Be Back Soon

It was my intention to provide a link to my new blog over a month ago, before leaving for Mexico. But life has a way of getting carried away and here I find myself a month into my travels and a link still lacking. Here it is, my delightful readership. If you were not already aware of the switch, my Mexican adventure can be followed here:

www.twohandstofeet.blogspot.com

Be back soon.

Goodbyes and Good Riddance

It's an odd feeling to go through your already small room and get rid of everything you have stacked up and stored away for 27 years. First go the clothes and books that you don't find absolutely necessary. Then with a little more anxiety, the clothes and books that do seem necessary. Next go the toiletries you won't use, but still feel are wrongly labelled as trash because they could be used, someday. With "necessity" and "someday" now in ever growing garbage bags, you move to the furniture. Easier to part with beds and dressers emotionally, but by sheer volume they make themselves troublesome. Two stops at two different second-hand stores later and you are left with the unexpected layer, sentimentality.

You neither need nor want the raging letter correspondence of Summer 2006, the countless mixed tapes, or the ridiculous photos trapped in happily-ever-after. But there they seem to be, at the bottom of every drawer, box and folder. You put them off, instead going through and throwing out tax returns, pay stubs from 2005 and old term papers on Keats and gender. Soon your possessions, your life work of 27 years, fit hap-hazardly into five pregnant trash bags. They flank the walls of your room like an overweight audience, waiting to see if you have the strength to continue. You are at the center of your room, surrounded by a tornado of papers that should be meaningless. It is now that you decide the importance of life change.

Here is my advice to you: Start with the best relationship first. As you hold a book of poetry or a favorite letter in your hand, think about the long and messy break-up or ever approaching wedding. When you land on a particularly grand and happy picture, think of the late night fights and all the times you were made to cry. Then let them go with the memories into a trash bag that looks like all the others. With the best of the worse times out of the way, the rest of the relationships slip from your fingers. Before you know it, pictures and promises and every lie you believed as true is in that trash bag and ready to be gone forever. Grab the red ties, cinch the bag closed and rid yourself of the burden of a thousand heartbreaks. As you cry from exhaustion and emotion, feel the growing strength of a you crawling from the rubble, still in one piece in spite of this lonely journey. Be that strong and dust covered you and clear your throat with a Nalgene full of water.

Grab your backpack, start the car. With the steering wheel in one hand and your prayer rope in the other, let the yellow lines wash over you in three foot sections, increasing speed with your speed until they blur to something consistent, constant. As your direction veers south and you drive, perhaps for good and perhaps still crying, feel the cool wind finger your unfettered hair and drink down the freedom of the darkening night sky.

Pulled from Within

What is it within that causes us to so readily petition the skies with an array of emotions? What is it that prompts us to gain our answer from the caress of the wind?

Do birds, who fly so free in the expanses we merely theorize, wonder at the skies?

To My Nephew

Dear Baby Aidan,

You should come out now.

There is a whole host of people who have been awaiting your arrival and we all look forward to meeting you. Your family is very nice and your parents will make sure you are never short on love. You also have a nana, nannee, papop, tia and uncle willing and anxious to adore every fiber of you.

I know the process of being born can be quite scary. We have all gone through this experience at some point in time. But don't worry, chances are you will not remember anything. And the world is so beautiful when you take the time to look at it. You will not see it for a couple months while your eyes develop, but believe me on this one. The world is worth the fear of birth and the waiting on cognition and development to take it in.

You will like the sun. Sometimes it comes out in brilliant rays and holds you captive and warm. Sometimes it rains, but I think you will like the rain as well. If you let it, it will sing you soft lullabies of pitter-pat while you drift off to sleep. And I can't wait to introduce you to mud, the marriage of rain and earth made perfect in puddles and dirt pies. It is not always so nice to stay clean. Mud helps you deal with the inexplicable impulse to be dirty and happy.

Today is a good day to be born. Spring has arrived in this city and sits anxiously on the tips of branches. The world is pregnant with flowers ready to burst forth with a silent TADA! You are also ready to bloom into the beautiful person you were created to be. You can be my littler flower, of course, until gender differentiation sets in and you become my little bear or warrior.

Don't be afraid. On the other side, there are twenty and more pairs of arms outstretched and ready to show you that the world is truly wonderful.

I look forward to meeting you and hearing your first little cry.

With love and affection,

Your Tia Katie

By the Bottle

I don't drink Irony by the glass, I drink it by the bottle.

At first it goes down a little bitter, as irony does, but by the end of mug one -because we were drinking this irony from mugs as first class ladies do- the subtle hints of fruit came out over the alcohol. Of course, by this time we also smelled more of alcohol than popcorn and our heads whooshed a little when we felt the need to stand up. Sometimes we would stand up just for the fun of the whooshing.

Irony doesn't give you a headache or hangover; it lingers slightly on the back of your tongue reminding you that life goes on but that it doesn't need to be all bad, just a little bitter to swallow before you get used to what's next.

Wind Storm

This was a present for my cousin's birthday. I could see her using a windy day to dance with the stars. Happy Birthday, my beautiful and talented cousin!

Dancing Stars: Part 1

This week my morning walks to work have greeted me with rain and wind. Fortunately, I walk with a bright pink umbrella borrowed from my roommate. Drawing inspiration from my walk and utilizing the lack of social activity filling my evening, I watched a movie and painted.

I wrote this on the back of my painting:

I would rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.

I have been told that something this cute doesn't function well alone and that he could use a few friends. I wouldn't mind looking at an army of silly, dancing stars.

Tuesday Night

Setting: I live with three counselors. Tonight I came home to my roommates watching a movie.

Me: "What are you watching?"

RMs3: "Interrogation"

Me: "What's it about?"

RMs3: "A therapist."

/pause/
/look from one roommate to the other/
/burst out laughing/