inner child

Intimidation Dance

/ autumncircles / 4 Comments

I know this incredibly beautiful woman. Her beauty is not in the stereotypical Helen of Troy sense as few wars have been waged over her, but she is pulchritudinous nonetheless. She has many friends ranging in levels from simple acquaintance to casual yet personal conversation to intimate know-nearly-everything-about-you. I cannot tell you how many times she has been complimented for her smile or honest charm or willingness to help when needed. She has a better relationship with her kids than she gives herself credit for and the same could be said of her relationship with her husband. They have a marriage based on equal partnership yet lived in the reality of give and take. It’s not perfect, and neither is she if you use Merriam-Webster’s definition, but there are times when I look at her and think, “Wow. She has a great life. Thank God.”

blessed art thou among women…

This woman I know works hard. Even though it is far from the dream she had for herself, she loves her job and is proud of the work she puts in each day. She tries to make the most of her time with her family and works with determination to accept the times when that is not possible for whatever reason. She has emotional struggles like many of us and she has worked diligently over the years to find paths to peace, gateways toward wisdom and layers of herself to love. Sometimes, when I hear her talk, I cannot imagine a time when she was afraid or didn’t believe in herself.

floating above you
I see with clear eyes your grace
clouds challenge within

Today’s woman I am writing about is also talented. She is a writer, has some solid, albeit dormant, acting chops and may have been an inventor in a past life, given her MacGyver-like skills. She loves her thesaurus (as evident by pulchritudinous) and is unashamed to use it. When she embarks on a project – whether it be a short poem, work related newsletter, Chekhovian drama, reparation of a small rocket launch pad, or configuring convoluted connections in a snow storm involving taxis, trains and planes to ensure arriving in Texas for a marriage license waiting period deadline – nine times out of ten, most dentists agree, she won’t quit until she has either reached a superlative solution or the heartbreaking realization that there is not one to be found.

but the tigers come at night…

And then I read posts like this and like this. I learn about the winner for the A Room of Her Own Foundation Grant, along with the finalists. I hear an old friend of mine that I didn’t even realize could sing, sing and write songs like these. Hell, even two of the people I love most in the world (next to my kids) have started a folk duo and every time I get to hear one of the songs they are working on, I get the hair-raised-on-the-back-of-my-neck-they’re-that-good feeling. (If I had a link to one of their songs, I’d post it, but they are currently “in development.”) I have many past friends who are continuing to make a go of it in the theatrical world – working either locally, regionally or in NYC. I could go on…

My stomach muscles tighten and my head begins to swim. Electrical impulses inside my brain begin to dance to an irregular arrhythmia pulsating from my weakening heart. Large, dark clouds of doubt flood my retina and my vocal cords begin to swell preventing spoken words. My lungs fill with cement pressing down hard on my diaphragm. Lastly, my fingers become thick and heavy with poisonous lead making it impossible to clack out the cacophony of angry voices yelling at me “Who do you think you are, anyway?!”

I close my eyes to await the inevitable implosion of my universe. When it doesn’t happen immediately, a small breath of air is able to seep through a tiny crack in my formidable fortress and a smidgen of light softens the darkness.

you are my child and I love you.

I wrest my lids open just enough to see a note I have placed under my makeshift laptop stand, given to me by someone too young to be able to not tell the truth.

You Rock

You Rock

And I go on, being me, remembering that I, too, rock…

Upon considering Breakfast…

/ autumncircles / 1 Comment

Don’t we all have some Holly Golightly in us?  The incessant race to get away from ourselves into the imagined person we want to be?  Running away from love to find more misery and reason to run instead of staying where we can find comfort and joy?  Is it the fear of not finding that comfort and joy to be enough that keeps us on the run? What if we were to find the love of our lives to not be all that we had ever been told to dream?  Or the happiness we are taught to spend a lifetime searching for to be a let down when we arrive there? Better to run from misery to misery, right, they never disappoint do they?  Sadness and despair are determined to not fail at their success.  But love and happiness – we have tricked our minds and hearts to believe they may not be real or lasting.  Do we ever believe the same about despair?  We all to often convince ourselves we will NEVER feel different, that we will always feel miserable.  What if we could swap out that same old fucking formula?  Trade out misery for happiness?  Keep sadness at bay rather than joy?

As deeply as pain can grip a hold of our hearts so can contentment and peace because they are our true selves.  We are born happy, unmarred, innocent souls with a treasure trove of laughter and acceptance and oneness.  It is only as we are aged by grownup time that we begin to filter out our original nature and retain the fear we are taught.

I did not know I was afraid of the dark until someone brought fear into my darkness.  I did not know how to be sad until it was told to me that must be why I cry.  I recognize this now that I have children with whom I have unknowingly taught fear much like it was taught to me.  That can be the only explanation for a grown woman to be afraid of a smile so all encompassing that it could lift me off the ground into the waiting arms of my spirit who unconditionally loves every molecule I am made of.

Should we never fear anything?  No.  Should we accept all that exists in our lives?  No.  Is it always up to us to find our happiness?  Yes.  Is this where the limits of my capabilities to stretch beyond this concept end?  Yes, for now.

I allow the din of many other voices to crowd my heart until it may burst into a million pieces.

I must let go to allow the symphony of the fugue fill my being until it pulsates with the life force that maintains its beauty.

But sometimes, I foget how to get to Tiffany’s…

Egocentricity

/ autumncircles / 3 Comments

It has come to my attention that all of my posts have one major concern – Me.  I write about My feelings, My desires, My fears, My angst – pretty much, if it has to do with Me, I’ll write about it.  I’ve written about childhood humiliations, mid-life crises, relationship joys and woes, every kind of female “issue”, and parenthood challenges – all from behind the very specific Kathleen-focused pinwheel of topics.

Honestly, I did not set out to write a blog with an all-you-can-eat buffet of my emotional stew du jour.   I have some indication that I am a bit of a decent writer with a solid ability to express myself in ways that engage other people.  I intended to marry this expandable skill with the numerous social, economic, cultural and world-wide issues that face the human race, thereby bringing about a crisp commentary from one of the ordinary class of humans – middle-middle class working woman with a husband, two kids, a dog and a mortgage.

Instead, I have a series of blog posts filled with metaphorical anecdotes concerning my hormones, insecurities and day dreams.

Is there something wrong with this?

I must have decided there is not since I continue to write about these things that fill my ever shrinking cognizant capacity.

Clearly, even in this confessional opus, my number one concentration is My inability to write about someone other than Me!

However, before I toss my garbley goulash into the pig trough and start writing about other subjects where I have some great authority like the best ways to get cinnamon gum out of a washing machine, or how to collect old baby food jars until they overflow into the outdoor shed, or remain at a job you don’t like for nearly a decade without literally jumping out the window – I should like to state that I don’t believe any one of us can truly write about anything other than our own experience.

Even if I were to write about the life and times of Mickey Mouse, it would be colored with my intense personal impression of said rat based upon everything that has occurred in my life up to this point.  Suppose Mr. Mouse and I differ in opinion on how to bring about peace without using violence?  Would it then be possible to write objectively about Mr. Mouse’s career in which he engaged his country in not one, but two extended wars?

Maybe a better human than me could, but I am pretty sure I have given up trying to be objective.  (Especially where Mickey is concerned – don’t even get me started on a grown mouse who has a clubhouse full of perky sidekicks who only know how to sing his praises.)

So, I’ve decided – if anyone is 1) actually reading this and 2) in a place of even remotely caring about it – that I am going to continue to write about what I am faced with each moment on a cellular level – Me.

After all, stew is a meal in itself!