Boxes

I've been unpacking boxes at the new house, beginning my new life. Last night I came across things that transported me back to the time when my children were itty-bitties.

There where head shots of when they modeled, a baggy of one of my boys hair from when I cut his pony tail (the hair tie still holds it together), I'm thinking it's Cole's hair, Michael's tap shoes, and his little slippers, the news paper from the day my oldest daughter was born, and a newspaper article of me when I was two. My glasses fogged as my eyes filled with memory packed tears.

Today, just now, I unpacked another box. The power that overtook me was more than I could handle at the moment. After I regained composure, or that of which I could muster, I was able to read important words written to me from my father on July 24, 2002.

"What if there were no tomorrow. Am I looking at the scenery with all the colors and contrast, or am I looking at the bumper in front of me and thinking, "What a jerk?" Do I wake up thinking of all the things I have to do today, or do I say, "what a nice blue sky," and after some coffee I will decide what I can do to make things right.

Wow never noticed the flowers on that hill, glad I'm here to see it. We are what we are, where we are, and nothing more.

Help if you can, back away if you can't. Worry is not a part of my vocabulary. Treasure the smile of a little one and dismiss the whine. I hope I have the time to appreciate what I've dismissed in the past.

Take it easy and enjoy the present. Teri I love you. Do what you can, dismiss what you can't. Enjoy the present. Anticipate the future. But live for today.

Dad"

Those words were written when he was 64, five years before he died. How very appropriate they are for me today, at this moment, during this day.

Words of love, and advice, from my Dad are with me. I can touch them, I can read them. They are tangible, not a mere memory. It was the first time my father wrote the words, "Teri I love you." He never said those words to me while he was sober until after my mother had been killed.

My Daddy is touching me, walking with me, advising me, from the world beyond. What a treasure, what an honor, he chose to write his thoughts for me. My breathing is labored, my nose dripping, my make-up smeared. My daddy will never leave me, neither shall his words, his advice, or his love.

I also found the little leaflets, that are handed out at funeral services, for my Mother, and for my Father. The front of my Mother's pictures the flowers she loved. My Father's pictures the planes he loved, and flew. My brother wrote the words inside my Father's, in my Mother's I'm not sure.

Moving is difficult, making a new life is a challenge, and so very scary, but the words of my Father mean more to me today than I think they ever did. Did I mention my Father never wrote me anything before? I'll keep my Dad's words close, I'll remember them, and I'll hold close to my heart the message he was conveying to me that very special day, when I was on his mind.

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Don't Say Tomorrow

It was an urge, a heavy tugging in my spirit, that caused me to pick up the phone today and make a call I had been meaning to make, but with the rockiness of my road of late, I kept telling myself, "tomorrow."

As I held the gold iPhone in my hand, memories, wonderful memories, played in the theater of my mind. Remembrances of a meeting, too long in the making, made me laugh, cry, rejoice, and thank my Creator for His graciousness in allowing me to meet my aunt Joan. They made me smile with gratitude and appreciation. 

My father's mother had five children, three girls, and two boys. The girls she dropped on the doorstep of their father, my uncle was left with my great grand parents, and my father, well, my father's fate was much worse. She kept him.

My dad grew up basically on his own, in Catholic boarding school in New Orleans, and kept, much of the time, from his family.

One example of how that woman "cared" for the child that was to become my father, was horrific. What she revealed deepened my understanding as to why my father was a very hands off parent, for the most part.

When she went to work my father was left in a play pen. A neighbor from downstairs would come up every four hours to change his diaper and give him a bottle. It's scene I can't bear to imagine, and I attempt to bury it in a section deep within my soul from which it cannot easily emerge.

My dad's four siblings were only flashes of memories, here and there, for him. As he spoke of the sadness he felt my heart was crushed for the broken man that raised my brothers and me.

I met his sister, Joan, several time as a child, but came to know her, to bond with her, as an adult when my Dad and I took off on a road trip to see her.

She was crying when we met that hot August day in South Carolina, with tears of joy. She was beautiful, kind, smart, funny as heck, and broken as well by the tearing of her family.

I watched my Dad's eyes as they welled with tears when his older sister spoke, as she told us story after story. A bond formed that day, walls were removed, and the longing of the hearts of siblings to be together melted.

I pressed the icon on my phone for my Aunt Joan. As expected, she didn't answer. I've changed my phone number, and had not yet given it to her. Minutes later I received a call. It wasn't my aunt, but my cousin, her son.

I instantly began to cry, not a tear here and there, but a convulsive, overwhelming cry. I knew the words he would speak would not be words I wanted to hear. Through my tears I begged him, pleaded with him, to tell my Aunt, when she is lucid, of my undying love for her, and the joy our relationship had brought into my life

My Aunt, now 80, is incredibly sick and has been hospitalized. With respect for her privacy, I won't write of the afflictions she faces. Reality is reality. I know from our conversations, she has wanted for years to be with my uncle rejoicing beside him in the Heavens.

As I type this my phone is at my side. I'm waiting for my cousin, that I've only seen once, to text, or call, me with an update. The longer I wait, the more heavy my heart becomes.

But with the sadness I feel, there is also a wonderful feeling of excitement growing within my heart. It's a feeling of being able to finally connect with my cousin, one I was never allowed to meet.

With my eyes constantly watching my phone, and my mind wandering, I can't come up with a way to end this post except to say, "Make that call." Don't allow time to steal what you could have had all along.


With much love,

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The Doe

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It was from behind a fluttering veil of brightly colored fall leaves, and cedar scented needles, the trembling doe peered. She stood as still as the stones on which her cloven hooves were planted.

When the crisp fall breeze wafted, the leaves fell, and danced, allowing her large brown eyes, fringed with black, to catch glimpses of obstacles strewn before her.

Some she recognized, and a soft voice reminded her of their danger, and the destruction, which had once engulfed her. Instinctively she stepped back in the hopes any possible damage could be avoided.

She also saw elements that caught her interest. They stood apart from the others, much like shimmering stars against a black velvet sky. Some were small, but as she surveyed the horizon, through openings in the colorful curtain covering her, she saw one whose sparkle seized her interest.  It was then she wondered if she was strong enough to lower the invisible wall that had held her heart captive for far too long.

She knew there were beautiful paths beyond the brush in which she was hidden.  Perhaps the radiance of the one that seemed to be calling her to follow was safe. However, the trail that led her to where she now stood had been a mirage, which disappeared, taking her soul with it. She knew, with out doubt, she could not again travel a path sprinkled with fools’ gold, only to fall, once more, from an unseen cliff. 

There was a scrap of spirit within her that longed to follow, even though she stood gripped with fear.  The inner voice, that had reminded her of dangers past, whispered yet again. It told her she could take small steps, and at first remove one brick, if safe, more could follow. 

She was afraid to remove that first brick lest the remaining ones tumble around her, leaving her bare and vulnerable, again, to become nothing more than a trophy for a hunter in disguise.

With her remaining strength, she ventured from the darkened shroud, and followed the path, lit with what appeared as bright rays from the Heavens. She nudged the heaviest brick, the one that held the wall in place, and hoped soon she would feel safe enough to move it entirely, allowing her the freedom to remove those that remained.

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The Bipolar Diva: New Sensation

The Bipolar Diva: New Sensation: She shut off the water of the hot, steamy shower she had taken, not only to cleanse her body, but to also aid in rid...

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New Sensation

She shut off the water of the hot, steamy shower she had taken, not only to cleanse her body, but to also aid in ridding her soul, from layers of toxic threads that had slowly entrapped her.

In her hands she gathered her blonde hair and began to squeeze from it what she could of the remaining water she had immersed herself in.

She watched as the droplets that fell, formed streams that traced her bare body, as Newton’s Law prevailed. She imagined, willed, them to envelope, and carry with them, poisonous particles that had pierced, and bound, her spirit from wounds both past and present.

She stepped from the calming atmosphere she had luxuriated in, grabbed a thick, white, cotton, towel to wrap her still dripping hair, and another to dry the shell that embodied her essence.

As she filled her hands with her trademark scented lotion, she carefully studied the symbols on her body of broken chains. Symbols that had been permanently injected into her soft, ivory, skin. To her they not only represented the opening of a locked door, but also the key to a life yet to be explored. 

The air was heavy with steam as she cracked the door to allow a fresh breeze to fill her lungs. She removed the saturated towel from her hair, shook her head, allowing her long, blonde, tresses to fall to her waist, and cover much of her torso.

When the fog had been carried away with the light breeze, she stepped to the mirror. She gazed at the same face, partially covered with wefts of wavy, wet, hair, she had seen every day for decades, but this time noticed something different. 

There was a glimmer, a sparkle, in her auburn eyes, and a new sensation of inner growth, and within it she saw her true self. Although fearful of what was to come in much of her new life, she was certain, and committed, in other areas.

She stood there, as bare as her new-found existence, and felt the confines of the silken threads, in which she had been bound, begin to dissolve. With that she sensed, and embraced, the colorful wings she had always carried, but had never been allowed to fully open, emerging.  

Although fear’s talons still gripped her, she felt a confidence never before felt, and realized within herself she did have the capability to truly be happy. 

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Carefully Crafted

For months now I have been advised to censor, and carefully craft, my writings.

Tonight, however, thoughts spilling from my mind shall be written and, with luck, cathartic.

Fifty two years of audio is trampling through my throbbing temples, and tears flow in the attempt to reform negative, and controlling, rhetoric into positive affirmations.

I feel divided, my inner most core tells me one thing, my mind and heart another.

How can I explain to others in a way they can understand, when I, myself, didn't know what was happening for what seemed a lifetime, was a lifetime?

Over the last few years of soul searching I thought I knew what I was running from, running to.

People through those years witnessed, and were very aware, of the situation I was facing, and why I ran. I thought I knew and repeatedly refused to listen to their words of knowledge.

They all tried to coax me to see the reality of the place, so dark, in which I had lived. I rebutted their wisdom, and ran with what I thought to be the truth.

Finally, this summer, the words they had spoken, time after time, were illuminated, and my eyes, my heart, were opened, and to myself I admitted the unthinkable.

I was surprised each, and every, time person after person approached me with the same words that others before had desperately tried to get me to embrace.

It was then I realized, I wasn't running from me, but from something entirely different. It was then my spirit lightened, and felt it could fly free. Everything made sense.

It was then I felt as though I could breathe, and be myself.

Unfortunately decades of indoctrination are difficult to throw away, even though I now admit what others had seen is true, the effects of a lifetime come in waves.

A rock had been thrown into the pond, everyone wanted to see as still, causing the water to ripple, it will take time for those effects to slow, and for the water to once again calm.

Most days I'm able to cope, to see the brightness that lies ahead, other days, like now, the shades are once again drawn, as words of unworthiness, and flashes of bruises, replay in my mind, and make me doubt the reasons for my existence.

One thing I have learned, that I've always known, is that I have a spirit that is tenacious, and a will that can overcome the darkness of the past.

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Stars

The night was so dark, cold, and isolating.

She longed for the shivering to end, and numbness slowly set in.

Over the years only a handful knew the depth of her pain and understood her desire to flee. 

Still entrapped by the talons that brought the isolation, she had grown used to the emptiness that had taken over.

It took years for the time to come when she was able to make the initial step of taking the night and embracing it.

She surrounded her soul with its solitude and blackness.

It was then she found the isolation was warm, much like the softness of velvet, and the petals of a black rose.  

Once she was enveloped by the cozy feeling of isolation, wrapped, and comforted, she turned and saw stars shining brightly; stars that would light her path. 

It was to those shimmering beams, and the hope they brought, she was drawn.

The twinkling lights in the night, that she followed, slowly turned night into the dawn of a new day.

Her stagnant, and mildewed existence, was replaced by a fresh breeze and the brightness of her future to which the stars were calling her to.

Though she is still in the process of clipping the grip of talons that held her spirit captive for so long, she knows a bright, new, world awaits, and the tight petals of the black rose will open into beautiful colors long since extinct.

xoxo,

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