RAW

I am wondering if I should plan an entire funeral or is a memorial service more appropriate.   I have lost my 'sparkle', my glow, that swing in my hips that says "I know you're looking, but you know you're not ready".  I miss my sassy, sexy, brassy self.  I miss my inner Mae West, my inner Bettie Page.  They just left, no forwarding address and the phone is disconnected. 

I wanna cry.  I just cannot believe it.  I don't know what to do to convince them to come back and stay.  I miss my sassy self.  I miss that womyn who KNEW that her love was 'the business'.  That womyn who walked into a room with confidence because she knew what she carried with her; good or bad, she had a sense of her worth and didn't feel less than anyone.  Now, don't get me wrong, I know when someone else has something going on to which I cannot hold a candle, and I admire that in others.  I think its wonderful.  My value was not diminished by any one else's light!  I knew that if I fell in love with someone, they were getting a full, beautiful and passionate love. My space was worth being in. I knew that when I went to work at anything, the instruments I needed were finely tuned.

Somewhere along the way, I left those finely tuned instruments out in the rain.  I neglected myself.  I lost something.  Now, I am hesitant paralyzed.  I feel that nothing about me is.....anything special.  I don't feel that anything about me is worth anyone else's time.  I used to be the sexy thick womyn; the one who could blow your mind any way I wanted. Now, I'm just the fat, nerdy broad.

I'm not trying to have a pity party. Just need to get this out.  And since I am the only person reading this, it may make me feel better to just get it out.  I am not the person I was 3-5 years ago.  I know I should change, but it's supposed to be for the better.  Isn't it?

I feel that I have lost everything.  The sexy, sassy, confident, good girl/bad girl I used to be is no longer here.  Believe me, I keep searching.   Should I offer a reward? It would be worth it.  I must have done something to deserve this, but for the life of me I cannot think of anything for which I haven't apologized.

No, I am not as low as I was a few months ago, but I have to keep reminding myself that I am still raw.  There are few, precious few spots that aren't raw.  The healing is long and hard. This is my coldest winter ever.

If anyone finds my inner Mae West and Bettie Page, my Mama-Mojo, please send them home.

Please.

Peace,
 Stormie

Refueling

I am guessing that I should apologize for not really feeling like blogging lately.

But I won't.

I don't feel like it (apologizing or blogging).

I am sad and angry. I am lost and lonely.

I am trying to enjoy summer, so far I only love the rain and fresh fruit.

I am trying to keep my head up.

I don't feel witty, or clever, or insightful.

I just am not good company of late.

I really don't want to talk about the problem, so it leaves me with little to say.

So, I will say that I miss you all. Which is strange since I don't really know you. But there is something to be said for sharing these posts, divulging the personal to perfect strangers and finding in that a kinship.

I mean I have a wicked green thumb, and all my house plants need emergency surgery. I am just very...tired. Tired is not the correct word, but it's what I find myself saying lately. Even though I have actually been sleeping well.

As a trivial aside, I will add that I recognize that carbs do not help me at all when I am like this.

I need to refuel. Nourish my self.

Right now, I am as blank as the watercolor paper in my art room. So, I may link to someone who is actually clever, or post a picture or an old posting until I shake this off.

I felt I owed an explanation.

P.S. I do have a few comments about Rosie....but she gives me such a headache, it can keep.

Trying to Motivate Myself

I have been pretty upset with myself lately.

I still am not painting or writing. It is driving me crazy.

I miss painting. I miss my artwork.

I am finally not angry with myself about it. For a long time I felt that I had given so much of my energy to other people that I had neglected what was beautiful within me; and once I realized my mistake it was too late, my creativity had been left out in the rain and was ruined.

For years I felt that I had nothing to say.

Now, I feel that even if I did, who'd care to hear it?

So, these are a sketch from last years life drawing class, two old paintings (Salome and I'm Ready) and one more recent sketch (Red Corset) that still has not made it out of my sketchbook and onto watercolor paper.

I hate being stuck.

peace

copyright 2007

untitled

I don't know what to title this posting because I really don't know, right now, where I am going with it.

For Thanksgiving, my mother cooked most of the food and brought it to my house for dinner. The deal was I was to cook for Christmas. So, I called mom, verified that she was still coming and set of to purchase and cook.

I cooked food for about 8 people, even though I knew there would only be 4 of us eating dinner (holiday meals are no fun without leftovers). I had to be at work at 6 AM Christmas morning, so I cooked a little 2 days before, then most everything else on Christmas Eve. Whatever I did not cook, my daughter finished on Christmas while I was at work.

I called my mom's cell phone at 4:30 PM on my way home from work, got her voice mail and left her a message. "Hi Mommy! Merry Christmas! The food should be ready, I am about 5 minutes away from home so I hope you're on your way. OK, see you in a few minutes, I love you. Bye."

My mother NEVER called me back.

Not only did she not call me back, she did not come over for Christmas dinner.

She did not call the day after Christmas either.

My mother called my house on Wednesday, two days after the holiday and said:

"Hey. How long have you been up?"

"Well, all day."

"Oh, well, I'm gonna come by and drop some stuff off. I will see you later."

When she arrives, she offers no apology (which at 38 years old, I know better than to expect) and no explanation. I still have not even heard the words 'Merry Christmas' from my mother.

She is all grins like nothing happened.

So she puts gifts down.

I give her the gifts that have been under the tree for the past 2 days. I finally manage to calmly say, "We missed you on Christmas."

She says " Oh, I went with Sister to one of her co-worker's. He has a nice house. We had prime rib and duck with orange sauce. But, I didn't try the duck. It was really nice."

I am standing in my living room in front of my mother and daughter and I want to tell her to get out of my house. I want to know what the fuck is wrong with her and I want to ask her why she could not have told me that she really had no intention of coming to my house for dinner.

What did I do to her that spending Christmas with strangers was so appealing?

What the FUCK is that about?

I felt embarrassed. I look stupid looking for my mother to arrive at my home for dinner and she doesn't show up.

No, this is not about how it looked.

It is about how I felt.

For quite some time now I have felt that my mother has no use for me. I mean, yes, she's proud of me and loves me. She knows if something happened I'd be there for her. She knows she can trust me to do any financial transactions and would give her my last. My only purpose for my mother is to be there for her in case she gets sick.

But, she has no real use for me. She could take me or leave me.

Actually, to be perfectly honest with myself, she could leave me.

And has.

I mean, how low on her list could I be if I did not even deserve a phone call.

And, yeah, I know....WAHHH! Right? I am crying like a little baby, but FUCK!

I am talking about my mother.

I am angry.

I think I am fair to be angry.

But it becomes unhealthy because I am angry with myself. How many times will I allow my mother to just do whatever to me and I accept it?

How long am I supposed to remain open to her?

How am I supposed to trust my feelings to her?

How do you only close the gate halfway?

I am kind of an all-or-nothing kind of woman. You're either in or your out. I trust you or I don't.

But with my mother, I love her, but I don't trust her.

I wanted to push the issue and tell her that she hurt our feelings by blowing us off for Christmas, and I did not. I knew that it would just lead to an argument.

But, what did I really avoid? I mean, I am angry with her anyway. I don't want to see her or talk to her. I am just LIVID.

She never apologizes. I have never gotten a straight apology from my mother. Her apologies are always Pyrrhic victories--you win but it costs much more than you would ever gain. What would be the point in that?

I feel like I did as a child, just so frustrated by her and like I belonged to another mother. I just had to belong to someone who had real feelings and empathy.

OK, maybe the name of this posting could be childhood. or depression. or anger. I recall now my first depression. Winter 76/77, we had a tragedy in the family, my uncle died in an apartment fire. We all lived in the same building. We came home from shopping for a Christmas tree to find our building fully involved and no one could get to Uncle Lawrence's apartment. That winter and spring I was withdrawn and sullen.

I was clinically depressed at 8 years old.

When I tried to talk to my dad, my mother would shush me, because he was grieving his brother.

When I tried to talk to her, she would not hear me or I would not be able to find the words.

I felt so very alone. I wondered why no one wanted to know about me. I wondered what was wrong with me.

Some days, like Christmas evening, I wonder, what the fuck is wrong with me that my own mother would rather be anywhere but here?

This has offered some clarity. Maybe there is more to my Seasonal Affective crap than just daylight and chemicals? Maybe I need to figure out how to leave the gate partially closed. Maybe there are reasons for my insecurities and feeling less than.

I won't go all Freudian and blame everything on my mother, but hell, I can see that there are some issues that I used to pass over as 'how she is' or even worse 'i just get a little sad', but there is more to it and I deserve to be honest with myself and see the whole picture.

Whatever it holds I am finally ready to see it all.

And by all means, if my viewpoint is askew(or in any other way: all off*, all wet*, all wrong, amiss, awry, defective, fallacious, false, faulty, flawed, inaccurate, incorrect, inexact, invalid, misguided, mistaken, off, specious, spurious, unfounded, unsound, untrue, way off, wrong number ), please tell me.

I was wished courage for Christmas, I think I could use it already.

peace.

Skidded, but No Tailspin

Yesterday, December 3rd would have been my father's 66th Birthday. (It is a birthday he shared with his first granddaughter, my oldest niece, Timika.)

He passed on Wednesday, (Ash Wednesday) March 8th, 2000, but I lost him a few years before that.

I was always, unabashedly, a Daddy's Girl.

There was nothing better than having Daddy's undivided attention.

When I was growing up, we would talk about anything.

A few of the things that I love that are directly linked to him are:
my sense of humor, my sarcasm, golf, football, tennis, Lorna Doone's (shortbread cookies), jazz (the classics; Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald), art, the joy of walking around your home with a song in your heart, dancing, and beautiful lines on a well made auto...

I thought we talked about everything. In my mind, there was only one other person in the world who would accept me without question, and with open arms, my Mama (Mom's mom).

I learned to question everything from my father. There was no such thing as a dumb question or anything out of bounds.

I watched what he did and what he said.

I thought I knew him.

Coming out was difficult for me. I knew I was attracted to girls in grade school. I thought one of my best friends, Karen, was beautiful, and I had the BIGGEST crush on Wonder Woman.

Yeah, really, Wonder Woman. (blushing)

My Big Mama(Dad's Mom) was a "dyke, bulldagger, you know, funny" and two of his brothers were gay. He loved them all unconditionally.

I thought my mother would have a problem with my sexuality. I thought my mother would reject me. I mean I learned all those alternate words for lesbian from overheard conversations on my mom's side of the family.

(I never heard the word 'lesbian', until Jon Lovitz, doing a skit on Saturday Night Live, rhymed it with thespian)

It took forever for me to come to the point where I just could not try to be who I thought others wanted me to be.

Actually, it took a major depression.

My mom had a problem initially, but eventually it was not an issue.

My dad had a big problem and everytime he saw me, made a point of letting me know it.

EVERYTIME.

So, I started avoiding him because we argued all the time.

When he became ill, sick with cancer, he still did not let up.

The day he passed, I was at home painting. I had been in my art room for 2 days, working on a sketch and rough draft. I was listening to Cassandra Wilsons' Traveling Miles.

My mother called to tell me he had passed.

I broke.

I am still mending.

Usually, I am on guard beginning December 1st because I know that his birthday sends me into a tailspin. I feel worthless and useless. I feel like I am of no use to anyone I love. I cry without understanding why.

Last year I was able to celebrate him.

This year it caught me unawares.

On the evening of the 2nd, my daughter began talking about Mama (mom's mother) and the time just before her passing (which happened to be 1 year and 1 week after my father's). The tears blindsided me. I thought it was all about Mama, and pushed it away.

That evening, I felt that I could not do anything right for Myra, felt useless to her. I cried. I could not explain why; I did not know why. (Imagine her confusion.)

Every year I call my sister on Daddy's birthday. Later, I called my niece. She was down, said she doesn't want to celebrate it without him. I told her to celebrate. She was listening half-heartedly to half-hearted words.

The truth is I don't know how to comfort her. There was little anyone vould do to comfort me. I thought of him as soon as I woke up yesterday and then I wondered how Timika would get through the day.

Maybe next year will be better.

Happy Birthday Daddy.

Peace.