A place

I know I got issues with tense...ack! I be working on it...for now just enjoy the place.

My bedroom in the early morning is so quiet, still as if time has stopped. Even as if never started. It feels suspended like a trapeze artist hangs in the air above upturned anxious faces. I hear the stillness that rests on top of me. NPR alerts me to the time, 6a.m., time to get up. Now that winter has arrived in my room most mornings I stay as long as I can, linger under the sheet, the quilt, the down comfortor now so worn with time and dreams it is flat in every location. I'm released, freed from responsibility in this suspended dome I know as my bedroom. Nine minute increments I play over and over. The time my snooze button and I are allowed to dance, hold hands. My books watch over me. Patient, silent, guarded. Then somberly sunlight seeps into the room. Awakening as well with resistance, even the same shared apprehension I sense. The lanky and isolated trees just outside my front room window sway to silent music only they can hear and know. I'm alone. Just by myself. Possibility oozes out of me. My thoughts scamper loudly and diligently to the front of my brain. It is a new day, a chance to try again. The smell of coffee being brewed now drifts down the hall, ending in my room just above my head. It is my morning friend, the only one to actually understand me, my position here in this room, this house on the shore. I place my feet on the floor...

My play

Franklin Roosevelt said,

"Remember you are just an extra in everyone else's play."

Happy Bornday!

Two of my favorite people celebrate birthdays today.
Well two pieces of information for you to know...both are actually dead so they will not be doing so much celebrating. And two, I did not know either of these fine fellas. Yet I sure have enjoyed the fact that they were born. Happy Bornday to Anton Chekhov and W.C. Fields - wherever you may be!

Anton Chekhov once said, "Any idiot can face a crisis; it is this day-to-day living that wears you out." - Brilliant!

And W.C. Fields once said, "It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to." And he said, "There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation." - Amen!

Skin and tears

I hear them before I feel them.
I know they are coming, marching.
Gathering up in puddles and joining in force.
The tears are rallying inside to be released.

I can't stand it. They come so easily and often.
They make me angry and they know it.
I am their bitch, locked in a prison cell with no escape.
No exercise yards for an hour of freedom an option.

Yet today it is different, I choose it so.
I tighten my heart, my guts and skin.
Circle the drain and send them down.
Down, deep into me until evaporation.

No tears today. No care of what you say.
Only skin and bones is my house now.
I am dry, water now only in my blood.
Parole granted to me for good behavior.

I hear nothing but the echo of trees outside.
I know the tears are sad, crying for themselves.
Gathering together in combined misery of loss.
The tears are not coming, the skin fills in silently.

I will kick your ass!

this is how I feel today...on the inside! I like it.

Top Ten things on a Tuesday I am thankful for

1. Smartie candy

2. The possibility that some day I will NOT pick my nails and cuticles

3. Pork chops and apple sauce (I had it for dinner last night and it was DELICIOUS)

4. Angus the dog

5. President Bush will one day NOT be president

6. Pumpkin Pie coffee creamer

7. I can smell

8. Clive Owen...need I say more? Nope!

9. That I no longer desire or harbor the need to wear thong underwear

10. Air

11. That I am free to have 11 things even though I said 10 originally!

Today

Today was a hard one. It was Monday. Yet that was not it. It was cold and dreary from a late Sunday gentle snow. Still not it. The radio told me it was the most depressing day of the year. I know, I changed the station. Nope I don't believe that was it either. My period is in full swing and had me snapping at the nice man that pays me. I know that was not it either, trust me I know. Today was some sort of a funk that hung over me, right over my head. I could see it when I looked in the mirror in the bathroom. Then when I drove home in the cold blue dark early night, I came upon it. A song came on. Just a song. A song with words that were sung just to me in my car. A song I had only heard one time before. It was the trigger to my gun. Bang, it was pulled, released. Tears came to my eyes, pricked my eye balls, pooled and then jumped, rather escaped down my face and died alone, apart from each other on my pants. The song went something like, "I don't wanna be anything but what I been trying to be lately...tired of looking around to see who I am suppose to be or what I am suppose to do." Today was a day.

Responsibility

It is now cold and wet here on the eastern shore of Virginia. It appears as if winter and all its splendor has at last landed on this shore. Spring time often beckons the average person to contemplate their life, to sloth off old habits and memories; start a fresh in other words. Quite literally and figuratively - as those being actual other words and all. In the last two years I've noticed or rather for the first time in my life paid attention that for me it is the arrival of the winter season that brings forth such thoughts and ideas into my life, this such process I suppose you could say. Therefore this week has been a rebirth of some sort for me and I am just today realizing it. All week I've been dwelling, wading in a blue pond of...well not sadness, not even close to depression, far from fear but more of determination I think. I am not quite able to define it to be honest. Hey look at that! I'm being honest and I have NOT been drinking - sorry Mel!

A feeling of starting over. A new chance. Each morning of this last week I've opened my eyes to the new day with excitement coursing through my body. Not energy mind you. This said fluid in my veins is not that elixir. This solution does not get me right out of bed once I'm awake. It does not in any shape or form send me bouncing like Tigger of Winnie the Pooh out of bed to grab the day. I can tell you again in all honesty that the snooze button on my alarm clock and I are close and personal friends and I suspect will continue to be so for many years to come. No it is more of a responsibilty sentiment. I am starting to sense, to get the idea that as a person in this world I have a responsibility. That perhaps that is my job, my mission. A responsibility to do what you ask? Well that answer I am still forming - the specifics. I have a duty to this life, to the people I know and even to those I do not know to not be sad, to not dwell on what I want or what is lacking in my world. To send good energy out there to be grabbed and built upon. This is my task. To be grateful, to be appreciative of all I have and will have, feel, experience in the future. I know this is not revolutionary as a thought. I do however have a sneaking suspicion that as a way of life or as an action in one's life, a constant behaviour, it is a new idea. I have such a sensation in my throat of possibility. A fervor I dare to say of wonderful things to come for me, for others. A confirmation I possess that all experiences, people and interactions can be and often are good even if dressed in bad news clothes.

It is winter here now. The leaves are all off the trees, long since fallen to the ground. Long ago or so it seems, walked upon and meshed to be as one with the land. The sky is that dark blue gray that confirms one's secret hunch that indeed the world is large, so much larger than one's own small current globe.

This morning as I left the house to go to work I found myself saying out loud, "Damn it, man it is cold out here..." Then, "Man! IT IS COLD out here and damn it that fantastic!"

I'm just saying...

Growing down to Wise up Show

Michelle Maclay's One Woman Show,

"Growing down to Wise up"

Saturday, January 27th @ 7:30pm

Eastern Shore's Own Arts Center (ESO)

Belle Haven, VA. 23306

psssst...this woman here is not me...

Growing down, Wising up E1

I am searching for the real me.
I am searching for an identity.

I have a last name, two to be clear.
Both are strong and carry no fear.

Two families, no home.
Back and forth to each I can roam.

An answering machine message with laughter I'm not on.
A mailbox inscription with me in mind can eyes be laid upon.

Sisters by name, half blood and hair.
A brother by half blood, spirit and flare.

Between two worlds, merging at times, often in parallel.
Taking pieces of each I choose as if a wanderer singing a carol.

On this life I possess I offer few complaints and several compliments.
Only stating and expressing my fragments.

ACTION ACTION

You say you are sorry.

You say you feel bad.

Say, say, say.

Words. Words. Words.

Action is what I want.

Just a word. A word until action taken.

They will say...

People will say that she slept with him after knowing him for just one day because she was never loved by her father. They will whisper to each other that she was vulnerable and went with him because she is lonely. They will smile, even smirk to themselves that they would never do that, would never have to. They will tell themselves that they are content and above her and her actions. They will not realize that in all of this thinking, well gossiping more accruately, of the long hours they've spent on her in their minds. Time not being spent with their boyfriends, husbands, family. They will confirm that they are not lonely, scared or vulnerable using her as the barimeter. Depending on her to make all ok in their worlds. Yet when she is asked or approached on the subject she shall have a much different reaction, answer. "My father loved me. I slept with that cute college boy, went with him not to fill a void long ago dug, to feel not lonely if just for a night...no I went with him, DECIDED to take him up on his offer because it was fun and it felt great. Simple. Nothing more, nothing less."

People will say, people will think, people will judge. She will move forward not caring, not wasting time on their thoughts, she will fly above them and what they will say.

What the fuck?!!!

Katie Holmes Cruise (I don't know if that is her new name or not, I don't know her so...) spent $200,000 in Barneys in New York City yesterday. I am not sure what makes me sick to my stomach more; the actual idea that someone spends that sort of money at a clothing store (for a small enfant, under one year old I think, who I assume is still growing?) or is it that I am told this information on a morning radio show. All that matters I guess is that the end result emotion or feeling of either is one of, "gross!" Have a day. It is free.

Announcement!

My best friend got into Graduate School. She rocks and now it will be legal! Congrats my little Heather. Much deserved, much deserved.

pro for hire

professional in the house!

Money

I owe you. I owe you.

I don't have you. I don't have you.

It's not easy being green. It's not easy being green.

Yet you hold all the cards. Yet you hold all the cards.

At times I truly hate you. At times I truly hate you.

Then I relish how I can ignore you. Then I relish how I can ignore you.

Perhaps you owe me. Yes...perhaps you owe me.

Outstanding. Standing out.

My little brother (it's rough, not my brother...the writing)

"I don't care who you are or where you are from, this is fun!", he screams out the window yet at the same time he is talking to me, directly at me.
The red worn truck we are sitting inside of slips softly through the freshly fallen snow, effortlessly like a knife through butter. Silence envelopes us out here.
I can see the rotted past their prime and long forgotten corn husks sink beneath the truck's face and then quickly as if never there disapaear into it's anxious mouth. The machine gobbles them up as if it has not eaten in days, weeks even like a stranded sailor left for dead on an island in the pacific.
"Truck farming", I say not knowing if I mean as a question or a statement, a choice I have not actually made before saying it. I mildly expect and hope for an reaction from him, ideally laughter.
He provides it. A laughter so sweet and sincere I laugh right back at him before I can form a thought.
The ride continues on and so too do we.

Trees

The trees form a fortress along the water.
Guarding her against all that approach.
No password is whispered or even known.
Isabel appreciates the job of the trees performed each day,
each night all year long, for years.
Her trees are hers and hers alone, for now.
For now, for this short time is fine for it is the only constant to count on.
Standing lean and tall above her she feels them as she senses her own tanned skin;
a blanket draped perfectly over a collection of priceless jewels.
Always there, just there, steadfast even.
Protecting and ensuring her safety.