Mermaids

  I have been deeply obsessed with Mermaids for the last 6 weeks or so. My final project for creative writing was developing, revising, discussing and editing a short fiction piece and mine ended up being about Mermaids. I was deep in it and I loved it. The altered state of creating (being the conduit that brings a story to life) is better than almost anything. I've had the idea (and many false starts) stored in my memory for about 6 months and I think the piece is just now moving in the direction of what it needs become, idealistically. In my experience, stories need to figure themselves out. I just translate as the information is revealed to me. I love that about writing. It's mysterious and magical. It breaks my heart and quietly puts it back together.

   I've been actively daydreaming about picnics a ton and listening to Father John Misty around the clock. Boy, did he ever annoy me last year. His new album came out on double vinyl 45 and I was into the cover art so I impulsively bought it and spent a whole day falling way head over heels in love with it. Ladies, the words... Holy Moly, his wife is one lucky lady cuz that poetry is some deep and heavy stuff. I felt moved and really cool with clinging to my romantic ideals. I thought, "See, true romantics do exist!"

 I've been taking the little miss nettle hunting. She's a natural, hasn't been stung yet. The plants, they love her. She can find what we're looking for before I spot them. Her innocent spirit, a beacon, to all those skittish green fairies.

 These trees! The things they've seen. I enjoy their presence and imagine their origins and history.

  Last week I sat in dwindling sunlight with a Libra-Wood Tigress sister (you guys, I have finally found a birthday twin! It's amazing!!). The sand was warm on top and chilled beneath. Our babes played and argued at the waters edge. In that moment, it all felt so damn fine. Everything calm and chill. I was comfortable in my own skin,  and my heart was full of adoration for my darling friend. The breeze carried sounds of our fiery children bickering. It was all enough.

   My dreams have been wild & intense. Recurrent dreams of myself walking through an unknown and icy forest with a dark wolf by my side. The wolf is fierce but calming. I'm visited night after night by this spirit wolf. It's pretty wonderful. I wake up feeling energetically charged and alert. I feel like the wolf is a male, or could represent a mortal man. Maybe the wolf is showing me the strength I feel in independence or illustrating my innate survival mode? Perhaps he represents freedom and the removal of obstacles/the ending of a relationship?  I wonder what Freud and Jung would say... Honestly, I mostly wonder what Freud would say... I'm just into Freudian ideology. How did that happen?

  When I read my cards, the 10 of cups and the high priestess come up a lot. It feels good and opening. I appreciate the abundance of energy and believe that inward reflection and awareness will lead to a path illuminated with golden light.
  I'm trying not to force and shape my way down the path I'm traveling, I want to proceed as it unfolds before me. Bright and beautiful. xo m

Valentine

  Right now, I'm feeling lovely, all rosey, bright and optimistic. I'm in typical new moon, list making, manifesting mode. My sleep has been better and I've began cutting my coffee with decaf. I always teased my Grandma for doing 1/2 caff but I get it now! I am a quantity person so my coffee has to be less powerful. I accept it.
  Last week we had the flu. The dr thinks so. Whatever was going on, felt terrible.  I was ridiculously tired and out of it. For 2 days I just laid about. I felt intense delirium whenever my gal summoned me (for juice, popsicles, to refill the hot water bottle or put a new movie on). I watched Crow 1 & 2 (2 was so so bad but the outfits were pretty 90s amazing), and season 6 or Parenthood. It was a foggy daze of senseless streaming... My dog makes a pretty sweet bed buddy/hot water bottle. Viggo Mortensen was surprisingly low maintenance during the sickness. I had all this homework to do. I did it, but the writing and my analytical powers were totally haywire. I turned in some goofy papers. I posted incoherent responses to online discussions. I dragged myself to piano class to poorly play an 8 second composition because my piano teacher does not allow make up tests ever and it was a midterm. I felt pissed off and burdened by school and then I decided I don't want to go to school anymore. And then I felt free. I felt elation. I tired it. I did not like it. I think working full time, being a full time single mama and going to school full time is pretty much impossible for anyone. I cracked halfway through my first quarter.
   My little dalliance with academia did illustrate a thing or two. I have realized that I can make daily time for reading & writing (probably not the 4-5 hours daily I have been doing) and I can do whatever I want to do! I can change my mind at anytime about anything I want cuz I'm an adult, the Queen of my own reality and damn it, life should be fun! And right now I want life to feel more bohemian, artsy, freewheeling and less stodgy/rule laden. Ladies, let's party...

 ooooooh and during the sickness I did knit while watching bad movies. A new hat for my little dove is almost totally complete.

   So, let me put on my rose-tinted glasses and admit that I'm pretty smitten. I'm in such a state of delicious adoration. This guy, my boyfriend, really is the bees knees. I don't think I've ever been so consistently non-annoyed and blissfully calm and chill around someone ever. I do think that I've grown a lot and changed and am more self aware now than ever before (blah blah blah) but I also believe my guy to be a jewel of a human. He is stunning.

   On Valentines Day my sweetheart showed up with a box of chocolates and tools. My house is quirky (ie falling apart) and there are a lot of issues. The busted/drippy pipes under the sink needed some attention. Oh, I do like a man, wielding tools, who can fix things. I could get used to this... I feel truly seen (envisioned by another person as I want to be seen and also seen for who I really am) by him. Honestly, I feel like I shouldn't even jinx myself by talking about our romance much. Love can be such a delicate animal. I don't need to figure it out, I'm happy to simply be in it.

      I was also given the most miserable and disturbing children's book I've ever seen. This book is full of freaky dead body illustrations and detailed descriptions of the plague (so goth!) and it was my man's when he was a kid. One of my areas of interest is the darker parts of history. I can't help it. I'm Gothic through & through.

    I'm sitting here drinking coffee and eating a successful gluten free banana bread that I made myself. I'll post the recipe next time (it's tasty and not sandy or overly dense-hooray!). The sun is blazing a pretend springtime day outside. Time to walk Viggo and there is a little hill of towels in front of me waiting to be folded, chickens angrily wanting out of the coop, a yard in hopeless disarray, my retail space (that's been so neglected) needs attention and yes some more homework that must be done. It's all ok. I'll do it all. The sunshine makes it extra alright. xo m

a new year

  As I sit here and drink my jasmine tea, I am thinking on intentions. The last few years I have written lengthy lists with dozens of goals and many have been accomplished but this years goes deeper. This new years eve/new years day I had only one thing on my mind. Love. Real love. I want to believe in Love. I think there is really only one love for me. The love that I felt as a dream when I was a child. The love that I felt when my own babies came out of my body and I finally held them in my arms. The love that I so wanted to feel with most romantic partners I've had, but it usually disolved for one reason or another. There aren't kinds of love, only LOVE. Fierce and powerful and when you are with that person you create a universe unto yourselves and it's beautiful. I have felt it at times and I have seen it between others and my belief in real love it why I have ended so many previous relationships. I had to believe that there was more than what I was currently experiencing. I had to follow my heart.

   For several weeks I have been attempting to date. Um, it's weird, not for me. I guess I'm just not that modern. I do everything else online but yeah, not the dating... I got rid or and deactivated it all, bye bye. Back to the old fashioned ways of actually coming across that needle in the haystack in real life. I'm fine with that. The waiting... I welcome it. I've got things to do, school starts tomorrow for me and kids. I will be in class and doing homework daily. Great, distraction of mind.

 Every online connection I made was either depressing, slightly scary, annoying or in on case pretty disheartening... I don't have time to pursue sub par connections. There have been many hot tub soaking sessions in my beautiful friends jacuzzi where we exchange stories of the most horrible/hilarious texts know on earth. dating war stories... It hardens you. I'm too soft and strive to stay that way. Instead of dating I will go dancing. My savior at the age of 15 was the dance floor so back to that. I will dance with friends, I will dance on my own if I must but dancing I will go. Every sat night and other nights if it looks extra fun... dance dance dance...

   Winter wraps around us here. It's cold and constantly wet, the sun rarely lights the sky. Every year it hits me somewhat unexpectedly. How is it possible to forget the gloom? Lovely spring and summer wipe it from my mind, every time. January finds me feeling like such a hardy pioneer. I'm a maiden of fortitude simply because I choose to call this damp, grey land my home.

 There have been 2 colds. One that morphed into another so I guess that has a little to do with my sensitive, introspective musings.  Now I have a sinus infection and that lovely disconnected head feeling that goes along with it. Lots of time logged in bed writing. Journal writing, short stories, memoir-always plenty of that. Working out my feelings by writing the down is what works for me.

 There have been certain themes in my Tarot readings. Love and struggle, betrayal oh and coming into money (yes please!! still waiting to hear about financial aid)- it is almost tax time.

 And there it is, in red ink. My final stick n poke tattoo of 2014.  Now I'm off to plant my garlic that is late late late getting into the earth. better late than never! xo m

there is a light that never goes out...

  Learning how to let go (of love, with love...) is something I have taken so many years to begin cultivating. I am just now discovering what this unfamiliar process looks like to me. Unconditional love is something I am only able to practice with my children, my sister, my best friend (honestly, just my children). I have never experienced a romantic love that has remained, was steadfast and unchanged. My loves have always diminished or shattered. Sometimes the love morphed into something, at times, that was unbearable to sit in even for a moment. I know now that hostility, questioning, lack of support, are things I cannot abide in a relationship. The moment I feel my stomach painfully tighten, even a little (and that voice screams in my mind "Run!"), I can no longer ignore. Yes, everyone has off days or gets cranky, but when I feel a pattern of negativity is being established, and thoughts of my beloved no longer invite joy into my heart-but usher in the beginnings of a bitter dreadfulness... I am unable to be open, warm and in love. I retreat, out of self protection, and remove myself from the situation.

  I honestly don't know how to grieve a love lost. It's easier if the person was a real creep (as most of them were). But if it just wasn't working (maybe there were personality clashes/lifestyle differences) and it couldn't go on but no one was an insufferable monster... It's a little harder to stop the relationship. And how do you ever completely close the door? I am terribly fond of unrequited romance, this is not necessarily a good thing. I tend to mis-remember or mythologize my memories. Like it's never ever really truly over.
  My last romance broke (continues to break..) my heart. It was, for many years an unrequited teenage memory/fantasy and when we reconnected it was fireworks, electricity, wild abandon, instant intuitive everything. It seemed so meant to be and nearly flawless until, only a few months later the flaws appeared and everything began to dissolve and fall apart. I feel so heartsick. It keeps coming and unfolds daily. And thank you all for being so patient (friends and readers), I know I've been harping on and on about my romantic experience quite a lot lately... Some days it is so hard to stay away from this romance. In the past, in much darker, completely damned relationships, I always stayed and stayed and stayed, much to my detriment. Now I have to believe that my ability to walk away is a strength. I won't ignore the warning signs and wait until it's nearly impossible to disengage.
   It's Autumn and raining, endless cups of tea and chores and things demanding of my attention. I just want to crawl into bed watch sappy movies, eat chocolate covered shortbread and cry. Wait! I was excited about school yesterday. Yes, I am going back to school. I'm happy to realized I'm just a handful of classes away from my AA (and how I even accumulated any credits is a real feat cuz I was not functioning on a healthy plane 1995-2002) and then I can pursue my Psychology BA (at what school?) and figure out what kinda MA (yeah, where?) and get all sorts of diplomas etc... etc... and move to Berlin/Maine/Dublin/Nola/Magic Island and do cool things and help people figure their heads and hearts out... Today I crashed into lovesick sadness a little. It happens (to me a lot), I'm stressed. There are still many questions with school (waiting to hear about financial aid) and bills long over due and I am sad, not over things and really bummed by the way things turned out with my loved one... I keep thinking it over and over again and flirting with the sweet memories but I do remember what caused me to take a step back and I do think I am where I'm meant to be, right now. I do think I made the right decision. As painful as it is, I made the right choice for me.
   I am creating my life, everyday, with every action and I want it to be a kind, happy, beautiful and wondrous reality. xo m

mysterious elusive magical

  The nature of love is something I muse on constantly. The mysteries of life, luck, timing, I reflect on often. I go over conversations, gestures, glances, with analytical dissection. I do character studies of strangers, loved ones or internet "research" (ie obsessive bookmarking and youtube-ing, image,text searching) trying to put together or take apart what feelings make up who. In my head, there is always a story being written, sometimes fictional, often autobiography. occasionally, the story I'm writing isn't a story at all, but my actual life. My mental landscape leans towards the fantastical. It's always been so but lately even more intensely.
  I've been spending hours everyday writing. Now I skip my usual, exhausted end of day netflix streaming fest in favor or writing, attempting to translate my mental pictures, feelings into print. I'm writing a book (working title-vamp book) about Vampires. There are Vikings, humans, and now Witches and Cult members have appeared, there's a (still un-named) God-like Rock Icon.  The time period of vamp book spans 930 through 2014. Oh wait, there are actually things that happen before 930AD but the time isn't named... It's set mostly in Seattle but also in so many other places. Portland, Ireland, Africa, Iceland... The world and the mythology it contains has become complex, maybe too complex. I have a giant piece of paper over my writing desk that has a timeline and family trees on it. It's getting a little nuts. I sleep, eat, breathe that world. I exist in it whenever I possibly can. I'm not so sure why it's so important and demanding of my attention I just know that it is and I want to experience it, watch it unfold. It's like an ocean and the waves keep coming and I don't see the shore yet. I know there's land somewhere, it has to appear sooner or later.. If I'm patient and watchful.

 I still enjoy spending time in graveyards. I am so quintessentially gothic to the core. I love to sit there among the headstones and scribble away words, sentences, ideas, take pictures...

   There is something in being slightly miserable, or struggling or wading through a transition that makes me feel so hopelessly free and creative. I am wide awake to the inspiration of the universe. I open my arms and say yes. Inviting in creatures great and small. Dreaming and exploring and imagining a life that is full of beauty and a world of wonders untold.
  I believe that the hidden secrets of the heart and mind contain the most potent magic. It's that magic I seek and want to feel.

    The days grow colder and the black days, persistent rain and our drafty house reminds me that Winter is really coming. There's always water boiling, endless cups of tea being made. I get into bed at night, cuz it's warm there, and from beneath my covers, I write.  Samhain is approaching swiftly, bringing deep introspection, reflection. Stark changes ask for my attention and I comply. I'm discovering the new world, inside and out. xo m

tigress...

  I was born in 1974. Year of the Tiger. I have always felt such an affinity for cats of all kinds but the tiger is my cat of dreams. My fiery spirit animal. I channel Tiger energy in moments when I require strength. Lately my inner Tigress has been wide awake and roaring all day long.

   Last year my daughter entered kindergarten at a private school. The admissions process was long, exhausting and we were lucky enough to receive a scholarship. I don't want to get into too many details (out of respect for the families involved) but my daughter is being bullied by another little girl in her class. This began from the start of school last year and has only gotten worse. I feel like the teacher (who is new to the school) is, somewhat, minimizing my concerns. I'm meeting with the teachers tomorrow, then going to the head of school to talk about the situation. We are already evaluating other options and considering homeschooling until next year if need be. I am in full Tigress mode: awake, active, fierce, commanding... My concerns are valid and I won't be pacified until a positive resolution is reached.

    There were a few instances of bullying when my son was younger but at bigger (public) schools, it was easier for my son to avoid kids that were being less than kind. Luckily, I felt that the teachers and administration took things very seriously and had defined protocols in place. In a intimate private school setting it seems harder to deal with. Classes are smaller and there is only one class per grade.
If my daughter stays at this school, she will be in the same class with this girl every single year...

   I watch over my children carefully, gathering details, observing moments. My childhood was not a comforting, safe place. I know what misery looks like and it's a place I never want my children to live in. I seek to support, protect, encourage joy and find the best possible environment for my young ones.It's not an option to settle for anything less than ideal.
  I hardly slept this weekend, have knots in my stomach and feel so distracted form all my other life demands. I just want my little girl to feel happy, safe. And she does not.  I will be going into the meeting tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully there is a positive outcome. Trying to do my best to feeeeel optimistic but my gut is telling me to pull her out of there and then figure out the next step... xo m

king ink

   So today is Nick Cave's birthday. He was born in 1957. Today he is 57. Oh so grateful this wizardly wordsmith (that writes with a female audience in mind) was born and is so productive and his art is wonderful and never ceases to cheer me up. I'm not exactly obsessed, more like I love the art and the fact that he exists. Quite enamored. What a stunning man...

  I'm working on a short story about a bunch of cultists devoted to Mr. Cave. They live in a haunted house next to the sea. Not sure where it's going yet... xo m

love & romance

  In my earliest imaginings I was obsessed with and spent many hours lost in wonder over love and romance. These elusive "things" continue to be my main areas of interest. Everything I do, think, am is infused with this ideal that, at one time, was a youthful cultivation of persona. An intensely traumatic childhood combined with a thoroughly sensitive nature had enabled me to be a perfect candidate for dreaming my fantastical realm into actual perception. By the time I was a tween the romantic persona had become so ingrained into existence that I realized I was no longer actively trying or pondering the why, what, hows of love and romance, I had simply become that which I sought to attain.
  Any friend I've ever had would probably describe me as "romantic" first off. In high school I used to sit and burn incense while I read Rimbaud, Byron, Anais Nin, Fitzgerald even the Marquis de Sade aloud at lunchtime to my girlfriends. I would fall into fits of obsessive infatuation over this boy and that, or become so hopelessly enamored of a certain band that their music was the word of God.
  I realize that there is a dreary scientific/biological explanation for all these feelings that live inside me. Yet I still prefer to think of love and romance as a magic spell or an altered state brought on by mystical forces beyond my control. I live my life based on the stirrings I feel in my heart or the fluttering inside my stomach. I guess that is, in some way, biology speaking to me. My body tells me when a situation is right or warns me when it could be wrong. I am highly aware and listen to these signs. But when I am in love I lose my head, judgement disappears and I forget to think. I become consumed and live, governed by my senses, drunk on the alchemical combination of scent, skin, taste... My vision becomes such that the object of my affection is transformed into a bright, otherworldly, beacon of light. They cease to be human and are elevated above all others in my mind. I am extreme in almost all areas of my life, especially love. I don't know how to enter into it casually, with restraint. I can only be myself and when I feel the power of love as it surrounds me, I don't stop to think "wait, slow down.." When my feelings are returned, I give the person my love and I don't hold back. I kiss, compliment, talk and listen all night long, just to try and understand what it is that makes this other person who they are. I want to know about their feelings, history, dreams and ambitions. I don't seek to change, control or tame them, I want to fall in beside them and experience life as it is unfolding.
 

  My birth date card is the Queen of Clubs. I'm into astrology, lunar cycles, divination, magic (which were once the sciences of their time). I ponder the psychic and otherworldly realms and my place in them. I rely on forces unseen. I wait for visions to come in dreams or signs. I wait for illumination and it does appear. I'm soooo very averse to conflict, authority and debate. I envision a world of pure, transcendent beauty and enjoyment. My heart tells me that my true love finds me endlessly fascinating and my emotional nature endearing.
  The last 3 years have been so full of emotional discovery of self. I am uncovering a life that was once hidden. My views on love and romance have changed somewhat and for the better but I still rely on what the birds sound like in the sky and the butterflies that reside in my stomach. I feel my way into relationships that unfold like poetry. At times the story goes awry and I wonder "Where did it go?". How could feelings so strongly felt and a connection so effortlessly forged denigrate into resentful bickering and misunderstandings? What's the point of criticism or correcting ones lover when you could be wrapping your arms about them and smothering them in kisses?
  I was talking to a friend today about relationships and he said that he had a theory about chemistry and we talked about it awhile, "If the chemistry is like an 8, or even a 7, out of 10, I RUN!" he said. hmm... Well I always seek out a 10. I don't know what to even think about his theory... I'm not sensible or able to impose rules onto how a partner appears.
  ...And now I am going to write a story about a house. I'm working on short stories right now because anything else is too monumental and demanding. I have imposed some rules onto my writing. I have to sit in a certain space and write for at least an hour a day. And anytime I feel the urge to check stupid facebook I have to write a paragraph (I feel like checking it a lot!). My stories are, as always, a mixture of experiences and fiction. A bit of truth flowers into a fantasy... xo m
 

weekending, summering on...

  Around here, school starts next week, next week, seriously. Of all the seasons, Summer always seems shortest. It is a season that is bittersweet. So full of travel (this year at least), visits from loved ones, weddings, way relaxed kid routines, outside time, lots of slacking (ahem, for reals...)  in the work dept... This summer sped by. I spend some time, daily, during every summer, imagining what life would look like it it was always summer. This year I found myself delving into imagining a possible life that could be even more summmmmer vibe, super vagabond, carefree, minimal, unschooled and just totally wild and free. What would that life look like?
  Long days spent building/making, immersed in the "real" work of planting seeds, planning & roaming hillsides, tending bees, milking goats, not constantly going into town, unplugged from the internet/iphone. It sounds good. I imagine my homesteading experience so vividly and it sounds right.  I crave the country life. I feel a bit of anxiety over the daily expectations and responsibilities city life brings. The cost of living, multiple social interactions, traffic/time spent in my car, consumerism overload, just crazy stimulation in general, it's all a bit much. I'm sounding like a broken record. A country Western one...

 My darling bud of so many years, Carlos,  was in town last week from Chicago and it was sweet to breakfast, gossip and just be together for the first time in a few years. So many of my dearest first Seattle friends have long since moved away to every different corner of the country.

  I've got the plum hookup again this summer. These came courtesy of my little ones summer play school. More on the way tomorrow. I've made plum jam, plum crisp and stored plenty in the freezer.

  I feel weird going into my old work to get treats cuz, I just hate doing that. It didn't really end badly I just feel strange being a customer after being an employee. My friend K.knows this about me and stopped by and got me macarons! Sooo sublime!

 My hair is pastel pink now. It's a good thing. The preteen and teen girls compliment me constantly and, surprisingly so do men over 70. Odd. but cute.

 Saturday night I was having an intense evening of over thinking just about everything and had to have a chill night. My Niece stayed over and we watched Far and Away (don't hate!) and I felt romantically intoxicated by the end of it. I'm a real sap when it comes to men (even pre-crazy Tom Cruise, professing big things in movies and books.

 Reading the cards has been a daily thing, a moment of clarity and meditation when I'm thinking weird things.

 Continuing to sell off and minimize things around here. Selling at sunday market nearly every weekend.

 My adorable niece is my pop up shop girl and selfie sister. We talk about Channing Tatum a lot...

 I have been reading  a gift from the sea this weekend after my friend sent it to me. I'm feeling it.  The ocean metaphor is really working here. I love it.

  Now I need to encourage my little one to eat so we can get back into the car and drive to the airport to pick up her older brother who has been away for 3 WEEKS! I am so excited!! xo m