The Goddess Chronicles

I posted the previous blog on my other website and member mbillard posted this poem in the comments.  It really describes how I’ve been feeling the last few days.

What the Living Do
by Marie Howe

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably
fell down there.
And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes
have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we
spoke of.
It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep headstrong blue, and the sunlight
pours through

the open living room windows because the heat’s on too high in here, and
I can’t turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street,
the bag breaking,

I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying
along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my
wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called
that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to
pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss – we want more and more and
then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the
window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I’m gripped by a cherishing
so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m
speechless:

I am living, I remember you.

I am pretty emotionally raw right now. It happens in flashes - simple moments that ebb and flow, and overwhelm in stretches. It’s easy to tell those moments because I just start choking up and crying a bit. The rest of the time I am almost taken with small snatches of beauty - the flowering trees, the dogs resting on each other, the way my daughter’s hair trails off into a fine peachy fuzz down the back of her neck that is really only visible when backlit just right.

How did this happen? Well, I was in a wonderful mood. Excited, full of artsy energy and ready to take on the world with my message of accepting our bodies. I was positively overflowing with ideas and good goddessy energy. Then, the bad news came. Plus, I’d forgotten how upset those pro ana-mia sites make me. I don’t frequent them normally, but I have to for my Body Politics project. This immersion in the painful world of lost souls, many who are just feeling unwanted and unloved, takes it’s toll. Especially in the wake of the tragedy of this past weekend of Amber’s friend I mentioned. In the newspaper today was the face of another beautiful young woman who died this past weekend.

The world is still turning today. It didn’t stop because promising young lives ended.

In the place of their laughing faces are giant voids that can never be filled. Connections lost. Thousands of invisible tendrils of invisible cables fell to the earth when each life ended.

I felt this way a few years back when my brother-in-law’s sister, who was in her 30’s fell down a couple of cement stairs, hit her head and died a few days later. Her organs helped a number of people. It was the only comfort.

The art usually helps me. The writing usually helps too. This time, it’s sort of a trigger for a low mood. But as I’ve always said - pain is good for art.

This song has always sounded sad to me. It sort of fits my mood - sad and beautiful, with moments of quick beats and slower melodies.

A Day in The Life
The Beatles

I read the news today oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well I just had to laugh
I saw the photograph.

He blew his mind out in a car
He didn’t notice that the lights had changed
A crowd of people stood and stared
They’d seen his face before
Nobody was really sure
If he was from the House of Lords.

I saw a film today oh boy
The English Army had just won the war
A crowd of people turned away
but I just had to look
Having read the book.

I’d love to turn you on

Woke up, fell out of bed,
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup,
And looking up I noticed I was late.
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made the bus in seconds flat
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke,
Somebody spoke and I went into a dream

I read the news today oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.

I’d love to turn you on

I am frustrated with this blog, which is why I haven’t been updating it.  The template doesn’t stick.  Since the content was moved to the new server, there are all sorts of characters and spaces, and no spaces where there should be spaces all messing up the format.  There are broken images. 

So, until those things are fixed, I won’t be blogging here.

Blah.

I have a stupid cold.

Sneezy, itchy, scratchy - I know, sounds like Snow White should be visiting any moment.

I did remember that today is the 12th, so I am doing 12 of 12, but I warn you, I’m a lump today - it’s gonna be boring.  The highlight of my day is when I had a giant mug of Gypsy Cold Care tea.

I have fortified myself with lemony cough drops, vitamin C and gallons of water.  I have to run to the restroom to pee almost as much as I have to take a Sudafed.  Speaking of Sudafed - I feel like I’m being looked at with the fish eye every time I buy the jumbo box of 96 Wal-fed.  They ID you now for that stuff.  I guess they’re worried I’m going to sell if for higher on the street and make more profit than them.

Every time I sit down to do work I feel sleepy and fuzzy and I can’t concentrate for long, so I’ve been working in small bits.

As colds go, I guess it could be worse, but it’s still not fun and it’s diggin’ into my creative time.  I went to bed last night just hoping I’d feel great today because I have so much stuff I wanted to do today.  I woke up this morning with high hopes, but almost right away my body objected, and the more I tried to work, the more my body dug in its heels and wanted to be a lump on the couch.  I’ve watched Cold Case Files and other crime shows and because of the Waladryl have drifted in and out of sleep.

Now it’s raining out.

Great.

I go through these phases where I wish I had a giant art budget and a big enough house to put it all in.

Tammy has a new and limited line out this year titled Sacred - and I am TOTALLY lusting after “Jade’s Dragon” - which I copied and pasted below from her site.  To see more of her Sacred line visit http://www.sacred-tammyvitale.com.  She’s makin’ talk about offering a torso class - if she does, I’m all over that!

I had these dolls when I was a girl.  I loved the darker hair dolls since I wasn’t blonde like Barbie.

Donnie and Marie (Donnie even had purple socks!)

and of course the diva who I would impersonate by laying across the coffee table on my side - just like she did on the piano to sing

CHER!

Don’t you just revel in those little cosmic moments when everything aligns?

You feel healthy.  Your mind is clear or even dreamy and you are buzzing with creative electricity.

When I write or paint I do it at a furious pace.  The energy shows up from nowhere. 

The muse is fickle, she comes and she goes at her whim. 

When the energy shows up, I just go with it, not knowing when I will be spent and not knowing when it will return again.

Right now I am in a creative upswing. I don’t even have time to do everything I want to.  Some day in the near future I will feel much less buzzing, but I never fear because I know it will return. 

Sometimes a movie or sex or just an infatuation can bring it on or help it along.  Even a dream.  Or a song.  Or a poem.

Inspiration is all around.

Somtimes I just bask in the happy moments.

I dreamt of you last night.

You were just starting out and I loved your music. 

You were more vulnerable then I thought you’d be.  You needed comforting.  Reassuring of your talents.  Of your heart.

It was a very sweet dream and strange too, because I don’t know you. 

You got a slight bout of stage fright the night before a performance.  I was standing on a stair, and you one step below me, you put your arms around me and nestled your head into my bosom.  I told you it would be okay, just listen to my heart, just focus on my heart.  And you did. 

Jade’s been sick. It’s good that Monday was a holiday, because that would mean she’d have missed four days this week, so far. I took this photo of me and Jade holding down the couch at 1am. Yup, 1am. With all of the meds and coughing throwing her outta wack, our sleep pattern is off. Way off.

Tonight we have Bear the Wonderdog’s company. He’s always so sad when his mommy is away. And so darn cute.

I think Jade has the flu. Ironic since I just wrote an article about the flu. I’ve had folks tell me that there are some awful viruses going around the region - fevers, coughing, severe headaches, vomiting. Jade’s primary symptom is a weird cough - rumbling with a high-pitched dry sounding whistle at the end. If she is coughing this bad tomorrow I think we’ll need to make an appointment with the doc. Her fever hasn’t been back today, so maybe that’s a good sign of things to come for tomorrow. Now if we can just prevent a migraine!

I am not feeling too well myself. I’m very excited about my Body Politics project, among other art projects and stuff I’m working on - but right now I’m on my damned period. I’m bleeding like crazy and I’m tired and my skin is broken out - outta wack hormones make me grouchy. When you bleed as much as I do you also get tired.

To make everything even more complicated since the flood Jade’s room has reeked of stale cigarette smoke.  We’ve removed almost every fabric item and washed it, tore up the carpet - the whole carpet - washed down the circa 1968 linoleum twice and yet if her door is shut for a bit and you open it, the stench of stale cigarette smoke is hanging in the air.  DEE-SKUZ-TING! Now mind you we have lived here like four years and NONE of us smokes - that stench is coming from the wallboard that got a bit damp and the space between the walls from years of stinky cigarette smoke being released by wetness.  GROSS!!!

The reason this is such a huge deal for us, besides the gross factor, is that Jade gets migraines from the scent of cigarette smoke.  So, all the more reason she has been on the couch the last few nights.

Aside from that stuff, it’s hard as hell for me to concentrate with Jade sick…then Robert getting sick and headachy, then Will telling me he has chills and thinks he’s getting sick (that was two nights ago, but he seems ok now) and me on my period.  Sigh.

I have writing to do for The Bay Net.

This blog keeps dropping my new layout for some reason.

I finally finished up my part of the proposal for a gallery Tammy and I want to try and get the Body Politics project into.

There is Carrington Neighborhood stuff I need to do.

I will try to just imagine Jade well and focus on the good things to come.

In the time between the good stuff and now Jade and I will hold the couch down with Bear, watch back to back episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond and Dharma and Greg and try to get some sleep from time to time.

I also have to decide what to say to the school when they give me shit (IF they give me shit) for Jade missing so many days.

Peace out and hope everybody is well!

I think I like the theme that I have up today, but I can’t seem to make the widgets work.  I guess I’ll have to wait and see if Robert can get it functioning.

Anyway, green and blue is very mermaidy - very Pisces.  Cool.