There’s A Lot Of Bugs In That Light

ah, the sound of children yelling. I am waiting in the lobby while my daughter takes Taekwondo. This is the second class of her first week. I can already tell the difference in her attitude. If I haven’t mentioned it before Sarah is ADHD and bipolar. She was diagnosed in first grade. She is now in fifth. It is quite a roller coaster, even on medication. I think we have tried every medication out there too. Luckily one of the first medications I tried worked. Not so for Sarah. She is such sweet kid and it is really hard for her when she has a cycle, up or down. The Taekwondo is supposed to help with focus and confidence. Any little bit would help. I look forward to the day she says “I can do it.” Most of the time it is “I can’t….”. It is hard to here your child say anything negative about themselves. I think she is going to be like me, which is good and bad. She has started writing already. I didn’t start until seventh or eighth grade. She is only in fifth. Like any parent I hope she just gets my good stuff, not the bad. Unfortunately we both have the bipolar and Celiac (story for another day). I guess all I can really do is be there for her like my mom was and is (yet another story).

Yesterday’s post was short. I think I was overwhelmed. I have a hard time believing that in 3 years I will be fourty. It seem so absurd and I am fighting it all the way!

Yesterday got me thinking of birth, common for a birthday I suppose. But I was think about the birth of my children. What an amazing thing to be a mom. I found a poem I wrote about Sarah when she was born:

Your the jewell of my day

the step on my way

You give me the power to be me

A gift from heaven

I unwrapped carefully

My darling little one

a family are we.

On this day in 1971, I was born.

Happy Birthday to me!

Funny, I don’t like getting older, nor do I feel older.

Well, in a way I got my snow day. Snow days are days of work or school when you get to play or relax. I got my day off work, plus a few extra.

I had an emergency appendectomy. Apparently my appendix had been perforated for sometime and was planning on bursting soon. Personally, it was worse than natural childbirth, at least the recovery. So, I have been out from work for two weeks, long snow day.

I had been considering getting a new tattoo on my lower right abdomen, good thing I hadn’t yet or the surgery would have certainly ruined it.

I love snow. It always make everything look so clean.

My son likes to stomp on it and make footprints. My daughter and the neighbors love to sled. Me, I like to drink tea and watch them all enjoy it.

My parents house when I was growing up had big windows on the east and west side so you could sit in the kitchen and see snow on both sides of you but you were in the warmth of the house. My folks even had a real wood burning fire place, I loved the smell of pine when it was burning. We have a gas fireplace in our house now. No smell.

We are supposed to get more snow tonight, hope it is a lot, I could use a good snow day at home.

Apologies and Thank Yous

 Twelve steps without a ladder

A realization that you only live once

They’ve all touched my life

Good or bad

But I wouldn’t be who I am If they hadn’t of crossed my path

I didn’t have to stand in the front of a room

And confess my sins

To realize how the past has affected me

So here I am with my apologies if I hurt you

And my thanks for having been a part of your lives

I send it to the world so it can reach you all.

   I just wrote this poem today. For the last couple years I have been trying to find people in my life that have touched me along the way. I have managed to find one. I guess that is better than none. I hear people go through this kind of process in a twelve step program. I haven’t been to one of those programs but I try to tell my friends and family how much they mean to me and how lucky I am to have them. So here are to the many that I have missed.

I have to laugh. In looking back at my posts I seem so serious. I am not really. I am the class clown, the bringer of laughter.

I have a few funny poems but I really only write poetry in my serious moments. Which used to be several times a day. These days they are few and far between, it is amazing what modern medicine can do. I think everything changed when we lost our daughter Ashlynn. Death was staring at me and I decided life was to short to be serious, I was determined to live everyday to its fullest potential. I am too busy playing with my children, teasing my husband and laughing because I say a lot of things my mother said when I was a kid. My mother lives with us, which makes everything more fun. She adds a sense of comfort and is very helpful with the children. Having children gives me a second childhood, this one is much more fun than the last one.

So as I reintroduce myself as the laughing poet I can talk more freely about my poetry and my life. I was born a poor white child, no wait, was that a silver spoon? Middle-class is I.

I was born in Mesa, Arizona in 1971. Second child to an Air Force pilot and a stay at home mom. My brother is sixteen months older than I am. We didn’t stay in Arizona very long. Like most military families, we traveled a lot. California was home for a while, then Alabama, then California for the second time, Arizona again, then Texas and Colorado.

Colorado is where I have planted my feet. I want my children to have roots unlike my childhood.

I have my introduction but now where do I go. I have swirling ideas but not sure how much I really want to share. For those who know me I am quite an open book. I hope to actually write a book someday but don’t know if I am ready to put it all out there.

My writing is my outlet and my split personality. I can write from many points of view. With bipolar and OCD my emotions run amok so it is easy for me to change moods easily, even on medication.

I suppose I will start with my background and when I started writing. Then we’ll see where it goes from there.

It is amazing how many places our inspirations come from.

A song, a book, the sky, children playing, or in my case bugs in a light.

I thought I was so intense sitting on the couch and staring into the light.

I looked at my friend and said, “there’s a lot of bugs in that light.”

He said that would make a great name for a book.

At the time we were making a mix tape of music and named it that.

Wish I still had that tape.

 

The Poet

I play with words to
help you understand
what goes through my mind and why
I take a stand
I believe the heart is the center
of it all
that our mind has to follow
or else we fall
My emotions go beyond what
the average man sees
For I am the heart of all
of these
The poet I have named me
and in turn you call me this
But to me I can see no bliss
For heaven is far more than the Gods home
Its a place where I can be free and
plant my own stone.

-me