Before I am Famous

I don’t know if I am really neurotic, the jury is still out on that one. I found a blog called Stir the Cauldron on Entrecard the woman who runs the site is a Wiccan does free Tarot readings. I sent her an email asking if I would ever become famous.On Saturdays she posts a tarot reading of the week. Though mine was not posted she sent me a reply email back. Here is what she wrote:

8 of wands, Queen of Wands, Magician - all three in reverse.
Wands of activity, great haste, speed, and great hope, take things in stride, move forward holding nothing back. In reverse, major obstacles in your way, you can overcome them, but your haste may get in the way, the obstacles will take time to overcome.
A woman with a magnetic personality, creativity, the staff she holds is blooming with life and potential. In reverse - holding back the spark of self and creativity, keeping it hidden. You know what you want, you are independent, but are allowing yourself to be swayed from the goals you want in life
Magician creates something out of nothing and so can you. Your life is under your control, it can be what you want it to be, the power of creation and destruction rests with you. In reverse - self doubt and lack of confidence creates feeling of powerlessness and dependance on sources outside your control. Remember your life is in your hands, you have limitless potential, your will is your power, even when all worldly power and resources seem lost, you are never truly powerless for your true power comes from within can never be destroyed.

Goddess Oracle Card - OOnagh (Easy Does It) - “Everything is occurring in perfect timing. Do what is imporant to you with absolute devotion. Remember there is no competition for your true life’s purpose, no need to worry, no need hurry or force things to happen.”

From the cards and what I am sensing from my guides is that whether or not you are ever “famous” isn’t really important, but that stepping forward with confidence and joy you can create the life you truly want. Fame is not the goal, your creativity, excitment and potential in life will unfold before you, grab life boldy with both hands and move forward.

In a lot of ways I do hold myself back from being something better than what I am. I am afraid. Afraid of a lot of things, I suppose the big thing is respect from other people, my blog being shut down because of the stories, fear of rejection. Of course, I don’t think anyone revels in rejection.

I am also incredibly disorganized. My life doesn’t lend to time where I can focus on one thing. I have been like this all my life. The best sucessful people make time for things. Sure I make time for a lot of things however I do or try to do too many things at one time. Look at me right at this minute and see what I am doing, blogging, starting a business, being a mother, cleaning, cooking, reading, thinking, writing and whatever else. I don’t spend enough do anything writing related even though I said I was going to. I say a lot of things that just don’t get done. Even if I woke up before Sunshine and went on the computer not to blog but to edit or write or anything even for 2 hours that is more than I do right at this moment.

I say I want to be a published writer, that is what I dream of but I don’t try hard enough. I don’t do enough work to make that happen. I don’t take enough risks, not with writing the story, not with sending it away. I used to have issues having my parents read what I wrote but I grew out of that we are all adults but I am still fearful of people in general.

Paradoxically, I’m the biggest blogging junky in the world. The whole reason I started to blog was for one thing, to have people read my work. I just want to be read and maybe in the limelight. I am too scatterbrained and I can’t stay focused with a definitive goal in mind.

For example, for Claire’s writing contest I wrote and edited a new story no one has ever read before. I did nothing else except work on that story. I was relentless. I worked until early morning just plugging away at the story. One week and three thousand words later, I sent in my story. It is the same thing with Weekly Shorts stories. Since I dedicated Saturday night to Weekly Shorts, after Sunshine goes to bed I will sit down and write a story in a hour.

I am a huge procrastinator unless there is a reward somewhere. Blogging is a reward because there is an audience I try to please and in some twisted fashion I live for that one person who might come and read and maybe even like what I wrote.

Perhaps it is not a question enough but a question of focus. Can I make a goal and keep it? Because if I want something bad enough as much as I want to be a respected writer, a published writer, a writer that tells the naysayers to shove where the sun don’t shine and I don’t care what they think, then I should figure out what to do and do it. I am the one with my busy, chaotic brain, frenzied, and stressed that lives for all those things are also the same things destroying my dreams as well.

Ten years is the amount of time I been out of high school. Really it doesn’t seem that long ago that I even graduated. Next week will be the full ten years. It was pretty surreal. It rained earlier in the day and I was left to scramble around for tickets for everyone to come. My mom and my step dad came (who I just call my parents) my step mom and my dad came, my brother, my grandparents and my best friend, J. I had to do a lot of schmoozing to get those extra tickets. I didn’t feel sad graduating though, it might because I didn’t know that many people.

I lived in NH for three years and went high school up there and then I moved down to PA and finished my senior year. That last year, I think prepared me for the next years. Times of changing friends, saying good bye to the old ones and saying hello to new ones. Life just kept changing. Sure I can rattle off a list of what I did in the last ten years but it’s not really worth it. I would really think many people who graduated in 98 or sooner have similar experiences to mine.

If there were a reunion, I wouldn’t go, I don’t see the point and I don’t really care what happened to people when they grew up, I didn’t even know them as teenagers. I do reflect on my life and just wonder about this or that. The past can’t be changed and I know that. Right now I am at good place in my life and I am happy for that. Sure, I wish there were some things in my life that were better right now but I am satisfied at the moment and I suppose that is what really counts when you look at the bottom line.

To the class of 98, we made it ten years!

Earlier tonight I watched that PBS special, “My Generation, the 60’s”. They run it all the time during membership drives. I love the music from the 60’s. Yes, I know I am way too enjoy to be from the 60’s. Actually, I love all music except for Muzak. I love the 40’s, classical, today, yesterday, etc. For me the music brings different memories but pleasant all the same. When I was younger almost every Saturday night, after my brother went to bed my dad would turn on the stereo to the oldies station. If anyone listens to the oldies station you would know they play a lot of goldie oldie type of songs. We spent the night playing maybe Rummy 500, or Canasta or maybe even Monopoly, drinking soda, eating snacks, singing along with the songs, laughing and just being together. Those were great Saturday nights.

I wish I could live one week in each decade just to experience it for myself. My mom and dad both were teenagers in the 70’s so they could tell me the things they did back then. Who would I be if I time traveled back to the 60’s? I would be anti-Vietnam but I would never spit on a service member. They went because they had to because their country told them to go. Maybe I missed that day in history class but I don’t know this country told them to go to Vietnam. I would protest for civil rights and I would frequent concerts. I can’t sing so music is out as far as a making money. I guess I would be a waitress to make money to do all those things.

I hear all the time about radical the 60’s were and there many movements and it was about free love and peace. And how it was a great decade for some. I wonder, these questions being directed to those who were in their late teens and beyond are the baby boomers did you retain the spirit of the 60’s through your life today? If not what changed? Was it only a fad, a rebellion against squeaky clean upbringing? Or is it all just a memory, a gay time in history with change that brought good with it? 40 years from now some kid might ask me about the 90’s and the rise of generation x.

Memorial Day is to honor those who fought for this country. Not only that Memorial Day is for family picnics, jumping in ice cold water. It is a time to party. When I was younger Memorial Day was held at my grandparent’s house my uncles and  their families were there. Pop grilled hot dogs and hamburgers and the inside of the house smelled like baked beans and potato salad. Beer and soda were the choice beverages.  How do you really  explain the dynamic of just being together, telling jokes, listening to stories as a solidified memory. You really can’t because all those Memorial Days are rolled into one.

I do remember one time, when I went to the pool. My grandparent’s house is only a couple of blocks away from the community pool. I was determined to go swimming so I brought my suit. My mom said the water might be cold even my grandmother said it wasn’t a good idea. But why would I listen to them. That year May was on the cooler side. I walked to the pool myself. There were a couple of people sun bathing, a few brave kids with swimmers on their arms bobbed up and down in the blue slightly rippled water. The lifeguards wore red jogging suits bundled up as if it were October. Who cares? I love swimming, tossed off my clothes and jumped right in.

The cold water mad me lose  my breath briefly. I surfaced to the warm  sun but my legs felt like ice cubes.  I tried my best to stay as long as possible but I couldn’t do it. With in a half hour later, I was back at my grandparent’s house to whispers of “I told you so.”

Things change. I grew old and started my own life people die, and the memories become faded shadows of yesterday because no matter how someone tries to recreate those days,  it will just never happen. I guess that is what happens when you  become an adult, not only do you try and make  your place heard in the world but to create a whole new set of memories and traditions because the memories my daughter will have when she is an adult, I hope bring her laughter.

Easter is one of those holidays that I don’t get in the holiday mood. In my opinion, if there was no Easter I would be okay with it. When I was younger, Easter was great a basket full of candy then onto my grandparent’s for an egg hunt with either money or candy inside the eggs. Sometimes the weather would be warm and sunny or cold and gray. Easter when I was a child always had fond memories and always will.

The more I aged the more Easter lost it’s appeal. There were a couple of years in between leaving home and before my daughter was born that our Easter celebration consisted of the ham dinner. I even worked some Easters. Perhaps the biggest thing about Easter is the feeling of spring in the air. No matter what Easter day is like the warm weather will come upon us and the rain will fall and the grass will grow.

We colored eggs yesterday. She asked me why are we are coloring eggs. I don’t know, I told her, it’s just what you do at Easter. I don’t hide the dyed eggs, chances are we would never find them all and I would forget where I put them until it rotted. So I don’t know why dyed eggs. I did as a child and I suppose I am looking for a  tradition to make Easter a fond memory for my daughter even it is simple as the two of us dying eggs in many colors; having stained fingers because the egg dipper never works right and the egg always seems to roll off the table spoon and it is so much easier to use your fingers. Perhaps it is because she wants to do things herself and instead of handing me the freshly dyed egg, it falls from her hand to the kitchen floor and cracks. I don’t know but they are there now.

For those who celebrate Easter have a nice one.

A Lake-

Surrounded by soft green peaks sits a still lake. Ripples prodcued from the northerly wind lay quietly stop the water. Towards the shore, lily pads sleep rocking slightly with the breeze. Reflections of white puffy clouds, the green gaurdians of the infinite blue sky  can be seen as a wonderful tattoo gracing the lake’s skin. Dragonflies frolic amon the foliage and dip their legs in the inviting water.

Pink Lemonade-

Ahh the sweet and sour refreshment of pink lemonade. It tastes like a summer breeze . The sour then sweet excite my tongue. Tastes so cold like an arctic snow. The lemon strong and the sugar light- quenching a hot thirst.

Solace for me is not the bottom of a glass bottle nor some kind of substance that can be smoked, snorted or eaten. No, solace for me is writing. It has always been writing. For someone who teeter-tottered on the brink of depression, writing is the only place where I could go away, to a world I created.

I remember writing stories and poems at a very young age and I am not talking about school assignments. The very first time I picked up a pen and just wrote for the sake of writing was when I was 11 years old. I just moved from Pennsylvania to Delaware, with the move I started a new school and a move from elementary school to middle. It was in class and I was bored, instead of taking notes or doing math problems I jotted little poems. In 6th grade I started to write stories as well. Apparently, middle school was a catalyst for my love of words.

I had an English teacher, a young fresh out of college teacher and she encouraged creativety to the full extent. She introduced me to journal writing, nothing was off limits. The class had to write in the journals every day. I wrote in mine instead of yakking about what I done that day, I made of this whole radio show complete with commercials. While my “radio show” was wacky there was a problem with the classical music people, they wanted me off the air. My teacher loved it and told me one day I am going to be a writer.

Life continues, by the time I turned 13 my stories took a dramatic turn from child’s play to horror but not Fear Street, R.L. Stine horror, but something darker, more sinister more adult. There were no limits in my stories, they were twisted and sick as some might assume. Who knows these stories could be a direct reflection of the difficulties of school. Not the class work, the social aspect of school.

I turned 14 and we moved from Delaware to New Hampshire. Now I started writing longer and more frequent. But not as many stories but poems, at this time I wrote at least a poem a day and in my journal. Though my friends at the time said they liked my poems, I felt they were crap. I didn’t think I was any good but for some reason, I couldn’t stop writing no matter how bad I thought my work was.

In eleventh grade, another teacher discovered I had some talent, if you want to call it that. At this time, I tossed writing to the curb, I was tired of it, angry with it. Then the Huck Finn project came along. The assignment, in a group write a screenplay based on the character of Huckleberry Finn and make a movie. At first I told my group, I will not write this at all. As the the writers at the time started to write, I just thought it was all wrong. The one member looks at me and told me to write it and I did. Something emerged from that assignment, pride in my work and a re-emergence of a darker side to my writing. The teacher knew I wrote it all and gave the project almost a 100. I was reinspired to write again.

With this advent of a new writing day, my obessession or my craziness in mind came flooding back. Endless nights of writing because I had to finish the story or waking in the middle of the night just to write something. Voices of characters not yet written raced through my head.  I wrote steadily for a couple more years and then I quit again save for the occasional poem or partial story.

At this time, I was in my early 20’s, the feelings of not being any good resurfaced and I knew I was done with writing. I tried writing stories when I donated plasma but the magic wasn’t there nor was the drive. The stories in this time frame were never finished and to this day I can’t bring myself to write them. When I wanted to write again because I missed it, I felt that I had the dreaded writer’s block. Really it wasn’t just I felt that I had lost the spark again.

I tried something new, I forced writing. I have never done this before because I always believed you could never force something to the surface from with in. It seemed to work, the more crap I wrote there was one little gem that with a little polish could shine.

Coming back to the present, here I am with the dying need to write again to point of obssession once again. I have spent sleepless nights writing and toiling over my work. I think about writing all day long and like person craving that cigarette I become irriatated when I don’t write.

I wonder, how many people are like me? Writing is a big part of me it almost seems like it is me. Are we just wavering on the brink of sanity day in and day out? If I couldn’t write anymore is day I never want to think about. If I never become published or never become famous that is acceptable but if I could never write again, I better be dead.

Today did not feel like Christmas. It is unnatural for it to be a sunny day. Not only that it was not cold. The temperature kissed the 40 F mark all day and the sun shone high in the sky. It felt like more a day in March, trying to push the winter into the forgotten past then a day in an infant winter. Though the weather was mild, the air was still silent as it always seems to be on Christmas day no matter the weather.

Tonight when I stood out and looked at the Christmas lights from my front yard, and breathed in Christmas fires I noticed no birds, or owls who-whoing in the distant. For as long as I can remember Christmas is always silent. And now it is the day after and I feel sad that it is gone. Christmas rushes to come and disappears just as quick, like some unknown natural law the owl sends out his lonely call into the chilling night. Time marches on as a new year is around the corner, and here I am wondering who will I be by next Christmas.

Have a great day!

comment from blogger-

My Christmas was even sunnier than yours! I hope you took it easy on the eggnog!

When it comes to someone dying, I have a hard time talking about it but writing it, that I can do. Since last week I have been thinking a lot about my grandmother who passed away on Tuesday. You always think you should never be taken for granted that someone would be there forever but they aren’t.

Everything happened so quick and what it boils down to is I can’t believe that she is gone. I have a whole lifetime of memories of my grandmother and I am thankful for that because some people don’t have that opportunity. I spent a couple of weeks during the summer at my grandparents house. She took me to work, and McDonald’s. This one time I was writing on her couch when I fell off the couch and got stuck between the couch and table. She had to come and move the table. That is just one memory I have. Still I will miss her.

It is times like these that we have to believe in life after death. I simply can not believe that when you die you are done. Whether it be heaven, summerlands, ghosts, or reincarnation, the soul has to live. It just has to. I hope where the soul goes when the body dies it is in the same place as my grandfather because I could never accept that she is gone completely.

The following is dedicated to my grandmother…

Thanksgiving, it is a time for togetherness and thoughtfulness. I am an adult now but I can’t help remembering Thanksgivings spent at my grandparents house. I am the oldest and my brother is a little younger than me so it was just 2 and then the rest of the family. For a long time, my brother and I ate in the tv room watching movies and eating our meal. Then more cousins came along and I graduated to sitting with the adults.

I don’t know what it is but no matter how I old I get I will always remember Thanksgiving at my grandparents. There is no way that those memories could ever be recreated. It is a nice place to go when I am away. I suppose that how it goes when you get older and make your own way in the world and traditions change. Nothing wrong with that, is that what it means to grow older. I cook the Thanksgiving dinner where as while I was growing up, my grandmother did so.

Memories of Thanksgiving will always warm my heart and remember simpler days of a carefree life and limitless dreams. Hopefully the memories of my Thanksgiving can bring great memories to tomorrow’s Thanksgiving.