Idiosyncratic Daydream

Embracing Lunacy

2011-11-30T09:23:00.001-08:00

At this point, I must accept the idea that I may in fact be totally insane. At least in isolated parts of my life. You can't have tons of energy and a very vivid imagination for long before someone else thinks you are crazy. I will admit I have a very warped perspective on a lot of things, but my mind is the only place I have to live, so I deal with it.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure it is all relative, and just because something is perceived by my mind or experienced by my senses, sixth or otherwise, doesn't meant it isn't real or true.

And my mind works overtime. I have compared it to the restlessness of a shark, continually moving just to stay alive. When your brain is going all the time like that, it takes you to some strange places. Sometimes my flights of fancy allow me to come up with creative solutions for problems. Sometimes I cook up unusual stories or characters that I write down and make my feeble attempts at art with. Other times, I devolve into anxiety, depression, and worry.

I may not actually be insane. That oversimplifies. Insane people can't function at all. They have no connection to the common reality. I manage to have a demanding job and maintain relationships with people. I just have all this extra stuff. So, if anything, I am super-sane. Better yet, I could define sanity (functional life) along the spectrum of experiences as being in the middle, like the spectrum of visible light. Then religious ecstasy and intuition would be ultrasanity, whereas depression and melancholy would be infrasanity. I just came up with those words, and therefore hold the rights to them.

If you follow that logic, and I will contend that there is a peculiar logic to it, most people have a mix of all three. Some folks vibrate right in the middle, and live quite ordered and sensible lives. Others, and most of the artists I know, exist in the liminal spaces where the common shared reality blurs into imagination. I have patients in the hospital that suffer in the outer areas almost exclusively, or may pass through lucid moments only briefly on their excursions from one extreme to the other.

Go too far to either extreme of course, and you get the life threatening outcomes of mania and suicidal ideation. Biological life thrives in a narrow range of pH, and so our minds thrive in areas where we, as social animals, get the most positive feedback. There is social acceptance in being sane. Falling even a little outside that make you a delightful eccentric, and a lot outside it makes you homeless. So unless you have others around you to endorse your version of reality, you are gonna be pretty lonely.

I don't know about you, but that concept make me feel a whole lot better about my situation.

Who am I? Marie Antoinette?

2011-07-25T14:38:00.000-07:00

While I am all for eating cake, I otherwise bear little resemblance to the much-maligned and entirely beheaded former queen of France. But among her often-ridiculous affectations an possessions, she had something I am starting to understand the need for: a retreat in the form of a hobby farm village. It was a tiny, working mini-farm with a herd of 8 cows and one bull. The farm provided food for the parties that the queen held there, and gave her a chance to escape the intrigues of palace life and play peasant while it pleased her to do so.

Of course, the farm itself was run by a real farmer, appointed by the queen. She couldn't be expected to make the thing an actual going concern, could she? She'd get callouses or something. Of course, the fact that the queen amused herself by milking carefully washed cows was part of the reason she lost her head. Being frivolous while glaring class divides exist in your country tends to piss people off. Never mind that this was how she was raised, having been treated to gardens and menageries as a child. Le Petit Trianon was probably an immense comfort to a person whose main (and failed) function as a person was to produce a viable Dauphin.

Of course, I am not under the kind of pressure she was under. Nobody gave me much crap for being entirely unable to conceive. Actually, Marie Antoinette had several children, so she is well up on me there. But I'm still considered a mostly worthwhile person, I figure.

But this isn't about political pressure and class warfare. It isn't even about the indignity of infertilty. It's about goats.

Or rather, it is about farm animals in general. Whether it is inspired by Jacob's endless collection of books extolling the virtues of farm life (The duck says "quack"!), or the fact that I love fresh goat cheese, or the other fact that some of my friends are getting a chicken coop, I suddenly find myself fantasizing about having a few farm animals of my own. Not because I want to go back to my country-fried roots. I don't want 100 head of anything. I just want a vanity farm. Just a garden and few cool animals that would, given care, provide me with the makings of goat cheese and butter and eggs. Not like I don't buy that stuff at the farmer's market, anyway.

Animals are cute. They do funny things. There is something sort of sweet about the pugnacious affection of goats in particular. But I am dreaming if I think I have time, given my hectic work schedule, to milk a freaking goat or sticking my hands under a bunch of chicken butts for my breakfast omelet ingredients. Plus, there are the, um, poop issues. I whine about picking up after my labradoodle's messes. What would I do with the output of a 135-pound nanny goat?

But surely you can see the appeal. Living closer to the land and having your kid grow up caring about other living things. Having fresh food that hasn't been processed eight different ways before reaching said kid's mouth. The romantic idea of animals that come running when they see you, even if it is only because you are the one that feeds them.

Oh yeah. Feed. That shit's expensive. In what economy do I figure I live? One where they don't build houses right on top of each other? Not really.

So what is that feeling about? Maybe I am just craving a little extra space and a pastoral sort of arrangement. It sounds nice. But given the fact that I left the small town/rural area I came from for lots of reasons, shoveling manure among them, it probably isn't going to happen.

I have a lot of half-baked ideas lately. I'm trying to figure myself out. I contain multitudes and contradict myself daily. (Thank you Walt Whitman, for saying it best.) Who am I? Certainly not Marie Antoinette, but I can appreciate the no-win aspects of her life in that no matter what she tried to be, she lost her head because of libelous public opinion. It might be good to be the king, but it seems like being the queen kind of sucks. At least she had her farm, where she could pretend life was simpler. It was probably fun while it lasted.

Is Obsession Love?

2011-06-20T10:05:00.000-07:00

So, today is John Taylor's 51st birthday. I'll hasten to point out here that I did not have this penciled in red on my calendar, but got a reminder on Facebook from the Duran Duran fan page. But it did give me a moment's pause to remember him fondly, and I realized that I have similar feelings for some of my old lovers. That warm-if-distant affection that never quite goes away.

I was obsessed with John Taylor from at least 1983 to 1988. I was an epic Duranie of the highest order. I LOVED them. I had John Taylor's haircut, even. Yes, I had a spectacular, aquanet-crunchy mullet, but that is a subject for another time. It made me happy. I loved the music, the style, the guyliner, all of it. And in my secret heart, I still do love it, although perhaps not with the capital "L" of my teen years.

I know I am capable of my obsessions from time to time. They called me OCD girl in Anatomy class for the way I studied. Obsession can be useful when applied to academic pursuits, but love probably isn't in the same class of things that can benefit from that much attention.

I'm wondering to myself if I applied that same sort of devotion to my boyfriends in the past? I wonder what it is like to have a relationship with me. I'm all intensity and ferocity and passion. I want to break open my lovers and get to the gooey middle and taste the true depth of them. That might be scary, I guess, but I don't judge their flaws like they worry I would. I want them to give me a reason to be their biggest fan. I ask a lot of people. I want to know people on the deepest level possible. I want to try their favorite breakfast cereal and see if I like it too. I want to listen to their favorite records and see what effect the people who influenced them will have on me. If there were a Tiger Beat magazine that had my real friends on the cover I would totally buy it. I go deep or go home, because surface associations are next to useless to me.

I love John Taylor. I don't really know him at all, but whatever feelings I nursed for him as a young woman full of hormones burn in me still. He's getting older and so am I, but I still would probably pee my pants with excitement if I met him in person. But as we age together, I know that he has shaped me as much as anyone else I have loved. I gave oatmeal another chance because he loves it. So I guess obsession sometimes is good for me.

My Son the Architect

2011-04-28T12:23:00.000-07:00

Long term followers of this blog (if there are any) may recall that I had a very vivid dream that I had a son who was an architect. In the dream I was immensely proud of an adult son who had built a whole Utopian city. It was very modern, with lots of beautiful colors and angles.

This is what my son made with his blocks on my bed this morning.

Integrity

2011-04-28T09:12:00.000-07:00

It is a slippery moral world. When I was a kid, right and wrong was pretty simple. My mom was pretty good at letting me know when I wasn't doing the right thing, like when we went to the clothing store and I hid in those display roundabouts from her. I got swift and decisive correction. There was no cake before dinner. We went to church on Sundays, whether I wanted to or not. Oh, and about that, Jesus went with me everywhere, like a mini-tenant in my heart. So even the stuff my mom didn't know about, there was always God to keep an eye on me.

I was a bit of an odd kid. Part tomboy, part nature sprite, I communed with the many trees in my grandparents' yard. I sang to the ocean during those summers at Cape Cod. I tracked the wildlife all over the Grand Tetons and the Black Hills. I studied the field guides and could name them all. I didn't have anyone to teach me how to make a daisy chain, but I always wanted to wear one in my hair.

I grew up, like I suppose we all must but only some of us do. I still love nature and never see enough of it. I work really hard. In my job as a registered nurse I deal with the ethics of life and death and the medicine in between on a daily basis. Right and wrong isn't all that clear cut anymore. Even my mom will sometimes eat cake before dinner, and Jesus and I are on cordial speaking terms, but some of his followers as well as some unjust circumstances have created real distance in that relationship. I don't really feel like God notices or cares about me on a daily basis that much.

I try my best to live my life with integrity. Here's the lowdown in the form of a wiki quote:

"Integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions. Integrity can be regarded as the opposite of hypocrisy,^[1] in that it regards internal consistency as a virtue, and suggests that parties holding apparently conflicting values should account for the discrepancy or alter their beliefs."

At any rate, I am a passionate person and really appreciate honesty. I at least am honest with myself. Even if I am doing something in my personal life that isn't necessarily falling neatly into the "right" or "wrong" column, I know my motivations for what I do, and I make my choices for the most part with my eyes open.

Not all of my choices make me happy, but usually I learn from them either way, and see the wisdom of the outcome for the long game. Sometimes doing the right thing means making choices that make me completely miserable. Other times doing something sorta wrong ends up being the choice that leads to something really good. What is good for society at large isn't always what is going to be good for me. That different drummer is working a fast masmoudi in me when the rest of the world is doing Sousa marches. I'm a little warped. I have said before that trying to conform and always be "good" really takes me out of my integrity with myself.

I'm trying to remember these things as I strive for wholeness after a long stressful period, and during the recent stresses too. I need to focus on the things I know give me a feeling of peace: watching a chipmunk groom its fur, listening to the sound of the turbulent spring-swollen river, finding the mots juste to comfort a wounded friend, using my brain to figure out how to alleviate the symptoms of my patients when the drugs just aren't cutting it.

I may eat my dessert first, but it is an uncertain world. It isn't all about me, but if I can't be true to myself, I sure as hell can't please anybody else. I need to slow down and focus. I need to lace up my hiking boots. I need to drink more water and less coffee. I need to be in the present moment and attend to the work that is in front to of me. I need to take my son to Cape Cod and teach him how to sing to the ocean waves. He needs to feel the tickle of a hermit crab walking over his hand. There's lots of happiness to be had in the world, and lots of right and wrong ways to the top of the mountain (and guess what? they all get there!). What matters most is truth and love and facing my fears. I know I'll riddle it out my way, and that way is just fine even if others do it different.

Dream-Travel Lags

2011-04-21T09:33:00.000-07:00

Image: Cebu, Philippines

I was dreaming last night that I was taking a big trip to a tropical place, and that my son had to come on a later plane than me for some reason. Since he is only three and has never traveled anywhere, I was terrified he would get lost. I kept calling at every step to make sure he was a step behind me like he was supposed to be. It was so scary, and at one point I was screaming. I screamed myself awake, and Tony had to settle me back down.

Sometimes I wish that I didn't have such vivid nightmares, the ones that leave me trembling like that. Of course, if I couldn't dream that vividly, I would miss out on the beautiful dreams that I also have, the ones that nourish my abilities in my waking life. The ones that give me peace.

I guess I am just destined to be an intense dreamer. I just wonder: do I dream that way because I have an intense life, or is my life dramatic and intense because of the way I dream?

Poetry-The Other Side of the Coin

2011-04-15T11:28:00.000-07:00

Fierce Warrior Mother

Sword and dagger, fists clenched

Against the world’s injustice

Run into the flames when others run out.

Sharp barbs fly from acid tongue

Defending and offending alike

Bristle and shoulder against the storm

Endure it when the brimstone rains.

But also, wounded healer

Living with losses that leave glacial craters

Untouchable places and unloved faces

Barely breathing sometimes.

Trying to embrace the grotesque

The inner wretch that sees no light

The pressing madness at the window

The burden of all that truth.

Some people can only handle one of me

They choose sides, adamantly demand

That I be only that-an avenging force

Or something they can save with love.

I live on the dancing edge of the coin

As it rolls toward uncertain ends.

Balanced with laughter and force of will

A world of wonder in my hands.

4-15-11

Poetry-Mirror Image

2011-04-12T07:30:00.000-07:00

I sit in the bookstore coffee shop
Writing something so raw and true
That tears flow slow and unchecked
Into my corporate coffee.

Collecting myself and wiping my eye
I return to this world of dirt
Perception clearing, I look up
And see you, pen in hand, looking back.

Have you been writing about me?
My auburn hair in tangled curls
As I bents over my notebook, weeping
Silent, heedless, trance-like?

Does my pain only exist
In your world of fiction as a background piece?
Am I the peculiar detailed figure
Your protagonist notices before his path diverges?

I stretch, I yawn. You watch, you scribble.
Makes me want to pick my nose
Or scratch my ass to see if you follow,
To see how far I can take you with me.

Or could I stand and strip myself bare
Walk over to you and plant a kiss
On your astonished lips, and say
Thank you for seeing me at all?

4-5-11

Dead Batteries All Around.

2011-02-03T14:37:00.000-08:00

There is something just awful about knowing that you are at dangerous levels of life burnout and you can't take a break. Half the reasons that I am feeling at loose ends are ones that I can't discuss due to confidentiality laws. It seems that as a nurse and as a foster parent, I have to be burdened with more secrets than I am expressly comfortable with. I can't talk about my kids or my work very much.

I was supposed to go to have an appointment with Little A's therapist today to discuss how she is doing. I set aside the time, I skipped putting on makeup because I fully expected to spend the therapeutic 50 minutes crying my eyes out. I packed a bag with lots of under-eye concealer to apply after the appointment and before going to work.

I went out to my Jeep and tried to start it. It went "click, click, click". That's it. The thing was running fine yesterday, and today...nada.

So I open the hood and peer inside. Now, I know how to change my own oil and do a tune up, but fixing actual problems on my car is another matter altogether. So there I am in my pink nursing scrubs, looking under the hood like the answer is gonna jump right out at me, and further that I would know how to fix it. Of course that made me feel like a dork. So I called Tony and he said it was a dead battery, and he was gonna buy me a new one and head home with it.

So I had to call and cancel the cry my eyes out appointment. I went back in the house and made some of those cinnamon rolls that come in the pop-open tin. As I ate one, I felt properly sorry for myself. All in all, it wasn't even a huge crisis. We had the money for the battery, and Tony replaced it pretty quickly. The car started right up. But it had thrown my flow off. It was frustrating on a day when I had multiple things to do before work. As it is, I am not even going to be late for work or anything, but my personal battery feels like it is going "click, click, click".

I am having that thought again. The one where I need to go take a retreat and recharge myself. I need to find my spiritual core and get grounded. I need to do yoga and sit among trees and feel the breeze on my skin. As it happens, I am going to go to work in about 20 minutes and won't be home until after midnight.

I'm lucky that the car didn't die at some other, less opportune time or place. It could have been much worse. Could have been better, too, though,.

If you see me by the side of the road with my hood up, at least honk and wave. I'm just looking for answers even if I don't understand how things work and might not even know how to fix them.

Cupid and Psyche

2011-01-18T09:14:00.000-08:00

Cupid and Psyche, Antonio Canova, 1796

As often happens when I have even a little time to myself, I am thinking about myths and legends. This morning it is the peculiar romance of Cupid (or Eros) and Psyche. Stories where gods fall in love with mortals are of particular interest to me.

I love this sculpture, pictured in part, above. The hands of the figures are so tender, it is amazing to imagine that this was once a piece of featureless marble. The anatomy is soft and beautiful as they caress each other. They are captured in the lips parted moment before a passionate kiss.

Psyche had the misfortune of being born so beautiful that she made Venus jealous. Making a goddess feel envy is often cause for terrible punishment in these tales. Yet Psyche prevails and even gets to drink ambrosia and become immortal herself. That Cupid falls in love with her because he scratches himself with his own arrow is unfortunate. That Psyche is merely beautiful and not also wise is also a drawback. But It is a mysterious and charming story, full of invisible forces and ardent lovers that insist on having the lights off.

Without love, the world grows old and loses its color. Cupid and Psyche had a child together, the Goddess Volupta, who personifies sensual love and is one of the Three Graces. The gods didn't have that before. It took the human touch to create it.

What the hell is my point? I'm just rambling, mostly. But in part I harbor a secret wish that I could contain some spark of inner beauty that would cause the divine to look on me favorably and create something of worth in me. Something that is unique in the world and fills it with pleasure and joy.

Instead of God the Father, this is God the Lover, and it is an interesting concept. It would be nice to have an intimate and mutually loving relationship with a god, even a minor one. Most of the time I experience the divine as largely indifferent to the minutiae of my life experience. Wouldn't it be nice to have a kiss of greeting and have God ask, "Honey, how was your day?"

Living Passionately

2011-01-07T09:35:00.000-08:00

Image by Paula Scarletta

When I am in good form, and working at the top of my game, I strive always to live passionately. Of course, lately, I have been stunned into silence and even illness by the drama and baggage and heavy feelings surrounding the return of Little A and the short stay of Baby B.

As I sit here drinking water and taking antibiotics and trying to recover from the total shock to my system, I am noticing how down and low-vibrating this situation has made me feel. I have had zero energy for writing or for making other kinds of art. That spiraled down into a total creative void and finally physical wear and tear. It was like my body just totally went on strike to get me to notice that I had started to live my life in a way that was not going to be consistent with my happiness.

Of course I know that having kids will put a damper on your energy. Especially my kids, because they come from backgrounds that mean they have certain special needs in the parenting department. Well, A does. J has made such progress and I have bonded with him such that he seems easy and the relationship is pretty relaxed most of the time.

I am nowhere near my usual energy level at the moment, but it has forced me to use my time for contemplation. It is going to take me a little bit to rebuild my strength. While I do that I am going to try to remain focused on what really matters, and that is being true to who I really am. Too often I allow the people in the county building tell me how to parent. The fact is that I am a slightly peculiar person and my kids enjoy me more if I can go with it and just be myself.

I'm happier when I am entertaining friends, experiencing and making art, supporting the artists I know, dancing, being in nature, and helping other people. It raises my energy level to do those things. It brings me down to do paperwork, do things out of obligation rather than by choice, and spending time in places that are filled with negative energy and negative people.

I'm not really sure how long we are going to have Little A this time. Things seem pretty uncertain at the moment. But if I am going to enjoy her in her good moments, I need to have enough energy to be awake for it. Little by little, I need to raise the bar for myself and follow those passions where they lead.

Monet & Me

2010-11-18T08:18:00.000-08:00

Monet's Garden at Vétheuil, 1881 (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA)

This painting is following me around. Although it is quite a popular piece, I have been noticing it a lot lately. I was looking online for some new prints to put in my house, this one caught my eye again. I am going to need to buy a print of it.

My love of the Impressionists flows naturally from my mother and grandmother, of course. For years and years before I ever had children, this seemed a perfect piece to hang in a nursery. It seems peaceful to me. As I was researching it this morning, I discovered that it was painted after the death of the artist's wife Camille, and that this garden, landscaped by Monet himself, was planted at a rented house. He had to get special permission from his landlord to do it.

To say that nurseries have been on my mind lately would be an understatement. The last week has been a flurry of activity and then nervous waiting to see if we can work out the details to move Little A and her baby sister Little B into our house. They are currently in an emergency foster care placement, and we would like to care for them. It is a huge unknown and a huge gamble. We could have them only for a few months. There is always the slimmer than slim chance that they would stay with us longer. Any other placement would have been unthinkable right now, as we are still waiting to finalize Little J's adoption. But A lived with us for 2 years, and to be honest I wouldn't mind visiting the piece of my heart that she carries.

So I have been seeing this print everywhere lately. The most recent sighting was in the restroom of an Italian delicatessen that Tony and I went to for lunch yesterday. Seeing it so out of context seemed a soothing omen. Either we are meant to get these girls and it is going to work out this time, or even if we lose them we are going to be okay.

Monet threw himself into his work after losing his wife, and painted some of the most lasting images of his career during that time in his life. I'm no Monet of course, but I know a little bit about epic loss and the dramatic and beautiful aspects of suffering.

Of course, I would prefer it if I could capture some of the peaceful cheerfulness of this painting. Who knows how Monet was actually feeling when he painted it. Perhaps he loved sunflowers because it is impossible not to smile while gazing upon them. Somebody remind me to plant some in the spring.

Angry Old Fat Women Need Love,Too!

2010-10-25T20:24:00.000-07:00

RANT ALERT!!!!

Hey, guess what? I'm feeling a little pissed off today and here's why:

According to our popular culture:

It is okay to be fat as long as you are funny.

You can be hot if you are older, but only if you are skinny.

You can be sexy if you are curvy but not TOO MUCH.

You can be a feminist, but why be so ANGRY?

It is okay to be angry, but for cryin' out loud, get some botox so you don't LOOK angry. And don't be fat and angry.

But if you are middle aged, overweight, and dare to try to feel even the slightest bit attractive, good freaking luck. You can be old and hot or fat and hot, but both??? Nobody wants to see that.

I'm pitching fits. Culturally speaking, there is no place for me. Sexually speaking, at least in terms of popular culture, I am dead in the water, and any complaining about it is just old-lady bitching. Women who are younger than me seem to come away with the impression that because I look like a soccer mom, that I never had any fun when I was younger. I actually had a girl tell me that she just can't picture me ever being the type to wear a short skirt and drink and generally get into trouble.

In other words, I have become harmless. My femme-fatale days are over to other people, and apparently I was the last to get the memo. Whatever sensuality I possess is now expected to be subdued, refined, or, you know, invisible.

Not that I haven't mellowed with age, but that is just crap. I have no desire to be compared to a fine wine that gets better with age. I am different, but like all women in their forties, I am deeply aware of and interested in my sexual life. Like many women with naturally curvy bodies, I want to enjoy mine.

So here it is:

I'm aging, just like you are. ALL OF YOU. I'm also fat by many standards. I have little wrinkles from worrying on my forehead.

I also really enjoy sex, and I am probably better at it than you are. So there. I'm not self censoring any more for your comfort.

Dream: Hold Yer Own Tic Tacs!

2010-10-24T15:20:00.000-07:00

I always have such strange dreams when I sleep in a little. This morning I was dreaming that I was conquering my fear of heights by going skydiving. I was attending the safety class when some random guy said to me "Here, hold my tic tacs for me. Put them in your purse." So I did, only the lid wasn't all the way closed, and little white tic tacs went flying everywhere.

He was complaining to everyone about how I ruined his tic tacs. I got really pissed at him and yelled at him from across the room "Hold Yer Own Tic Tacs!!!!" and I started throwing them at him. Like, who did he think he was, presuming to take up space in my Coach handbag, anyway?? And why did he need the tic tacs for skydiving, anyway?

So there!

Sinking In

2010-09-08T18:40:00.000-07:00

Image: Little J finding the light at the end of the tunnel. It isn't even a train this time.

Okay, so I had to create a new tag for my blog today. I can't believe I had never used it before: Happy.

That just shows how much I have been holding my breath the last few years. It occurred to me earlier today that Little J will be with us at Christmas for sure. I have been so wrapped up in his legal concerns lately that I have not been able to think, with emotional safety, about the future. Just thinking about preparing a nice Christmas for him made me super happy.

Usually I am not super into that holiday. When we were going through infertility treatments there were too many Christmases that came and went without a child to share them with. The holidays became this loaded issue for me. Last year I didn't even decorate or put up a tree. I just couldn't do it. Now I have a new house and a new kid. I think I am going to dream of sugarplums tonight.

What the heck is a sugarplum, anyway?

Dream: L'Absinthe Rend Fou!

2010-08-24T06:57:00.000-07:00

I had a dream about Ted Breaux last night. To be more specific, I had a dream that I was reading about Ted Breaux in a book from the library. This is an impossible scenario, because apparently the dream was set somewhere around 1982, when I was a pre-teen. In fact, I don't even think the phrase "pre-teen" existed then.

But my mother had found and old book in the library to warn me about the dangers of drinking absinthe, apparently. Because in 1982 it was a widely known fact that absinthe was pure poison that would make you crazy if you drank it. Why, look at poor Vincent van Gogh, who cut off his own ear!

The book anachonistically mentioned Breaux as a "drug-addled wet-brain", ostenssibly because he advocates absinthe drinking and distributes the stufff.

Now, I have never met met Mr. Breaux myself, but I do drink absinthe from time to time. I can't say for sure that it doesn't make you crazy. But maybe it is a good kind of crazy. I just thought I would share because the phrase "drug-addled wet-brain" is so fantastic.

Dream: Baby Elephant Water Rescue

2010-08-23T08:08:00.000-07:00

I had this dream the night before last, and it lingered in my mind all day yesterday, so I guess I should write it down. I was out walking in a vast grassy/marshy place. I saw some commotion up ahead, which turned out to be a lone baby elephant struggling in the muddy water. He looked exhausted and about to give up. I waded in and let his heavy body lean against me while I disentangled him from the reeds and grass around his legs. I got him onto dry ground and he immediately fell asleep next to me, with a look of supreme contentment on his wrinkly little face.

Then, his herd showed up, and I thought for sure I was going to get trampled to death. The baby's mother was fussing over him and getting him to nurse, but the bigger female I was intuiting was his grandmother was inspecting me. Once she figured out that I had not hurt him, she nudged me closer to him with her trunk. He came over to me and was gently inspecting my face with the end of his trunk. I put my arms around him and gave him a hug. The grandmother elephant stood over us and made it clear to the rest of the herd that this was okay.

My dreams are not at all hard to figure out sometimes, even though they are weird. As Little J's TPR trial fast approaches, I wish like anything that his family would accept what is happening. I wish they would accept me. I wish they could see that their little one is in good and loving hands. Struggling to be seen as "good enough" is a recurring theme for me, sadly. It feels like my best efforts are misinterpreted or not seen at all. I feel like I have to be epic and extraordinary to be seen as barely adequate. I have to dive into the mud to be accepted. It is wearisome. This dream had a good outcome that felt significant. It would be nice if its success could be mirrored in my waking life. Little J might need a baby elephant painting in his room now.

Okay, Now What?

2010-07-26T10:29:00.000-07:00

So I have passed the NCLEX exam and can check the whole "get a career" thing off my to-do list (again-I did this when I became a chef, too). It is a huge relief to have Nursing School behind me and a freshly minted RN license in my pocket. I'm in my new job and loving it even though I am "the new guy" and still grinding gears and finding my way around. My patients like me and the doctors are receptive to my input. I even heard an attending physician tell a resident that I know my stuff. (Oh my gosh that felt good!)

I'm also on the precipice of building my family in a more permanent way. Still holding my breath for the legal hurdles we face over Little J next month. We have reasons to be optimistic about that, although until he is finally adopted I will not be able to exhale. Too many weird things happen in the courts for me to be able to predict the outcome with anything like confidence.

After years of excruciating work and no small measure of heartbreak, all of the above came to fruition at the same time. We moved into our wonderful new house, I graduated, we got a kid the next day, and I passed the boards last week. Life has been pretty lively. I'm just now starting to enjoy the rewards of all this rapid-fire change.

As any good Warrior Goddess would, I thrive when I am conquering. Resting on my laurels has never been my thing. I like to look ahead and dream big and overcome the trials to get the prize. I'm trying to open my mind to what comes next. I am taking a year off of school so I can explore my new job and decide what path to take to advance in my career. At some point I will have to decide if Little J will remain an only child or if I dare tempt fate to ask for a daughter again. Big stuff.

Here's some possible school options:

Bridge to my BSN degree: This will most certainly happen, I just need to work out how soon to tackle that odious set of prerequisites. I need to take Statistics and some Chemistry. Ugh.
Become a Nurse Practitioner? Maybe. If I really like clinical practice and find floor nursing limiting, this would be a good option.
Masters/PhD in Medical Anthropology: I LOVE this idea, but sadly UNR's Anthropology program is one I have ruled out as an option for a number of reasons. If I go with this option, we would have to move out of state. Not that I can't handle an adventure, it is just a really big move/investment. Tony would need to agree, and I just don't think he is ready for me to be heavy into school again like that. Nursing School was tough enough on our relationship.

Here's some possible family options:

Adopt privately: Avoid the rigors of Washoe County altogether and find an agency I can stand to work with. Adopt a domestic infant or go abroad. Costly, but less uncertainty (only a little less) once a match is made.
Continue to foster: Could we get lucky again or will we get our hearts broken? Big, huge gamble. Very low legal costs once an adoption can happen. Big time commitment.
Keep J as an only child: I dunno. I don't feel like the family is quite "done". Most parents can relate to that. You know when you are done adding members to the family, and I'm not there yet.
Get another dog: We got Ember at a time when I was dying for a baby and it just wasn't happening. It helped me by giving me something small and helpless to nurture. Still, having only one dog now is less chaotic.

Misc. Goals:

I need to do things to enhance my health and physical energy. In other words, get a grip on my stress-eating and get my butt off the sofa. Lots of options and classes, but have been waiting for my schedule to shake out.
I need to get back in the groove of making art. That is: writing and also trying out other forms I have always wanted to improve in. I can't decide if blogging counts.
Getting my spiritual house in order so that I can do ANY of the above with a little more hope and faith, rather than stressing out all the time.
Take a vacation to Europe. This is way overdue.

Dream: The Priest and I Don't Agree

2010-07-24T06:45:00.000-07:00

I dreamed last night that I went back to Ohio for a visit and was over at my father's house to see my sister. For some reason, their parish priest was there for a visit, in full high-ceremonial finery, no less.

He and my stepmom were talking about the Mel Gibson epic "The Passion of the Christ", and how he thinks that everyone should see it to gain an appreciation for the Christian faith.

I am my outspoken self even in my dreams, so naturally I said I had avoided that movie because it was just too violent for my liking. I don't need to watch a religious snuff film. My nightmares are fueled with enough images for several lifetimes already.

Sigh. This was not a popular viewpoint. The priest started in on me about it, and the fact that he felt my spirituality was flawed because I lacked a proper fear of God. We argued back and forth so much that I didn't even get to visit with my family and left in disgust.

An interesting observation that I had about this dream when I woke up is that my family, rather than coming to my aid, mostly just rolled their eyes at me and apologized to the priest for how I was offending him.

It is true that I am distant with my dad's side of the family. My father and I have had periods of estrangement to the point that my siblings (all much younger than me) barely know me. I am an utter stranger to my youngest sister Molly, which was never my intention. It just got too hard to bridge the distance of 2300 miles and the emotional gulf that still lies like an open wound from where my brother Ryan used to be. Without him to bridge the generation gap as it were, I feel totally old and separate and different from the rest of my brothers and sisters.

Of course, I am different in that I have a different mother than they do. And I live far away. And I am a whole generation older. And I am different from most other people in a lot of weird little ways, or so I am told. I feel vastly misunderstood sometimes. Luckily for me I have people in my life who at least mostly get me as a person. But the fact remains that it has always been a regret of mine that I couldn't rise above the hard times I was having with my father to be there for my siblings more.

When Ryan was alive, he did that. He looked out for them. I am a poor substitute for him in that regard. I'm trying, little by little, to let them know now that I am in their corner, that I have always loved them, that I am, unlike Ryan, still within reach. In still, small movements, I am just trying to be there.

I may have imperfect faith, but I do have perfect love, if not fully expressed yet. It is still a big gap, but when wounds heal, the edges get closer together. Healing is my business, so I guess Ryan would want me to do the work.For him I really will.

Dream: Showing up for Nursing Boards Naked

2010-07-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

Plus Bonus Dream Subplot: Europe Won't Allow my Yankee Spices!

More wacky stories from the sideshow that is my subconscious.

I dreamed the other night that due to bad time management and stress, I showed up an hour late for my appointment for the NCLEX exam, plus I was naked. Plus, instead of a written test, it was to be a practical demonstration of cadaver dissection overseen by my old Anatomy & Physiology professor, Doctor Burke. He didn't approve of my lateness but didn't seem to notice the fact that I was nude. I had to dress in full isolation gear as if I was treating a patient with MRSA or TB, and go and quickly dissect a corpse without making a mess of it. In two hours. Actually, I think that actually would be easier than taking the real NCLEX, but I digress...

One of the reasons I was stressed in the dream was that I had to pass on the first try, because I was moving to Europe to practice Nursing immediately afterward. It was in the back of my mind that the customs people had told me that I couldn't take my Dean & Deluca spices with me. Not like European countries don't have spices available, but I had purchased these at considerable expense and wanted to take them along. I was building an argument in my head that I should be allowed to take Herbes De Provence to freaking Provence! The nerve!

My dreams have been so jumbled up lately. I think I am finally processing all the changes I have been through since May. Life has been damn busy, and once I get past the NCLEX, things can calm down a bit. That is, if I let them. I am so accustomed to being in near-constant motion that I am not sure I know HOW to relax anymore. By the end of summer I hope to have fewer things hanging over my head and can enjoy the rewards of all this hard work!

Dream: Seth Green and the Burning City

2010-07-08T21:15:00.000-07:00

I have been super tired lately. Last night I went to bed super early to try to get some decent shuteye. Apparently, my subconscious had other ideas. I went on a wild ride in my head.

First up, the setting was in Reno where I live now, only the State budget was so bad that all the firefighters and police had lost their jobs. Things looked broken down and burned out everywhere.It looked bleak.

But I had a date, I guess. I was at a bar with actor Seth Green. Now mind you, I do not have a crush on Seth Green. I don't really think about him that way. But in my dream, we were drinking and carrying on. We went into a private room and things got steamy. I was digging it and really getting into him. Bizarre.

Then he told me that he wasn't really feeling the same way. I was crushed. Like, beyond unhappy. I was desolate. I pitched a fit. I made a spectacle of myself. I cried and begged him to take it back. He was looking at me with a mix of pity and disgust. I felt horrible.

I was driving home and crying in the car. There were buildings burning all around me and there were flaming cars on the side of the road. I felt like I had lost the only person who would ever love me. It felt really real.

When the alarm went off, I had to shake that dream off. I felt like crap for part of the morning. All because of some make-believe crap. Sheesh.

The Trouble with Fashion

2010-07-06T21:29:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me recently that now that I wear scrubs to work, any clothes that I wear outside of work can be truly for fun. In other words, I can wear WHATEVER I WANT. Gone are the days where I have to buy "business casual" clothes. I could buy clothing that expresses who I am in my purest form. I am free to dress like a freak if I want. I could skip down the street in a pink tutu as long as I don't mind humiliating my son and possibly my husband.

So, with a $50 gift card (a graduation gift from my mother-in-law) for Macy's in my pocket, I set out to find a garment that just spoke to me and said "Stacie" in no uncertain terms. That's where I hit a snag.

Either I have no idea what clothes are really "me", or Macy's had a slim selection of shirts that were not hideously ugly, or I am just a frazzled mom, but I was having a ton of trouble finding anything interesting. Add to that the fact that I am evidently invisible to the sales staff at Macy's. Literally nobody seemed interested in enhancing my shopping experience. Oh, and I guess I should just go ahead and mention that I am in my early 40's and shopping in the plus-sizes.

The fact that I was having trouble seemed to be something I took personally, like if I was thinner I would have had both more choices and more saleslady attention. I was feeling super-dejected. Eventually I picked up a pair of pants.

Beige pants. Beige capri pants.

Here I am with the world at my feet, personal expression-wise, and that is the best I could do? Or has it become, after years of corporate casual, the only thing I feel comfortable with? Have I BECOME freaking BEIGE?!?!?!?

Did it take me so long to get a career clue that I now have no personal style of my own? Am I doomed to look like a soccer mom until I succumb to some kind of granny cruise-ship gear? What the hell? Will I be buried in beige capri pants?

Oh, I suppose that shopping at a really mainstream store is at least part of my problem. I need to branch out. I need to learn to sew. I need to worry about more important things. Maybe I also need a pink tutu, just in case. What goes with a pink tutu?

Poetry: Fading

2010-06-28T21:18:00.001-07:00

Fading

From dizzying heights I watch myself fade.

Falling out of your thoughts like a lost star.

No longer illuminating your world with love

I scarcely have a reason to shine.

You won’t forget me all at once,

But little by little you’ll think of me less

Until one day you’ll stop and wonder

When I last crossed your mind.

Maybe you’ll convince yourself

That I never loved you so fiercely

If I was able to walk away from you.

You might think it, but you’ll be wrong.

Inside my orbit, I burn and inward turn.

Despairing, I am a singularity.

My light can’t reach your lush blue world.

And I’m forced to admit I no longer exist.

Please don’t believe such slander.

Though I fade in your mind you never leave mine.

My hand still reaches for yours in vain.

To offer safety and strength to you.

I may be fading now.

I may seem translucent now.

I may seem far away now.

But I’m here, as close as a breath on your cheek.

Stacie Ferrante

6-28-10

Sunday Supper: Summer Berry Upside-Down Cake

2010-06-27T19:52:00.000-07:00

I made this for Tony's Fathers' Day BBQ, and it was so good I had to make it again. Lots of people asked me for the recipe, and I realized that I fiddled with the original enough that I needed to re-write it so people could reproduce my results. I think I am going to start posting occasional recipes on this blog space, so I will call it the Sunday Supper feature, since I tend to put the extra special effort into my dinner on Sunday night for my family.

Summer Berry Upside-Down Cake

Special equipment you will need:

A 10-inch, well seasoned cast iron skillet

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

For the topping:

3 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar
3 cups mixed berries. (I used one cup each blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries)

Melt the butter in the skillet over medium heat until foam subsides. Add the sugar, stir to incorporate, and let it cook undisturbed for 3 minutes. Add the berries in an even layer and take off the heat. Do not stir.

For the cake:

1 1/4 sticks (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened.
1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar

3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
Zest of one lemon

1/2 cup half and half

Sift together in a separate bowl
1 3/4 cups cake flour (not all-purpose)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

In a mixing bowl, blend butter and sugars with a mixer until it is lighter in color and creamy. Add eggs, lemon zest, and vanilla and mix. Add sifted mixture and half&half in turns and mix until blended. Spoon batter over berries in an even layer. Bake 30 minutes, until top is golden brown and springy to the touch.

Remove from oven and allow to cool in the skillet for at least 10 minutes before loosening with a knife around the edges and inverting onto a serving plate. (Turn skillet and plate while pressing them together as one unit)

Serve wedges warm or room temperature with fresh whipped cream.

Dream: Things are Unfriendly in Portland

2010-06-04T08:01:00.000-07:00

My dreams sure are strange.

In my dream I drove to Portland, and did half of the drive in my sleep, so I wasn't really sure where I was. Tony met me and we checked into a hotel. Unfortunately, our room had no privacy, because the elevator was inside it, and there was no door on the bathroom.

We found out there was some kind of film festival going on. This would have been cool if that was what we were there for, but we didn't want to participate. It seemed like there were people absolutely everywhere, and they were so focused on the film festival that they overran everything.

Then we came upon a street with lots of little shops and a pub on the corner that was painted bright green. I was remarking that I had seen it before in a dream, so I wanted to explore. Film festival people were everywhere, and they were very unhappy with us being there since we were not participating in the event.

At one point I asked a woman on the corner who was a local "Are people usually more friendly here?"

"Not really." she said. "Not like you'd think."

The rest of the dream was spent trying to get back to the car to get out of Portland and away from the hostile people. It was totally weird, because I know Portland is a laid back, cool place. I have considered several times to relocate there and have looked at schools up there for continuing my education.

If I ever see that pub in real life, I will laugh so hard.

He sees London, He sees France...

2010-05-28T08:59:00.000-07:00

Little J sees my underpants!

Since I am on a small "maternity leave" with Little J and Tony is still working daily, the two of us are together constantly. It is great for bonding and murder on any kind of privacy. He follows me everywhere, which is fine because that is better than wandering the house and getting into trouble. He even follows me to the bathroom. *sigh* I guess I have to let him because if I go in alone, he'll be unsupervised and will also pound on the door and demand to come in.

So for now I guess I have a bathroom attendant. He hands me toilet paper and washes hands with me. He is very interested in my toilet progress, since so far he only uses his potty as a step stool to get up to the sink.

We have funny conversations in the bathroom. Since he is just now learning to talk, he is master of the obvious and asks me if I am going potty. You bet kiddo, and someday you will do this too.

Is it a little wrong to look forward to going back to work so I can use the toilet alone? Oh yeah, I am a nurse now, so I don't get to use the toilet because I am so busy!

Being a Mother

2010-05-10T09:44:00.000-07:00

Image: Gustav Klimt: Mother and Child, 1905

Being a mother is a big deal. Not that it shouldn't be, because it is just about the hardest thing there is to do. There are about as many kinds of mothers as there are children to parent. I'm going to be a foster mother again very soon, and that brings up all sorts of feelings. Bear with me while I sort them out in writing.

Yes, being a mother is a big deal. Our culture idolizes mothers to the point where it is generally accepted that being a parent is by default just better than not being one. It is assumed that until you have had a child, you are incapable of feeling or expressing unconditional love or deep empathy or protectiveness for other people. Women who are unable for whatever reason to give birth or choose to not have children are creatures to be pitied.

I'm pretty sure being pitied is one of the worst feelings there is. Being pitied when you have suffered a great loss such as losing a child is so dis-empowering. For as long as people pity you, you are pitiful, no?

We have pictures of Little A all over our house, reminders of when we were her proud parents. She was a beautiful daughter and adding Little J to our family will not make me stop missing her or wondering how she is doing with her family.

I have been not-a-mother yet, a foster mother, a former mother, and now a foster mother-to-be again. While being a mother (and I was that in almost every sense to Little A) taught me many things about myself, it didn't make me better than anyone else. I am proud to say that I already knew about love and empathy before she became part of our family. I am a purposeful person and examine myself and my motives on a regular basis, so there was no big a-ha moment there.

It is a little hard for me, around holidays like Mothers' Day, to not feel a little annoyed at the cult of the Mother around me. That in-club that I have both been included and excluded from. It is a rite of passage to be a parent, and it is almost like I am not considered fully a woman unless I am a frazzled mother.

But having a functioning uterus doesn't make you a woman any more than having a functioning appendix does. All sorts of people have babies that have neither the coping skills nor the interest to parent. As a foster parent, I see that side of it and just can't wrap my head around it.

I will say that I have known people who have suffered illness and loss and personal tragedy, and not one of them would trade places with me for a million dollars. I carry my loss of Little A like a piece of secret shame, even though I lost her due to no wrongdoing of my own, but to a court system that places a higher value on her biological mother's rights than to what was clearly making Little A happy and healthy. I can't tell that story out loud without being like a black raincloud that brings unwanted sadness to anyone who hears it. So most of the time I just gloss over it, or say nothing at all, even though to do so makes me feel like less of a mother, like it was all a dream that ended badly. I'm like the mother that other mothers must not touch for fear of my bad luck rubbing off. I honestly try hard not to touch pregnant women, just in case.

In a few hours I get to meet the little boy who will hopefully be my forever son one day. He is his own person and is not coming into my life to heal my hurts, but to have his own soothed. He has his own issues and cannot bear the burden of my anxiety. I have to teach him that I can be trusted to provide comfort, as if he were a newborn. Today I will start slow, like a first date, hoping for love but not letting a show of it overwhelm. I cannot merely claim him and expect him to fall into my arms in gratitude. In fact, at first, he may reject me for moving him away from his current foster mother or the even more distant figment of the woman he never sees but who gave birth to him.

Being a Mother is a big deal, but not in the ways popular culture would have you believe. It means being a whole person and showing a child how to rise above pain and still have an open heart. It means accepting a child as a person with flaws like any other. And ultimately, it means eventually saying goodbye to that child, hopefully because you have successfully raised them to adulthood and not some other, sadder reason. It means becoming an archetype in the life of another person, expanding beyond yourself into mythic proportions before you even have your morning coffee. It means dead-lifting cars and making healing food that, if you are lucky, will be remembered long after you are ash in the wind.

The Buzz: It's a Boy!

2010-05-07T08:15:00.000-07:00

The news on the Ferrante Family front is that we are taking another Flex Family placement of a 2 year old boy. He's not a newborn baby, but he'll be our "baby". For the purposes of the interwebs, I will call him "Little J". His privacy is very important, so I will not be discussing the finer points of the reasons he came into foster care other than to say that it was because of neglect, which has given him a few special needs for which he is receiving therapy services. I also, alas, will not be posting pictures of him on my facebook page or my blog, at least until his legal status is more secure.

Being a Flex family means that we take him as a foster child, and are able to adopt him if that is the way his case plan goes. This is what we did with Little A, and we all know that we ended up on the losing end of that particular gamble. It is scary to venture into this arena again, but with great risk there is potential for great reward, or so I explain to my frazzled nerves.

It's like we are on the county's radar at the moment, because now that we are committed to Little J, we are getting calls for all kinds of situations. I got a phone call yesterday to see if we could take an emergency placement of a 12 month old baby girl. That tugged hard on my heart strings, but we want to take time to get Little J moved in and settled and bonded before we go adding more kids to the family.

If this post sounds all somber and serious, don't let that fool you. I am super freaking excited about it. We are meeting him next week, and will move him in in about a week or two. I'm buying paint for his room today. I know I will feel much more ready after we get things put together in there.

After having a super girly girl for two years, I am now trying to figure out how to raise a son. I have my own ideas, but I am open to suggestion as to what cultural touchstones are important for raising a boy to be freethinking and sort of hip and unconventional. Does he need comic books in his life, which ones? Are ninja movies essential? Any really good books? I'm shaping a person here, and I want him to be someone you can stand to hang out with. I don't want to raise him to be pretentious, but to have discerning tastes.

Oh me and my lofty ideas. A month from now all I will want is some sleep! ;)

Dream: Crab Cracker

2010-04-09T09:35:00.000-07:00

Onward with the crazy dream odyssey. Last night I had a ton of wild dreams that had a lot of traveling themes. One part in particular that sticks with me this morning is a journey taken in a Winnebago with my mother and a younger blonde teenage girl. We drove out to see a man who lived on a rock outcropping jutting into the sea. He was waiting for us and was going to make us dinner. When we got there he asked us to help him set the table. There was a huge pile of silverware on the table, and not just the ordinary stuff, but also crab crackers and shrimp forks and special butter knives and things. I was the only one who knew how to set it all up relative to my plate.

The man brought us a bottle of white wine, and paused while he was pouring it to note that outside the panoramic windows in the dining room, the sun was setting, He said "Watch the waves." and as the sun set, the waves settled down from crashing against the rocks to lapping them gently. He continued. "It always amazes me that the ocean knows that the day is done and it is time to rest. It is so peaceful."

The young blonde peered at the waves through the green glass of the half empty bottle of wine and smiled.

Dream: Action Gopher

2010-04-04T10:35:00.000-07:00

My dreams are like being in a surrealist film every night. Here's the latest proof that I have lost my mind:

I dreamed that on the spur of the moment, I would leave a bar where a blond man was buying me a shot of tequila, and instead go white water rafting. Wait-it gets weirder. I payed money to rent a raft and they made me take a safety course. In addition to giving me a flotation vest, they also gave me the following essential items:

A live blue parakeet
A live black kitten
And a pound of ground beef wrapped in butcher paper

But no sunscreen

So I took the elevator down to where I was supposed to present my receipt and get my raft, but to my horror the parakeet flew into the space between the floor of the elevator where the track of the closing doors crushed it to death. I went back upstairs and tearfully confessed that I had killed/lost the bird. To replace it, they gave me a gopher named "Duncan". He seemed a little more sturdy than the parakeet and I set off.

I was worried again about the lack of sunscreen.

At the first set of rapids, I lost the kitten and the ground beef overboard, and was very upset. I was determined that I was not going to lose the gopher.

We made it through the rafting trip, and I took the gopher home, where I housed him in a cage and he made friends with another strange, possibly alien creature that I had in there. Duncan the gopher cuddled up with the other creature and seemed glad that his rafting days were over.

Dream: Torch Singer

2010-04-01T09:49:00.000-07:00

I had a strange stress dream last night that all the students in my nursing class and I were in some sort of stage production that involved singing and dancing. That is, I was singing and they were dancing. For some reason. there was a choreographed dance sequence that I was not involved in. I was going to sing a torch song instead. I was sort of relieved, since I am short and way overweight for hoofing it in the spotlight, but I was very aware of this in the dream as being the reason I had been given something else to do.

The main action of the dream was taking place in the few hours before curtain, when everyone was dressing, curling their hair, and putting on makeup. The pace was frantic and we were all scrambling to get ready. I had been forcibly strapped into a very tight corset, stockings, and a black off the shoulder evening gown. I had my makeup on and I was wearing deep red lipstick that I kept touching up. But I needed help with my hair and couldn't find my sheet music to give to the pianist. Everyone was so busy that I was having trouble getting help. In the end, I was stretching the limits of the cord of a curling iron to try to do my own hair in front of a mirror that was a few feet away from the electrical outlet.

It reminded me a bit of my old vaudeville days at the Gaslighter Theatre. Nursing School is almost over. Am I the proverbial Fat Lady Who Sings?

Image:

http://collectiononline.chrysler.org/collections/OBJECT_edit.asp?id=23935&page=1

Poetry-Dreaming of Trees

2010-02-26T15:59:00.000-08:00

I dreamed I owned a giant house
With room enough for everything
And tall trees living monuments around it
With whole societies of fauna therein.

I dreamed my life was lush with love
And I took each step in validation
That my existence was cherished and adored
And that my love was returned full measure.

I dreamed about a sumptuous feast
Surrounded by loved ones with raised glasses
Toasting our good fortune in a golden sunset
Letting the air echo with our laughter.

I dreamed this, and on awakening,
I was suffering a terrible thirst.
I hungered for a loving touch on my skin.
I was alone in a hungry world.

The color drained from my vision.
So that all I could see was the black and white
Of my endless to do lists and mundane chores
To even gain a fraction of my dream.

I long for dreams and untroubled sleep
For a glimpse of what my Heaven holds
But equally, I dread the nightly shadows
That stretch long into my waking days.

Oh Pieta! Have pity on my soul!
Begone, Morpheus, and your tormenting visions!
Unless you are here to place the tools in my hand
And help me, to the temple build.

Unless these things can all be mine,
Unless I can earn them through my patient industry,
Don’t instill me with such hunger and longing,
So that every day I burn with want.

I can shine in gratitude, now, for all my blessings.
I will work harder, now, for the things I need.
For in my dreams, I am larger than life.
In my dreams, I am the authentic me.

Stacie Ferrante2-26-10

Poetry-Grey Dove

2010-02-26T08:06:00.000-08:00

Soft and grey, on branch of evergreen.

Your voice low and mournful in the morning stillness.

Sweet peace, perhaps in your avian heart

As you call the filtering dawn’s rays by name.

What do you long for? Such simple things.

Shelter from the rain and wind.

A place to anchor your downy bed.

And a future for your nascent progeny.

Only the spare economy of winter fruit

And rare desert dewdrops concern your consciousness

If they concern it at all, as you thrill to fly

Over the rooftops of worried men.

Stacie Ferrante

2-26-10

Be More Real

2010-01-19T10:37:00.000-08:00

Image : http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/120708/be-more-confident.gif

One of the things I am trying to do with my life, assuming my life is a canvas for art, is to be authentic. What that means from day to day varies, but it mostly has to do with ridding myself of the desire to compare myself with other people and just be myself.

I don't know if that sounds easy or not, but who I am is a constant work-in-progress. I set lofty goals for myself. I work hard. I am my own worst critic. In spite of that, I need to be more real.

When I get into trouble is when I try to be what my perception of a societal role should be. When I try to be what I think a "good wife" or "good mother" or even "good artist", I fall into a trap of trying to be what is expected, rather than taking the time to think about what that means to me. Does it matter if I put honest effort into something that ultimately is not natural to who I am? Doing that just leads to feeling like a failure.

Example: When I was Little A's mom, I did a lot of things with her. I wanted to be a good mom, because I loved her and also because some measure of my self image was wrapped up in that. I kept beating myself up because some of the things about parenting I wasn't so jazzed about, and I felt like if I was a "good mom" I would naturally enjoy them more. For instance, I dreaded bath time. Not mine, hers. I felt like if I was a good mom I would enjoy bathing my child. I would laugh through getting splashed with soapy water, I would be good-natured about getting that slippery kiddo to wash her hair. Tony was way better at it. Frankly I didn't enjoy it.

I also, for some odd reason. didn't enjoy playing on the floor as much as Tony did. Little A always wanted me to play with toys with her on the floor, and I did it, but I also had to make dinner and do laundry, so those moments often felt conflicted for me.

What I did enjoy were the afternoon tea times we had together, when we would have snacks and listen to music (often Mozart), and we would do drawings and color together. We had lovely closeness in those moments. Is that somehow less valuable than playing with a commercially ubiquitous plastic doll with her? I don't think so.

But when we had to reunify Little A with her biological mother, the first thing I noticed was that she played with Little A on the floor a lot. And even though I had my shit together in a lot of ways, I felt some harsh self-judgment feelings. I was glad for Little A that she would get that play time like she wanted, but after she was gone, I missed those more contemplative moments making fridge art the most. I missed most what came most naturally to me.

Little kids and friends and artistic audiences can smell it when you are not giving full commitment to the moment. I got up and read some of my poetry at an open mic recently (my first attempt at such a thing). I was nervous and unable to fully commit and I think as a result I got a tepid response. I had also chosen to read some stuff that I thought would have a broader appeal and be less about my inner persona. In retrospect, I think that was a wrong choice, based on what I thought a "good poet" would read. I made my selections based on what I thought were good representations of my work, instead of pieces that revealed something visceral and real about myself. If (or when) I decide to do it again, I need to not be afraid to show what is real about me. I need to bleed a bit, be a bit more raw. It is scary to do, because what if is isn't accepted? What if it makes people laugh?

But for me to be able to be satisfied with it after the fact, I need to experience being real with other people watching, even if that means I am not understood by everyone. Playing it safe will do me no good. Doing what others expect or worse, what I think others expect, will only prove that I can be superficial and concerned with the opinions of others. I don't even think that kind of art would ultimately resonate with anyone. It might be pretty, but ultimately forgettable.

I don't want to be forgettable. I don't want to blend in. I don't want to be "whatever is in these quotation marks", but the real thing. Even though it takes more energy and involves more risks, I want to be, as much as possible, more real.

Dream-Dragon in the living room

2010-01-03T14:43:00.000-08:00

Dreamed this morning after I went back to bed with a gnarly red wine hangover. All kinds of mixed up things, including living in a house with lots of family, and someone had brought home a young dragon, who had set up a nest in the living room. The room always hung with smoke from its breathing, and I wasn't sure I could live in a house like that much longer.

Little A was in my dream again, just being there in her proper place, misbehaving and just being a kid. It is always so sad to wake up and have that not be true. I miss her.

I also dreamed that I went to a large specialty fish market, and a friend of mine who worked there had set aside a package for me with 4 different sizes of shrimp, from tiny bay shrimp to large Vietnamese Tiger prawns as big as a man's hand. I remember thinking it was thoughtful of him to pick them for me. I had to stand in a long line to pay for them.

When I woke up my headache and nausea were much better, but I had lost much of my day to paying for last night's frivolity. Oh well, that is pretty rare for me. Have to have some fun sometime.

Poetry-A Fork in the Roman Road

2009-12-30T11:43:00.001-08:00

In every soul there lies a mountain

Where Protean infants are left to die

But never perish, crying out

Until picked up and raised by wolves.

Lost causes, best laid plans laid waste

Our deformed and wretched thoughts

Unloved but undestroyable, untamed

Running a step behind us with snapping jaws.

Our lost children, our genius forsaken

With hands like claws that grasp at flesh

But angelic faces caked with clay

Begging to be remolded and remade.

What if there was love-spun silk

With which to make a winding sheet

To wrap around with ties that bind

And heal with soft-spoken incantations?

What if that bereft mountain pass

Was not a place to mourn and forget

But a place to dance and celebrate

Our incandescent, transcendent failures?

What if whatever our journey created

Were held sacred even if unfinished or grotesque?

What if the faces of all the Gods

Were reflected in perfect imperfections?

Could you embrace your fears with love

And feed them at the table next to your joys?

Would others hand you a cigar

To celebrate the birth of your disappointment?

If there were no bad outcomes

And every thought was safe to have

And every act was safe to try

Then the hell of self judgment falls.

Cradle your sweet tormented heart

For it is the hero of its own tale.

Soothe the brow of your weary world

For the universe can’t spin without it.

Each in turn, the foul and the fair

Deserve a measure of air and sky.

Soft breath or brimstone-laden deeds

Each needs love no matter how lost.

Perhaps all angels fallen and fine

Need to at least be able to try to fly.

And each may reach the height of their nature

Hearing a voice from whatever God cares.

If I can love my malformed pieces

And hold dark and light alike inside

So that shining through the shadows

I can project playful movement into the world.

If I can refrain from casting out my doubts

And embrace the days I weep with loss

Then I can see beauty even in the place

Where others go to lose themselves.

I can be whole: wretched and pure.

Saint and Sinner, blood and bone,

Desire and its sweet fulfillment

Content as a baby in welcoming arms.

Stacie Ferrante

12-29-09

Dream-Goats in the Refugee House

2009-12-28T08:42:00.000-08:00

Ok, this one was a doozy and I am going to struggle to capture it all before it fizzles out in my brain.

I was in a house, ostensibly newly living there with a huge family. It was clear from the way the front door was boarded up that we were all squatters in an abandoned area. There was barely room for the people, but there were also animals in the house. Not just dogs and cats (my dachshund Ember was also with me) but farm animals like goats and chickens that moved from the backard to the living room. The goats were female and being used for milk. Much talk was being spent on getting the guy down the street with a male goat to come over and breed his goat with ours.

There was music being made and a general atmosphere of badly funded but bohemian and somewhat nomadic existence. I was new to it and it was a bit uncomfortable for me to have no privacy and no real possessions of my own. The men sized me up for my sexual potential, but rarely talked to me.

Some younger man noticed my elk antler Inanna necklace (I own this in real life) and was talking to me about it. It was the first real conversation I had had in a while, and I ended up making out with him. Even so, it didn't really feel like a real connection, just better than most.

I spent some time in the dream taking care of a baby girl that one of the other women had. I was feeding her some mango pudding, and it was getting all over her face in a sticky mess.

Basically, it was just me and my dog in this chaotic atmosphere with goats and babies and messy overcrowded conditions. So freaking strange.

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Oh Holy-Crap!

2009-12-22T12:54:00.001-08:00

Good friends of mine know that I have an irrational and angry response to the music of the Beach Boys. For some reason, the sound of their music grates on my nerves to the point of making me desire to commit acts of senseless violence. I am only sort of kidding.

This time of year, I have been subjected to the song “Little Saint Nick” more times than could be considered tolerable. My eyelid is twitching and I feel like breaking stuff.

I have had a limited range of interest in Christmas music in general this year. It is really annoying me for some reason, probably because I have been trying to avoid it since before Halloween. Some of the classics are great, but the newer stuff is adding nothing to the tradition in my opinion, and mostly just sounds thin and over produced.
I have a few Christmas records that I like, and that represent Christmas for me because I listened to them when I was little:

1. Johnny Mathis: Mom loves that one
2. Christmas Sing with Frank and Bing: lots of references to drinking too many hot toddies, kind of quaint in that “alcoholic uncle” sort of way.
3. Glenn Miller Christmas: Old radio show recording with many artists of the day, with references to WWII troops overseas
4. Luciano Pavarotti, O Holy Night: Beautiful and operatic, it includes a boys’ choir.
5. “All I want for Christmas is you”- as sung by that cute little girl in the movie “Love Actually”
6. “Do they know it’s Christmas?” Band Aid. Ah, the 80’s at its most Bono-riffic and Boy-George-tastic.
7. “Oh Holy Night” as sung by Josh Groban
8. “Little Drummer Boy” with Bing Crosby and David Bowie. Weird but lovely combo.

Some that have notably been less enjoyable this year for me:
1. Any Christmas song sung by Gloria Estefan. I am just not digging it.
2. The Beach Boys tune mentioned above. Shudder.
3. Any super country-music version. I just don’t like country music much. Plus the French and Latin words that some of them have sound funny with a southern drawl.
4. I have a new dislike for “Jingle Bell Rock” and “Grandma got run over by a reindeer” for no specific reason.

What about you?

The World is My Matador-Rant

2009-11-06T09:35:00.001-08:00

I never did play well with others. Lately, I am finding that I chafe at the yoke of all this stress that I am under. The pressure to do well in school, the pressure to be a good wife, the pressure to be an upstanding citizen. The ordinary things that people do when they are grownups. It is ridiculous.

I think this happens every semester about 3 months in, when I still have a month to go before finals. It is just my nerves talking. But too much conforming to professional standards and good manners and decorum when what I really want to do is go around pitching fits has got me daydreaming at every possible turn.

The world is my matador. It is like the universe knows I am tired and cranky, and then just for fun throws all kinds of intolerable people into my path just to see what I will do. Wave that red flag and see if I charge.

I already don't approve of people that are both dumb AND mean, so I have been running into a lot of those lately. Usually I am somewhere that would make it impossible or just ill-advised for me to take them to school. So I have to attempt therapeutic communication with someone I would rather just eviscerate. And I doubt they even understand or take to heart the things that I say, so I end up feeling powerless-a feeling that makes me ticked off.

So I have fantasies about throwing out all of my clothes and buying only things that are red and black and leather and satin and plunging-neckline/Mae West retro-fabulous. I dream of chucking it all and running away to live as a beggar poet on the streets of Paris. I want to start up a home-based assassin business. Who would ever see me coming? I look like a soccer mom, a Midwest tourist on her first trip to the big city. I look like your auntie that bakes cookies. I could make a killing.

What is it about being ultra-responsible that makes me want to wear way more black eyeliner and fishnet stockings and carry a concealed weapon? The sick part is that by the time I gut out the next month of exams and my pediatric rotation, I will be so exhausted after finals that going out and making trouble will take a distant backseat to sleeping in.

Rawr, Bitches! I am being PC for now. One of these days I am going to snap the tether and gore that matador, skewering him and his fancy gold pants. So there.

That is all.

Poetry-Talk to Me

2009-10-30T20:22:00.000-07:00

Deep thinker, contemplate me.
Wonder what my opinion is
Ask my existential input
Help me sharpen the finer points.

Don't instruct me, lead me
Down ancient paths, into unlit caves
Spread light and find, perfectly preserved
Wordless art in the womb of the world.

Take my hand even as it grows,
Filling your palm but still willing to be held.
Beckon me to behold in watercolor hue
The Impressionism of your heart.

Ask me why the dogma chafes
And why I shrug off my small town church.
Keep welcoming me to the conversation
Even if I never change my mind.

Over tea and Mozart bend
In tete a tete in foreign tongues.
Buttered batard and charcuterie
Precious currant jam now lost in time.

Wisdom passed hand to hand
And whisper kisses on my fevered brow.
I need it now, as ever and as strong
As when I was bundled in old country wool.

Eternity is now, time swirls and slides.
Folding like croissant dough and hearth-warmed.
Is there some talisman to open my ear
So I hear beyond my faulty filter?

Even if I don't understand.
Even if I cry out in pain.
I yearn to hear you murmur softly.
Talk to me, just talk to me.

Stacie Ferrante
10-30-09

Dream-Doorbell Cocktails

2009-09-25T09:02:00.000-07:00

Bizarre dream last night. I was out with some of my Palo Alto guy friends and saw this attractive blonde on the street. She was going door to door, all dressed for a party. We asked her if she was lost, and she said no, that she made a practice of going to the doors of strangers and asking if she could come in for a drink. They almost always said yes, and it saved her on cocktail money.

At first I was offended at the very idea, but then we hung out with her more and she was so fun and full of joie de vivre that we all were soon in her thrall. She was up for anything, including jumping into a game of soccer in her high heels to score the winning goal. Her name was Christy, and she was seemingly good at everything.

I went to a party with Christy later, and we were playing and having a great time, when I saw a dark haired man staring at us. I assumed that he was staring at her, but after a time he approached me. He was looking at me! Before I left, I kissed him and told him how to find me later.

There was more to it, but it was pretty vivid, and I felt very caught up in that wild energy. Fun!

Back Off! RANT

2009-09-21T21:07:00.001-07:00

Hey world! Yeah, I am talking to you! Take a big step back and give a sister some room, huh?

Here's the new rules. Consider yourself notified.

1. If you don't know me and can't be constructive, you don't have permission to yell at me like I am some kind of moron.

2. If you are both dumb AND mean, don't bother talking to me at all.

3. I am as sexy as I get at any given moment, and I am not required to be saucy for anyone's benefit but my own. If I like you and feel like being playful, then lucky you. But I am not a one dimensional creature. I have brains and stuff too.

4. I am as thin as I am getting today. I am working on being healthy. I am exercising a lot and eating pretty healthy. Maybe that means I will lose weight. Maybe not. The stress is killing me and I just need a breather from all the pressure about it.

5. I might be an earthy girl with a bawdy sense of humor, but please treat me like a lady if you want me to be nice.

Failure to comply with the above will result in immediate dismissal. That is all.

Planet Los Angeles

2009-08-20T07:27:00.000-07:00

Got back a couple of days ago from a vacation to Southern California, where I was attending to a long overdue visit to my good friend Eliz. She's got a cute little apartment just a few blocks from the beach in Santa Monica.

I will admit that due to my aversion to thronging crowds I had avoided going anywhere near LA for a long time. While I seem well suited to the city rhythms of San Francisco and Quebec, something about the frenetic, jerky movements of Los Angeles never did sit well with me. I lived in a terrifying neighborhood in Tujunga (near Glendale) for a formative year when I was twenty, and I knew it just wasn't for me. Lots of great stories came out of it, but mostly the kind that are scary as hell in the moment but hilarious later.

I might not have left if I had lived in Santa Monica. It is much more chill. If I could hang out and walk along the beach in the mornings and go to the farmers' market and pick around at the Main Street shops and never set foot in LA proper, that would be okay. During my stay I did a ton of walking. And talking. It was like moving therapy. Eliz and I had a ton of catching up to do, and we sorted out a few things for ourselves along the way.

I wouldn't want to have to do the dating scene there, however. That hasn't changed. There is something fundamentally flaky about single people in Los Angeles in particular. I was at a cocktail event on Saturday night and, from the outside, watched people mingle. I am so much more used to being on a deep, sincere level with the people I know well. It was a lot more work to have conversations on the surface of things with strangers. Of course, with a drink or two to loosen my tongue I managed just fine, but I wasn't looking for love or anything else, so my social needs were pretty simple.

We went to see Depeche Mode on Monday night, and they were awesome. The visual effects were stunning, mesmerizing. Of course, we were lucky to have seen them at all since a rash of shows had been canceled the previous week due to singer David Gahan's illness. The set was clearly designed to give him several breaks, but that was fine. When we were on out way out of the Hollywood Bowl at the end of the show, we saw a couple in a heated argument, and the woman gave the man what looked like a bone-jarring left hook to the kisser. It was pretty messed up, but I will admit with no pride that I was gawking until Eliz grabbed my sleeve and pulled me along.

The next day it was time to go home, so I had to face down the horrors of LAX. I was doing my best to be relaxed and patient with the super-long lines. But holy hell. I am pretty sure that you see the worst in people when they travel. Everyone seemed hostile and pressed and there were just so MANY of them. Overwhelming.

I feel like I just got back from a strange planet. Planet Los Angeles. The people there look like the rest of us. Wait. No, they don't. They are certainly thinner and tanner and wear very expensive ripped jeans that under ordinary circumstances would look like they were fished out of a dumpster. Those clothes are casually, meticulously distressed by professionals and cost more than my car. I can't really criticize because I have nothing approximating a personal style. The whole affair made me want to cruise over to the Patagonia outlet and stock up on practical, semi-sporty clothes that only need to be accessorized with a ponytail and running shoes.

I can't complain, though. I had a good time and got to see LA from an adult perspective. In some ways it was just as I remembered it. In others it surprised me and gave me a glimpse of why people put up with so much traffic on the 405. There is fun to be had there, and if it isn't fun, there is always Dr. Kush.

Dream-White Dog

2009-07-20T13:19:00.001-07:00

Despite a lifelong love of black dogs, I had a dream about a white one last night. I am not sure how I hooked up with it, but somehow I ended up with this sweet little white fluffball, and she had a name that was a little too similar to Little A’s name. I knew I couldn’t keep her with that name, so I named her “Apple”.

Apologies to Gwenneth Paltrow, etc., but Apple is a cute name for a little doggy. Then again, I wanted to name my dachshund “Doctor Heimlich”, but Tony put his foot down on that one. I still don’t know why he had such strong feelings about that, but he refused to permit me to name my dog such a thing.

In the dream people were giving me a hard time for naming my little friend Apple, but she was pretty darn cute. Her fur was soft as cotton fluff, and she had a very smiley sort of face.

I read on a few dream interpretation sites (Gawd, I so love the interwebs! What a geek I am!) that dreaming of a friendly white dog is supposed to be a good omen, foretelling of success in business and in love. For women it is supposed to mean an early marriage.

I am a bit old for an early marriage, and in any case already married. But it was such a sweet little dog. I keep thinking about it and wishing I had it to play with.

I already have a fantastic dog, of course. Ember is just awesome. But there is something going on with me that I want a new family member to dote on. Some frustrated mommy-thing that needs something or someone small to hold. Losing a family member this year has triggered some last minute biological clock jangling that I find positively annoying.

I like the idea that I would dream something good, for a change. An actual GOOD omen? That is unheard of for me. I am so Type A that I am usually much better at fretting than taking good news at face value and relaxing a little.

I want to believe it. Someday soon things need to start going my way. I don’t need to have the whole world at my feet, but I wouldn’t say no to some magi-given gifts for a change.

Shell Shatterday

2009-07-09T11:02:00.000-07:00

Despite a strange midsummer torpor, I took a 4 mile walk last night. I took a familiar long route around my neighborhood, and by the time I was almost home dusk was in full effect. In fact, it was probably fully dark, but my eyes were accustomed to the gloom.

I was walking past a house that had a evergreen tree with low hanging branches in the front yard right next to the sidewalk. In the low light, something pale and shiny on the ground caught my eye, and I bent down to investigate.

It was the pale blue curvature of a robin’s egg. I couldn’t tell if it was a piece of egg cast off by a new chick, or a whole egg, so I reached out to gently touch it, to roll it on its side.

I thought I was being gentle, but what turned out to be an empty half of an egg shell shattered into tiny fragments at my touch. I let out a little “Oh!”

I was heartbroken that it was broken, and that it was my fault. In retrospect, I think those feelings are displaced from other things. But in that moment, I wasn’t just a woman on a summer evening walk. I was the destroyer of beautiful things. I felt horrible.

Is this how I am going to feel about my life today? That I can’t be trusted with it or it will break in my hands? No matter how gentle I am, I am sure to shatter?

And like that eggshell, I feel small and hollow. My baby bird has left the nest, and my restless heart turns over shell fragments and calls into the dark.

Shhh! I am reading.

2009-07-01T12:11:00.000-07:00

I am off school for the summer, so I am getting a chance to enjoy some novels and non-fiction books that have lingered on my shelf. Often while I was studying over the last few months I would glance longingly at them and wished I could curl up with a good book. Not that “Understanding Pathophysiology” isn’t a good book, but it isn’t exactly a gripping read or a light diversion.

I am also working for the summer, so my books are going with me to work to be read during my breaks. Strangely enough, some of my coworkers look at a person reading a book and think it is no big deal if they want to interrupt to gossip.

Can’t you see I am reading, here?

I have been a lot quieter than usual. I crave the silence of just sitting and reading a book. I am not too interested in the TV, and talking to anyone who is not a close friend is just not appealing to me. I don’t want to have to explain myself right now. I just want the fit of hand in glove that comes with my old, treasured friendships. They know I am going through hell, and they let me choose to not talk about it if I want. But I also know that if I suddenly fall apart and start crying they will be on me in a moment with comforting hands and murmured words that have the magical effect of keeping me from flying right out of my skin.

Least of which do I want to put down my book to talk about who is dating who in Hollywood, or weigh in on who should get poor doomed Michael Jackson’s children. Maybe it is the way my life is rolling out these days, but I just don’t have any patience for trivial prattle like that. Not without a full complement of cocktails, anyway.

I know that the majority of the people I work with don’t need to hear about the very serious business that my life has become, although a few of them do want to hear about it for schadenfreude purposes. And it isn’t their job to give a flying fig about me, but it is so much nicer when somebody does. I just don’t expect my coworkers to invest like that.

I just want to read a book. Shhh…

I don't approve-Corporate Radio Edition

2009-06-30T10:31:00.000-07:00

If I slip into a coma at my desk any time in the next seven weeks, blame the soft rock emanating from the radio in the next cubicle. Some of the songs are alright, but I wonder if it is turning my brain to mush to hear “Hotel California” every day. Not that there is anything wrong with that song in and of itself, but the radio station plays the same stuff over and over day after day. It is making my eyelid a little twitchy. If I have to hear Bette Midler’s “Wind beneath my wings” one more time, I can’t quite be responsible for the violence that is sure to ensue.

I have a lot of complaints about radio stations in Reno in general. I don’t know what it is, but we seem to be at a lower rung on the new music ladder. All I know is that when I visit my friends in the San Francisco Bay Area, I hear songs I never heard before on the radio. BETTER songs, too. Songs I am sure to just about never hear in Reno. What the hell? Who decided that I don’t get to hear that? Did some market-survey test group flunkie make the choice for me? I disapprove.

And while I am at it, allow me to complain about the talking. Who the hell made the brilliant choice to create the “morning show”? What was wrong with playing music in the morning? Why is it all yakkity-yak-yak when I haven’t had that much coffee yet? Ugh. And they are so never funny. I have a job that involves listening to people talk all day, so I don’t need to get a jump on the “listening to people bitching” action during my commute.

I wish I could listen to my ipod at work, but no dice. The earbud competes with the phone I have permanently affixed to my ear. Plus, listening to music I actually like might make me smile. You know that would just never do.

As it is, I rely heavily on my coastal-dwelling friends in SF or Seattle or Boston or LA to provide me with tasty treats for my ipod. Thank goodness for my friends. I would have absolutely no cool at all without them.

Poetry-Frail Flowering Words

2009-06-22T11:07:00.000-07:00

They call it a rib cage so my heart can’t escape.
Trapped against straining strings, beating feebly,
Stretched against bonds that keep it from flying forth
In search of the cherished other, leaving its home.

Protest songs from a coal mine canary.
High and sweet, echoing into the deep.
Longing for fresh air, pure as dreaming,
Scented familiar and laced with memory.

Words woven, a gentle bower made,
Illusory as incense smoke wafted prayerfully.
Even scorched earth pressed to my lips
Tastes of home beneath the burning landscape.

Pole-star driven through shifting winds.
Reaching blindly to finger the raw edges
Gingerly binding, close the wound
Leaving a scar that rises as proud flesh.

My mind keeps touching that empty place
Like an old soldier with a missing limb.
No matter how gently I approach
It still startles like a filly at the starting gun.

Restless pacing and losing the race
Crying out from behind muscle and bone
Muffled but still clear enough to hear:
“Forget me not, I beat for thee.”

© Stacie Ferrante
6-22-09

The Despair of the Creative Mind

2009-06-17T10:01:00.000-07:00

I like to think of myself as a writer first above all other things. An artist soul with a decent day job, as it were. I have lots of writing projects percolating on the back burner. Even more are on the prep table and haven't made it to the stove yet. I am currently waiting for my head to clear a little bit so I can select which to give my attention to. It has been a rough couple of months for being creative.

But every once in a while I read a book that makes me want to abandon all of it. I love to read, and I have a voracious appetite for books. Not all books are well written, perhaps especially the best-sellers. Right now I am reading "Bad Monkeys" by Matt Ruff, and I am in despair.

I wish I could have written this book. It is clever, witty, and has gripped my imagination. It is a thriller in the sense that it lacks thriller cliches. I can't wait to see what happens next, but every sentence I read keeps telling me that this is something that I couldn't have written. I am not that clever, perhaps. Or my writing has a different rhythm. Something about it is both delightful and degradingly other.

I was in Barnes & Noble yesterday, Borders Books the day before, and Zephyr used books the day before that. NOTHING caught my eye, and I didn't buy anything. I was contemplating how difficult the wold of publishing is to break into these days, and yet some writers make it even though merit isn't always the reason. This isn't sour grapes, as there are many writers I admire greatly. But I think you'll agree that the bookstores give up a lot of real estate to the common denominator, mass-market pleasing sort of stuff that is destined for the bargain book rack as much as for the faced-out, top of the escalator position.

Sure, I write for the sake of it. I write for catharsis. I write for the joy of creating something I shyly call art. But even Shakespeare needed to get paid sometime. I don't relish being ink-stained for life so that I can die with boxes of unpublished quasi-genius.

I have my moments when I am writing something really good and true where I am gripped with a fever. Words flow. It is the most awesome feeling in the world, as riveting as sex but more civilized for polite company.

It is time for me to do some more writing, but this book is so good it makes me falter. My confidence is rattled by it. Of course, it has been edited and polished. I can't even get to the point where I could get edited or agent glanced. Ugh, that sucks. And thinking about that will not help me write anything.

I want to pick Matt Ruff's brain for process methods. I want him to notice me and encourage me. I also want to hurt him. I want to blink back tears as I strangle him for throwing me into a state where I have to look too closely at my own mediocrity. The battlefields of the world are littered with the unburied bones of half-decent swordsmen.

I gotta get burning again. Gentle warm fire will not uncover anything in me. I need to be incendiary. The energy I am wasting in the echo chamber will get me absolutely nowhere. Fuck.

I'm coming out of the fog into my own personal dystopia. I'm almost ready. Things are percolating. But damn, I am creaky. It could even be argued that the energy I put into blogging takes away from the whole, but we will just have to wait and see.

Perhaps one day some other writer will feel that way about me. When someone breaks into my reverie to tell me that my book is so good that they must murder me to make themselves feel better, I will know I have finally done something worth talking about.

Lost Mitten

2009-06-13T22:48:00.000-07:00

My house is full of evidence that up until Friday I was a mom. Just little things here and there, art on the fridge, stray puzzle pieces under the sofa, and silky blonde hairs in the bathtub drain. We are still in the process of cleaning the house after moving our foster daughter. There is this stray mitten that I guess I need to throw out, because I never found the mate to it so I could send it with the rest of her stuff.

It is just a little purple mitten. So small. By next winter she probably would have outgrown that pair anyway. But my eyes keep gravitating to it, and it would probably be healthier for my well being to toss it out or put it away, rather than picturing the soft little hand that belongs in it. The hand that fit so well in mine.

Better to discard it lest I do something crazy like sew it on the inside of my coat, so it can lie over my heart, secretly where nobody will see it. Because the rest of the world will become accustomed to my childlessness so much faster than I will. They won't have to think about her every day and wonder how she is doing, worry about whether she is happy. Worry about the unseasonably cold mornings and if she has something to keep her hands warm.

I have an empty mitten, and she has a cold hand. That is how I see it. She hasn't even been gone long enough to miss me, or notice that she isn't coming back. She'll figure it out in her way and probably get the reasons for it all wrong. I am sad for myself, but even more I worry for her. I just want her to be happy.

The county would gladly fill our empty bedroom with another child if we wanted them to. But there is just no way I could take that on right now for lots of reasons, so we are waiting. Need to heal. Need to get through nursing school. I feel like I need to conquer the world a bit and get my confidence back and get out from under the watchful eyes of the gaggle of social workers that in the end don't do any of the heavy lifting that foster parents do.

I don't know how long I will keep this mitten. I guess until I don't need it anymore. Maybe I need the proof that while I had her, I took good care of her.

Bend, but don't Break

2009-06-11T08:20:00.001-07:00

I am sorta half decent at yoga, but being emotionally flexible is a bit more challenging.

I’m bending into some unlikely and highly uncomfortable shapes these days. I’m angry. I’m full of sorrow. I’m hurting.

Bending. Bending over backwards and twisting sideways and sometimes inside out. Last night entailed very little sleep, because when Little A can’t sleep, neither can anyone else. But it is understandable because last night we had to tell her that she is moving on Friday. Tomorrow. We told her kindly, somberly, and truthfully. She took it ok, which just means to me that she doesn’t fully understand it.

And the things she says these days! Tearful proclamations that announce her fear of abandonment by us. A fear, I am sorry to say, we are going to have to validate against our will. I wish I could repeat them here, if only to get the plaintive voice out of my head and on paper. Out of my body where it drains me.

I did tell her that this wasn’t our choice. I told her that I will love her forever. I told her that every time she sees the moon in the daytime, smiling at her, that she should remember that I love her. I hope she remembers.

In the meantime my whole body aches. My heart is utterly shattered. If I didn’t know for a fact that my symptoms were a result of extreme stress, I would think I had cancer or some other serious illness. I feel like I am dying. I feel broken.

Little A, you have been a wonderful daughter. I will never have another like you if I live a million more lives after this one.

Image credit:
http://www.pbase.com/britestar/image/66583996

I'm Fine

2009-05-29T09:08:00.000-07:00

I miss being fine. I would love to be great. You know, when people casually ask you how you are doing, and you say “I’m fine, thanks. How are you?” It is just a greeting. People don’t really want to know if you are NOT fine. So sometimes, if it is a person I don’t know well, I just go ahead and lie.

It isn’t that I mean to be untruthful. The truth is just too complex and too sad and to wearisome to tell. I’m not so fine these days. But I am well, I suppose.

I’m clinging to my cosmic egg theory. I am nesting and keeping this precious, delicate thing warm until it hatches and I get to become acquainted with the nascent universe inside.

The truth is, I don’t really know what I am becoming. The pain of surviving nursing school and losing Little A and all the other hurtful things I am enduring now may be making me into a goddess or a monster. Or both. I am more ferocious now, but I am also more tender now. I cry more, but I also laugh more.

I was telling a friend yesterday that all the weak and useless things in my life are falling away. We are nursing students, so we are learning to be like firefighters in that we run into the crisis when others are running out. We face down the blood and viscera of other people unflinchingly. That is shaping me emotionally, as well. I am learning to see people much more clearly, and by extension, myself.

I know what I want. I want to bed down in hot coals. I want to howl at the moon. I want to make the world tremble when I roar. I also want to hear the whispers in silence. I want to cradle precious love in my hands. I want to heal. I want to be able to rest my head somewhere safe.

I can’t fall apart. If I can survive being hollowed out by grief, then I can be a vessel to contain joy. If I can avoid filling myself with anger and bitterness, I can fill with the appreciation of all of life’s small, almost indiscernible moments of beauty and truth. That is what happy looks like to me. Then I will be beyond fine. I will be transcendent, incandescent, and very, very good.

Pieta, Signore

2009-05-28T21:11:00.001-07:00

Listen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA9Am35MxD0

Pietà, Signore,
di me dolente!
Signor, pietà,
se a te giunge
il mio pregar;
non mi punisca
il tuo rigor,
meno severi,
clementi ognora,
volgi i tuoi sguardi
sopra di me, ecc.

Non fia mai
che nell'inferno
sia dannato
nel fuoco eterno
dal tuo rigor.

Gran Dio, giammai
sia dannato
nel fuoco eterno
dal tuo rigor, ecc.
Pietà, Signore,
Signor, pietà
di me dolente,
se a te giunge
il mio pregare, ecc.
Meno severi,
clementi ognora,
volgi i tuoi sguardi,
deh! volgi squardi
su me, Signor, ecc.
Pietà, Signore,
di me dolente, ecc.

In English:

Have mercy, Lord,
 on me in my remorse!
 Lord, have mercy
 if my prayer
 rises to you;
 do not chastise
 me in your severity,
 less harshly,
 always mercifully,
 look down
 on me, etc.
 
 Never let me
 be condemned
 to hell
 in the eternal fire
 by your severity.
 
 Almighty God, never let me
 be condemned to hell
 in the eternal fire
 by your severity, etc.
 Have mercy, Lord,
 Lord, have mercy
 on me in my remorse,
 if my prayer
 rises to you, etc.
 Less harshly,
 always mercifully,
 look down,
 ah! look down
 on me, Lord, etc.
 Have mercy, Lord
 on me in my remorse, etc.

Poetry-Evolve/Devolve

2009-05-06T21:00:00.000-07:00

Evolve/Devolve

Current swollen, rushing, amniotic

Carry downstream over rocks and roots.

With springtime glacier melt, bank breaching.

Cries of loons as the cutthroats jump.

Lacking paddle, upstream swimming

Habit-formed fight, bereft of control

Limbs burning under freezing foam

Before letting go to avoid going under.

Free-floating, like falling sideways

Through mossy shores and windswept boughs.

Uncharted wilds that stir with life:

Whitetail hoof beats, grizzly’s paw print.

Current-carried, is this my destination?

Do I climb out and shake like a wolf in the sun,

Or float a little longer hoping for a better view

And let the river carry me, perhaps to the sea?

Devolving in the delta, grow fins and gills.

Submerge and fill my lungs, dark and cool.

Into the mysterious briny deep swim faster

Iridescent tail fluke the last thing you see.

5-6-09

In Case of Emergency

2009-04-28T18:38:00.000-07:00

Dude, what is up? Has the whole world gone crazy or what? I'm stressed. My friends are stressed. My family is stressed. People don't have jobs that need them, and it is getting just nuts.

I swear, if I were not the strongest woman alive, I don't know what I would do.

I don't know if I am being semi-successful at adjusting to the sad new truths in my life, or if I am becoming numb, or if there is some siren song of future happiness just out of my range of hearing. I am beset on all sides by trouble, and I seem to be doing ok, considering the circumstances.

I want so badly to have something witty or even comforting to say. I wish I could just wrap my arms around everyone and hide us all from the world until this blows over. I want to cook everyone dinner and give everyone wine and try and find the humor in all of it. If you don't laugh, you cry, right?

Poetry-Drink Me

2009-04-24T14:45:00.000-07:00

Drink Me

Waves crash in tidal relentlessness

Grind me into fine white sand.

Emotions blend so that one to the next

Flows , teeming with life in between grains.

Churn me now so even I can’t say

Whether I am animal, vegetable, mineral.

Am I sea or storm-swept sky?

Am I plankton or vast blue whale?

Am I fierce avenging God,

Or trembling sack of sinful flesh?

Am I my good intention’s deeds,

Or a cork tossed while the message bottle sinks?

Can I contain all, be all?

Be shells and mollusks, crab and coral?

Be the moon’s seductive pull

And the battered cliffs at the water’s edge.

Scoop me into a jar and prize me.

Sift my being for the valuable effluvia.

Crucible those contents that will serve

To blow some glass for your banquet table.

Into that crystal goblet pour hopes

To overflowing, and bitter poison too.

And love, love everlasting and pure,

Until the drink tastes of life, and of tears.

4-25-09

40 Poems in 40 days-Wrap up

2009-04-12T11:18:00.000-07:00

Well then.

I fell far short of my goal. I wanted to write 40 poems in 40 days. I ended up with 14.

On the other hand, I refused to write bitter, self-indulgent poetry. I refused to write stupid Haiku about Battlestar Galactica's lame finale. I refused to write fluff. So out of the 14 poems I did write during Lent this year, a larger percentage were of better quality. I know that runs counter to what I wanted to allow myself to do, but there it is.

I have had some serious emotional blows the last 40 days. Also, some moments of bliss mixed in for good measure. I preserved some of it in poetry form. Some of it I would rather forget.

In any case, the second annual 40 days project is over. Spring is here in earnest. Now what? I'm always curious about what the future holds. I never want to wait for it.

Dream-In the weeds again

2009-04-06T11:08:00.000-07:00

I'm in the kitchen in my mind again. My brain must really want to make sense of my life. I had a dream last night that I got a job at a lovely little bistro as a line cook of some kind. It was a busy and crowded kitchen, with the expected amount of fire and flashing knives. I was trying to hurry up and find the things I needed (setting my mis en place) for the dinner rush. The joint was jumping, and I was a little uncoordinated.

I think it is funny that when my stress levels rise, I often dream about cooking. There is something about my mind's desire to put things in order, to have what I need at hand. I wish the problems I am facing now were that easy to sort out. It is easy when you have a well-organized kitchen and can reach out and have what you need to make anything at your fingertips.

Can I do that with my mental well-being? What is the equivalent of the dish of chopped shallots that is ready to saute? What is the analog for mirepoix? I need to figure out the key to that demanding executive chef in my dreams. I need to crank out the tickets in the window without getting in the weeds. I want to please my "customers" with a beautiful plate. What is that beautiful plate in my life now? What product of my creativity will give me the reassuring results?

Lots of questions and few answers. But it rolls around in my head. I keep looking for beauty in everyday things. I know I can still create something good, even if I am having to search harder for my shallots.

Poetry-Summer Corn

2009-03-31T15:45:00.000-07:00

Summer Corn

Tell me again about your farm
Idyll from your childhood dream
Where cows low in the sunny fields
And black sheep have three bags of wool.

And ducks swim in the shallow pond
And chickens lay their eggs again.
Tell me about the barnyard cat
And the fat mice in the grain.

Tell me about the farmhouse where
You and daddy and I eat our dinner
And if we finish our corn on the cob
Later we can have some pie.

So beautiful that when you woke
You cried bitterly for your beautiful farm.
I’m crying too, because I know
What it is like to lose a dream.

© Stacie Ferrante
3-31-09

Poetry-Fly Away

2009-03-25T17:25:00.000-07:00

Fly Away

Stretch wings, test feathers

Even if the egg cracking seems only yesterday

Feel the desert winds lift you

And fly, fly away.

I can feel you soaring high

Drawn by unseen forces Southward.

I can hear your high, sweet voice

Soft in summer song at dawn.

See the others flock to your call?

Your charm an alchemist’s longed-for prize.

Spun from gold and honeycomb

You reflect the sun as you drift away.

If the seasons turn again

And you need a place to winter warm

Far from the storm, in my heart

Will always be a green bough for you.

So fly away, and to strange skies

Do not entreat me to come following after,

Nor to tarry where once tasted

The fruit of love renders strange and bittersweet seeds.

3-25-09

The Cycle of Destruction and Rebirth

2009-03-17T16:31:00.000-07:00

In 1988, Yellowstone National Park was ravaged by a conflagration of wildfires that laid many areas of carefully preserved beauty to waste. In the early part of the last century, prevention of fire was thought to be good stewardship. Many people thought it was a terrible loss that ancient trees burned and meadows were charred and that the beauty would be in some way lost forever.

I remember those fires, and having spent many summers in the Tetons, I had an appreciation for what was burning there. But my grandfather told me, "Yes, it looks bad now. But you wait, and get your camera ready, because next Spring there will be more wildflowers there than you have ever seen in your life." And he was right.

Many of Yellowstone's plant species are fire-adapted. Some (not all) of the lodgepole pines (Pinus contorta), which make up nearly 80% of the park's extensive forests, have cones that are serotinous sealed by resin until the intense heat of fire cracks the bonds and releases the seeds inside.

Sometimes people are like that. What looks like the destruction of everything may in fact be the only thing that can crack open the tough seeds of something new and unexpectedly beautiful. Yes, it hurts to watch it burn, and to count the costs and mourn for the old familiar things. But destruction can also make room for creation. What looks for a time like a barren landscape and the charred remains of cherished childhood safe havens, could in fact be the place where beauty will flower next. And not just an ordinary spring beauty, but a riot of color that could not be possible in any other way.

I am going to hold that image in my mind as much as I can in the months to come. If I can survive the fires, then I can be the one that blossoms. Dying in fire and being born from ashes are one in the same. Life finds a way. What seems like destruction now is merely making way for beauty so rare, a life in rebirth.

Dream-Needles and Pins

2009-03-07T10:54:00.000-08:00

Ah, old fashioned stress dreams. Just what I need. My poor brain is crying uncle already this semester.

I had a dream last night that I was with a couple of my professors from nursing school, and I was searching all around for the equipment I needed to either give shots or start an I.V., so basically I had fistfuls of sterile wrapped needles.

I was trying to stare unblinking and watch as Mrs. Croysdill inserted the needle into my own arm to demonstrate the finer points of the technique. But it HURT, so I closed my eyes. When I opened them, she was telling me to take out the needles whenever I wanted.

There were about 100 of them, inserted in my skin all over both of my arms. And not just IV needles, but sewing pins and darning needles and stuff.

So, one by one, with mobility limited by all the pointy needles, I had to pull them all out. For some reason I was either unable or unwilling to ask for help.

That about sums up how I feel about my life right now. Although I adore my professors and fellow students, I am stressed and somewhat helpless feeling.

Poetry-The Robin

2009-03-06T09:02:00.000-08:00

The Robin

Remind me of a simpler time, a simpler place.

So long ago now I couldn’t even say

When robins picked the fresh currants before I could get them

Competition for grandma’s summer jam.

Long days spent just staring up at clouds.

When a child could just roam in the yard all day.

Hair stirred in gentle breezes during hammock naps,

The dance of sunbeams through the canopy of maple leaves.

They found me often as not conversing with trees,

A fistful of wildflowers and skinned-up knees.

Mud on the hem of my new Sunday dress

Shoes in a puddle by the breezeway door.

Watermelon seeds spit into the grass

Never as far as my cousin Brian’s

Running through the sprinklers with shrieks of joy

Watching the wriggling night crawlers after a hard rain.

How long ago now and far away.

Nothing seems as easy or sure as those days

No time for catching lightning bugs in a jar,

No endless fields of rolling green.

Barely burden the barren bough outside my window.

Breast aflame with rusty plumage, sharp eyes.

I like to think you are watching over me

I don’t want to tame you, but I want you to stay.

3-5-09

Poetry-Winter In The Garden

2009-03-05T10:24:00.001-08:00

Winter in the garden

Hard to rest on the cold hard ground

No downy beds of clover or soft mossy banks

No soft whispers in the brittle air

Cold sunshine filters through bare branches.

Longing for the taste of summer fruit

Eyes searching for a single blade of green

Fingers numb from pushing back the snow drifts

In futile searches for one early crocus.

Only love can force those bulbs

To burst forth in a riot of beautiful color

Only love can lengthen the days

And melt the snow that stems the spring.

Only sweet tenderness can coax the vine

From dormant seeds to risk blossoming

As if to fear no frost in its delicate reaching

For tendril’s hold and warming limbs.

How does winter hold hope that spring will come?

Fields frozen, endless days of night.

Does the dryad murmur in her dreams

That the time will come for leaves of green?

The birds will call from limb to limb,

“Come to me. Come to me”

Their feathered nests will sing with life

With flowers to perfume their flight.

3-5-09

Poetry-Lost

2009-03-04T18:40:00.000-08:00

Lost

Unaccustomed journey to the Laundromat
Smell of soap and bleach in the soft, close air.
Waiting for the spin cycle, I spy it
Some disregarded treasure.

Shiny gold band set with peridots
Some heirloom separated from its intended heir
Lonely and shimmering, it beckons inspection.
So sad to be fingerless and unfound.

Even if it fit me, which it doesn’t
I could never take it home with me
Forever would it haunt my other trinkets
With echoes of where it ought to be.

I set it on the folding table when I left
Hoping fervently that whomever lost it
Would trace it back here and rejoice
Place it in the smooth finger’s groove.

© Stacie Ferrante
3-4-09

Poetry-What Might Have Been

2009-03-02T22:01:00.000-08:00

What might have been

Don’t wonder what might have been.

Unfurl the years like an antique silk parachute

It may still shimmer like the gossamer of your dreams

But don’t test if it can hold you.

Fragrant curls of holy smoke

May transport with Proustian fervor

Deep rapture the shock of memory stirs

As the Madeleine dissolves in your tea.

Look back and feel the crystals form

As you stand outside the ruin of your life.

Cry enough tears of grief

And you turn into a pillar of salt.

As far as the vermillion horizon stretches

Your eyes will burn in vain for dawn.

What will be is as lost to now

As what might have been.

3-2-09

Poetry-What I mean when I say forever

2009-02-27T19:40:00.000-08:00

What I mean when I say forever

You are mine and I am yours
Even if you live in some far-flung place
When I say I will always love you
I mean it, sugar-pie, forever.

You could live in Timbuktu
Or take canoe breakfast in Bora Bora
You could be one hundred years old
And I’ll still love you, wherever I am.

You could sell me the stars I get for free.
You could be living in the street.
You could be any kind of person in the world
And I would still love everything you are.

Even if it breaks my heart
Even if I sell my soul
If you can still know I love you forever
I’ll do it. Just for you.

© Stacie Ferrante
2-27-09

Idiosyncratic Daydream

Embracing Lunacy

Who am I? Marie Antoinette?

Is Obsession Love?

My Son the Architect

Integrity

Dream-Travel Lags

Poetry-The Other Side of the Coin

Poetry-Mirror Image

Dead Batteries All Around.

Cupid and Psyche

Living Passionately

Monet & Me

Angry Old Fat Women Need Love,Too!

Dream: Hold Yer Own Tic Tacs!

Sinking In

Dream: L'Absinthe Rend Fou!

Dream: Baby Elephant Water Rescue

Okay, Now What?

Dream: The Priest and I Don't Agree

Dream: Showing up for Nursing Boards Naked

Dream: Seth Green and the Burning City

The Trouble with Fashion

Poetry: Fading

Sunday Supper: Summer Berry Upside-Down Cake

Dream: Things are Unfriendly in Portland

He sees London, He sees France...

Being a Mother

The Buzz: It's a Boy!

Dream: Crab Cracker

Dream: Action Gopher

Dream: Torch Singer

Poetry-Dreaming of Trees

Poetry-Grey Dove

Be More Real

Dream-Dragon in the living room

Poetry-A Fork in the Roman Road

Dream-Goats in the Refugee House

Oh Holy-Crap!

The World is My Matador-*Rant*

Poetry-Talk to Me

Dream-Doorbell Cocktails

Back Off! **RANT**

Planet Los Angeles

Dream-White Dog

Shell Shatterday

Shhh! I am reading.

I don't approve-Corporate Radio Edition

Poetry-Frail Flowering Words

The Despair of the Creative Mind

Lost Mitten

Bend, but don't Break

I'm Fine

Pieta, Signore

Poetry-Evolve/Devolve

In Case of Emergency

Poetry-Drink Me

40 Poems in 40 days-Wrap up

Dream-In the weeds again

Poetry-Summer Corn

Poetry-Fly Away

The Cycle of Destruction and Rebirth

Dream-Needles and Pins

Poetry-The Robin

Poetry-Winter In The Garden

Poetry-Lost

Poetry-What Might Have Been

Poetry-What I mean when I say forever

The World is My Matador-Rant

Back Off! RANT