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Monthly Archives: May 2017

Rumble and Learn

30 Tuesday May 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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honor, monument, peace, storm, youth

Overcast for one and a half days.  Overcast is gentler on the body than full skin exposed to a Memorial Day sun, but I needed to stay inside.  Aunt Flo scheduled me for some couch time, and when Aunt Flo speaks I obey.

This morning I awoke with an unsteady purpose, mostly just wanting to get through this hour to the next, because that’s all I can do, but a neighbor called and asked for help.  I am blessed because she asked me and blessed because I could answer.  I hope she will take measures to be prepared for the next time, but only she can answer that.

I came home and answered a text to conversation.  Another friend who is in need. I am grateful to be able to be present for them.  I am determined to live my life with boundaries but not in solitude like a prisoner, and that means I am here to hear, so I heard, and she is okay.

Overcast.  The rain has come harder, the sound and feel that I love.  I opened my door so I could feel and hear it.  I see my disgraced neighbor at the office working on moving out. I am sad for him because he reminds me of my son: smart, young, and in party mode.  I want the best for him because young people make bad choices, and the mother of me sympathizes, but at the same time I want them to tighten up and make better choices, as if I am so perfect.   I see them as I see my son.  I see the lease that I read (and I mean read, all the way, like a dork because who the hell reads their lease entirely but me??), the same one they signed, and I know the realtor has rights, even though young man was just being a boy, like my own son. Where does it end?

I write this as a little weather comes in.  What a gentle thunder, a tender dark, something that will move east and the neighbors will fall out for sunset in damp sand. That was no storm, just a rumble.  We are all living in degrees.  What I want for my country more than anything is to accept that we are all of and in degrees, and we must compromise.  Compromise. It’s the only world we have. Some days precipitate comes and it’s a mist, sometimes it’s a little rain, sometimes it’s a prelude to tornadic activity, but it leaves us all, prepared, just in case.  The sand remains damp and my neighbors remain.

What the hell does a pile of twenty-something strangers who might be called upon to put their boots on a land far away to uphold decency, if not democracy and die matter to me, a woman who lives in relative safety matter if they drink hard and play their music hard and puke hard have to do with compromise mean?  I spoke to them, I hugged them– strangers– and only wished, as a mother of a young person, they would have pulled it together and pulled it back.  Living here by the ocean is a paradise anyone would pray for… and they blew it.   Yeah, foolish me, but I can hope can’t I?  I fear for the young persons who will deploy soon just as I care about those who wear blue and show up to a domestic, or those who came to fight a fire when the wind was against them, the coldest night of the year fighting a fire that nature seemingly didn’t want them to win, three days after I moved in.    We honor those who serve, but I expect them to behave decently.  I honor service, but I also recognize rules, the same ones the rest of us have to follow. And I can’t beat compliance into them.  I can only hope the best for them.

Honor.  And fight for peace, so we no longer have to quarrel over monuments.

 

 

Tales From The Mattress

26 Friday May 2017

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amwriting, brother, childhood, dragon, father, mother, sleepless, story

And there it was, through the struggle of the night, another long Goldilocks night where I’m too hot, I’m too cold, but oh, please, bring me just right….  I awoke in the middle of the night and remembered that story I used to tell myself when I was little.  Actually, I was telling my stuffed animals, for they were good listeners, but I am getting ahead of myself.

My brother and I went from cribs to bunk beds, nothing in between.  Brother got the bottom bunk which means I got the top.  It was so high up, though, and Mom was worried about me falling out of bed.  Dad had every Craftsman tool known to man (or at least it seemed that way to a little girl who liked following him around, wanting to help spackle or anything else he thought I was capable of doing.)  Dad brought home a ginormous piece of wood, longer than the bunk bed and thicker than a pizza box.  He drew lines and sawed the ends into curves, sanded, then he varnished the shit out of that thing which stunk to high heaven and set off my asthma, naturally.  When it was done, he fitted the smooth, dark wood piece over the edges of my bunk so that it would keep me from falling out during the night.

I accumulated stuffed animals over the years and I lined them up, just so, at the head of my bed.  They were my cabinet, my aides du camp, the only thing helping me through Godzilla / tornado dreams — or worse.  Mom used to read us bedtime stories like an orator on a stage, me high in the balcony.  I used to make up stories as I lay in the laps of my dear stuffed animals, and they listened.  And I remembered one of those stories last night.  You know.  It’s the one about the dragons.

My goal is to write the story today.  I don’t know what I will do with it when it’s done.  There are so many places I could hobble up to and beg they take my paltry thing and publish it.  But it all starts here. In my bed.  The place where I still sleep with dragons.

Sleeping, Unconservatively

25 Thursday May 2017

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angry woman, life, lightning, politics, rules, sleepless, woman

I peeled my sad, angry, frustrated clothes off and went to bed, though I still wore a layer of it on my face. It occupied some of my heart.  As I lay on my side and looked out the window I noted the orange sky.  That means weather. The kind that brings lightning. I can’t sleep when I know the lightning is coming, especially after that last storm that seemed to want to eat the Hampton roads. I was tempted to stay up all night so I could be prepared for the blast, no matter how long it would take for it to come, but I really wanted to sleep.  I chose to peel off my layers of anger, to turn over and breathe and meditate and pray and hope for relaxation to take over so I could sleep.  I chose to sleep, and I would deal with the storm, the adrenaline rush of fear that comes when a little girl sleeps in her bed and her parents crash the door… if and when it came.  Meanwhile, there’s nothing. i. can. do. about. it.  Any of it.

This morning I awoke, still wearing my angry face, sad to say.  I could feel it, stuck to me like a wet leaf but not so easily plucked off and cast aside.  Reading the news did not help.  Last night’s echoes still reverberate, that a politician assaulted a journalist who the hell knows why, and my fear that it’s only going to get worse.  More, I can’t stay quiet when I see a young woman who wants to graduate barred from the ceremony because she broke her “morality” pledge and got pregnant. I’m supposed to stay quiet when girls can’t wear braids in their hair or barred from a graduation ceremony because they’re pregnant.  Both schools have rules and mores, and both girls broke them.  The pregnant girl broke the contract she signed when she had sex outside of marriage and got pregnant. But the strength she showed in keeping her child and choosing to move forward with her life, to finish school and graduate shows a lot of backbone.  Or… maybe a lot of pressure from her parents and society?  Either way, she’s barred from graduation because she broke the morality rule, and all I can feel is sorrow for all of us.  I guess I should fall in line and feel solidarity for the rule, because if they allowed her to attend it would mean the school condones her behavior, and then cats and dogs living together.

I ruined my 5-star morality rating years ago, and I’m betting we all have some tarnish on our souls.  Here we stand punishing young people for an act as simple as wearing braids or as troubling as premarital sex which results in pregnancy.  I am an angry woman this morning because females should not be punished for wearing braids, or for carrying a child.  I am in no way a pro-life person, because, you know, I hate babies and life and I just want to sin and fuck and eat embryos with my grits.  But I am a pro-life person in that I can’t stand seeing injustice, even though they signed a contract.  The contracts and handbook rules that regulate dress code and morality are in place to keep young people in line, and boy do they need keeping in line, what with all the things they’re privy to on social media and lack of guidance from home.  I get it.  But the angry woman of me feels that black girls banned from wearing braids and pregnant girls cannot attend graduation that they earned crosses a line and really pisses me off.  I am sad for all of us as a society.

And don’t even get me started on the politician that body-slammed a journalist for asking a question.  I feel like we’re all just losing sight of things that should matter more than offensive t-shirts, weaves, and a young woman who chose life, which is ironically what conservatives want to preserve at all costs.

It’s almost noon, and I have to decide what my diet of the day will contain.  As I write, I am playing action movies in the background.  The angry woman of me needs to hear fire power and powerful soundtracks, a catharsis for me that elevates the idea of justice because I cannot be the iron hand to wield it.  I see justice and common sense diminishing in my country.  And there’s nothing.i.can.do.about.it.

Aw shit, what do I care.  If you sign a contract, you’re bound. You fuck up, you get punished. No graduation for you.  Just like a president, I guess….

May 22

22 Monday May 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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change, ocean, sunrise, words

Yesterday’s morning bed looked a hot mess, all but the mattress pulled down onto the floor. Could’ve been hot sex or could’ve been another sleepless night, too hot in a t-shirt and a stuffy room.  I’ll leave it to you to decide which one was more likely.

This morning’s bed I left early, 4:30, awakened by voices outside, young men either headed to the gym or early call to work.   I knew there was no going back to any kind of rest or sleep, so I pulled on yesterday’s clothes and ventured outside.  The finches are strenuous early, morning doves and gulls silent. It’s a farther walk to where I can hear the water but it never quite drowns out the sound of birds singing in the dark.

I sat in the damp sand, water black but for little white wave crests that break just before the shore, that moment when they’re good and ready.  Sunrise in 48 minutes. I doubt I will be able to sit still that long.  A small container ship creeps across the bay, barely silhouetted by the town lights. Hampton bridge is busy, as always. I will not see the lights go out this morning.  Town lights behind me make the night sky glow pink and blue in the clouds.

Two buoys appear in the bay, inky things in the dark, but they are orange in daylight. My eyes say they weren’t there a minute ago, but of course they were.  When will the dolphins return?  I can see bird silhouettes flying now.  They weren’t there a minute ago, but of course they were.  Sunrise in 20 minutes.  I doubt I will be able to sit still that long.

Mostly I just breathe. I focus on the scent that arrives in me. There is a faint chemical smell in the air with a tint of the seaweed clumps that arrived during those hours I could not sleep.   I smooth the sand down that lies before my crossed knees but no words come. It’s just damp, cool sand with a side order of things I should not be thinking.  But why shouldn’t I? What better place to let the words come and then go in a place where there are no dogs yipping, the rain has not yet begun to fall?

I leave before the sun rises in a sky ready for rain. I need no proof the hours moved by seeing a glowing orb.  I take with me a different kind of beauty, when the eyes adjust to dim light and can see what wasn’t there but a moment ago.

 

Man v Wave

20 Saturday May 2017

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change, ocean, proof of time, renew

Virginia got a federal grant to renew some of its beaches that have eroded over the years.  Funny thing, that ocean, how it hurricanes and nor’easters now and then, changing the landscape at will.  Some of my neighbors grumbled that the money could have been better spent, while most of us believe this project is important to protect our homes from worse-than-usual flooding.  I had no idea the huge change we were in for.

I took pictures of the process, and it’s not much to see but a lot of earth moving equipment, large pipes, and a “cage” that strained the water and sand-from-elsewhere for large debris before it was tamped down.  The Army Corps of Engineers worked 24/7 for weeks to complete the project.  They were a nice bunch of people, very forthcoming with information, always said hello or waved as we went by.  (Perhaps they knew that not everyone was happy that the excavator was shaking peoples homes in the middle of the night.)  20170513_040738.jpg

A few days ago I wandered out and the beach had a strange smell, a chemical smell, very faint, one that I could not identify but it sure wasn’t the scent of organic matter drying in the sun as we are used to.  This is a rock I found in situ. Not very exciting, but I thought it looked cool as hell in the newborn (and strange-smelling) mud of this beach.20170518_093212

I found this guy and tossed him back out into the ocean.20170518_093330

This morning I got up after sunrise and walked down to the beach. All the pipes and equipment is gone. All that remains are a few excavator tracks, and the youngsters footsteps as they partied late into the night.   It looks nothing like the way I found it on my first afternoon as the new kid on the Spit.  I’m so glad I took pictures and video to record those gentle dunes carved by time.

The sandbars are gone. Those were happy havens for mothers who wanted to share a beach day with their toddlers:  The sand was a perfect toy in just the right depth of water.  Seagulls and flounder hunted and left their delicate tracks. Sea skates got stranded there.  I wrote precious words on those damp lands at low tide. My feet tracked in stubborn bits of clam shell the size of a pencil point that stuck to my toes.  The water made music as it trickled in and converged between the breakwaters, rock “hedges” that were meant to keep out the most fearsome waves.  The beach is wet cappuccino now.  The weathered ivory sand grains and tiny pebbles destined to become grains are covered in a damp silt now. The neighbors seem to love that it feels smoother to walk on.  I hear that it will bleach under the sun and we’ll like it even more.  That remains to be seen.  The waterline is 100 extra feet away but that’s not what I’m thinking about today.

Capture the details. Memorize the curves, the scent, the grit between your toes because tomorrow it will look like cappuccino mud.   Yeah, the birds will eat and the dolphins will come back eventually. The incoming tide will make a new kind of music.   The sandbars might return with the next hurricane, who knows?  It’s all just proof that few things will be right there where you left it, and to treasure the time that is given.

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20160221_150442_004 (1)

ID Please.

17 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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conversation, fight, justice, poison, race, truth

I heard about a high-school girl who will not be allowed to attend her prom and got kicked off her athletic teams because she refuses to cut off her braid extensions.  They’re nice, neat braids that no one would give a second thought to if you saw her at the mall, but the school says her hair is in dress code violation, as would be wearing nail polish.   I reached out on twitter to offer support for the young lady, and to agree it sure looked like discrimination. Another twitter person promptly told me that white women got no skin in this game, we’re not allowed to say what’s discriminatory against blacks. Only black people can do that. Well. That sure gave me something to think about. Maybe that’s true, but I think what she really wanted was to shut down my white voice on a black situation.

Well hey, I guess that takes me off the hook now!  I don’t have to think or say or do anything for anybody–EVER– unless it relates to being a white female, gravid-1.  All right!  Think of all the conversations I will never have to participate in because I can’t relate to the others. All the books and music I won’t have to listen to or read because they weren’t written by white females who have birthed at least once.  Rock-n-roll!

I’ll never have to be concerned with or feel the need to learn more about or certainly not develop an opinion and take a stand for men’s issues, criminal justice, female genital mutilation, holocaust denial, bullfighting, white nationalism, poverty, homelessness, discrimination, police brutality, drug addiction.  Nope, never happened to me, can’t be part of the conversation, and certainly in no place to level an opinion.

You know what?  Fuck you. I will speak when and where I please, and if it pisses you off that I’m speaking to a subject I can’t possibly relate to because my ancestors were the slaveholders instead of the enslaved, or that I can’t possibly speak against animal cruelty because it’s not my culture, or FGM because that’s not my culture either,  if I can’t speak up for people (ALL people) when they’re being discriminated against, abused, and overlooked because of my age, sex, skin color, or creed,  then I got no time for you. Can you imagine me saying, “Sorry Mr. Castillo, your death is a black, male, registered gun owner problem, it would be inappropriate for me to have an opinion about it or stand up for human rights. C-ya.”

Last I looked we were all Americans, and we need to talk to each other and HEAR each other now more than ever.  Keep turning away voices that want to lend support, you’re gonna find yourselves alone. The civil wars will return and this time it’ll be men v women, race v race, religious v non.  What a heartbreaking scenario. The poison will overtake the body with such stealth that everyone will wonder how it happened at all.

addendum: I’ve never been a fan of dress codes because I hated wearing my school uniform.  I know the codes are in place to help “prevent” bullying, gang identity, and so forth, but not letting a girl wear her hair in braids just crosses a public school line for me.  

 

I Belong To Me (While Spite Laughs in the Background)

16 Tuesday May 2017

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allegiance, evolving, ocean, sunrise, woman

I pledge allegiance to

Not You.

I will not kneel.  I will not bow. Kiss the tip of your sword, your robe, or your ring and swear fealty.

Imagine the day that I did not murder my neighbor, refused to sacrifice her exalted body on the altar to feed the god with her hot, muscular heart… but the sun rose still, my hands clean.  Again. And again.

Imagine the day that I did not offer the best of my wheat, meat, and wine to the god in his tent so he would overlook my sins because my children were hungry and needed every piece of that lamb to survive the winter? The sin is to let my children starve, buddy.

Imagine the day that I took my worship away from you. I suppose I should confess it was because you are no longer the salt of my pleasure but salt in the wound. It burned, then cleansed, and helped me see that our gods dissolve and cloud the water.  I cannot drink that water for it would kill me. I still need you, but I no longer worship you.

And the sun rose still.  Again. And again.

Aweigh

04 Thursday May 2017

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Every time I want to speak or type a reply, lately, I close my lips and let the moment pass.  I am delving deeper into silence, and my instinct tells me I am right.

I am right, and see these anchors, now lilliputian.

Sitting still. Still sitting. Silent, or speaking softly only words that matter.  Reading words that matter.  Writing words that matter.

All the rest I keep for myself.  And I am right.

May 4 Dream

04 Thursday May 2017

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birth, death, dream, peace, woman

She was walking alone, but perhaps not a long way. She was dressed in a sari, her long hair lightly covered, her sari the color of poppies.  There is nothing in the dream but her, walking.  She stops walking and she knows at last it is time.  She lies down and leans up against something, but I do not know what, it’s not shown in the dream. I only see this woman in poppy red, reclining, her knees are up and she is ready to give birth now.  The rest happens so quickly and silently.  They all spill out of her body, five small babies and so much blood pours out of her onto the ground like fish falling from the fisherman’s net onto the deck,  but they are all dead.

The dream changes dramatically. This is black ink on white paper, she is artistically rendered into a soft, curving line drawing. The woman opens her sari, her abdomen is one wide open womb, and she gathers all five of the babies into her arms and pulls them back into her body. She closes her legs, straightens her sari. She reclines on the ground on her right side, closes her eyes, and she smiles the most peaceful sleeping smile.

She smiles. It was the only expression she ever showed throughout the entire dream.

This was a tough one for me to write, and I’m not sure why.

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