag of mixed beans - we ate that for a week with homemade flour biscuits.  So when the opportunity for a freezer free of charge popped up - I was on that like white on rice.

It's a little box and it works like a charm.  I've already partially packed it because a full freezer is more economical in its running they say.  I also threw in containers with frozen water which will act like batteries should we lose power with the spring storms I'm sure are coming.

So now when meat goes on sale I can put a bunch up. It just gives me peace of mind - food is like $ in the bank.  We really are ok.  I have bills, like everyone else, and it seems the second you pay one off another comes in to take it's place.  Tonight I'm dreaming of a better tomorrow.  I've learned to live on less and be ok.  But honestly it's not really that much less; when I count cans we are always ahead.

There is abundance in a bag of beans.

Namaste

4 weeks

It's mid April and my time is not my own.  It hasn't been for months now.  I'm finding it hard; this last push toward a goal made long ago.  I will graduate in 4 weeks.  I had to pick up my cap and gown the other day and that's when it hit me.  I still harbor a feeling that they are going to find some error either in their own judgement or in my paperwork that will prevent all of this from happening.  I'm chalking that up to a lifelong struggle with unworthiness.

I worked very late the last two nights - as I will tonight.  I am tired of missing things for my children, this constant business of tasks.  Although I think I'm just tired.  Period.

My house looks like it's been ransacked.  We own too many things, too many clothes.  I feel like a one woman show picking things up, hanging laundry (dryer still out) cleaning dishes that pile up in a day.

Every hour, every single hour that I am not at work is devoted to school first, house second.  I am tired and there is a touch of resentment.

But the odd thing is this, under the layers of a now numb buzz of stress, this all FEELS like it's going somewhere...like there is a cosmic destination.

I've become somewhat feral, disassociating a bit with family and friends until this hurdle is cleared.  I plan on attending my graduation solo.  All my big moments have always been alone.  It's a strange relationship I have with myself, but it's the safest one I have found.

My children will be coming to my induction ceremony for the International Honors Society for English and then we will go out for dinner.  If I can't afford dinner we will head out for ice cream.

Last night after work I had to run my sons phone charger to him.  Every Friday the boys stay with their dad in the big house in Vernon that we lived in when I was married.  The EX comes up and stays there with them, partly because the house sits pretty much empty and I think he needs to justify the fact that he still owns it.  His mother moved in as she couldn't be alone in FL any longer.  She is a shadow a shell of the person who hated me.  I forgave her long ago.  The 2 bedroom cottage that we built intending for my parents to live there (thank God they never sold their house) houses a nice older lady with a scruffy dog who loves the solitude.  The rooms in the main are huge and dark and empty - it's like one big cavern.  I once knew every inch of it, now I'm a stranger.

So anyway I had to drop off the charger and I wound my way to the driveway.  I always forget how dark Vernon can be at night. The ancient apple trees at the start of the property were barely visible at that hour.  I made it up the steep driveway and stepped outside the car.  The garden looks like a graveyard - long gone to pot.  The huge 3 car garage with the center boat bay sits like some post apocalyptic warehouse.  I don't even remember what's in there - remnants of furniture and appliances that we planned on using to make the garage an outdoor space - I think?  It was quiet on the property and I stood there looking into the darkness.  I got this overwhelming feeling that the old me was looking back at me - from behind the giant maple on the far side of the yard.  It all seems in a strange suspended state. We all have our ghosts and some of them are ourselves.

My Ex walked out to get the charger and to say hello.  He regards me always with a strange disbelief. I find that he is almost timid when he sees me - I do so much now and I was so young when we were together.  I hadn't yet 'become me.'  I didn't even know me and as I have grown to know myself, he has seen a stranger form from the girl he knew.  He has an odd sort of respect now.  I wish it could've worked.  It would be nice to have an intact family - It just wasn't the hand we were dealt.  For ten years he's held that house - why do that? who does that?

There are so many thoughts and emotions swirling around me.  I wanted my own ground zero.  I wanted to be stripped to my most basic essence, to understand what I was made of.  I got my wish.  Don't believe that bullshit of 'be careful what you wish for' - wish for all of it.  I'm still going to.  I'm tired, I'm a bit down, I'm so goddamn sleep deprived I should be hallucinating.  But my life is finally mine.  My self worth is dictated by me.  My dreams, my goals, my tears, my regrets - they are all official.  Become the you that you know is in there.  Don't bypass the reality that is you - don't die unrealized.

Be present.  Show up.

You've got this

Namaste