Wednesday 1

Breadcrumbs

By | May 14th, 2012 | Category: Editor, Featured 2, Memoir, Nonfiction, Robin at Pensieve, Wednesday 1 | 10 comments

{by Mary Lauren Weimer, My 3 Little Birds}

I almost didn’t go.

It was spitting Michigan sleet and I was tempted to change into sweatpants and curl up on my chair with dinner in my lap.

Sometimes, if I turned the antenna in just the right way, I could pick up Canadian channels. To me that sounded almost exotic–watching foreign television. But I’d worn a dress and heels to work, and all that wardrobe effort would have been wasted on another evening alone in my apartment if I didn’t venture out.

It was Ash Wednesday. I needed Lent like detox.


Rocks

By | February 13th, 2012 | Category: Featured 2, Memoir, Mr Lady, Wednesday 1 | 34 comments

{By Brian Sargent from Looky, Daddy!}

Brian Sargeant Looky Daddy

A few months ago, Kathryn spent a day collecting rocks. She collected maybe three dozen of them from around our neighborhood and placed them all on our porch. Most were small, only a few were bigger than my fist, but despite the fact that none of them looked in the slightest bit out of the ordinary to me, Kathryn told me she selected each one for a reason. Each one, she said, had something special, some unique quality that set it apart from the rest. So I sat down next to her on the top step of our front porch and she told me about them. She told me about each rock individually, asking me to recognize and confirm the differences that she saw, to affirm the uniqueness of her selections, and in doing so, affirm Kathryn herself. Affirm her uniqueness. It was one of those special moments a dad shares with his daughter if you define special moments by skull-bashing tedium.

Oh my god that girl uses a lot of words. And she just keeps using them and using them.

When Kathryn was younger, it was I who talked to her about everything. I filled our time together with a running monologue of anything I could think of. A lot of it was high-minded and ideological, like what she could be when she grew up or the proper response to handsome princes who might imagine her to be in need of rescuing, but much of it was just stuff I was saying to keep my brain from crusting over with the same dried shell of spit-up to which most of my clothes had already succumbed.

I told her about the water cycle and about social justice. I told her as much as I remembered from my philosophy classes, about Schopenhauer’s delightful pessimism and how the Platonic ideals were crap but they were important crap. I explained crock pots and told her the secret to my brisket dry rub. I told her words and phrases I knew from other languages. I told her there is magic in the world and she didn’t need to look any farther than a bottle of sunscreen for proof of it.


She Suffers

By | December 5th, 2011 | Category: Featured 2, Memoir, Mr Lady, Wednesday 1 | 10 comments

{By Danielle of Knotty Yarn}

going back by Knotty Yarn

School starts in two weeks. I could not be more thrilled.

I love school. More importantly, I love being a student. Having the undeniable permission to pay attention, soak in, look around, experience, and learn. I’m good at it.

Lately I’ve been reflecting on how I generally feel from day to day. It’s easy to sidestep talking about depression when you aren’t actually depressed. If you believe in hocus pocus, you fear that talking about it will bring that black fog back into your life. If you’re easily overwhelmed, you just want to focus on each day. If you’re medicated, you often don’t care to talk about depression, as long as you have relief from the physical effects of it.

If you’re all of these things, it’s hard to sit down and reflect your emotions via the written word.

I’m not depressed. I’m not experiencing anxiety from the monumental task of getting out of bed and looking each day in the eye. I’m not exhausted from insomnia, forced awake by the constant worry and sadness. I don’t curl up and weep in the shower, on the kitchen floor, in the car, in bed. I don’t unplug the phone, ignore email, forget friendships. I don’t look at babies and think “What a shame to bring that kid into this pitiful, bleak world”.

I haven’t thought about quietly, unobtrusively killing myself in nearly two years.

Yet when referencing depression, either internally or externally, the only thing most of us can think to say is that we suffer. We suffer from depression. How can I be suffering from depression when I’m not actually feeling depressed? It’s a linguistic accusation.

I no longer think of myself as someone who suffers from depression. I experience depression. I acknowledge that yeah, I have the chemical version of the devil’s advocate living in me all the time. While I hope that it won’t rear it’s ugly head ever again, there’s no way for me to be certain. Things that come naturally for most people require a lot of thought and internalizing for me. Sometimes I need medication to help me…to help me. Help me get going, help me get on, help me get through. I spend a lot of time kicking my brain’s ASS.

This last time around, I was able to turn my depression into the impetus for making a big, tangible life changing decision. I had to plug in the phone, answer the email, say “yes” when I wanted to say “no”, persist when I wanted to take a nap. It took a team of loving, dedicated people to give me back my life. To get me to a point where I could open up a world of options for myself, be brave enough to try something new, make connections and new friendships, rediscover my creative life.

I’m not suffering.

And I’m not merely alive.


Haunted Places of the Mind

By | October 24th, 2011 | Category: Featured 2, Memoir, Robin at Pensieve, Wednesday 1 | 8 comments

{By Jessie Weaver, Vanderbilt Wife}
Enjoy

(photo source)

It’s a sign of my ongoing struggle with body image that I can still see the magazine layout in my head.

A pair of teenage girls roller-bladed in bathing suits in some now-defunct young teen magazine (because I was way too young for my mother to let me read Seventeen). (I think it was, in fact, Teen magazine.)

I couldn’t have been much older than 7th grade. I stared at that page mercilessly, willing myself to be small enough to wear a two-piece bathing suit. When I did get skinny, I would buy the exact one on the right of the spread: still modest, a coral-colored two piece with a unique, off-the-shoulder top. I’m not sure what deluded me to think if I were thinner I would suddenly have the body of a 17-year-old, but I was sure I would look just like the girl in that spread.

I’ve never worn a two-piece. Not even as a child, that I can remember.

The reason I remember that issue of the magazine so vividly is because it laid out a diet. One that WORKED! Of course! I carried the issue around, dog-eared, for weeks or even months. Trying, trying. Coral in mind.

I didn’t drop weight, not even with all the tuna and frozen peas and white-meat chicken.

Somewhere around eighth grade, I hit a growth spurt and thinned out a little. Not two-piece thin. But that magazine was during the lowest point, the hidden years, the year I was bullied and it makes me want to throw up to even think about. Until I had someone call after me the slogan of a popular weight-loss commercial, every day, for an entire school year, I’m not sure I even realized I was truly overweight.

I’m fairly certain not a day’s gone by since seventh grade when I thought of my body in a positive manner.

To remember my solitary focus on one coral-clad model makes me sick. But I still want that now grossly out-of-date bathing suit.

: : : : : : : : :

Read Jessie’s original post and comments.


Bright Ships.

By | September 6th, 2011 | Category: Featured 2, Photography, Poetry, Sara Sophia, Wednesday 1 | 13 comments

{by Mollie Green of Fresh Milk Delivered Daily}

bright, white in the sky, the moon bold faced and shining.
far away, a distance i only know in numbers, but clear,
valleys and summits in sharp gleaming gray inside the orb light of it.

here, the white bright moon, open and full overhead.
here, a night that breathes like curtains in open windows, in, out again.
here, a hope of spring in the corners of it, hope riding wings of mercy free, new.


Outside the Lines

By | August 1st, 2011 | Category: Art, Featured 2, Robin at Pensieve, Wednesday 1 | 8 comments

{From Deidra at Jumping Tandem}


Remember those boxes of 64 Crayola crayons with the built-in sharpener?

In my world, it didn’t get much better than that.

I could spend hours with a box of crayons and a coloring book. My grandmother or my mother would color one page, and I would color the page next to it.

As the years went by, I took pride in my ability to stay in the lines.


My Middle Name

By | June 9th, 2011 | Category: Featured 2, Memoir, Mr Lady, Wednesday 1 | 22 comments

{by Jim of The Busy Dad Blog}

The crowd was evenly split, half of them waving dollar bills while mockingly encouraging their chosen gladiator, Jeff. The other half doing the same, but chanting “Greasy! Greasy! Greasy!”

Greasy Lee. I didn’t choose that name. It was bestowed by the 5th grade bully elite upon the chubby Asian kid who always happened to suffer bad hair days.

I glanced across the makeshift arena, which was nothing more than a clearing between two boulders and a tree stump in the woods behind the school. Jeff and I locked eyes. Not in aggression, but more in a desperate telepathic attempt to assure the other that we were doing this for our mutual survival.

I don’t remember the fight. But I do remember sitting in math class afterwards, unable to write anything on the worksheet in front of me because my hand was trembling uncontrollably. I also remember the dozens of perfect red dots on Jeff’s white polo shirt, which matched the missing skin on my middle knuckle.

There we were. The only two Asian kids in an otherwise white working class New England town, divided and conquered.

* * * *

When we first moved to the suburbs from the heart of Boston, it was every kid’s dream come true. A sprawling ranch-style house with a huge playroom, a circular driveway for unhindered bike riding, and an immense backyard. Which meant I could get a dog. Summer was everything it was supposed to be.

Fall meant starting a new school, but I wasn’t worried. I had switched schools a couple times before, and it always brought with it new friends. Also, this was the first time I was going to take a bus to school. Just like in the movies!


Love Song in a Foreign Language

By | May 12th, 2011 | Category: Art, Featured 2, Mr Lady, Wednesday 1 | 5 comments

{Original post by Tarrant Riglio of Retro-Food}

Well you ask me
to sing you a love song
and I smile ‘n say
Hold on
Let me think
~Melissa Ferrick, Love Song

And then I sing you a love song in a foreign language-the language of food, of recipes.You know this blog is your love song. You can pick out the words and hear the tune. But, will you ever understand it? I think you do now.

You have learned the words and the tunes. You have watched my movements as I flip through cookbooks, plan meals and dance my messy way through the kitchen. Just in case…let me explain a bit more because as I thought about how to talk about this curious mixture of love and recipes…I learned more about myself, you, and those whose recipes I cook.

Joseph says I cook because I love. Is that his epiphany or mine? Both I think. I do. I cook to woo. I cook to nourish. I cook to teach. I cook to love. Meals can show off. Meals can feed people. Most of all, my meals are a hug, a kiss, a wink, a thank you, a caress, and the recipes the love songs that play in my cooking.

That is the draw of old cookbooks and recipe cards. Sure, the commercial ones with their funny pictures and fussy ideas on keeping a home amuse me. The ones that sing to me though come from Junior Leagues, churches, Women’s Auxiliaries, ones handwritten on a recipe card, ones with names attached. Those women share the love songs they sang to their families and their friends through their cooking. The ingredients may be foreign or impossible to find in these times. (celery Jell-o for example) The ingredients may just hide behind another name: oleo, xxxx sugar, #2 cans.

But listen to the tune…you know this love song. This is the dinner made for a mother with a newborn. This is the cake made to celebrate a son’s birthday…his favorite. These are the pork chops and potato pancakes counted on to bring a smile to her father-in-law’s face. These cookies sing holiday tunes with Mama in the kitchen with excited children. She tucks these memories away as she tucks the cookies in tins to give to her friends. Recipes sing the love song of a cocktail party or a brunch filled with laughter and friends.The recipe that makes a full meal out of stale bread, an egg and a few slices of cheese? This is a longing love song to feed a family with a bare pantry and days to go before a paycheck.

This recipe? The chocolate fudge pie? It sings a love song of a mother distracting a brokenhearted teen daughter when she learned that not all friendships are forever. Look at this one! It is the recipe for the aspic that great-grandmother made for Sunday dinner. She never said I love you out loud…but she always had a cake on the glass cake stand in the dining room for you. Maybe the Lemon Cheese Cake? The Caramel Cake? Or the beautiful, slightly wicked Devil’s Food cake. Love.


head over heels

By | April 28th, 2011 | Category: Featured 2, HeatherEO, Memoir, Nonfiction, Wednesday 1 | 8 comments

{by Christine Green}

I was a feather of a girl for a while there. I could stand on my head in the middle of the living room floor for what seemed like hours. My mother would peer at me from the kitchen nervous that I would fall, but she did not scold or ask me to be sensible. She simply let me be.

She knew, I think, that those days were fleeting. She knew that someday the weight of many responsibilities would sit on my shoulders and my easy lightness would be replaced by a heaviness that would keep my feet firmly planted on the ground.

I’ve tried now, cautiously when no one was around, to spend some time upside down again. But I can barely lift my legs into the air, and my feet feel like lead weights. I’ve tried, too, in yoga class with plenty of prep and lots of help from the instructor, but I always freeze up. Fear washes over me and I convince myself that I will fall and break a leg or embarrass myself in front of the entire class. So I quietly move on to something else: a nice, firm warrior pose or a quiet, safe child’s pose.

But I see the others do it and wonder at the ease with which they seem to turn their world topsy turvey even for a second or two. I see them and I remember those sunny childhood afternoons I spent with my feet in the air and my heart easy. There was no fear, just action, as I swung my legs upwards toward the clouds. Then there was a calm while I watched the world pass crazily by as I stood on my head, motionless and quiet.

My son seems to be taking after me these days and spends inordinate amounts of time with his feet above his head. I watch him as he hangs upended on the couch, his small, perfect feet drumming a rhythm on the wall as he watches Scooby-Doo, and I envy the carefree flexibility of both his body and spirit.

I should, like my mother before me, let him be. I should let him hang there upside down among the cushions where he is happy, free, light. But I feel compelled to turn him right side up, tell him to stop before he gets hurt.


Naming the Fear

By | April 4th, 2011 | Category: Featured 2, HeatherEO, Wednesday 1 | 16 comments

{by Jo of Mylestones}

Sometimes I feel like the pit of my stomach is an airtight word container, precariously latched, desperately shoving against my heart to spill onto the open page. Sometimes my soul must labor to breathe because of thoughts lodged in my lungs, freed only in the coughing compulsion of tippity-tapping on the keys.

I don’t always feel it, but when I do, it nags at me until I can’t think of anything else but letting it out. And most of the time, I don’t even know what it is I’m unleashing, until it is there in front of me in words I can finally read.

But that’s nothing new, right? Just a common ailment of a writer? (Or in this case, of a girl who is still reluctant to call herself a writer or even admit that she wants to be one.)

What troubles me is how this feeling gets in the way of my daily life, how it diseases the moment I’m in. And what troubles me more is how in my melancholy, I savor these symptoms as if it is soothing to be sick.

I despise how easily I can disappear into my head and miss the rich flavor of the moment. I know I won’t be offered another taste of those sixty seconds, yet I persist in fasting from the present.

It strikes me at the library, surrounded by foam puzzles and board books. It strikes me at a party, surrounded by friends and frivolity. It strikes me on a run, in the car, in the middle of a conversation. It strikes me, and I think, “I must start writing, or I will explode.” (I am wrong about this. I will not explode. All that ever happens is that I grow weary of feeling on the verge of explosion.)

And here is the bottom line, if I’m really confessing, if I’m really naming the fear. I’m afraid that if I don’t let the container spring wide open and write, then I will never know what the deep-down me is trying to say. And if I don’t find out, if I (the daily I) do not listen to her, then no one will. She will never be heard.