family

Reasoning work versus Playful rhyme

/ autumncircles / 1 Comment

Ladies and Gentlemen!

Entering the ring, wearing the blue silk, business casual trunks and weighing in at a whopping weight of the world status of four hundred and fifty seven pounds is our challenger!  She’s mean, she’s tough – she stomps on daisies and eats b-u-n-n-y  r-a-b-b-i-t-s for breakfast!! Give it up for the Queen of Restraint, the Bitch of the Boardroom – MS. AFFLICTED!!

[The capacity crowd boos and throws popcorn.]

And now, flying in to reclaim her original title – she’s calm, she’s beautiful – she makes us laugh and cry with her peaceful kind of love and takes her man’s b-r-e-a-t-h  a-w-a-y!!  Wearing tye-dye trunks and weighing in at a compact fighting feather weight as light as air is our people’s choice champion – put your hands together for our Woman of the World, Child of the Universe and the Zen Goddess – HARMONY’S CHILD!!

[The crowd goes wild – screams and cheers echo all the way to the moon.]

The two fighters are poised in their corners.  Ms. Afflicted is snarling and blood is pouring from her mouth as she has just bitten the head off of a baby chick. She is already dripping with a grimy, gray sweat and pounding her fists together. Harmony’s Child hovers above the canvas in the lotus position, eyes closed chanting the love of the ages oblivious to not only Ms. Afflicted, but the millions of eyes and hearts on her every breath. She glows with a light of serenity that secures her place in life.

Let’s get ready to RUMBLE!

The bell sounds.

————————————–

And, by bell, I mean the alarm clock goes off and I start my day which frequently resembles the equivalent of a Rocky Balboa sized prize fight with me battling the demons of responsibility, all cut up and swollen screaming for my family and love much like he did with Adrian.

My reality lies somewhere in between harmony and affliction.  I don’t think I am much different from most folks trying to live their lives amid the human race. And yet, I masterfully convince myself that I am the only one who struggles, who is unable to work an eight hour day, get the kids to/from school, make dinner, clean the kitchen, do the laundry, walk the dog, please the husband and fulfill creative desires without neglecting the ones she loves. My affliction is adept at making sure I feel unworthy to have these children or the true love of a husband or even the talent to write a blog. So, I don’t do any of it and the house becomes a mess, the kids watch TV and a stoic silence erupts between my husband and I. I become brainwashed to believe that my children despise me, that my husband only tolerates me because it would be too difficult to leave, and that no one will ever understand and appreciate my writing much less consider it genius enough to publish.

I read another woman’s blog the other day – clusterfook.com, which I highly recommend – and someone apparently accused her of being depressing.  She has been fighting cancer for over five years (I believe) and is chronicling her journey through a blog. I am fighting having a day job wishing I was at home writing Nobel Laurette poetry and those interminable ten pounds that I cannot seem to get rid of off my ass. My site is depressing – hers is remarkable. And the most remarkable part is that she would probably not compare our two struggles in the way I do.

The truth is that we both receive some sort of relief from writing about our lives and pain and joys and sorrows. We both carry on the tradition of humanity that began in caves thousands and thousands of years ago with simple figures drawn on the rock and grunts around a warming fire that turned into many languages of expression.

My prayers are for Lisa’s voice to delight the fires of her family for many, many more years as well as the rest of us peeking into her world through our brightly lit LCDs and keyboards.

And me?  Well, I’ll keep on-keeping on.  I’ll try new things like a joint writing project with another blogger and maybe playing at photography and work on old ones like accepting and trusting life, each other and the universe.

Not sure where to go today

/ autumncircles / 2 Comments

Inside my brain, the hamster is working its wheel.  There’s nothing dramatic in the cage currently – it is simply full and spinning.  Every effort I make to stop and take note of some part of it reveals another stash of pellets for me to consider.

Maybe a hamster isn’t the best analogy.  For one, I don’t feel very rodent-like.  And two, it’s much too cliche for my attempt at writing a new angle blog.

Let’s start over.

Inside my skull, the beta swims quick loops around its small tank.  The same pebbles and plastic greenery are still there with each passing turn.  The water fills my lungs and yet I need to surface for air and food which often gets lost in the constant circling.

Ugh.  Nope – fish out of water also too over done.

Lion at the zoo in a too small habitat?  Caged bird that is afraid it cannot sing?  Sisyphus on a treadmill of stones?  Random sock lost in the dryer that keeps spinning on high heat?  Durang’s George dressed as Mother Courage thrust onstage in what appears to be Charlie’s Angels but with Jerry Matthers as the elusive Harvey the rabbit?  Frog in a blender on pulse?  Tiny worker ant confined to its own mound of dirt pining for the greater universe?

Clearly, I could go on and on trying to describe what it feels like to be me in my life without ever actually writing about the actualities of my existence.  And, currently, all of the comparisons seem to point to me feeling a bit too routine, too ordinary – too normal.  While at the same time, almost too timid to express these longings for fear of losing the infinite blessings that fill my cage/tank/habitat/universe.

So, I write it down.  Or, I think about writing it down but trip on my way to the computer trying to make the words come out perfectly the first time.  Or, I deem the laundry more important.  Or, the checkbook balancing act.  Or, internet surfing under the guise of trying to find an interesting subject to kick start my next blog.

Screw it.

Today the life of Kathleen involves the remaining chores to get the house in order before going back to work and school on Monday, getting our son over to/back from a friend’s house to play for a while, making sure the other child is entertained as she gets jealous when he gets to out, grocery shopping, outdoor Christmas lights down and put away, cleaning my home desk area, clipping the dog’s nails, watching some football without the Cowboys, craig’s listing two ellipticals we no longer want, and checking to make sure my kids don’t have lice after spending a week with their cousin who did.

See?  I sound like I’m whining when I should be grateful to have these two beautiful children, or a marriage and relationship that has lasted nearly eighteen years, or a home to clean that’ s not in foreclosure, or money to buy groceries.  I AM GRATEFUL – every day of my life, I am grateful.

I am also human.  A human woman who is now 41 who life far exceeds any dreams I could have ever had as a child as to what family meant or even what it meant to grow up.

So, I know the universe loves and accepts me when the contented routines of each day get paused as I walk through a day-dream of adventure in my own Kath-Bourne Identity traveling the globe fighting terrorism in search of my true past self under the guise of being a worldwide respected actor onstage in her own works sharing an ethereal connection with Sting carrying my Nobel Poetry and Peace prize in the back pocket of my size six jeans.

Open Thank You Letter to the Dixie Chicks

/ autumncircles / 4 Comments

Natalie Maines.

Emily Robison.

Martie Maguire.

Three women I have never met yet who were instrumental in my survival during some dark days in my marriage and life.  Their voices and words from three albums in particular – Wide Open Spaces, Fly, Home – were on constant repeat mode in my iPod with my headphones plastered to my ears for nearly a year or longer back in late 2002 and all of 2003.

IMHO, Marriage is a journey with two people who at the base of their relationship love each other in such a profound way as to commit to share the rest of their lives together.  Sometimes the journey takes the couple to exotic locations where their minds and bodies become like intensely familiar entities who have been connected long before they met in this life.  Other times, the road darkens and couples get separated and lost in a dense jungle of terrifying emotion and doubt.  Mostly, I have discovered, the path is more like a hike up a favorite mountain trail – a bit rocky and steep at points but with long stretches of open terrain where we simply walk together holding hands, and now, leading our family.

It was during one of our trips to what seemed like the deepest part of the Congo where even breathing was difficult that I discovered the Dixie Chicks.  I had not previously listened to them, but heard a song on the radio and knew they understood what I was feeling.  So I bought the CDs in quick succession and played them over and over again alternately weeping, singing at the top of my lungs alone in the car, and dancing with my children in the living room.

It was as if their music was sent to me specifically at that time as an outlet for all of the unexplainable emotions my heart was breaking from.  They let me sing with them even though I had no idea how to join in a harmony or even match their melody.  When I sang with the Dixie Chicks, I was singing pure emotion and it was perfect.

I was reminded of this time in my life when I recently rediscovered my long forgotten, battery impaired iPod.

I was also sent others in this sisterhood who were not abstract voices purchased at the music store, but real women who had been to similar jungles, loved and survived their own harrowing trips and clung to my side, holding me up until I once again believed I could stand on my own.

I am still married and am grateful for it. I love my husband and am so glad we both decided to come out of the jungles together to proceed on our trek through some wondrous countryside that we might have missed had we given up.

I am, also, grateful for all of these women, their voices, and my ability to join them in this life.  I continue to meet more amazing women who share my joys, struggles and general love of the whole spectacular rave.

‘Cuz some days you gotta dance…