Acknowledgement Is Overrated

     Can it be a blessing to not be working? Right now, I have a family member thinking that
very thing, kind of.
     Yah, I would like to be working at least part-time. Solvent enough to purchase the occasional ‘needful,’ and be a tax-paying contributor. But much as the Gemini that I am, (lost in my head) right now I’m told that I’m contributing in one of the most important ways. 

      Just wish Uncle Sam agreed with me. Sigh…ah well.
      I’ve sort of come out of C.N.A. retirement for a time. Acronym for Certified Nursing Assistant; the pros that take care of your parents or grandparents either at home or a professional facility.
      A more accurate corporate acronym? Compensation Not Ample. Last check of the Bureau of Labor & Industries has C.N.A.’s only earning $12.36 an hour. So, I’m of the ‘Fight-for-15’ variety.
      If you have one or two in your family, then you have it hammered into your conscience just how much work they do. It was a twenty-year career for me. Paid career, mind you. Being a childfree meant not coming home to non-paid caregiving responsibilities. So, unless I’m fortunate to win a lottery, I’d never make ‘nurse-with-a-purse.’ (Snerk!)

     But currently, I look after a person who has been fighting for her life. And, her life is my compensation. So, tcha to Uncle Sam; I am contributing.

Strong is the New Pretty

Disclaimer: The poem below is not mine. But I wanted very much to share it for all. It's empowering and beautiful, and I give kudos to those with such talent. I enjoy reading others poetry, but possess no aspirations to write it myself.

How's that for a writer whose sixth-great-uncle is Scotland's National Poet?  

'For the Women who are Meant for More' by Sarah L. Harvey

Here’s to the gritty, truth-seeking goddesses who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty.

Here’s to the brave, badass females who have blasted through a nightmare of shit to be standing here today.

The luscious ladies who love feeling the raw earth beneath their bare feet, and bow down proudly to the supple, winding curves of their thick, fleshy hips.

Here’s to the creative vixens who breathe their sun-soaked, moonlit, windswept, star-dusted dreams to life, every damn day—rain or shine.

Here’s to the wise women who, time and time again, have chosen their own hearts.

I applaud you, with every fibre of my being. I honour you.

I am you.

We are strong and confusing, complicated and powerful, magical and maddening—we are meant for so much more.

We will never be happy stuffed in a sparkling white kitchen with a floral apron, a sleek bun, and carefully applied pink liquid lipstick to complete the wax mask of our fake smiles, playing the role of perfect wife or perfect girlfriend or perfect mother.

Our hearts will choke. Our spirits will scream.

We will never be happy sitting in a grey office working 9 to 5, watching the clock tick slowly, while our souls shrivel to the buzzing sound of fluorescent lights, unable to breathe in the fresh, muddy scent of gusty winds and the frantic, jewelled sweetness of budding cherry blossoms.

We will never be okay sipping champagne, trying on haute couture, and talking about ways to make our asses skinny and recipes for dinner parties and how to get a man to love us.

We don’t really give a damn about any of that—

We want to talk about soul. About dripping truth. About magic. About death. About struggle. About the world’s heart-breaking pain.

We wanna stand in the billowing breeze and decipher wise whispers of the wind as it roars through each singing strand of our thirsty, messy hair.

Yes.

But, for a painfully long time, we have denied who we really are.

We have tried and tried and tried to squeeze our wild wings and paint-splattered hearts into the cramped plastic moulds of what we “should” be.

How miraculously we have failed.

Why do we rip ourselves up into sad, feathery pieces, trying so hard to slide into pretty little lives that, quite frankly, don’t even appeal to us?

Normal won’t cut it—extraordinary is what we’re here for.

We are meant to merge with the moon, cry with the rain, rise with the tides, and shine with every goddamn slice of shimmering yellow sun.

We are meant to run through crowded streets, with love in our hearts and tangerine scarves streaming through our fingertips as we dance to the sobbing drum of the world’s crying tears.

We are meant to make art that grows gritty wings and inspires sad, closed hearts to break the fuck open.

We are meant to stick out our tongues in a fierce lion’s breath in the most unexpected moments—

Rawwwr!

Our dreams and visions and destinies must come first.

Always.

Because we aren’t here to play small; to be polite, people-pleasing pretty plastic barbie dolls with empty, lifeless hearts—we are here to make waves, to chase dreams, to stand in the blazing fires of truth—and we know it.

We are here to live from the harrowing depths of our souls.

Why deny it anymore?

Let’s reach inside our supple skin and taste the thick river of bubbling magic that pulses through our veins like rubies.

Let’s shed the suffocating lives that were never meant to be ours—the lives we’ve brainwashed ourselves into tolerating, but are slowing killing our souls.

It’s time to burn, baby, burn!

Let’s make a pact with our hearts—a vow to listen that inner spark of magic, of truth, of delicious fire that cannot be denied for a minute more.

Let us promise now—

To honour who we really are.

To be forces of light, of love, of sacred power.

To let our star-dust spirits rise—and soar and soar and soar!

Extraordinary flows through our veins. Normal won’t cut it.

We are meant for so much more.

Badass, truth-lovin’, dream-weaving sisters, let’s stop smacking our spirits down and squeezing ourselves into suffocating roles that will never satisfy our thirsty, roaring souls—

We won’t fit.

We aren’t meant to.

Our wings won’t slide through small doors. We are meant for so much more—

Our dreams and visions and destinies must come first.

Always.

Please, answer the rain-drenched, whispering wolf calls of your wild soul.

Do not let your wings lie sticky and suffocated, in a sad clump on the floor.

Do not let your vibrant spirit wither into a colourless grey existence.

Do not let your jewelled destiny lie dormant and dead.

Do not live the life you think you “should.”

Fuck should—

Live the life that makes your heart beat louder, the life that sets your bones sweetly on fire, the life you can’t stand not living—

Answer the blossoming calls of your wild soul!

Go, now—

Into the lush, emerald forest of who you really are.

Find yourself.

Discover your gifts.

Share your gritty magic with the world.

Follow the promising path of your courageous destiny.

Go—

Now.

Do not settle for an empty half-life.

Do not settle for good enough.

Do not settle for anything less than exquisite or extraordinary.

Oh, sweet wise, wild woman—do not settle—

At all.

http://www.sarahlouisaharvey.com/ 

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/12/for-the-women-who-are-meant-for-more/ 

Time - Ideas = %$&@#!!

Some Xmas gifts probably shouldn't be ignored...especially by a writer with writers block.

Has any writer described a block as mental constipation? I'll have to research that. In the pro tempore, the omitted Xmas gift has recently been ink-assaulted with mymories that others likely choose to forget. With bleach and a match, no less.

(And yes, I researched that word, and no one's using it yet, supposedly)

My under-appreciated lil' bro and smart-as-sin SIL gave me this (pictured) book. They didn't have to second-guess its purchase when they were looking for writer-inspired paraphernalia. I'm just not proud that it took me a shameful amount of time to write anything in it. Even its contributors unknowingly instill a reprehensible sense of inertia in me.

Nevertheless, it's helping better than milk-of-magnesia. 

"...I mean, there is actual butter coming out of my pen." ~ 'The Paper'

Slow Ride

     Dog fur on your clothes can be awesome, when you rarely get the opportunity to be around dogs. Cat spit on your open palm from licking you, as they condescend to lay half on your lap is an accomplishment, too.

     But a goat nibbling on your jeans hem? That’s the best! 

                             

                 

    When one doesn’t have the means to maintain a menagerie that would make Dr. Dolittle proud, you go where you can enjoy such spoils.

     Add a niece’s birthday to the blender, a little energy drink contraband, a complete lack of watching one’s caloric intake for an entire weekend, and a fun time will always be had---especially when you spoil the niece with flan, churros, and cash.

     A road-trip, when traveled via two-car caravan, is also a wise move; it establishes sanity, stability, and removes all sense of disgruntlement, nae, tempestuousness, at the only one who can reduce my intelligence to flaming gas-balls of fury.  

     Close quarters for longer than an hour usually inspires my need for flight, as is the typical Gemini’s innate characteristic. Boredom, we will not tolerate.

     Painted faces, offerings of ersatz tea and cakes, bubble wands being waved while jumping on trampolines, canines competing for visitor’s affections, sinewy felines pretending they’re not, turkey burgers, and Mexican food that leaves you feeling bloated for having eaten far too much….

    Oh yah, that’s the life! 

The 'Sunscreen Speech.'

Disclaimer: Hey Readers! This is NOT my writing. This was a graduation speech written by Mary Schmich in 1997 for the Chicago Tribune. I remembered first reading it in an issue of Reader's Digest, and liked it so much that I gently tore the pages out and saved it. My copy is still filed away somewhere in the Black Hole of my storage area. But this is almost twenty years old, and I never forgot it. Gen-Xers and the older Millennials will remember it. Enjoy! 

Wear Sunscreen

By Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '98: Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blind side you at 4 PM on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard.

Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.