The changing of my voice

"Soul Sister" earrings by Mary Jane Dodd

I've pretty much been in isolation since the collapse of my marriage. It hasn't been a stagnate isolation however, as I've progressed quite a bit throughout the months. I'd say at this point, as I'm settling into my NEW! apartment, it isn't as much isolation as it is rehabilitation. I pulled back when things got noisy, I'm an HSP, so it doesn't take much for well-intended advice and concern to cross over into agitating cacophony.

I have however, kept a little fairy door open and managed to make and keep some very special attachments on my journey to wellness and becoming whole again. The earrings in the photo above were sent to me by a fellow artist and dear, dear friend to remind me that I am "never alone". There are also, my other soul sisters and brethren who keep a song playing in my heart when I'm deaf with despair. Thank you, all.

And then, there is my partner of whom I can not say enough wonderful things, so I won't. What I will say is that for every seemingly hopeless thing I express, I am being replenished. I am being restored and the Universe has rewarded me in kind. I don't do saints, gods and demons, but I do love, and love is being done unto me.

Everyday is not a bad day, and while the intensity of this experience is discomforting, revolutions are seldom peaceful. If pressed to find the good in the worst days, I'd say it was nightfall and the knowledge that I've almost made it through.

The timing and my decision to go public with all that has transpired over the course of this year is largely in part to the discovery of a strength I never knew possible, much less a strength that I possessed. In the past I've shared recipes and movie reviews, and quips about the perils of parenting pubescent children. I thought it only fair to share the stories which lead to the changing of my voice.

Peace and thanks

Another day, another year

When I wrote this post just a few years ago, this post was a hard blink. Y'know the the blink? You do it when you hear of someone else's misfortune; a blink hard enough to will yourself invisible with hopes a similar fate doesn't befall you. These blinks can sometimes be accompanied by brisk shaking of the head to clear your mental slate of the tragic thought.

November 14, 1988 was the day it all began for Joe and I, it was the official start of our courtship. These days however, it rivals for attention on the calendar between dates like the day he moved out, the day I found out about her, his days with the children and ultimately, our day in court.

I shed a few tears of frustration moments past midnight as the "am" light on my iPod dock turned red, the date changed and I realized that today was another one of the things I forgot to grieve. There are just so many of them, those entanglements of together that I must sort through to re-establish healthy ties in a life apart. I'm ambling through a minefield of memories that woefully still have enough force to burst right through the sunshine of days' new.


"Another day, another year", I tell myself. Time is a great healer.

Peace and time

Saturday morning

It is Saturday morning, yes? I never know.

This has long been one of my favorite songs; a true classic. No matter where I've been in my life, it has resonated with me. Ever since I first heard it in the restlessness and rebellion of my youth and even today as I teeter on the precipice of a revolution.

I've got what I believe to be the flu, and what I know to be a carpet that needs vacuuming and a cat box or three that need scooping. I've also got a far more riveting piece of work in my drafts folder and some checks that need writing on my desk. I'm drinking my second mug of coffee, it's poorly pressed and grinds are settling in rings at incremental stages along the innards of my mug. I sip and swirl, sip and swirl and wonder if I should just abandon it for the perfectly brewed beer that sits in the fridge.

I'm missing a partner this morning, I don't have anything particularly profound to say, and I'm not necessarily in need of a hug, but it'd be nice to have someone on the receiving end of my rhythmic keyboard rappings and rather unpleasant cough. No, I'm not lonely, but the oneness of this Saturday morning is jarring.

Peace

Now, where was I?

It has been some time since my last post, and in all honesty it hasn't been for lack of words to speak. So much is happening everyday on this journey that I simply lack the time, and dare I say eloquence to put it all down for posterity.

My divorce is fully underway, and by that I mean legally and the unfortunate host of fuckery that accompanies a dissolution of this magnitude. Just think,you put your very best face forward for the beginning of times but that mean old ugly one you got saved up for Neverary thirty-second becomes clear and present at the end of times. It is the absolute worst.

I try to compare it to other major life changes and the way we fickle humans conjure up all kinds of excuses and defenses, real and imagined, true and outright blasphemous, to ease and justify our transition. It is a death you see coming and really there is no handbook for fear and grief. So, while it hurts like hell and I feel most days like I must have spent the last twenty-two years in some alternate reality, at day's end, I can simply chalk it up to the horrors of (in)humanity. We really ought to be nicer to each other, go give someone a hug today, smile at a stranger. I'm telling you, your gesture might very well make their day.

The young people seem to be adjusting well, I foster much open communication about the changes they are both witnessing and experiencing. I envy their flexibility and ability to adapt, and just roll with the punches; someday, soon come.

I hope all of you are doing well. I want to once again, thank you for your continued support and readership. If you have noticed I am no longer on Facebook, as I am practicing a little "Save (Face)book". This is not an easy time for our family, and the sensitivity of the matter-unfortunately, seems to be lost on some.

This is where you'll find me go forward. Between us here, I like you all best. Do leave a brief note to let me know you were here and are well.

Peace and friendship

Tiny Deaths

Dust, wipe, polish, price, repeat...it has a rhythm to it in verse and movement. I noticed this particularly catchy cadence whilst I laid preparations to sell the contents of our family home this weekend. As I've written in the past, to everything there is a pruning season, and for our family, this is it. All weak and errant branches must be removed, for we're in the eye of the storm of transition, only the Universe knows how or where it ends.

Whilst speaking with a friend about life, love and the cyclical nature of the two, she made a comment about "tiny deaths" we all must face to grow..."like a garden". She's good at that, for shame, I kill the green stuff. Anyway, it took some time to digest this concept given my present circumstances, although, I fully understood and appreciate the analogy. But, in the still silence of my ever-raging thoughts, I couldn't see past the obvious and, everyone knows the end of a 20 year marriage is hardly a tiny death. I didn't give up trying though; journaling and walking, talking to myself and thinking, and finally it's all becoming quite clear.

With each piece I removed from our walls and tabletops, I welcomed the fleeting presence of the memory attached. I smiled often, envisioning the "shopping grimace" Joe would give as I'd pile tchatchkes into the numerous carts, bags and shopping baskets of our lengthy time together. I went from item to item, segueing from one recollection to the next: repeat, recall, repeat, recall. It then occurred to me, something's missing...something's gone...something has died. Resistance: My intrinsic urge to resist the Universe's plan for me has died a million tiny deaths. One for each attempt, both overt and covert, and in its place, acceptance has emerged, a million tiny blossoms of hope for each death.

To be continued...

Peace and more peace

On Erosion

CANCER
Aug. 06, 2011

The Grand Canyon is a perfect example of erosion, Moonchild. Many people think of erosion as a bad thing - as the wearing away and disintegration of something. But one look at the spectacular Grand Canyon, and you can see how beautiful erosion can be. You have lost something. The real you - the unique person at your core - is slowly emerging. Painful lessons over the years, and challenges that brought out your true nature had to happen for you to transform yourself. Don't regret what was lost in the process. Celebrate what was left behind.

Copyright (c) The Daily Horoscope by Comitic

Every so often, the Universe smiles upon me delivering just what my spirit orders, and sometimes not, and then there's always the other kind of spirits! Winks. Recently, with the dissolution of my 20 year marriage, I have been coming to grips with a heightened level of humility; I've been pruned. I've undergone- in the truest sense- a process of emotional, physical and spiritual erosion. I am by no means the person I was just eight (Wow, eight already?!) months ago.

I've toggled in my heart and mind between what it means to be free as I've struggled to keep the contents of my stomach in place whilst facing my deepest fears of loss and abandonment. I've endured pain that, if physical, surely, my mind would've shut down to spare my body's suffering. And, I've emerged raw; raw with emotion, unscathed in my ability to love and be loved. There's been an unclouding of my intuition; things are clearer today than they've ever been. I've recognized, that with "nothing" I have, and I am enough. I've become one with my core existence.

Peace and recognizance

A writer in motion...

I sat, ruminating on the future, breaking my pensive gaze from my frothy mug only to wince fleetingly as the tug of the past seven months dared to lure me away from the beauty of this moment. What a privilege and gift it is to be deeply loved, I thought, as I shook away the still very raw feelings of what the antithesis of this recognizance holds.

It's been so trying the past few months, wanting to connect with my readers, wanting to express my feelings in words, yet wanting to keep the wounds under wraps. I was in a literary stranglehold and, now realize that the only way to breathe again is to look toward the screen, tilt my head slightly to the left and type.

I recently remarked to a fellow wordsmith that I'd felt as though my creative and emotional outlets had been infiltrated by the influence of well-meaning friends and supporters. That, in their quest to help me regain focus and, "find myself", I'd in turn become more "lost", lost in their ideologies and emotions about what was happening in my life. I suppose, I still find my way best in silence and solitude.

Like this morning, whilst checking on my feral friends after a rough, stormy night in the valley. There was this little yellow leaf, stuck to my window. An isolated hint of beauty was the only evidence left of the tempest. It inspired the summation of where I am emotionally at this moment: shaken from my roots, displaced, clinging to hope, yet still filled with beauty and the capacity to make someone smile.

Where are you at this moment?

Peace and words

XXXVIII

Today marks the auspicious start of my thirty-eighth year. If I sound self-assured and confident, it's because I am. I have no resolutions, no bucket list, no promises to fulfill, but one: live it.

My worst fears were recognized as 2011 raced in, and as I struggled to make rhyme or reason of it all, my greatest mistake was recognized: I had stopped living and began the mundane practice of existing.

As my 37th year passes out with the stale summer wind, and the promise of a new year's revolution lies before me, I acknowledge where I went astray and mark that place in my journey as one I never intend to revisit. It was a place of futility and great angst, one of pain and shame and sadness, one of misgivings and mis-forgivings, one of self-deprecation and self-flagellation, versus self-preservation. I assume we've all been there before- like the undertaking of laboring in love or childbirth, it is the final chapter in our old lives which inevitably shapes the next story, a fresh page in herstory.

My fresh page begins here, just 11 days past my 3rd blogoversary, with a dissolved marriage just behind me, a debilitating emotional illness under aggressive treatment, a new love, a fresh promise and a birthday cake baked by my sweet Yael Rose. Life is indeed good. And, getting settled back into my writing chair is even better. I've missed you all, thanks for your continued readership and all of the messages of love and support during some of the more trying pages of my last chapter.

Peace, love and joy

On Pruning

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.

Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

-Khalil Gibran

It's been about 6 months since my painstaking pruning -both literally, as you can see from my blooming roses above and, figuratively within the scars left of the excised relationships I write about here.

I'm learning to accept the coming of the seasons by being deeply introspective, aligning myself with nature, her order for things, by being flexible in thought and action, and by practicing acceptance.

Though the protective thorns fill me with awkward reticence, if I am to reap the beauteous rewards of rebirth, it all begins with the pruning.

Peace and rebirth

Reclaiming My Whimsy

My $8.00, "Happy" dress

I have been battling a major depressive episode since December and while I'm on a series of medications to help me better cope with the symptoms, the disease does require that I do my part in the healing process as well.

I realize my appearance plays a huge part in the cycle of mood traps depressives often find themselves battling to escape. I've been making a conscious effort to keep up with the right amount of food, sleep, exercise, sunlight, grooming, and of course, my wardrobe. NO more heather grey, I say!

I bought this whimsical little dress when my CIO visited to get me out of bed and out of the house in early Spring. I haven't worn it yet, but I have just the event in which to wear it coming up soon.

On June 10th I'll be attending the 2011 Etsy Craft Party Meetup where I'll be showcasing my wares, my NEW! dress and a smile.

Peace and healing

In the garden

In the garden there are feral friends...


and, a NEW! tiny, baby feral friend.

What a pleasant surprise!

Happy Tuesday!

Peace and new beginnings

601: Let's have some fun

Peace sign bracelet in brass and jute twine. See [here] for other color combinations

Today is my sixth hundred and first post, what a milestone! During my blogging hiatus it became apparent to me just how essential this social and creative outlet is for me.

I've, since 2011 began, experienced some personal tragedies and through it all my blog friends have hung in there, some of you sending messages of support, others have just joined me despite of my erratic posting schedule, and for that, I am truly grateful.

Over the past 5 months I have gone from a tragic separation to an incredible journey of self restoration, recognizance and improvement. If you are so inclined to join me, feel free to request permission to read my personal journey at 3 Dollars & Six Dimes.

Let's get on to the fun stuff! In finding my inner peace, I designed these summery fun Peace bracelets as a reminder to live peacefully and colorfully. To thank you all for your continued readership and support, I am offering a giveaway of any one (1) bracelet of your choosing to one (1) lucky winner. To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment telling me one way you live a peaceful, colorful life! The winner will be chosen at random, by Yael Rose, my very own random name selector!

Peace and gratitude

Dawn

Darkness

Depression

Dissonance

De-va-station

Disappointment

Despair

Dissolution

Distress

Depression

Depression

Depression

Depression

Depression

Deliberation

Deliverance

Discipline

Determination

Due Diligence

Discovery

60 plus tomorrows later...

Dawn

This post is brought to you by the light of a new day...

Peace and freedom

Charity begins at home...

...in the kitchen with the "good" scissors and the big comb.

Yesterday was no ordinary hair day at Mom's salon. Well, there were the usual tears and threats to "leave you looking just like this". But, it was also much more, so much more, some might say it was the best hair day ever.

A few months ago after plans to have her nose pierced were thwarted by a responsible piercer (I say it's adultism...but that's a whole other post.) Yael Rose, looking for ways to express herself-gratefully sans the usual histrionics- spotted a young woman with BIG kinky curls. "Mom, can my hair do that? I wanna do that with my hair!" She was giddy at first sight.

Hair politics being what they are (and in my opinion aren't) I admittedly began deliberations; far more thought than was warranted for a hairstyle, but the pull of familiar thought patterns is strong even if said thought patterns are woven with ridiculous.

Whilst repeating, "It's only hair." In my mind, and at times aloud, it became clear to me that it may only be hair to us, but it is hair, like wow-oh-my-goodness-beautiful-amazing hair to someone in need, and the decision was finalized. Yael could have her cut, and BIG kinky curls and we'd entrust Locks of Love to pass on her generous gift of ooh-girl-thank-goodness-I-don't-have-to-comb-that-stuff-no-more...er I mean wow-oh-my-goodness-beautiful-amazing hair!

And, we did it! Her donation was just under 11 inches when pulled straight. After the big cut, Yael exclaimed, "Well, I'll never do that again"! Already wrought with anxiety, I came from behind to face her and said excitedly, "You regret it?!" She replied, "Yeah. I'll never let it grow that long again!" Heartbeat? Check. One cool kid? You bet!

Note: BIG kinky curls 'grow' upon standing. Stay tuned...

Peace and love

I'm back...

"Ovid's Hope" In A People House -T.Allen-Mercado 2011

The winter season has, dear friends, taken me on quite a tour of the whirl variety, not at all to be mistaken for the far more propitious tour of the world variety. Tumult abound, I have been forced to face some painful truths. But, in the darkness of recognizance, I have found light in the infinite promise of hope.

“Hope is the feeling that the feeling you have isn’t permanent.” -Jean Kerr

I feel renewed and resigned-willfully this time- to accept hope as an answer, when all else fails. Thank you, all of you who have shown support here, or via Networked Blogs on Facebook. Your presence, and the realization that my words and feelings therein resonate with so many others is truly a gift.

This blog is a great source of comfort to me, and whilst I've been sucktastically erratic in my posting schedule, being here is one of the things I've missed and needed most. It feels good to be back, and believe me, I am back.

Peace and hope