Category: Life

Looking for Inspiration

This year has been better than last, Emotionally and physically I am in a good place. Still after the hell that was 2015, I find myself in more of a hold than normal. I normally write at least 70 poems in a year and at least a story of some sort.  Even if I end up destroying the stories, I do write them. Yet this year has been an inspirational void. I have them…after major life changes.  It makes sense if you think about it. How does one appreciate the poetry of life, when the mind is still adjusting to chaos that comes from being truly a hot mess. I still see the poetry, still feel the story.  Surrealism clouds a busy mind.

For me March is one I almost always have a distracted mind during. This month is my birthday month. I am not a single bit worried about my age, however that doesn’t mean I don’t contemplate what growing older means. I expected that I would be so much more and yet I am farther than I thought I would be. So many of life’s choices have led me down a path that led me in both dark and light places that i could have never imagined. Today I am forty. I have made choices, both good and bad.  In Eleven days, I will be forty and one . It always strikes me as strange.  Perhaps that is why March sets me on my ear.

Distractions of the heart

I really have been trying to write lately. I am not one of those who can structure my writing. I can write everyday, and I do. Still this week has been a time of pure distraction. Even down to my writing app not functioning. My mind has been foggy, and I am quite afraid that if the app had worked…well it probably would have been something I deleted a day later. I have resolved to never delete what I write the same day. In some ways it keeps me from getting disgusted with what I have written and deciding it’s garbage…whether it really is or not.

So I have been doing other writing exercises. A journal, a bit of blogging, and still my heart aches. I have several work in progress that feel like I will never finish.  It makes my heart ache because I feel like such a failure. In all honesty, I wrote my first novel at ten. However, in frustration and self doubt, I threw it away. I forgot what I wrote. So the uncertainty of that early failure (the trashing of what i wrote is the failure) followed me. I  write, I publish. So far only a novella, a children’s book, and four volumes of poetry.  I publish because it doesn’t cost anything. Perhaps  it is still my self doubt that holds me back. I battle the low self esteem as I have my whole life. I am perhaps never going to see myself as others do. And that is actually Ok. I would love to see even once that which others see in me, but if not, then I will survive. I will continue to write because without it, I am nothing. I will continue to be kind and helpful to others, because it is not in me to be unkind.  I will continue to be creative in every way I can find. For the creativity helps me to feel less ugly. Perhaps that is all there is in life. Finding beauty in the ugly of life.

Creative Rivers Flow

I truly believe that everyone has some font of creativity.  Most never see that streak within themselves. For some it comes out in form of fashion, In some it is an eye for color in Decor. Some write, some draw. Every creative act nourishes the soul.  So each person needs some way of expressing that. I personally think that those with an uncertainty and self doubt end up expressing more of a creative nature. Which is why much poetry and art has pain and darkness at it’s base.  All forms of creative expression are the mind’s way of dealing with extra stress and extra doubt.

Mind you, I am not claiming this is a bad thing. I applaud any way that leads the mind to cope with life. I think that creative expression of pain and doubt lead to much of the beauty in our world. It amazes me how much  beauty exists.  I am all over the place when it comes to beauty. Enjoying a well written song, a beautiful poem. Smiling over a gorgeous picture, a well done show. Eclectic in my personal decor and jewelry. There are many enjoyments I have in all forms of beauty and creative expression. What is it that you think of creativity? What is your thoughts on Beauty?

Teaching Chess to a preteen

Chess is a game of strategy. One that requires one to think their moves through very thoroughly. We are trying to teach our twelve year old the game. In teaching, her dad is making her explain why she makes the moves she does. He does this to make her think about why she is making the moves she does. When I tried to explain why Dad wanted the explanation, I told her in many ways chess was like life. You have to think before you act. Decide if it is worth the consequences of your actions.

I am a big fan of consequences. Every thing in life reacts to the choices we make. In the end of the lesson, it was decided that she wasn’t really ready for the game. She made it through over three quarters of the game. Claiming a headache then.  This is the second time we have tried. Each time it feels like she understands a little more, and each time it feels like we are able to teach her important life lessons. it is amazing how easy it is to squeeze life lessons into anything.

Catching a cliche

Well even though my phone was my main way of writing, I found a way. There is an android emulator for windows, Blue Stacks. I have been playing around with it off and on since it first came out a couple of years ago. It doesn’t work as good as my phone did, because the computer is old and slow. But it does work. So I downloaded my Notebooks app. I went to restore…as it has the option from dropbox and google drive.

Wouldn’t you know it, I accidentally backed up on the dropbox and when i tried to restore from Google drive, it couldn’t connect. so I was miserable wondering how i would be able to continue what i had been working on. Then i was looking at Kindle fire tablets. I may try and buy myself one for a birthday gift next week. I was looking in to app compatibility, and got to thinking, So i went to Dropboxes site to see if i could restore an older version of the file. Guess what? I can. So now i am able to write again. I swear i don’t normally do this. Tonight when I was trying to write, I kept  switching every few minutes to scrolling facebook. When I caught myself doing it, I felt like i had caught a cliche…a writer who is surfing more than she writes. Hopefully now that my setup is fixed, I will no longer hunt the cliche.

In the loneliness

here i sit uncertain and alone,
Planning uncertainty
for so little is known.
Hearing the negative,
so loud inside my head,
Tossing and turning.
can’t go to bed.

Those who should praise me
Do naught but to doubt,
Those who should see me,
For them i am not really around.
Invisible and struggling.
Sinking when I should swim,
The ocean of doubt crashes within
The struggle about
Just trying to begin.

I know better than to hear
The darkness within
I know i am better than I ever
possibly have been.
Yet in the loneliness,
Deep in the night,
That is when the voice within
is hardest to fight,
when no one is there
to help fight it off.
no one is there to remind you
of the cost

How has the times changed…

I remember as a Preteen hating to wear my hair short. I have always been bulky and slightly tomboyish. So I was picked on because apparently I looked like a boy…even though I had breasts. So I always wore my hair long back then. I fought for the ability to wear it long. Tonight I had a talk with my preteen daughter. She fights to wear her hair short (because it requires less care). I asked her if she gets picked on because of her hair. Her response was that she doesn’t get picked on, apparently she is invisible.
I guess in these times of gender neutrality it makes sense. I was her age in 1988…so many things have changed in that time. There are other differences as well. In my daughter’s time there is so many more hazards that were either not there or not obvious when I was her age. I remember the struggles and try to use that when dealing with her, but even with that memory it is so different for her than it was for me, so there are times when the generation gap feels like a chasm.

Technology is both blessing and bane

        Last night i had the most horrific thing happen….my Phone died. Now understand….My cell phone was basically a tablet…i used it for everything. It was my calendar,  my communication, my camera, my kindle, texting,  my writing tool, and my gaming device. Everything except a phone. I may loose progress on some of my writing because of this. I have a laptop that i borrow from my boyfriend. It is a older model, windows xp laptop. It is missing the backspace, the tab and the m keys. It so doesn’t have the CPU or the hard drive space to do much more than simple programs…however until i can replace my tablet…i have no choice. I am not out on the streets broke, but there is no extra money. I am scraping to try and get a vehicle, and of course my microwave broke as well. So yes, i cannot afford the extra expense of a tablet. Which for me means suffering to write on this crappy laptop. It means dealing with the extra headache of accessing WordPress through an android emulator because the browsers on this laptop seem to have issues with most pages. It means in order to blog or even try and update my author page on Facebook I will have to sit down and actually fight this beast. So though i am enjoying the blogging and enjoying the spurt of writing i have been doing lately, it means life will likely interfere a wee bit more. Please bear with me. I will update, but it may not be daily. I am going to get me  another tablet, it just may take me some time.   thank you for understanding, or i am sorry if you don’t. This is just how my life goes.

Snowdrops

After midnight,
Staring out the window.
Softly drifting white,
Covering all within my sights.
Hesitant to enjoy
Such a coldly pretty view,
For fear of embracing
Even something new.

Soft snoring emanating
From yet a few feet away,
Reminding me only
Of tomorrow’s busy day.

Asleep,  should i be
Not starting through
A quiet,  cold night,
Wondering what i might
Begin to plan and make.

Abuse

         Okay I have put this one on hold.  And that is because it isn’t an easy topic.  I survived. And I am far from the only one. So It isn’t a topic I feel comfortable with.  It’s not a topic anyone should feel comfortable with. 
          Before I get any farther into this topic…. if you are being abused,  get help. If you are feeling suicidal because of all you have suffered call 
1 (800) 273-8255. It’s a hotline.
                 There are so many forms of abuse.  And there is even forms of self abuse.  As I really don’t want to go too far into most of them for the possibly triggering effects it can have on those reading this. 
        The thing about abuse is though it can take many forms,  it always has the same effects.  Damage to the mind and body and souls of those who are abused.  The survivors often feel alone and anxious. Please if you have survived…know you aren’t alone.