hectic holidays....

the holidays were hectic around here. my nephew returned briefly from the army, he was home for two weeks. i cooked a lot, we showed him a great time, and hopefully he feels loved and like life is good for him =)

i got to perform in the community nutcracker held in fernley this december, and this is something that i am so glad i did. i will definitely do this again. i did initially because i love to dance, but found out after we were there that this was a community performance to raise money for scholarship funds for kids who otherwise would not be able to continue taking fine art classes at the university level without this scholarship help. a worthy cause, and we had those girls shakin' their groove thangs by the time the weekend was over =)

here is a picture of myself and my dance partner with a very flushed looking teenage santa:


hopefully next year we can convince more dance sisters to join us!

on new year's eve, controlled burn performed at our third annual "fire and ice" extravaganza at northstar at tahoe. the village there is a lot more filled out this year and in spite of the chaos that generally accompanies an event like this, it was a good show.

after the show, i went to a friends house, who does safety for the group, and had a quiet and festive new years celebration.

that's about it, for now. will try to post again, soon.

there is less than a month left in the presidency of gwb. although the celebration truly began in november, it seems more real now. i have spent a lot of time on obama's transition website. i am going to make a concerted effort to never be apathetic again, i believe that's how we got where we are now, and our newly elected leader wants to change that. i am in the process of reading "the audacity of hope" and it's quite engaging, so far. now, i just need more hours in the day =)

peace.

hectic holidays….

it was a hectic couple of weeks, with my nephew here.

everyone in the house partied very hardy. i, did not. it was sort of just like the type of stuff i was glad to get rid of when he left for the army, but it was good to have him home. most of the difference is that he had money this time, which was a definite change from the past. we wanted him to appreciate being home, and i think we did that.

someone actually asked me this morning if i could have more people over my house to party tonight. these are not people i know. at all. i am amazed that they asked, because i’ve come home or been home the last few days and had people i didn’t know in my house wondering "who ARE these people"?!?! i wonder in what universe with these folks is this okay? people don’t seem to have the same sort of respect for folks or stuff that doesn’t belong to them that they used to.

this sounds sort of negative, but it’s really not. i think we all had a good time. i cooked a lot. i like to cook, i just don’t like to be the ONLY one to cook and clean. THAT, bothers me. we need to seriously clean up the house now, after vacation. it won’t be me, doing that =)

the holidays were very quiet for us. we stayed home mostly. it wasn’t about commercialism. each person got one nice gift. for the family, we got "guitar hero" for the wii. that is some good game there. it’s SO FUN. much time was spent, the last few weeks, realizing why i don’t quit my day job and become a singer =) all of us suck pretty good at it, but we are getting better and it is loads of fun. next, our goal is get wii fit. i’ve heard things about this that are amusing.

i am not really feeling much like writing, but did want to update.

will write again soon!

peace

happy solstice…belated

 i am at that point where i am feeling exceedingly blessed in and for my life.

spirituality has been something that, while not really lacking in my life, had been less prevalent than at other times in the past. i thought around samhain time "gee, i used to put a tremendous amount of energy into creating and putting on these elaborate rituals to help many people celebrate the solstice’s, now i do none of that…" this is true, but i also do things that bring people happiness (i hope) and joy on a more regular basis, and it’s all people, not just pagan people =) i mean, of course, the difference between fire performing and being an active pagan. the pagan beliefs have never gone away, they are just not practiced as intentionally or with as much purpose as in the past. in many ways this makes me happy, because what i am doing now is more physically active, and i enjoy it a TON. at any rate, the dichotomy had occurred to me periodically over the years, so i thought i would mention it =)

on wednesday of last week, my nephew came home from georgia for two weeks on leave from the army. i’ve been very domestic lately, cooking all his favorite foods and making sure he feels welcome and loved while he’s home. he’s enjoying things pretty well, i think =)

last week, at some point, i got an email from someone who is a casual friend, but not someone i know overly well. his son participates in our fire group, and he is recently divorced. he invited me to a solstice celebration at his house. i had previously been invited to a bar crawl, that i had thought of attending, but i am just SO not a bar person, normally. this was so much more in line with my values and what i wanted to do, i made a mental note to do so, knowing that i also had to go earlier in the day to a cookie exchange, which i knew would also be fun.

in essence, my solstice was perfect.

it started with the cookie exchange. i went boring and did snickerdoodles, but they are a good cookie and super easy to make, so that made life super good. the cool thing about the cookie exchange is that it was with friends that i made while being involved in the aforementioned pagan stuff, so it was like spending solstice eve as i have on several other occassions, sharing food, wine, and good conversation with good friends of a like mind. bliss. i stayed later than everyone else to visit with my friends i hadn’t been able to connect with for awhile, and timed it just perfectly so that i was heading south at exactly the right time to catch the solstice party.

i think it’s sometimes good to be around people you don’t know well. it forces you to remember what it’s like to be "the new person" and also allows you to interact with people you might not otherwise, if your friends were there. i did get to spend a decent amount of time with some folks also from the fire group who also showed up, getting to know them a bit better. i wasn’t sure, honestly, if i was going to last until midnight, when the invitation had said we would toast the welcoming of the sun again, and longer days. man, am i ready for longer days….i didn’t think it would ever get here! it’s especially poignant because it’s been really cold here lately, like bone-chilling, less than 10 degrees cold. burrr.

so this guy was having a solstice party, but he hadn’t heard many of the stories associated with the celebration of the solstice, so i was able to share some of this knowledge with him, which felt good…and right. some more people were exposed to religion that predates christianity! yay, for open-minds and open hearts!

sunday dawned clear and chilly, but it was going to be a good cooking day for me. i had promised my nephew mexican food and had done some of the prep work for it, but then gotten distracted by cookie making and put the prepared ingredients away, so sunday is generally a day i cook and have not a lot else to do, and so it was.

just as i was putting the finishing touches on dinner, my cell phone rang and it was that girl i have mentioned before. the one who likes to play around with me and kiss me when she’s drinking, but otherwise seems hot and cold (pun intended hehehe). things have changed between us. i appreciate her in my life, and honestly, i think she needs my friendship the most at this point in her life. she’s seeing a very nice man, and seems happy. i see her pretty often, and with her, i definitely think friendship is the safest course. at any rate, she called to say that she was having a small, private solstice celebration and she’d like me to be a part of it. I told her i’d be there and i went. she doesn’t live that far from me…

the ceremony was great. what we did was write down 5 things that we wanted to get rid of in our lives and 5 things we wanted to accept, grow, or harvest in our lives. then we shared the things we wanted to purge before throwing the pieces of paper in a fire that was in the back yard, then came inside, sat around a table and shared the five things we wanted to grow before placing them in a jar, to be buried with fertilizer tomorrow and buried, so they can "grow" this year. after the smallish ritual, we went christmas caroling! it was a lot of fun, and i feel like my holiday was perfect.

have any of you, with kids or on your own, ever played the game for x-box of wii called "rock band"? that is the FUNNEST game..we giggled for hours the other night, the kids and i, singing those songs and trying to figure things out.

today, is a great day, and i am SO ready for the days to begin to be longer.

here’s hoping everyone has awesome holidays!

peace….soon =)

the rest of the family drama….

okay.

so. i found a lot of stuff last week about my "family of origin". that there phrase is in quotes because they are only, in my mind, tangentially related to me. the two women i am talking about are the blood sisters of my mother. one full blood sister, one half sister, i believe. my mom and her older sister were raised by their grandparents, their younger sister, my aunt l, was raised by the mother, my grandmother.

i talked a long time to my cousin on the phone. it was good. i’ve always felt a kinship with him, like maybe he and i were aliens in this world of dysfunctional bullshit. i feel that even more now, and the phrase "family of choice" is even more important to me.

when i was little, for awhile, both my aunts lived in the bay area. the younger aunt, li, lived in hayward and the older (than my mom) aunt (lo…two initials because both first names begin with l) lived in fremont. my mom used to drive us there for holidays, but not all of them. it seems usually thanksgiving but rarely christmas. i have more christmas memories of home than of either of their houses. i do remember though, that my aunt li used to take us in to san francisco on the day after thanksgiving to see all the christmas displays in the city. they were always amazing, my favorite being neiman marcus. i think one of the things that sort of hurts the most about this is that my sister, who is small and cute, had always seemed to be the favorite child of all our relatives. except my aunt li, who seemed to love me more. i have many fond memories of me with her, in hayward. she taught me how to bake. i remember being in her kitchen and sifting flower, trying so hard to not screw anything up because i didn’t want to make my auntie mad or do anything that would take away her good favor. this got me through many childhood angst moments, because her and my aunt sue, i knew, loved me for who i was. i was wrong.

my cuz told me that my entire life, his parents have disliked me because of my size. i am a plus-size woman, but not overly so. he told me how his dad used to talk about me, the horrible things he would say. i knew he hated children, but didn’t realize he also hated large people. the funny thing about this is that HE WAS FAT!! he had big ‘ole jowels that made him look a lot like a cranky basset hound. he was not a nice man. i had sort of wondered why i hadn’t heard from my aunt since my moms death, but knew she had her own hands full…taking care of her older sister, and then with her husband, my uncle having brain cancer and dying within a year and a half or so of my mom, i was sure she had her hands full. she told my cuz that i was a lazy slob. please keep in mind that i have not been around this woman regularly for probably 30 years. how she would know this is beyond me. perhaps from my mom…she told my cuz that my mom used to talk about how miserable things were for her in reno when she would visit them. cuz says that she probably couldn’t have stayed positive about things, being around them and in that environment. i don’t know what to think about that.

will it be wrong of me not to be terribly sad when both these shallow people die? my other aunt, lo, also hates me now, but i am told that this is because she feels that if i had taken better care of my mother, she would still be alive. have i mentioned anywhere else that my aunt li is a "devout catholic"? that makes me laugh on a number of levels, but i should probably just leave the fact as having been recorded here. i am saddened that people who don’t even know me, or know who i am bear me ill will because of their own narrow-mindedness. and that i share blood with these people sort of makes my skin crawl. my cuz was all up in arms and ready to defend me to his mother, and i told him not to bother. life is too short for me to be worried or allow my self-esteem to be affected by two bitter old women who don’t know anything about me and have chosen to form negative opinions of me based on gossip and their own need to rationalize their sisters death. it doesn’t seem to matter to them that neither of them were around as she was getting more and more sick. that my one aunt works for the mayo clinic and has done everything for the older sister, but did nothing for my mother.

i’ve been struggling with this for the entire weekend. i am so thankful for what i have. i am thankful that i have raised children that take people at face value, and appreciate people for who they are, and are not, i don’t think, overly judgmental. they are good people. i am ashamed of what i’ve come from, but feel heartened in the fact that with me, this insanity stops. may it not carry to any more generations.

peace, fleeting.

the joy of thanksgiving…

so, now, about the good.

i hope that no one thinks i am overly verklempt about the whole family business. i am sad that there are shallow, bitter old ladies in the world, but aside from missing an inheritance who’s value would probably be minimal to me at any rate considering what it might cost me to my soul, i am not all that bothered by what occurred. it’s all stuff i had a sense about, i think, it’s just that to have that sense codified hurts a bit. it sort of makes one go "oh, wow" in the way of meeting a casual aquaintence you start to converse with only to realize part-way through the dialogue that they are very racist or something equally repugnant. ew.

so, in the normal course of grocery shopping for a number of grown people, i ended up getting a couple of free turkeys. these came as my local grocery store was giving away turkeys under 16lbs if one spent $100 at their store. this is really easy to do for a weeks worth of groceries, so i got one 16 lb turkey and one package of turkey breasts.

d actually decided he was going to help out with the holiday prep this year, so he cooked the pies the day before and also remembered to take the turkey out of the freezer. none of you can understand how epic this is in terms of him actually remembering to do something to help out, i’m here to tell you =) he tries, but he has A LOT of short term memory challenges, shall we say.

my son showed up early, like 10am or so, which was pretty surprising to me. i think he’s really hurting and wanting to have family time. i know there is a sense with him, told to me by my husband, that he is afraid of letting me down because he is doing something that goes against my values with the army thing. he really doesn’t see that he has much choice, and i think he has nothing but choice. regardless, he is my son and i will love and support him. i just wish he understood that he could come home damaged for the rest of his life because of this decision. or he could die or maimed or emotionally scarred for life. as much as he tries to hide it, he is a sensitive person and he will not be able to remove that from himself, i do not believe. at any rate, he was there early and i was glad. throughout the day, always there were people saying "is there anything i can do to help?" always believing that a collaborative effort is better than not, i took them up and one of the perfect moments of the holiday for me will be the memory of my son and sister peeling eggs for deviled eggs on one corner of the kitchen island while myself and our room mate ashley were on the other side of the island, her chopping artichokes for dip, and me chopping fresh fruit and veggies for home made salsa. my daughter was there, too, getting ready to take over for ashley so she could do something else. it seems so much more meaningful to me if everyone can help contribute to the meal or the food atmosphere. at one point, we were reminiscing about my mom fondly. the cool thing about that is that it was with laughter and good will, which i know is what she would have wanted. while i am sure that a couple of us got a tad bleary-eyed, i didn’t observe any tears actually breaking the barrier to cascade down cheeks.

my sis had pretty much spent the previous week cleaning up the house. she sort of started to make noises about needing help with this when i pointed out to her that her and three other people do ALL their living in that room, d and i do none of it, so it didn’t seem fair to me for us to clean something we never contribute to the mess for. she got motivated, and it was very, very nice, and they’ve mostly been keeping up with it too. it’s a huge relief!

so, that was the essence of my turkey day. the house smelled fabulous, it looked decent, and the rest of the weekend was spent being leisurely, reading, watching movies, and enjoying each others company. there truly is so very much to be thankful for. life is good.

peace. soon. i hope.

good lord….

 i just wrote the entire history of my mom’s illness and death. for a cousin. because his mom now thinks i am evil. i suppose some folks need people to blame. it took a lot out of me. you can’t write something like that out and not relive it.

maybe i will post it here as a fav’s only or a private entry. not that i will ever forget anything that happened. i don’t know. i feel raw. and my heart and chest feel constricted and heavy. my eyes are red from crying and my nose is still running.

i still miss my mom, and it’s been almost two years. this is the season, the season that marked her last.

grief never ends, it just becomes tolerable as time passes.

peace.

beauty is where you find it…

pasted from http://www.theroot.com/id/48726

it was posted on November 5, 2008

Dear Brother Obama,

You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear. And yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of a different time, and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you, North America is a different place. It is really only to say: Well done. We knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of the spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.

I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.

I would further advise you not to take on other people’s enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people’s spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.

A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

In Peace and Joy,
Alice Walker