nowhere = now here

13 thank yous

1 - my neighbors across the street have their christmas lights up - the old fashioned big colored kind, with a star by the front door. I can see them from my computer table, inspiring me to light a candle for better writing ambiance.
2 - my daughter Be made up for her totally diva attitude about going to her dad's for the holiday by helping me cook and being generally sweet, fun, and good company. Bless her too for trying to peel taters the granny way, for the banana pudding, and for her scruffy friend who showed up out of the blue, allowing us to feed an indigent on this day of overindulgence. And, last but way not least, for taking off with Scrub and Scruffy and leaving me the dishes and the solitude to do them.
3 - thanks to my boss for insisting on buying our holiday feast - ham and green beans, yams and yeast rolls and pillsbury biscuits, and canned cranberry sauce. From the freezer came the butterbeans, Lil'Sis brought the banana bread and helped with Be's taters and pudding.
4 - I appreciate Be's dad calling her this morning even though she was a diva over visiting him.
5 - and thanks to Lil'Sis for telling my mom I was asleep and couldn't come to the phone.
6 - I guess on a list like this I should mention the bigger things in life - I have my health and my daughter and a loving family and I'm beginning to get more work after a real dry spell last year.
7 - I also have a great zany friend nearby named Shay who stopped over yesterday. We've been friends for thirteen years and she's a constant, a gentle teacher and so fuckin funny.
8 - thanks to another boss for calling me up tonight while he was frying the turkey. Enough said.
9 - thanks to wncw for Alice's Restaurant today at noon.
10 - BigSis called last night - another constant. What a natural wit, a logical mind, my first rommate and friend; no matter what, she never lets me go.
11 - I cleaned my room today.
12 - And didn't work at anything I have on my desk - the first "day off" in weeks.
13 - Leftovers!

the moment

As I look over my shoulder, only my tears are salt - the rest of me sometimes feels like stone, sometimes a dry sponge straining desperately for the water I can hear.  (me, 2003)

Be in the moment, my friend Shay has been telling me for years, and for years I said, but I have too much to do.
For a long time I didn't write. Words were too precise. I drew instead: an endless series of black ink on white paper pictures, ready for crayons or colored pencils, two dimensional. People tell me to sell them but for me the process is enough - it stills my hands and perks my ears and makes my thoughts flow - like washing dishes or raking the yard.
But writing inevitably begins to make my hands itch and my throat clog - begging for the blood,  burning for a sincere attempt toward truth.
My best ever writing teacher asked, who's the watcher on your shoulder?
What would happen if women told the truth of their lives?
As I contemplate the possible readers of now here, I have only one hope - that they will challenge me to stay in the moment of truth.
I am a 45 year old single mom of a 20 year old daughter, Be, who, with her boyfriend Scrub, lives with me in this NC mountain town. We share our home with 2 boycats, Jake Blue and Jett. I work alot right now, which makes being in the moment when I take some time off a bit easier.
Be is the defining experience of my life til now, this child I raised with so much loving help from our friends and a great deal of fear and anxiety at my own blind audacity. Watching her unfold is a great adventure.
The next adventure is learning again to live for me, not first and last us. I look back at my younger self in some wonder and some exasperation; I'm looking for clues.
"I feel like a survivor who has lost everything but her life, who wanders around inside a skinny shriveled lady, collecting dandelion greens and muttering to herself." (the Women's Room, M. French)

Why blog?

Bloggers encourage others to blog, as if we nonbloggers are missing out on an interesting and intimate conversation, as if being an involved blog reader is to get only half the story. I have resisted as a natural naysayer will resist - default answer no - I have resisted as a writer who rarely writes for public consumption - I am a writer whether I publish or not - I have resisted adding another bill to my pile and another chore to my to do list, one that I can then ignore and feel bad about.

But - a friend offered me the opportunity to take a blogging class and the class turned out to be taught by another friend, and part of the class is - you guessed it - creating a blog ..... so - here I am.

So - screw my courage to the sticking post and get over myself - and begin the conversation...