balance

So I've decided t that this blog is suppose to be a place for me to show/express thing that are striking or important to me. I therefore will be posting more often. I also want to know peoples thoughts on idea, if you feel so inclined.
Now for the post.

Poem

Did you do this?
Could you do it now?
Directing your tasks,
Asking that and
This, waiting for the home.
The order to stay,
But Shoes are strewn
Socks dirty
Kitchen a mess
I like the mother see,
The tasks you left,
When you dream.

A moment we are together,
But now It’s gone.

I cry
A child, lost.
Wanting and suppressing.
It’s not mine to ask,
But I long for it all the same.
Your time,
The shelf I can’t reach.
Your attention
The item I can,
but know I’ll get caught.
I am still young.
I don’t know the words to say,
Desires are nameless,
Yet you ask,
Silence replies.
I cannot help it,
It’s real and out of reach.

Your attention hard to steer.
Can’t you see the future?
Consequences? Deadlines?
No, it takes time
It takes growth.
You are the son.

I lay on your lap,
You hold me together
Guard me from the darkness
That reaches.
I tell you about the darkness,
You only partially see.
Protect me.
I am the daughter.

Balance, Balance!
The scales in motion long to stop.
Then we see our eyes,
And create,
Finally one.

The poor

One thing I have learned quickly is that Los Angeles has a lot of poor, and by that I don’t mean people who are just on food stamps and government supplement but actual poor who make beds on the streets and dig out recyclable bottles from trash cans to make 5 cents selling them back. The beggars here are more forceful, but they almost have to be with the amount of competition they have. Are most of them probably on drugs, yes, but not all. A lot seem to be mentally handicap, disabled, or just old. Those are the ones I most see in the trash cans at night.
The mild weather and largeness of the city provides, I guess, a better place to sleep out on the street then a place like Montana, where they would freeze. Frankly, I don’t know what else Los Angeles has to offer them, maybe benefits maybe not. All I know is driving back the mile from USC I see them, pushing carts, carrying bags of empty water bottles, their honest livelihood. Keep in mind I haven’t seen Skid Row, nor do I want to, would you? Drive where some people are so desperate and mental messed that they would pull a weapon on you for a dollar? Yet this is where others who have no place to go live, without solid shelter. Of course we could say, they just need to get off whatever drugs they are on and get a job. Like that is easy. I am clean, intelligent, and considerate with a BA degree and a work history of people being happy they hired me, yet I’m struggling to even get a call back on jobs someone who didn’t even graduate high school could do. So tell me, who will hire the bum off the street, who is so mentally messed up from either drugs or simply a life of being thrown to the wolves? I wouldn’t. But if you did what would you pay them? Enough to get an LA apartment with no credit and buy food, pay bills, health insurance, and have money to make repairs?
I then drive to other places and I see the wealth. Beautiful cars, homes, shops, ect. I don’t have anything against these things. I wish deep down as I pass these places that one day I’ll be able to buy a house in a safe neighborhood, with a yard and a garage. That one day, I can buy the cloths I want to, the ones made out of fabric other then polyester, that are tailored for my body instead of the stuff I find on the sale racks at Burlington coat factory and Ross. I get annoyed I have to watch how much I spend on groceries and can’t just buy the really good cheese at the Santa Monica farmers market, when a year ago I could have got it without a second thought. I dream of buying that cheese, those cloths, and that home. Yet now I know that while I eat that cheese, there will be someone else who just dreams of sleeping somewhere with a working shower and bathroom all their own.
So what is there too do? Force others to share? Give up all that we have to others? What of the drugs? What of the fact that some people aren’t educated? Will steel? Have been taught to take what they can? Might not know how to socialize in public settings anymore?
The sad truth is I don’t think any one program will fix this. You can get rid of drugs (which I think would fix a lot) but you will still have the sick, mental handicapped, old, and those who don’t have working skills or just can’t get a job. You can provide better education. You could set up a business that would distribute the profits equally, but who would take the pay cut, when they’ve had to pay for school to be an effective CEO? And the list goes on. But I guess, the best we can do is remember that they are, and that they are people like us and do what we know how.

It's hard to wash away the sun

I had a dream with a song that went,

It's hard to wash away the sun
for after all is done
the rays, light, and shadows
linger on, even after the sun.

We all have choices to make during the light of day. Some choice to hide and some to play. I've chosen to walk an only slightly visible path. I don't know what is coming and it was scary. I am not scared now though. Now I am holding to what I know, what I have been promised, and the light that God has given me through the shadows of the trees. In the back of my head, I know that what I do or don't do will stay with me once the day is done. I just hope that sometime when I wake-up tomorrow, in a month, or in a year that I can see something good reflecting back in the light of the day.
For now, I am walking with my eyes half closed, until I can adjust to the sun.

Story

So the other day I once more became excited about a novel I started two years ago, and decided to work on the prologue. My husband, (insert big smile here), gave me confidance to continue working on it. I've decided to post some of what I wrote here, just because I want to share it so far.

Song of Evéa

Evéa-
my home land
thy forest grow greener
thy rivers run longer
thy richness greater
for in the earth is our heart.
Thy safety, thy peace live on.

There were times when this song would lift my heart, in hope. But now as men sing this song, I only feel the decay more deeply. My trees once cut into homes now are chopped and my fields, that bore up the nation are burnt in war. I am told this is the fate of all countries. Either a land must fight against its friends, or it must feel itself torn from within. I thought this saying was true for other lands but not for me.
That was when the treading I felt most deeply were farms, children, and roads. Those are years that my waters ran clean and my earth seemed to ring with joy. Evéa has always been a place of peace from other wars of man. My wall like mountains and narrow touch of the sea has protected my people form the throbbing of other nations. I thought the rich forests, rivers, and plains would have protected the land from within but that is not how men get peace.
This war began and grew as a cancer.

Doing something because you want to

When I graduated High School, I wanted to write, I loved it and it was easy. That same desire followed me into college. When I found out at my sophomore year that my university had now started a undergraduate creative writing major I enthusiastically changed my major. the first two semesters I loved my creative writing classes. The homework was to write and read for workshop what others students wrote. Writing was easy, and the stories I liked were wonderful to read and those i didn't I would just read what I needed to give a comment(harsh, but for me necessary).
Then second semester of my junior year I noticed a change, writing was no longer as easy and not near as fun. I tried to brush it off, but then came senior year. Instead of inspiring me, the workshops just convinced me that if the members of my class were a real sample of the next generation of writers, I would have nothing but the old classics to read. It seemed no one knew how to write anything that didn't involve humanity/morality is horrible, sex and molestation, or drug use as the central theme. I felt like my writing was boring too or not good enough. Consequentially, I stopped writing prose fiction (although I didn't realize it at the time). Despite this fact, I continued to think that I would magically write volumes after I graduated and that my husband would have to pry me off the computer, but it didn't happen.
I would write a little bit, but not regularly or in vast quantities like I thought I should.Thus, I became more discouraged and writing became even harder. This cycle repeated until I ultimately told my husband, "I've made a huge mistake, I don't have what it takes to be a writer. I am no longer going to write."
It was soon after this that I again found hope. After a year or wondering why I couldn't write it finally clicked. The strange thing is that I thought I knew this before, but really it took time to learn. I needed to write because I wanted to and for no other reason. That concept was hard for me because I thought reasons like I needed to help bring in income, or I needed to write something to inspire others were much more important reasons, but they aren't enough. I learned that if you really want to do something well, you individually need to find a way to take satisfaction in it. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but I think at least with thing that you create, if you don't care about it or if you are more concerned with the outcome of what you are doing then in the joy of creating; how will anything you create have a life either individually or on its own?
Well I guess this post is rather rant-like but perhaps its not.

Starting things

So I was looking through my old writings and I've decided I like to start things.
I think the one over the most enjoyable experiences in life is when you start an idea or story…then comes the work, the boredom and possibly the failure. That is not to say I don’t enjoy ending things, in fact the ending can be the best part, but the truth is that the beginning of a story or an idea is all possibilities.I think this same principle applies to life.
At the beginning the whole world is yours to manipulate and achieve. As soon as you pass the threshold of beginning however, doors shut, limits come into view, and the world of possibilities slowly closes in on you.
For example, say you want to be a great dancer, achievable right? of course! but if you really want to be one of the best dancers, you'll need to start young and have the ability to be taught. The sad truth is that a 30 year old might desire to be a great dancer with all their heart, but unless they have experience behind them, while they can learn a lot, a thirty year old body has already developed limits in movement and flexibility that will only increase with time, so unless they did gymnastics or something similar to dance, they can learn to dance, but will never be one of the best. Harsh? yes, but true.
Perhaps this is why I have such a hard time getting through the middle of a story. I can think of a beginning and I can see a picture of an end, but I don't have much experience with the middle. Starting isn't just what I know, that's what my life has been. Now that I've grown older, I've seen the doors close and closing. I realize avenues that looked appealing are no longer available, and now I am forced in the middle, this unfamiliar, under celebrated time where I can't walk certain ways and see the limits around my path. Oddly, enough I find that doors I know I don't want remain open, almost like they think that just because I can't go through the doors that are locked I would want to go through them... maybe that's why so many people make dumb decisions when they get in their 40's, they think the world is closing in on them, so they run through any open door without looking.
Perhaps as I live this sometimes monotonous, but still very new middle I'll learn to write middles to stories. Perhaps the problem I've had only starting stories is that I need to learn to live in the middle myself before I can write characters who get though the middle.

Roller Coaster

Its click, click, click
then your heart begins to echo
bump, bump, bump
you feel yourself falling down

the succession of sound
raises you higher.
10, 20 click-bumps
beating, around
two directions to travel
until the end of the beginning,
just one course to go.
some say the fun has ended,
but those who know,
know the fun is now.

Not a Fan

So facebook has this thing where you can become a 'fan' of something. I think that's stupid. Not because it is stupid to be a fan of something, but because frankly I don't care if one of my friends suddenly decides to like bubble gum. My thought, bubble gum that's great, good for you, now moving on... The thing is the way facebook uses the term 'fan' means I like it. I think, at least I hope, that most people like a whole lot of stuff. I mean if I started listing the stuff I like it would take a long time and become very boring in the morning...I mean heck, there would be a whole section on different types of back rubbing. The other thing is that if your with a friend and you discover something you both like, you have just shared a bonding moment, Hurray! that doesn't happen so much when you read it, if you read it, on a side screen of facebook. Also, if I accidentally serve you a meal you are a 'fan' of it's great...but the reverse is not true. It's for this reason that I think instead of knowing what someone is a 'fan' of is not nearly as important, at least on an acquaintance scale, as knowing what they are Not a fan of...meaning the things someone actually dislike, deeply,with a passion. For example, I am NOT a fan of Ants...sure they do a lot of good...but put me in an area with them, or have one on my leg and my one objective becomes their utter destruction (Harsh? yes. Over dramatic? Possibly. Necessary? Absolutely.) To wrap it up in a nut shell, say you invite me over to a dinner, you have Jack Johnson playing in the background, serve green bean casserole and beef Stroganof to eat, then have a game of settlers of Caton set-up for after (all of which I am defiantly a 'fan'), but your whole dinning area is infested with ants. I am sorry, but no matter how good the food is, or how awesome you are the whole night the only thing that will be on my mind is how am I going to get away from these ants? Love you...Ants? Not a Fan.
By the way, you may notice that this blog has no poetry. Why? I am not writing a poem about Ant or being/not being a 'fan.' The End.

Men and Women's minds

Awhile back my husband and I listened to a pretty good marriage councilor trying to describe the way men and women think. He said men think in cubbyholes and women think in streams, and I guess that was a long thought out hypothesis, but I think that there is a better way to compare how men and women think.
Okay so here’s the analogy:
So I’m cleaning the house and I start with one small project, lets say cleaning the dresser top. Okay, so here’s what happens. I look at the dresser and see a big mess; there are papers, trash, random knick-knacks, and make-up. I throw away the trash. Then I take my make-up and start putting it away when I realize I need to just reorganize all my make-up, I reorganize and clean out my make-up drawer. I go back to the dresser and look at the papers. In the stack of papers there are things to be shredded and things to be filed. I sort them, then go to file the other papers, when I notice that the front room is a mess. I put down the papers down and start cleaning the front room, and then I see we forgot to clear the table off from breakfast. I notice that the dishes are stacking up and need to get done…etc.
My husband decided to clean the dresser. He throws away the trash, doesn’t know where my make-up goes so puts it in a pile in the bathroom, puts the knick-knacks somewhere else, files the papers, and wipes of the dresser top. DONE
Okay, so here’s the difference. My husband sees an objective and works only on that objective until it is done, even if it means setting aside other things or placing my make-up in a garbled-up mess in the bathroom. In short, he gets the original objective done, to him at least, well and efficiently.
I don’t see just one objective, while I see that the dresser needs to be cleaned, at the exact same time I also see that the front room needs to be cleaned, I need to organize my make-up, make lunch, etc. So when something happens like I come home to see my make-up in a chaotic pile in the bathroom, I get upset because, even though the dresser is cleared off, the task of organizing my make-up is now harder. Then when I say I’m going to clear off the dresser, and my husband comes by several hours later and sees the dresser not cleared off, he becomes baffled as to why on earth it takes more then a hour to clear off a space the size of a dresser.
It might seem like one way is right and the other wrong, but the truth is neither is right or wrong, but both are needed in a family. The fact that my husband can work at something and get down quickly helps me out immensely, because he sees the one goal and gets it done. He needs me because since he only sees the one objective so he often doesn’t see that putting the make-up in a jumbled pile is actually going to make more work in the future and he might not put together important things like our two year old niece is coming over and there is Windex on the ground of the laundry room when he’s working on a goal.

Marriage

I see you and I smile,
It is simple to see
I love you-
You love me.

But it is the difference that strikes me
From day to day
Children on one,
Lovers the next-
Advisors, companions confidant.

Your are my best friend and destroyer.
Turmoil to rest
Frustration then respect

It all ends with love.

Each day I know you better
The sorrow worse,
Bliss more consuming.

Daily your kisses alter,
Varying like the sea.
Yet most times it’s all the same
But each day it is better
Your heart in me,
My heart in you
Until at last they beat
Eternally-

Happy poetry and Sushi

The problem with writing poetry when you happy is when your happy it's kind of nice to enjoy being happy instead of writing about it. For instance, say you’re a poet and your at a nice sushi restaurant, with family or good friends. Then a server brings your table the first plate of sushi (for me we’ll call it salmon bombers or fried California rolls, but you can insert you favorite sushi or a great appetizer if you have not been turned over to the sushi side) Okay, so your enjoying your company, your significant brushes their hand or foot just right on your leg and you have your favorite sushi in front of you. Soon the delicate wonderfulness of rice, seaweed, cucumber, crab, salmon, sauce, and whatever else that makes sushi taste wonderful is in you mouth. Now, answer this question to me, do you stop, pull our your laptop/notebook/napkin/pen and write a poem while your brain is in the enthusiasm of happiness? If you answered yes, then great for you, but the better answer for your psyche is NO! In two minuets all the good sushi will be gone and you’ll be left with some sort of gross squid, having missed the hilarious story your brother-in-law, who never speaks, tells about himself in a mad moment of sushi overload and the come-on your significant other was about to make on you until he saw you were writing a poem about enjoying life. I mean really! I guess some people might think that a poem about sushi is better then actually enjoying the sushi, but I sure as heck am not one of them (or amn’t one, for you more progressive writers/thinkers).

Sushi-
As you are, you wrap my tongue
In the delicate burst of joy
As taste buds tingle
Electrify pulses to the brain
That smiles, to savor the sensation.

Laughter fills the space
With stories
With the past.

It slows the intake
Until the eye, catches movement
A fury of wood and mouths
Longing for the sensation

Your move, your hand
Like a centipede
Pining you find

The rice turns brown
Drips,
You open your mouth again
To be entangled
Filled
Happy

The clashing of sticks
Slow,
The war over
You look at the warriors
Who sit back in their chairs,
Smile.