my first time

Well after the emotional upheavals of late, I decided to try something I had always secretly wanted to do. . .

Have you ever had one of those things you always wanted to try, but for a million reasons found excuses not to?

Naturally I had thought about it in university, but I hung with a different kind of crowd, the partying beer guzzling kind of crowd, so I never managed it. Then, as the years passed I knew so many women who swore by it, and I became, well, more and more curious.

Finally last night my friend Sarah introduced me to Pam. She was kind, strong, confident and caring. Perhaps it was the way her blue eyes looked directly into mine, or maybe it was her smile, whatever it was, I trusted her immediately. I handed myself over to her completely. It was everything and nothing like I expected. Pam couldn't believe this was 'my first time', I "seemed such a natural." Natural? Ha! I had tried on about three different outfits, looking for that 'just right' blend of casual, comfortable, but that showed that I wanted to be there.

I'll never forget the positions, things I thought my body could never do, all the time with Pam's encouraging, supportive voice. I felt as if I could do anything! By the end, with the soft music playing, I lay there completely content, every inch of my body stretched, tested, and now relaxed, the slight scent of aromatic oil hanging in the darkened room.



Then it was over,
time to roll up the yoga mats,
drink our water and go home.
Sigh.



but you can bet I'll be back, I think I may have found a new addiction....

Namaste

falling asleep

night

It will be the raw beauty
I will recall

when fear comes for me
with his deep open and
soulless mouth
forever screaming
out his blackness

I am so small and
I am afraid

afraid of the seductive edges
of his mouth
his embracing kiss
his captivating darkness

tonight
his chill infuses me - as
I compose my goodbye
gripping my own soul
with ruined hands

it's his night now,
sprinkled with the same stars
illuminated by the same moon

I knew before

when I trusted
in raw beauty

I cannot hear
my own words
to write this
I have only his cold embrace

still, tonight I will
write these aching lines
crawl through them
rubbing jagged truth under
my cold skin
within my eyes
into my still heart

this letting go is so long
and this living
so short



This poem started off as one thing, then changed itself into another.
It was about a person, who was a crutch, a turning point (an important one), for my life, but as I worked on it, it became a truth about me. It is the last thing I have written , and lately, I don't have the desire to 'pick up my pen' again.

I've been on another journey of sorts, one of self healing and discovery and it seems to be taking much of my time. For the last four days I've had to fight to keep myself from sleeping all day. All this emotional work apparently can make you physically exhausted as well. Doesn't seem fair, I'm eating alot sorts of "good-for-me" things, and have cut out all the "bad-for-me" things - and I feel like I've been hit by I truck.


I used to paint, but haven't been able to for a year now - this is (most of) the last (completed) illustration I did for a children's book. Then I just stopped painting. The reasons were complicated and very simple. The author and I are gearing up again, but all the pressure is on me, and then leads straight to my fears - one being that I will be seen for the imposter I am.




I recently set some "very-healthy-and-realistic-limits" on a very important relationship to me (my new skill, limit-setting) and now feel like I've lost a best friend, a lover (that I never had - but thought I did, my own silly fantasy). I suppose I'm grieving, I know I'm hiding and trying to come to terms with it, but this self knowledge does not seem too helpful today.


There's a quote that goes well with this whole "Leap of Faith" that I'm taking by leaving my old ways and growing into new ones, the author is unknown, but it's from a Unitarian Universalist Sermon I once heard

"When we come to the edge of all the light we have
And we step into the darkness, the unknown
We will find something solid we can stand upon
Or I believe that we will surely learn to fly."

I'm on the edge,
but I think I may be falling.

So, perhaps I have made sleep my drug of choice - I don't drink, eat meat, dairy, wheat, corn or refined sugar - not many indulgences left... (I do however eat small amounts of dark chocolate). When I started this journey a friend said I would feel "better" - "better pain", "better loss", "better everything" - well I can vouch for that now.



"So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change? And did you exchange
a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl,
year after year,
running over the same old ground. What have we found?
The same old fears,
wish you were here. "
~Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here


Anyhow, time for my nap....

Dumb as Georgia Peach Pit

To be fair this post is stolen (with permission) from Endorendil at This too shall pass
He does a brillant job of discussing the Ten Commandments, so I won't even try - just wish I could think of an appropriate building to have them posted in . . .

I do have to say Damn! I think we're gonna be so better off without "The Education Dept" and "Social Security", just drains on society really, breeding the weak.

Of all the donothingers - this guy's my favourite

"um"

daddy knows best

Well here it is again, Father's Day, and it appears I may have survived yet another with only minor wounds. Other than Valentine's Day, Father's Day is my least favourite holiday. Maybe it's all the forced sentimentality around both holidays, or maybe (more accurately) it is my own personal bias.

You have to admit, they really ram it down our throats. Beside me sits a newsletter from my favourite Independent book store with a nice big section "Perfect for Father's Day". You can't blame them, really - marketing opportunity - and lots of people have really great dads they would like to buy books for like "The Wisdom of Our Fathers". Lots of people have (or had) dads that did great stuff with them, and will be spending today with them, or calling them at least.

My own dad wasn't such a bad guy, I actually learned a lot from him, much of it since he's been dead and I've become a parent myself. He died 16 years ago of alcoholism. He didn't want to die. I think had he lived and stopped drinking we would have seen one hell of a guy. I know he would have liked the idea of being a grandfather. My mom left him when I was in grade 1 because of his drinking. I missed him, but life with just mom was cool. Then she got remarried to a man who emotionally, verbally, and occasionally physically abused my brother and me. Father's day got tricky 'bout then.

You may now be thinking I'm not that June Cleaver type character I play on TV.

At least now we live in different countries and I can get away with 2 phone calls a year (let's not forget the one on his birthday). He and my mother invited my husband and the kids up to visit this summer (we are separated, but still living together - I'm more like some soap opera really - No! No! that's not it either) - I am too offensive. My phone call this year was the first time I'd spoken to him since he stormed out of my home at Thanksgiving (I had told him he may not insult my 10year old son). Whole family stopped speaking to me actually, bit of a vacation really.

He used this year's call as an opportunity to "lecture" me on my errors, defects, etc and told me he and my mother had been betting on whether or not I'd call (I'd been given 50/50 odds) I didn't ask which way my mom was wagering. Lovely conversation really, will have to do it again end of August, looking forward to it already.

My children's father had been out late the night before and spent most of today hungover - either sleeping or grumpy. It's been special, I think is the best way to sum it up.

Or perhaps Judith Viorst say it better in her book "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day"

"Today was a difficult day, tomorrow will be better"


Let's hope.

You Go Girl, and take those Garbage Bag Pom Poms with you...!

Anarchist Cheerleader Elected

Lake Worth City Commissioner Cara Jennings refocuses her radicalism after surprise win

By Andrew Stelzer

As a Lake Worth city commissioner, Cara Jennings says, "I'm wearing much more boring clothes than I did as a radical cheerleader."

In 1996, Cara Jennings, then 19, and her sister Aimee started the Radical Cheerleaders in their hometown of Lake Worth, Fla., a town of 35,000 north of Ft. Lauderdale. Their fishnet-stocking, punked-out leather outfits and shredded garbage bag pom-poms caught on, as did their obscenity-laced chants against the neo-liberal agenda, the WTO (World Trade Organization) and various other political causes. As the worldwide protest movement rose in the late ’90s, the radical cheerleaders became fixtures at anti-globalization rallies, and cheerleading troupes have sprung up around the world. . .

For the rest of the article click Here

thanks to Perceval Press for this.

DON'T do it

Do NOT Click HERE

stupid things I did this weekend

Things accomplished this weekend -

• 1 field trip to the Brookfield Zoo with 120 9year olds (Friday, not strictly the weekend, but I'm counting it just because)
  
• 2 birthday parties (pizza, 9year olds, cake - really do you NEED details?)
• 4 soccer games (1 win, 1 amazing goal, 3 kids having fun - 5 1/2hrs driving, folding and unfolding chairs and yelling "go team")
• 1 soccer party (13 13year olds, pizza, cake - need I say more?)
• 1 graduation party (teens, cake, soda cans - need I say more?)
• 1 20 year wedding anniversary re-vowing (perfect fun for the trying to divorce couple to attend)
• 1 grumbly spouse (NOT saying more)
• 0 jobs
• 1 maybe business partner
  
• 1 huge emotional upheaval (lets just forget this one - other than it was a sober one)
• 1 3hour mediative gathering (outside, also know as a "buffet tartar pour les beaucop mosquitos")
• 1 getting elected to something-er-other (that will likely get me in much trouble - it involves getting larges groups of people involved in social action - oh man will I make a mess of this one!)
• 6 hours sleep (total)
• 1 pierced navel . . . . well almost
• 1 movie - Friends With Money (excellent, excellent, excellent)
• 1 selfish book purchase (The Mermaid Chair - aparently excellent, excellent, excellent)

Okay, I am SO ready for the week to start..... oh yeah

• 3 full days of school left . . .

to hell with 'em

random thoughts on men, pets and my mother


banging your head against the wall
will burn 150 calories an hour
but is not an effective diet strategy

eating a box of meringue cookies is not
an effective coping or diet strategy
(even though they are "fat-free")


banging your head against folded fluffy
white towels while your husband tells you
on the phone at least HIS first priority
is the children burns 0 calories an hour
and is not an effective coping mechanism

there are no effective coping mechanisms
for conversations with my mother after
she helpfully tells me I am too easy
on my kids and she's worried about
"how they will turn out"

my mother emails my soon to be ex-husband,
to let him know she still loves him

divorce lawyers are expensive

I know way too little about men
and way too much about rats

rats can't vomit (see above).

however men CAN vomit -
and were put on this earth to crush my heart into
a small pile of pulp

I don't vomit often,
which is handy because I don't get access to the privy
for more than 1 minute at a time.

my children and pets, however,
vomit, poop, pee, expel snot,
fling all forms of excrement on
a rotating schedule that would impress
The Marines – mostly on articles of
freshly laundered clothing that
I am presently wearing.

this is something I can depend on.

men in their 20's & 40's cannot be depended on.
(holding judgment on 30's & 50's)
this may be unwise since

my judgment with men is not to be depended on.

however, my judgment with flying excrement
is becoming excellent.

there is an obvious conclusion to this,
however, I have no idea what it could be.

"Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding."

~ Albert Einstein



I'm recycling a story here, but its one I like, and it's something I keep in mind when the world seems too much -

This is a story one of my children's teachers had on her door - there was a man walking along a beach tossing back into the ocean, starfish that had been washed ashore and would otherwise die.
Another man approched him and said "why do you bother, you cannot not possibly make a difference here, there are thousands of starfish, and there is only you."
The first man replied - "I made a difference to that one."



I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again." ~ Stephan Grellet


Its a beauiful day - I'm going to go fill my birdfeeders . . .

death in the arts

Stanley Kunitz

Stanley Kunitz was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1905. He attended Harvard College, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1926 and a master's degree in 1927. He served in the Army in World War II, after a request for conscientious objector status was denied. Following the war, he began teaching, first at Bennington College in Vermont, and later at universities including Columbia, Yale, Princeton, Rutgers, and the University of Washington.

About his own work, Kunitz has said: "The poem comes in the form of a blessing—'like rapture breaking on the mind,' as I tried to phrase it in my youth. Through the years I have found this gift of poetry to be life-sustaining, life-enhancing, and absolutely unpredictable. Does one live, therefore, for the sake of poetry? No, the reverse is true: poetry is for the sake of the life."

Kunitz was deeply committed to fostering community among artists, and was a founder of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and Poets House in New York City. Together with his wife, the painter Elise Asher, he split his time between New York City and Provincetown, Massachusetts.

He died at the age of 100 on May 14, 2006.


The Long Boat

When his boat snapped loose
from its mooring, under
the screaking of the gulls,
he tried at first to wave
to his dear ones on shore,
but in the rolling fog
they had already lost their faces.
Too tired even to choose
between jumping and calling,
somehow he felt absolved and free
of his burdens, those mottoes
stamped on his name-tag:
conscience, ambition, and all
that caring.
He was content to lie down
with the family ghosts
in the slop of his cradle,
buffeted by the storm,
endlessly drifting.
Peace! Peace!
To be rocked by the Infinite!
As if it didn't matter
which way was home;
as if he didn't know
he loved the earth so much
he wanted to stay forever.



So why am I writting about a dead poet today, its not one of the 'big' issues? I guess because today it seemed symbolic of the death of the arts. Things like music, art, literature, and yes poetry, are seen as the frivous extras in life - certainly in education. I am fortunate to live where my children can attend 'excellent' schools in the country, yet by the time the come to middle school, Art becomes an extra, Music you can take at the loss of "real" class time and the 'important' subjects are stressed.

Yet its been shown over and over that early music education improves a child's ability to understand mathematics, art study as well. This also follows the brain developement of a child. When a child starts school its the right brain that is developing - it needs to be feed a love of music, shown art, have stories read to it to nurture and feed its developement. The right brain is about larger concents, imagination - it is not about letter memorization, math fact regurgitation and reading ability. Those are the domain of the left brain which doesn't start developing till your average child is 9years old or in grade 4. So what does this mean about the typical child's education? We do it backwards. Instead of forcing letter recognition, math facts and so on down their throats at earier and earier ages we should be showing them spacial math in music, in the compostion of a painting, teach them to love words by reading to them good stories - feed that right brain. Later when the left brain is developing and these foundations have been laid is the ideal time to teach symbols, facts and memorization.

But in our competitive society putting off math facts for art and music, letter recognition for literature and poetry would be considered insane. There is no way to prove your child is better, no state test to evaluate progress - and sadly this will always be so.

My youngest will be 9 in July and has struggled with reading and math - and is even in the 'special help' program in her school. I've always been very active my children's education, but I must say I never really did any of the 'phonic games' that came home - I just kept reading to her (we have about 600 children's/youth books in the house and I unhooked the TV). She is now reading at an "appropriate" grade level and is writting her own "books" (jam-packed with spelling errors, but I can read them). I never worried too much. Just as a never paid any attention when the kingergarten teacher worried about handwritting and 'not colouring inside the lines'. I put the pictures in frames on the walls and bought more art supplies that let them draw their own lines.

Am I raising artists and writers? Maybe, maybe not. One of the highest entrance success to medical school undergrad programs is a degree in music.

On Mother's Day my youngest wouldn't show me the "prescribed art gift" she had made in art. She was furious with it - she had been told there was only one way to do it and that was it. Drawing inbetween the lines again. We are scrapping it (although I think its very beautiful) and she is going to show me what she wanted to paint.


One of a my kids favourite poetry books is one of mine from childhood and Alligator Pie is still our favourite. Its by Canadian Children's Poet, Dennis Lee...

Alligator Pie

Alligator pie, alligator pie,
If I don't get some I think I'm gonna die.
Give away the green grass, give away the sky,
But don't give away my alligator pie.

Alligator stew, alligator stew,
If I don't get some I don't know what I'll do.
Give away my furry hat, give away my shoe,
But don't give away my alligator stew.

Alligator soup, alligator soup,
If I don't get some I think I'm gonna droop.
Give away my hockey stick, give away my hoop,
But don't give away my alligator soup.



feel free to add your own verses. . . . .