It’s Sunday. I usually do my publishing/blog/writing based responsibilities on Sunday… but it is also Joe’s birthday. So, I am squeezing in what I can before I go to bed. Then I will be spending the day with him and trying to get the rest of the week playing catch up. Next week I will be AWOL as the 13th is my day.
I actually have ideas for this week, mostly. Wednesday is the iffy…but I may come up with something by the time I get there.
If I find that I am feeling froggy I might try to do something after the 13th as far as posts but regardless I will return to work on the following week.
Also…in addition to my own release of Internal Battlefields, my middle child, NK Xero, is looking at releasing a poetry book in April. (With Fae Corps Publishing of course). Also I am hoping to do the same thing I usually do and post a daily poem. I’m hoping to try to do some new ones ☺️
Joe’s sister gave me some watercolor sharpies. This is the test I did for them. They are wonderful when you get them started… but they are difficult to get started. I do love new tools though.
Okay… the above art is not mine but the canvas is…lol that is my soon to be 19 year old about 5 years ago. The question is do you consider face painting an art? In the same vein as tattoo work?
So my daughter and I were talking. I told her I was happy that she was comfortable enough when the kitchen flooded to cuss at me. To me that feels like she was able to express herself without worrying that I would be angry about it. I am big on self expression, which should surprise no one. She said that her therapist encouraged her to use whatever language she felt the need to express the thoughts in her head. *This is where I should note that we really don’t know any other language except American English. We know a few smattering of words in other languages, but not enough to be a fluency of it’s own…but swearing…well…yeah We swear like sailors around here. She mentioned that my mom had said that swearing shows a lack of intelligence. I so completely disagree. I think that it often is looked down upon, but there are times when a good creative swear (note I said creative) shows more intelligence than not. And not always does the swear have to be dirty. One of my favorites is a foreign (for me) word that means shame on you.
I have tried to make my home a place that my kids can call to express anything. I don’t judge them for speaking their minds. They can literally tell me anything. I am their safe space. For me that is what home should be. It is not what all of us had.
I was going to do the usual poetry update today…but my kitchen sink busted last night…well a piece of it did. We have a hose attachment that allows us directly to use water (my dishwasher is a portable) and the hose busted. It is not going to be an expensive fix. Just was a panic at 2 in the morning because of the flooded kitchen. It got me thinking, much as most incidents like that do.
My daughter was the one who had found the flooded kitchen, and bless her she immediately went to work cleaning up the mess. She sent me messages to wake me up. She was comfortable enough to curse at me for not answering the phone (I was actually in a deep sleep for a change). I wonder if I would have ever been so with my mom.
We had a conversation while we were stuck at Walmart about what our favorite dinosaur was (hers is a Saurolophus, mine has always been a triceratops) and I adore the little things that I can get to share with her. (The dinosaur conversation was initiated due to a figit toy she had in her purse. A club tailed dino filled with sand that can be manipulated various ways.)
I don’t remember ever being comfortable enough talking to my mom about anything. My doctor finds my mom and I to be a funny topic. I told her (doctor) that My mom still is blaming me for a virus I had as a teenager. I had infantigo when I was around 11 or 12. Mom is still convinced that I caused it by picking at it. And even though I am in my late 40’s brought it up as I was going to cause myself to get it again. The doctor thinks it’s funny. It is a bit of the epiphany for me.
I always expect my daughter to be amazing. Even if she has a bad day, she is going to be amazing. Nothing can change my mind on that. My mom expects the worst about me. She always has, always will… and I have to stop letting her voice color my self view I have spent 47 years trying to be good enough for a woman who is never going to see me as adequate. Time to change my aim.
I last saw the man who has lived in my nightmares at around 9 or 10 years old. Still, he has made my life miserable not because he was actively in it, but because of what he did and the fact that when I finally got the courage to tell anyone… well they did not believe me. He said that they would not. So if he was right about that, what about the other things that he said? Was it all really my fault?
Biden just signed a Bill…I am so happy for it…it takes away the limit for how long you have to take your abuser to court. How long you have to get the world to see them for the piece of shit that they are… for some people that is a miracle.
For some of us…there is no justice.
I am not saying that just because he is dead. My abuser committed suicide just a few years ago…Don’t expect me to mourn him.
No, I am saying that because I can’t go back and get my family to see the truth. I will never be able to look at my self and think I am not deserving of the way that I was treated… why? Because I obviously missed something. Something that he saw.
My mom doesn’t understand. She asked me if she ever actually said that she didn’t believe me… no not in those words. She said that I must have been remembering it wrong. That I didn’t have the dates exactly right. Okay…I was supposed to handle the memories better. I see. I was supposed to get over it… because that is what you do right?
No, Justice doesn’t always come. But the Bill that Biden signed is a huge step in the right direction.
I am five poems away from finishing The volume Handprints on my soul…and I am struggling with my writing…Not because I am unable – obviously. I just have too many topics and too many thoughts… so many that I have been fighting Insomnia. The end of a volume is always an anxious time for me. It is when I question my writing. It is when I question my motives. It is when I question my value…
Yesterday I answered a poem with a poem. The first poem was written by someone I love very much. A child I had given up at birth because I felt myself in a poor position to care for them. The child is now grown and I am amazed by the similarity they have to me. Also a talented poet, they posted one to their Facebook page. I have in the past found it fun to respond to poets with poetry…A slightly odd behavior perhaps but I find it a fun challenge. (I have been specifically responding to haikus written by my friend, on his Facebook feed In haiku because I find the syllable count to be challenging.) So I did not think twice to do the same with my child. Their reaction surprised me.
They said that they would never be as good as I am. I responded that they already were. In some ways that is such a lie. I see their poetry as better than my own. I see everyone who writes as better than my own. I am incredibly biased. I will never stop seeing the flaws in what I write. Though I imagine that most authors do the same. The problem is though I have some days where my writing is brilliance…I also have the days where putting more than one word on paper feels impossible.
I have days that I feel like I am too insane to be allowed to speak – much less use my voice to put something into this world that will be around for an indeterminate amount of time. (That is what writing is you realize? Passing your thoughts into the hazy future for the random person to read.) And I end up feeding the darkness of those days with my own self doubt and anxiety. That is why I refuse to be jealous of other writers or artists. Why I just judge my work and no one elses (unless I am editing their work which is when I am trying to help them get it to a state of technical perfection…) I shy away from people who cannot understand that I do not require judgement or want to be around jealousy. Those things make me harder on me. Instead I need honesty and just simply to be accepted for who I am.
Today I am a poet. I am strange and I am quiet. I am introvert. I am a writer. I am an explorer. Who are you?
Ps I also seem to update the blog more at the end of a volume…mostly because as I stated…This is when I am questioning myself more so I end up coming here with the random thoughts of am I good enough…knowing that I will never hear the answer I am needing to here.
In 1989 I was 14. I had an adorable baby boy. The above picture was me and him on my graduation from high school 5 years later. September 1st my eldest child will be 33. He has two babies of his own. I just wanted to drop a happy birthday to that little boy…and maybe try not to feel old today.
Pattimouse 