First snow of the season.

It's the silence of snow that coils peace through your veins. That first snow that tickles your face as it melts into your skin, you can't help but to hold your tongue out and catch a drop of this serenity. Your shoulders relax, your neck tilts back and you exhale into the bright white light that has turned the night into an endless reservoir of tranquility.

And then, you start the snowblower, get out the shovel and run to move the car from the street before the snowplow barrels down and entombs it.

F. Back to square one.

Surrender.

Beneath the surface

a fairytale unwinds

breathing through relentless

ignorance.

Opening into the brilliance

of glassy waters,

surrendering

to the sweetest ecstasy

that was once scarred of bitterness,

left in the emptiness of the cold.

Now cozy and warm

your eyes lingering within mine

twirling me endlessly,

indulging in your integrity of

unending tenderness.

Prickling my spine,

gathering in my throat,

so sweetly innocent.

Amidst the iridescent nights

smothered with caramel thirst,

persuading me endlessly.

The spirals of fear.

Since I've started this slow-moving journey I've been trying to wrap my brain around things that people want to read about. The popular blogs seem to be about food, fashion, crafting -- things that I follow along with and have nothing new to add, but do take recommendations from.  I keep finding that every time I write something ... I delete it. I do not trust that I have something worthwhile to say. 

I have not really shared this writing trial and I'm finally admitting that I've been waiting to see if I do have anything to say, or that maybe those few that I have shared with might show encouragement to the process. I wonder why I need that encouragement.  It's as though I need to perfect my writing, and ultimately myself, before I really allow anyone to share this with me.  But no one wants to share with someone holding back and I am wondering what is really holding me back from expressing my fears and my dreams or passions, to anyone listening?

I've realized that it's fear. Fear that I really don't have anything worthwhile to share. Fear of embarrassing myself. Fear that I will not find what I'm searching for.  Fear that I won't be able to develop my soul into it's whole.  Fear that maybe I really am just a cheese-ball chic who wears her heart on her sleeve, feels too much, over-analyzes everything and always doubts herself.  It is a panic button of self-doubt and no way to be if I want to instill myself as a writer and one day an author.

I need to write with what I'm good at, from the heart and wearing all my emotions out in writing.  I used to be able to find the words that truly flowed through any emotion and I want that to fill me again.  My background is in creative writing and the techniques that I learned will need to be refreshed and the soul-searching anguish will have to be pulled from the depths and absorbed into language.
 
I was reading back on a good friend's blog and realized how right he was to reference this in helping to find just what he needed, and what I've now found inspiration in. So I share both of them with you and hope that he doesn't mind: 

You’ve got to sell your heart, your strongest reactions, not the little minor things that only touch you lightly, the little experiences that you might tell at dinner. This is especially true when you begin to write, when you have not yet developed the tricks of interesting people on paper, when you have none of the technique which it takes time to learn. When, in short, you have only your emotions to sell…But literature, even light literature, will accept nothing less from the neophyte. It is one of those professions that wants the “works.” You wouldn’t be interested in a soldier who was only a little brave.

F. Scott Fitzgerald in response to a story sent to him by the daughter of a family friend and aspiring author (Full Letter).

 
It may be poetry, it may be a comical rant or something that has inspired insight (or hindsight), but whatever form the words come out in, I hope them to be honest and moving, and maybe even a little jacked up.


Do you have something to share? Let me know!

Unwrap the happiness.

I heard on the radio this morning that we are supposed to make sexy time a priority during this crazy holiday season.

Um, yeah? Well F me sideways and shove me down the chimney.

It has seriously taken us seven days to try to finish decorating our Christmas trees and we still haven't gotten the ornaments on them (Ryan is taking extra meticulous care in stringing the lights onto every single branch and insists that we hang the ornaments together).  I have hardly gotten any shopping done, and between waking up at 4:45am to be at work, volleyball, football or bowling, making dinner, doing laundry and having gym time...HO HO HO time isn't working out too well.

And, let's be honest, I have a very short window of  "availability" per day.

If it's not in the planner then it doesn't get done.  But I'm pretty confident that I speak for most ladies when I tell you that if you came to bed with us, at a normal bed-time, you might get more lucky than you think.  Or hey, surprises are nice. 

Really, if we've already put off doing that one item on the checklist, what's it mean to put it off for another half hour?  So take off the Santa suit buddy.  Christmas is the time for giving, so I'd appreciate the gifts in the velvety bag...and preferably before 9:30pm.

So Not Deceptive.

I effing love Christmas.  I love picking out gifts, making gifts, putting up 3.5 trees and too many ornaments. I love nutcrackers and angels and my Ry-guy making fun of me when my-face-lights-up-because-I-am-so-pumped-that-the-tree-lights-are-on-and-the-ceiling-lights-off.

And every year I know exactly what I want to get for my brothers and sister, and every freaking year they say that we shouldn't do gifts. Fine.  I don't really listen to them but I do take it easy.

But then I just buy extra for Ryan because I love having permission to buy things.

So when he finds a box of newly delivered hot-item clothes and the most fab heels in my dressing room, clearly, they are not for him...and I guess that's not exactly OK with him.  
 
I didn't do anything wrong.  I warned him weeks ago that I had an awesome coupon that I would absolutely need to use.  And, if I buy you something, doesn't that mean that I'm extra good?  I set the stage, I was honest, I really did get an amazing deal, so don't you dare give me that look.

Then he says ..."Don't you want a new bathroom, more kitchen cabinets with a wine bar, a new couch and carpeting in the spare bedroom ... or would you rather have another fab pair of heels?"

Sucker.

I sent that shit back.

Preparation.

My baby brother is going to Afghanistan on a "tour of duty." 

This makes everything in me quietly crack when I think about it and I have to be careful about where I am when I let it surface.

Like, when he called me last night to tell me that there is a farewell ceremony and he would love for us to be there because he is not sure if he will get to say "goodbye" after that.  He speaks in run-ons, "I know you guys might not be able to take a vacation day but maybe you can see if you can get an unpaid day or something like that, maybe you could check it out, you know, if you can make it..."

I quickly glue myself back together put on my quivering smile and speak through tears with what I think is a strong voice.

"Of course we would be there, there is no way we wouldn't be."

I wonder how strong to be.  Stronger than his wife for whom my heart breaks for?  Stronger than my parents who can't stand to have us more than two hours away from them?  Stronger than my brother who is the one going?  If I don't crack in front of anyone would he think we don't care, that we are OK with this?  How strong do I need to be and where do I find that strength?

The Blogger.

So last night I told my husband that I've started this thing, and I decided to show him the page.  I really thought he was going to make fun of me ... and he did.  But first, he was very kind and said it was "cute" and good for me.  I agree. Thank you honey.

And then he said, "I just need you to do one thing...say, 'I'm a blogger. I'm a blogger and I promise to never act like that crazy ass psycho from The Bachelor' -- say it now please."

Hahahah.  Remember her?  Holy train wreck. Jenna Burke. BUT, how is that even RELATED to my writing?

OK. I said it.

Then, I showed him the "About Me" page -- and he couldn't believe that I would post such a crazy dumb picture showing off my monkey bandanna -- he said everyone will think I'm going to kick their ass. Puh-lease. 

I won't. Promise. 

Maybe these are better for him.

What it does.

I remember when I was five, my little legs dangling over the padded funeral parlor bench. I sat and stared at my gray and white saddle shoes that I hated. I cried and cried because everyone was crying around me, and because those shoes hurt my feet.

Literal pain is something that I know well. Blisters from little gray saddle shoes, broken ankles and fingers, torn muscles -- that is the kind of pain I can grasp, manage, endure.

Swabbing a sponge in a loved one’s mouth to help quench thirst, holding a hand as they struggle to breathe, praying to understand as they communicate with a shaky hand and pleading eyes -- that is the kind of pain that I cannot grasp, manage or endure.

I have seen and felt this heart-wrenching kind of pain more than most people should have to. In my family, this kind of pain has hit us over and over and nothing has been more powerful than the love that we have for each other. There is peace found in that kind of love and in those things that we do for each other even when we think we cannot grasp, manage or endure -- and we do it anyway.

Let's begin ...

I remember when I was a wee-bean sitting in a desk at a Power of the Pen creative writing competition with a pencil in hand. When the instructor said "Go!" I took off, furiously scribbling my story in my adorned penmanship.  I couldn't write fast enough to keep up with the conversations in my head or the stories being built, and it was the best feeling in the world.  This must be where the astronomical, vertical wrinkle began between my eyes. 

Now, almost 20 years later, I'm an editor at a media company, married with no wee-beans of my own, living in a world that is spinning circles around me and still trying to find my way.  I've missed a part of me that could let those stories flow and that is what I'm searching for.

My life is a "fudged up symmetry" and these are the stories I want to share, the lessons learned, and your voices of reason that I may, or may not listen to.