misplaced mama

Writing here has been risky for me lately.  I have not wanted to share anything with anybody.  I have turned my nose at a cyber community and I’ve huddled into homespace, peoplespace, skinspace.  I have wanted my friends to feel my wet tears on their shoulders and see the corner of my eyes crinkle up and wrinkle when I speak of the unspeakable of that moment.

I have wanted to pick up the phone and say "are you home" and "can I come over" and "i am so fucking sick of looking for a house to rent so I am dropping the kids of with him and I am coming over with a bottle" and "can i get a massage" and "where’s the open mic tonight"….etc.

That has where I have been.  Craving the color of my sisters eyes and the freckle on my brothers nose or the sound of her voice when she tells me it’s all going to work out while the seagulls caw and the train chugs and whistles and in the background our kids squeal as they slip n slide in the hot sun.  I have wanted to tell my story in the flesh.  I want ears to listen to it, not eyes to read it.  Not yet anyway.

And my writing.  I found a new voice, one that I’m not sure how to incorporate or share here.  The storytelling hasn’t stopped, it’s transformed and it’s strange and it’s scary and it’s risky because I fear sounding like a fool but then again I am The Fool.  The card literally falls out of the deck and smacks me in the forehead every day.  I am certainly not who I was a year ago or a day ago or a moment ago.  My dreams finally pinched me and said Live Yours and Nobody Elses and so I had no choice but to say yes.  And that has been big, really big.  I can barely fit it in my mouth and swallow it and make it mine, all mine without puking it back up.

But I’ve miss it here, missed what this used to be for me, wanting to hold on to it, knowing that I can’t and if it’s going to live it has to change with me.  There have been times when I have came close to hitting delete sure I was more of a JD Salinger type writer, mysterious and elusive; the crazy one who lives on frozen peas and never leaves the redwood gate and nobody is sure of my age or haircolor and certainly not a blogger, no certainly not exposing each wound and uplifted root on a BLOG.  I convinced myself that this space means nothing more than an old journal left out in the rain on the deck over night.  Words bleeding together, pages stuck, mildew born. 

I’ve even had a hard time writing a birthday letter to my Sula Pearl, four years old and more magnificant than ever. I am not that anymore, I am not writing about them, at least it’s not the story anymore (or is it?) they are mine, private and sacred.  If the world wants a peak at them come over to 1027 13th Street and I’ll BBQ salmon and toss together garden veggies in olive oil and sea salt and we can drink wine and then eat pieces of chocolate infused with lavender.  Her four year old self will share with you what she wants to share with you while we eat out out the patio and smell the puget sound in the air.

And this isn’t meant to sound snotty or rude and certainly not ungrateful for what this has been, because I give thanks for it, I do.  I say all this with longing, with a desire to have my words feel the way they used to but I guess nothing is ever meant to stay the same.  And that is the thing.  I guess.  I’m having some trouble with.

I could give you a list about all things going on, the lovely camping trip we took; the facinating, talented, gorgeous houseguests we’ve had; the sad yet peaceful death of our dog; the birthday of the middle girl, the little pearl; the fall apart of our house; the short sale drama; the relationship woes; the lost friendships; the new house that we found; the school-less children; my jesus-freak sister; my red dreads; my crush on a very young boy; the public pool that asked me to stop nursing my baby because I was too close to the water; the Orca Whales that water danced for me today while I snacked on a piece of cheese on a hot rock; my addiction Coconut Bliss Dairy-free frozen treat and the band Miike Snow.

But they add up to Things, Just Things and I can’t seem to pick out the thread in each one that defines my experience, the color and weave that brings me closer to you.  I am wordless.  Worldless. Still.  I am living in a fantasy, a fiction word orbit.  I am running with a dream that my mother just reminded me today I’ve had since I was in first grade and was asked by my teacher to write down what we wanted to be when we grew up and I wrote A writer who makes movies and television shows and sometimes writes books.  The teacher kept that piece of paper hanging on the wall for the whole year.  We took it down at the end.  My mother, of course, saved it for me  in a scrapbook.  I sighed relief, not that the paper still lives,  but that I remembered that this ride has been from back then, not something I spun up on the spot to distract me from something eles.

This is all a basket of something or nothing and I don’t know where to go from here.  We did rent a great house, in the city, on a hill, looking over the water and the islands and I’ll have the internet right there under my own roof and voila, I’ll be connected again.  And of course I’ll want to post a photo of the view of my new place.  And some of the whales I took today.  And some of the kids because they are gorgeous and toothless and tall and fast.  And some of some other things.  But bare with me, I think I have Transitioned, finally, and I just need to figure out how to express it, in this world, in this very beautiful and necessary world of blogging.

Until then, any ideas welcome. 

love.