We carry our scars with us ...

We carry our scars with us. Into the grave we go. Every scar, and every healing patch goes with us… All the experiences and relationships, go buried and never returned… Every “brown eyed girl” song, and every sunset on the beach that reminds us of a certain relationship; every time we made love in a tent, or on the beach, or in a club, every time someone said we’re “hot”, or “ I love you”… every time we smell hey… every time we drink from the stream, the cold stream, running shallow and fast over the peaks…Every crisp morning in the mountains…
Every fearful step we took towards building a “relationship”… it all gets marked, yes, as a “notch on our … flesh” … and gets buried with us. Who cares? Where does it all go? Is God going to quiz us on it? Is St. Peter? What about Paul? Who cares?! By the time we’re done here, it’s so much part of “us” that it doesn’t matter…
We’re richer and maybe wiser (who’s the judge of that??) after every person we meet touches our life (and everyone we meet does! Positively or not – no judgment here…they just all do)… But who do we share this richness with? No one and every one…
We are who we are because of all the little spoonfuls of sand that everyone that knows us added to the big pile! And we’re different because of all of them. Unspoken, unmentioned “mentors” and “sand-adders” – they all contributed.
Each one of them added a feature to our character.
Because of a song, because of a castle, because of a high mountain, because of a fear we overcome, because of a breathless sunset and a blistering winter somewhere … we are different… We are … who we are at this moment…because of all of them… “casualties” (really??!!)…in our path…
They drag us down and they carry us through… They are our cross to bear and our Golgotha to climb… That’s why we accept them all so unconditionally… We have no choice, but surrender.
We share them unconsciously every time we take the next step without them… And they’re silent pieces of what we show to the world as “us”… They deserve some credit… Some; but who’s willing to give it to them?
I am just … giving “thanks”… to adding a little piece of “something” to the already over-complicated “me”…

Completely randomly… dislocated thoughts …

Aren’t you happy that you’re not 18-20 anymore?? I surely am! I am happy that I am not 18 when we tend to torture ourselves for the sake of attention. At 18 our poor brain must really feel like if we don’t go out of our way to f(*&& ourselves up completely, life is over! I was never much focused on my appearance, because I was brought up to invest time and money and passion on what lasts, and clothes, makeup and accessories only last while the season is in, so I never wasted any time. But I was always fascinated by my peers… You know: when you’re 18 and you dye your hair this hideous color (purple? Pink? Blue? Whatever the hell strikes your fancy when you drink too much and you don’t see the daylight clearly), and pierce your eyebrows, and your lips and your nose (oh, especially your nose!), and your cheeks and God knows what else visible, because it has to be visible, and then you stand still and hope someone notices. And you walk slow. And you stare. And you hope that people see you. And all people can think of when they see you is “ well, yeah, you’re weird! And you’re hurting! And you look like an idiot! And your parents are failures! What’s your point?! What else you want me to see there? ’Cause it ain’t that deep!” – and you know that … but every day, you go out into the world with your tight jeans and piercings that don’t allow you to eat or kiss, or f(*^%, and you feel “noticed”… And being weird is “cool”. It’s better than being … nothing (in your shallow mind, because at 18 I swear kids’ minds are about half of an inch deep, hormones and too much “book learnin’ “ just clutters it altogether!). Oh, but all the ridiculousness is all worth it! … when you’re 18… sure it is!
I am glad I am past that! I am past being a monkey at the zoo!

People from MySpace, please, I beg of you: learn how to speak English (Romanian?!) BEFORE you email me! “ I like you/ your profile, so why don’t you hit me up” ain’t gonna do it, dude! Like I said before: I would hit you up … over the head, but I got no time to find your ass! So, stop spamming me!

And please: your MySpace default picture is … a PickUp truck??? Pray tell me what THAT is gonna do for me?! Ok, yeah, very attractive indeed! You haul dead or smelly, run down, pieces of junk. And my interest would lay where?! Not in THAT bed, I assure you! I hate any kind of car-show-off-ness as it is, but c’mon! PickUp trucks??? I know we live in the South, but you must have a clue that THAT is not a “pickup” … car! It is JUST a “pickup”! At least borrow your rich cousin’s Camaro, or something … Please, show a little “class” (I hurt myself laughing again…)…

I find lately that dating is as hard as hanging art on the walls: so rarely do you hit a stud! Yeah, you need a magnet … but without one, you’re lost!

You know who wore rings through their noses in my country? Pigs! We put rings in their nose, thick metal ones, so they would not dig the soil; it hurts their nose, you see, and they start bleeding and that way they don’t dig the yard all over the place! Oh, I am so glad I had my mom to remind me of that when I was 18!! So glad!
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Blue Couch Wake

“The moment I let go of it was the moment I got more than I could handle…” (Alanis song)
PS: I can only hope so…

OK. I admit I do have the occasional T-Shirt I used to go to bed in when I was 14 and had a crush on Al Pacino (I figured he might like it …). Yes, I still have the elephant print tank that I stole from a production line back home, when we went into a field trip to a textile plant in 4th grade; and yes, I still wear it, when I miss home. And don’t we ALL keep our college jeans that will never, ever fit us?! (I swear my bones grew!).
But to get attached and emotional about … a couch? I mean, I have been able to pack very little belongings into ONE suitcase and move across the Ocean into a different continent once. I have lived in 6 homes in less than 10 years now… I have had 4 cars so far (less than 10 years again)… I said good bye for good to people, and places that I loved and adored. I have seen the love of my life die, and still lived to tell the story… I have just left a place behind…
Every spring and every fall I get rid of maybe a quarter if not half of the contents of my closets (all of them). I have been known as a “thrower”. I believe in physical and emotional cleansing, as often and thorough as it’s necessary… I always hear my grandmothers tell me: “Honey, when we go, there is only so much you can fit between 4 boards. Learn to let go of material things”.
But this couch, somehow, is different. For some reason, something about that couch I threw out tonight just made my heart shift! It was the first couch I had in this country; the couch my then future husband first mentioned we might get married on, the couch of many naps in lazy Southern afternoons, and the couch of my cats’ first naps under my roof, too. It was the “coming of age” marker for me. It was a dark blue couch, nothing particular about it, a little bigger than a love seat, with annoying sliding pillows everywhere on it… And yet the thought of just telling it tonight “you’re dismissed”, “you’re no longer needed”, just like that, and the image of leaving it out there, in the rain, and the damp weather close to breaks my heart… I hoped someone would come and pick it up, and give it another second life, but no one came. The darkness fell on it; and then the rapacious rain. And then my heart sank… I just don’t know how to let go of the silly couch!
I guess for so many years and lonesome nights it was the anchor of my home, in the main room of my home… I just never imagined my living room without the blue couch, I guess. It’s even been replaced already, by a bigger, queen size sleeper, that’s beige-green and has no personality (yet?!). My old, torn and stained couch had memories, and life, had proof that people, and cats and kids have shared it and have loved it. Had … personality. It’s weathered the last 10 years of my life. And I know the cats are missing it, too…I feel like a traitor and a bad, bad mother…
I guess the feeling of ending, and impermanence, and disposability that even us humans, not only “things” share is just so vivid, when I see it sitting at the curb, that it makes me cry. “All good things must end”, huh?!
I am always excited about the door opening and can never see the one that just closed. But this one couch really closed that door tonight, with a bang! Or it never yet closed it fully. It still wants to peek in…
I know, I am becoming neurotic and I need to stop. But I can’t. Tonight, I’ll mourn…

One word on dating. Or not.

Maybe I am old. Or maybe I am just boring. Or maybe… just maybe, there is a chance that I have always been boring. Or old. Or both. Who knows? I have always been picky about people (maybe about everything…), and partners, and I have always accepted aloneness to so-and-so relationships. People admire that. I sometimes hate it (oh, it would be so much easier to just suck it up to a guy to just have a date for that office party and not feel like the third wheel for the millionth year in a row, or for that family wedding). But right now, I really enjoy it. I really enjoy knowing what I want and how I want it. I really have learned over the years two things: how to live in the now, and how to live without regrets. And they are interdependent: if you live in the now fully and completely, listening to your heart, NOW, wonderful memories get created and you never have to regret anything. All you have to look back on are … well, wonderful memories… But I digress, because these are matters for another page.
The point I was trying to make tonight is: yes, I have been single for a while and sometimes I know it’s because of my choosing. It’s not for lack of attention from people. But for lack of tolerance towards the casual, so-and-so, lukewarm relationships. I’d rather be here, writing, resting, listening to Chris Isaak and drinking my wine than be out there, having a boring dinner with an annoying Joe, “just because maybe it can turn into something special and I might not have to spend Fourth of July alone again”… or Thanksgiving…or Christmas… or … whatever…
Sometimes I tell myself that I am quick to judge. For instance, this stranger approaches me in the store, and “wants to hang out, ‘cause I tell him I am single and he likes my hair” (sic). (I guess the small iota of common sense he had left prevented him from allowing himself to tell me what else he likes). And I refuse to go out, of course, because, if you go out with me, even for “just” a dinner, you gotta like more about me than just my hair. Or you have to be sophisticated enough to invoke loftier reasons. I thought everyone knew not only that are a ton of fish in the sea, but also that if you intend to catch one, the bait’s gotta look decent, too! And to me, it’s never “just a dinner”. It’s an hour, two, three , who knows of my time which I will never get back. Yeah… I need a better, MUCH better reason from a complete stranger to give that dinner time away, my friends! Sorry.
Yeah, I may be an elitist and demanding and … I also think I am worth it. If I am not going to be all that, who is? And why sell myself short? Why? When at the end of every day all I have left for sure in that bed is this one person with certainty, why not treat her with the care, love and respect she deserves? If not me, who else is going to do that? And I always feel like I am not 18 anymore, so I can’t just have the excuse that I am “experimenting” either. NO. I have done that. And now I know exactly what it is that makes me tick. And you either have it or you don’t and I can pretty much tell what “first impression cues” are there and what aren’t. I think I am that good, yes. And I am old fashioned too: first impressions do matter as they always have…
At any rate… I guess I am not looking to date or not NOT looking either. I am just being myself every day, and I know that kind of truthfulness will pay off, eventually.
But I am not holding my breath, either. I look at dating as part of life, of course, but not as its air. I look at it, at least now, and for a while now, like a good, really great trip I might take one day. If the money, and resources will allow, it will happen and if not, I’ll read about it in books and magazines, even see a documentary about it – oh, well. And just like that trip: when the time is right and I am ready for it, I will be picky about the hotel, the airlines, the carry on bags and the brand of my suitcase; about the music I bring along, and the books I carry. About the aisle or the window seat and about the beach front or the beach view room. Just like that. If that makes me old and picky and boring… oh, well, again. There is no one else to please by that one person, that I find alone in bed every night now. And that person happens to be pleased.