Forever Young: 03/12/12

Blog Manifesto

This blog is dedicated, as the title would suggest, to the qualities of being young. We are young writers. We are playful and sensitive, fluid and changing. We are unashamed with our art. We wonder at the world, puzzle over the meanings of things and twirl in delight at images and ideas that float by, grabbing at them as they pass. We are curious and constantly inquiring and prying concepts open and taking assumptions apart. We are on the ground, close to the earth. We have bare feet and wiggle our toes into nature. We carry our blankies still and wrap up cozy and comfy with each other and tell ghost stories and shiver at creepy things. We laugh and we cry and we take a lot of naps, drained from our outings and exertions.

We write as gifts to each other, tying them up in ribbon and leaving them around for each other to find, hiding and waiting for the person to wake up and read. Surprise! We weave our stories together to create a bond. One writes, then the other. then another again. We have a shared reality that we have crafted, bit by piece by patch, by string. We write simple, honest authentic things, with our unique voices. You can tell each one of us from the other, without knowing who wrote what. Our voices are clear and gentle and original. We whisper and our personalities roar! Like children, our feelings are strong, our passion for what we write shakes us. We are moved and sometimes left breathless, by our own words or the words of each other. We cannonball into each others spaces. We fall backward into each others writing, like into a pile of leaves or a soft bed. We gobble and grin and ask for more. (footnote kudos to JC)

Then we go to bed, wake up to a new day and do it all over again!

Monday, March 12, 2012

tenacity

when i think of tenacity.. i think of a bulldog with a tug toy.. gritting its teeth and growling
i think of my mom.. saying 'if they wont let you in the front door, bay.. go in the back'
************
i have a friend.. he is 52

big big dude
always smiling
never has an unkind word for anyone
a great friend

he has worked hard all his life.
forgets he isnt 20 anymore.
works in the parks division in the township we live in.
stands ontop of a dumpster at work
flips a huge television into the dumpster
loses his footing
falls 6 feet onto his shoulder

they rush him to the hospital
no broken bones
no nothing

one month later, he falls on the ice and breaks his finger
he's never broken a bone in his life..
a few months later, he finds out there is a tear in his rotator cuff and bicep
rehab 3 months
few months after that, he finds out he has a jones fracture and cant put any weight on the foot for 8 weeks after surgery
again rehab
foot still isnt right.. now he is vitamin D deficient

dude has bad knees too
had arthroscopy a couple years ago..

still always smiling
never an unkind word
tenacious

*************

dad had a pain in his foot
said it was excruciating
wouldnt go to the doc
hobbled around
sprained his good ankle..

my cousin had to call the ambulance
because he still refused to go to the doc
.. it was gout.
stubborn

************
my brother
used to be tenacious
i wonder what happened.

Tenacity

Paces the floor, looks out the window.
Waits for the car to pull up.

Stubs a cigarette out onto her jeans.

Crosses over to the hookah and fires it up.

Shup shup, the water gurgled as she pulled on the filter.

shup shup she said to the voice in her head

By the time he got there, she was feeling no pain.

There you are, she said with hazy half lidded eyes.

Want a toke?

===================================

“we wouldn't ask why a rose that grew from the concrete for having damaged petals, in turn, we would all celebrate its tenacity, we would all love its will to reach the sun, well, we are the roses, this is the concrete and these are my damaged petals, don't ask me why, thank god, and ask me how”

Tupac Shakur quotes (American rap Artist, 1971-1996)

JC already did a piece on tenacity and it has a link to the tensile strength of yarn. You know how they test it? They pull and pull and pull till it reaches its breaking point. They don't bend and snap it, they just keep pulling and pulling

uh.huh

Sand or shells.

Much has been written and said about the ‘how’ of achieving and maintaining balance. The key for me is making sure my priorities are right at any given time. I would like to share a mind picture with you that helped me maintain balance not only with my kids but with other areas of my life. The illustration likened our priorities to beautiful shells or rocks that we might find along the beach and the things of lesser importance in our lives to sand. If we fill a jar with the sand, we won’t have room for the shells – or the important things. If we put in the shells first, the sand finds a place around them. For parents of children with bipolar disorder, knowing what the ‘shells’ are at any given phase of the illness is absolutely vital. Of course, some of our priorities will always be the same but other priorities change according to the illness. At a critical phase your priorities may be centered on safety. During periods of wellness your priorities may be centered on teaching skills missed during periods of instability. So if you are looking for balance, make sure you can identify the beautiful shells and don’t be afraid to dump out a little sand to make room for them.

so good! ganked from http://www.thebalancedmind.org/connect/blog/2011/12/balance-and-bipolar

I want to shout to the rooftops. This blog is soo good.
look look look.
http://www.thebalancedmind.org/connect/blog

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We have to work on personal boundaries with my son. He won't allow me to tell you why this came up recently but it does nearly every day.

Links I find useful.

Bipolar Adolescent: Parenting tips

Hair Tomorrow

I loved that O'Henry story, The Christmas Gift (or whatever it was called) wherein the young couple exchange sacrificial gifts; his a comb for the hair she cut to buy him a fob for the watch he pawned to get her the comb! I brought a very young child's mindset to the story when I first heard it. I might have been six. It was ironic and I knew what that was. Imagine, a sacrifice of each which voided the gift! What a story!

As a teen I reread the story, an assignment, I guess. Certainly it was not a story I would have chosen on my own. I was into Heinlein, not O'Henry! Imagine, the poor couple! No money to buy a good gift, they were forced to scrounge for a lesser expression of their love for each other. I knew what that was; scrounging, making do, being in love, coupling. How romantic!

O'Henry! Now? What does this gray-haired old lady think of your story. When presented with 'hair' as a subject and 'gone' as a predicate, what lesson lies within your story for a mature mind? The couple, the gifts exchanged, the love...the sharing! That's what it's about; having another soul to share with, while we can. Even if it takes a loss to get us there.

Thanks for being there. Share. Sharon!

my knitting story

when we were kids
ma taught us to crochet
now, i dont remember how

i remember she always wanted to learn to knit
never did

when she passed
i bought a learn-to-knit kit
set about learning
it was a mess
i threw it all in the bottom of the closet in the second bedroom
forgot about it

years pass
i clean out the closet
and find the knit kit and yarn
and the holey mess i would have liked to have called a scarf

i cried

i sat down right there in the middle of the room
in front of that closet
dog at my side
and didnt get up til i had several neat little rows resembling the start of a scarf.

grit.
tenacity.
and love.
i have it.
*********************************
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenacity << that was totally accidental haha

finding the strength

worry is useless
USELESS
worry is a trap
and an EXCUSE
a FALLBACK .. an EASY OUT

beat it down.. slam the door in its face.. better yet, run it over with that car..

it is holding you back.