• Poetry & Flash Fiction
  • testing

Indigo Vales

~ where the writing comes from

Indigo Vales

Tag Archives: truth

Some Thoughts On Kavanaugh v Ford, though it could be more but you ain’t got time.

28 Friday Sep 2018

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

advice, birds and bees, Catholic, Catholic school, crime, dad, diary, Ford, humiliation, Kavanaugh, listen, make-out, man, mother, period, punished, rape, sea change, sex, sex-ed, teach, teach your son, truth, white male privilege, woman, women's issues

Mom handed me a small hardcover book one day. I can’t remember what year it was, or what room I was in.  I think I was in apartment 3F. She asked me to read these pages, which I did, and she said ask me any questions, which I didn’t, and the whole thing was done.  That’s how I learned about how men get on top of women and they gently rub against one another and some things are exchanged and a baby grows in the woman.  I remember, after reading, feeling kind of weird. Like, the book being presented to me came out of nowhere. I recall feeling like, “Okay….” but not much more.
Probably when Mom presented me with this book when I was in the 5th grade, still in Catholic school, and I can still remember having the best make-outs with someone whose name I shall not say.  Wow.  Maybe Mom knew I was growing and having feelings and probably making out with somebody and thought the birds and the bees talk was appropriate.  I had no idea what to do with his incredible kissing, I had no idea that it can sometimes lead to sex which leads to babies. I had no idea that I was valued and important. All I knew in those 5th grade days was that I had to go to school, that I was picked on for having ugly shoes, socks, and haircut, that I was punished, humiliated in the halls for failing math, and yeah, we had some good times with our friends playing in the courtyard in the back.

Mom sat me at the table one day. It was daylight and we were 60 miles north of the place we used to live, far from the old bullies, but other battles were raging.  I don’t recall how the conversation began but she told me that if I ever got in a situation, I shouldn’t scream “rape” because no one would help. She said I should scream “fire” because everyone would react.  She said if I got in a situation I should say I have some kind of disease and not to do this so you don’t get that disease too, or I have my period.   I don’t remember what year it was or what lead up to that. I guess she figured since I was dating she assumed that heavy petting would be involved which of course leads to sex.  She also told me if I come home pregnant she would break both my legs.  So.  My sexual education wasn’t great. It left me to my own devices, and I made a lot of mistakes. I will never forget the humiliation of my parents reading my diary from when I was in college that detailed beautiful lovemaking with my boyfriend at the time.

Questions. Statements. Humiliation.  Does this sound familiar to you, woman and man? Did your parents leave you to your own devices to figure out the sex thing? Who taught you who to say no or yes about sex? About pubic hair and periods and condoms and consent?

At 1:30EST there will be a vote in the Senate to confirm Brett Kavanaugh as the next Supreme Court Judge.  I’ve followed everything the Trump administration does and his nomination is no exception.  Judge Brett did not impress me because he did not say he would uphold Roe v Wade. He’s been demure about his Bush years. Dr. Ford’s testimony didn’t help much, either.

What this brings to these morning thoughts are more questions than answers.  Is this the sea change we needed to help women stop staying silent and speak out against their assaulters and abusers?  Are more men willing to listen and believe a women when she says she was assaulted?  Will more women come forward and report their rapes and abuse and their testimony be taken seriously? Will families take this moment and use it as an example to teach their boys not to grope and seek gratification and laugh at a person who can’t say no?  Will families take this moment, no matter how embarrassing, to tell their boys don’t force, grope, assault, abuse women, and tell their girls you are loved and you matter and I believe you?  Will we tell our girls you don’t have to kiss that boy or put your hands in his pants or let him do what he wants because it affirms you.  Is this the moment where we tell our children that it’s natural to be attracted and to want, but forcing ourselves on each other is inexcusable?   Will this be a sea change?   I don’t know.  Dr. Ford was assaulted. Judge Kavenaugh says it wasn’t him. Their testimonies were emotional and believable.  This is a teaching moment for all of us and we should take advantage of it.  Teach our daughters their worth, that they won’t be abandoned if they have sex or, worse, raped. Teach them, your face to his face and her face, not in some book the facts of the human body, natural attraction, but to reject force, and to support our girls if peer pressure led them to sexual acts they weren’t ready for and regret, and reinforce our boys the difference between want–attraction–and force, assault.

Support your children with facts. Support your children with the law. Support your children with love.  If you only give them a teaspoon of each, they’ll wind up in a dark hallway giving handjobs because it affirmed them or on their backs because  privilege says this is not a crime.

My mom didn’t know how to do this and I’m betting neither did hers.  Generations told their daughters to be ladylike and polite. Poised. Accepting.  Is this the moment when we can stop a generational fault and teach our sons that it’s not okay to grope, assault, and abuse women, to respect them as equals, and our girls that they are more than help-meets, that we are curious, intellectual, scholarly, strong, brave, and that we matter?

The World Awaits You, or, Meeting Henry & Seeing His Travel Slideshow

09 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

authentic, Henry Rollins, life, music, oneworld, politics, travel, truth

Prepare to be uncomfortable. Prepare to be challenged. Prepare to leave your Western constructs and ideals behind. Get a passport and go visit Kerala on Friday.  You will give me one hundred reasons why you can’t, and Henry Rollins will give you one hundred twenty reasons why you can and you should. You will be a changed person when you leave your doorstep Henry promises, just as J.R.R. Tolkien promised in his tales, but there’s more at stake here in terra firma of 2018.

I wanted so much to tell you what it was like listening to Mr. Rollins give us the backstory of the photos he’s taken on his Travel Slideshow tour. I wrote a pile of pages and when I took a breath, walked away, and came back all I could see was me fan-girling all over my Dad trying to get him to understand why it was so important that he listen to this rock band, see how smart and wise they are, full of boundless passion and world interest, won’t you love them just like me, Dad?

Henry doesn’t need anyone to fan-girl all over him, and he doesn’t need me to promote or explain him or his books or his tour. Henry has, however, explicitly asked all who will listen to get a passport and travel.  To get uncomfortable, to be challenged, to try to see the world without Western filters. To see the people who aren’t making headlines, the young and old, everyone in between whose clothes are clean though they sift through garbage for food, whose children are happy and playful though they play in graveyards, who sell their fresh foods at the market and have better diets than we do. Discover colors and tastes, notice the flesh, the sinews, the strength, the smiles, the customs that make us different and one.  That Ismail and Awa and Hai on the street ain’t the devil but just a dude, as we all are, having a life, doing their thing, and it’s the politicians that really fuck everything up. And we have the power to make a change, not a “Democracy or else you backwater jerks” kind of change, but the kind that brings access to clean water, food, healthcare, and school without fear.

For those of you who are already doing this, you get it. This is old hat for you.  For those who have a problem with anything that whiffs of globalism or liberalism, I hope you will still give travel a chance.  Anyone who hasn’t seen Mr. Rollins on his speaking tours, I say see him pronto. He’s an entertaining and insightful speaker, and you will not be unmoved one way or the other.

(And now for the fan-girl part, because I hafta, and you can skip this no problem.)  Through my Dad, I was able to get a VIP ticket to meet Henry after the show. About 25-30 other people were there. We lined up and got to meet him and he was no different on the floor as he was onstage. When you see him on TV, that is the real, authentic Henry, as every good punk knows, there is not one fake thing about him.  My turn came and I approached him sheepishly. We shook hands. I thanked him for all that he does (What does he do? Well go look it up, he’s laid hands on more of our servicemen than our current president will probably ever do). I asked could I hug him, he said yes, and we did and some pics were taken.  As I walked away I turned back and pointed and said loudly, “KEEP GOING!”  He looked at me and smiled and hollered, “I WILL!”  So wonderful.  Do I need to meet him and hug his hard body again? No. But I will keep reading his work and seeing him live when he comes around. He inspires me, and I hope to get uncomfortable and be challenged and write about it from another part of the world before I kick the bucket.)

Impatiece, Truth Coffee, Newton’s First Law, & Meeting Henry.

06 Saturday Jan 2018

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

coffee, Henry Rollins, ice, impatience, journal, not staying safe, stasis, travel, truth, winter

Much to do this morning in a hard, cold world that makes all travelers, all the living feel the world is against them, waiting to thaw, hoping to thaw soon, wondering where has everyone gone post-blizzard Grayson? The birds are still flitting past icy roofs and trees, streetlamps, bannisters. They do not land, only flitting, asking, “Where, where, where?”

I watch the ice cube melt in my blue and green coffee mug knowing that this moment defines me. Holding it warms my fingers but too hot on my lips and throat, I will not wait for it to cool in a cold, hard morning. I will force it to cool with ice I wouldn’t invite into my house, but I want to drink it and must have it now now now. 

I think of my son who negotiates his responsibilities, everything is tied to everything else. I can only write in green now. I won’t write with anything else, my thoughts won’t come in black or blue. (This isn’t true, but it was an interesting thought that flitted through my head, “Where where where?”) 

I sprinkle cinnamon in my coffee grounds and it makes the house smell heavenly. I can drink mouthfuls of you but you will soon be gone, and I will stammer in stunned cold deciding if I want another, and pace and taste my mouth to see if it is dry, note the time, scribble in green pen, watch patches of snow melt and drop from roof flashings, when I should be packing getting ready to meet Henry in Raleigh.

(I will only go if the roads are safe, I don’t know if the roads are safe, how will I know)

I will meet Henry Rollins tonight for my ticket says I’m VIP. I will meet his eyes, say nothing useful, he’s heard it all before, perhaps he will be chatty and not run for the door as soon as the gig is done, back to the hotel where he will pace and sip water and read and write and think alone, carrying small memories of us back to his room for he is all he needs.  He’s not afraid of icy roads, I’ll bet, but oh, he carries his own demons, and I wouldn’t swap concerns with him today. 

My coffee is almost too cool to enjoy now. God bless microwaves, heroes of the impatient, we who don’t have all minute to sort out which way we are going, let alone what color underwear to put on after a hot shower in a cold room, gathering speed to go forward. Or just pace and check the parking lot to see if the magic snow plow came in the night, or sit down and read bad news and lose all the goodwill the magic green pen brought me. It will be sunset soon in Raleigh, Henry does not await me, and my blue and green coffee mug pulls at my sleeve, saying, “Really? You gotta do this now?”

Committing The Rare Feel-Good To The World

10 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

dog, fight, grateful, happy, journal, naked, ocean, truth, writing

Writing, committing thought and wonder, questions and desire, hope, longing, confession and manifesto leaves one naked. You are naked when you write, and if you’re afraid to let the world see every lovely ugly, then the “enter” key should not be allowed. Hold fast your pen, keep your files hidden. Wait until you’re ready to slam it all down, unlock your door, let the stranger in to see you emerge from your bath, wet, bloody, home, and real.

I’m not writing so the stranger can rate me on some fixed scale like exhausted figure skaters or boxers who throw their fights walking away with millions.  I’m not writing for your approval or to raise eyebrows or cause trouble or to make history.  I am writing because, as a wise man said what seems so long ago, I can’t not write. It’s a driven and it’s a given that I will have pen juice on my fingers, that I stare long and lovingly at journals in the bookstore and have a hard time not buying binders and loose-leaf like some kind of kid going back to school. I love the smell of pen and ink and this laptop hardly creates the same kind of vibe, but that’s all right.

September has come and somebody turned the cicada’s song switch off: their voices are gone. The north wind brings a scent of flowers which I cannot explain. A hurricane comes and I am tired of figuring out which way to run. I colored my hair and bathed late, very late last night, and I wonder if my neighbors heard the water running.  My hair is clean and smooth and fragrant. I woke smelling its scent on my pillow feeling more content, happy, and pleased than I have in a long time. The moon is full and bright in my bedroom window again, which tells me what season we are in. I slept with the windows open beneath piles of covers so I can be warm and still hear the wind in the trees. I think your name and I can smile and write it in the sand, I can even allow you in my bed as I coax sleep once more, instead of fighting, fighting, fighting you, waking feeling like every little thing’s gonna be all right.

This morning’s beach is scoured clean by north/northeast winds, maybe 10 knots. Small, round rocks perfect for skimming peek out from the sand and I see no crab burrows.  A large, dead fish. It looks like something began to devour him and spat him back out, leaving his body on shore. Why?  A dead turtle, a kind I do not recognize, his small clawed limbs point southwest. I am sorry he died and hope it wasn’t because of plastic.  A black dog running wild on the beach that for some reason, no reason, for lack of anything I can explain, I do not trust him. Sea glass seems extinct since the beach restoration, but I found a little bit of blue and white ceramic that I put in my pocket.  On the final few feet back to my trail, I found a piece of shell the size of two fingers. She is deep blush-colored on the outside, and mother-of-pearl within, and she looks like how I feel when I hear his name.

I feel alive and well and ready to write. I feel grateful for everything that brought me here, what good, bad, strange, and otherwise. Time to commit the rest to paper and ink.

Finning, Press Secretary-style

22 Saturday Jul 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

finning, ocean, politics, press secretary, shark, truth, whale

I am awake and aware, moving steadily through my world. I was resting a little while ago. I do not need much rest. Now I saunter my body through seas in search of small, struggling things that fit in my mouth to satisfy the low ache inside. When it is satisfied, I glide and glide and glide, aimless. I have seen four turnings and the whales tell me all I need to do is glide and eat and sleep. They will tell me what to do when it is time. I believe them.

Something touches me, and I can no longer glide. I am rising though I did not choose to. I feel up though I feel it is too high, I should not be here for any reason.  I tumble into a place where I cannot breathe, a strange new world.  I’ve never felt this before, where is my water that pours into my gills that makes me everything?  I struggle, but not too much because I want to conserve my breathing.  And now I feel tugging things on my body here and there and there, and it feels like nothing I have ever felt, and I need a word for this feeling, and the whales tell me this is what it means to hurt.  I am hurt, falling, it seems. I am hurting.  I am. I want to breathe. And soon I do when I am reunited with my world. Water crosses my gills limply as I drift down.  I know my swimming tools are gone. I breathe in a stultifying way, but it is not my living way.

I am drifting down because my swimming tools are gone, and I ache. My back and my flanks and my far end hurt, dear, sweet parts of me I can no longer touch and will not reply no matter how much I reach out to them.  I am drifting down.  I suppose this is okay because we can’t all survive as the whales tell me.

As I drift down into the cold, dark water, colder and darker than where I should be, I recall everything the whales said to me. I paid them little mind, believing their antics were pretentious and showboating, but I heard some of what they needed to say. Once our world was near silent. All anyone could hear was the turnings of fisheries, the struggles of female sharks trying to get away from the males, happy breachings, puffers making nests to entice a mate, anarchist octopus thinking a little too loud. The whales told me the new noises came and they learned their ways, suffered slaughters of generations, but they also told me that they met gentle hands whose hearts beat true, hearts that held no lies.

As I drift down into the cold, dark water unable to swim because my swim tools are gone, I feel tired.  I am ready to rest because it’s been a long day, and that’s all right. I am glad I lived a little life, sultry and honest, loving the deepest blue, as I drift wondering who would hurt me so, but I’d still rather berth in the unknown than come before my people and lie and lie and lie to them. I hope the whales will remember me to you.

Help Us Move On

26 Monday Jun 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

family, flat earth, future, science, son, truth

Long solo drives require that I have good music, and when I’m tired of that I have a good story to listen to on CD.  I never had a reason to get into books on tape when they first came out, but I have come to value them now.  After listening to four music CDs, I was ready to hear an audio book. The story asked me to suspend reality, to believe that a cyclops, the last of his kind, wandered an island and all that that entails.  The authors wrote a story that makes me believe. Yes. Why not?

I drove to New York to attend my son’s graduation from high school, and it was a wonderful day.  He is a beautiful thing in this world, not the standard teenage sheep, but a wild spirit full of deep thought, creativity, and the rebelliousness that comes along with not playing inside the lines or staying inside the box.  He’s cultivated some true friends along his journey, friends that certain parts of society might label sinners and sodomites.  He spent graduation night with his “fruit” friends, a name he lovingly calls them, and I am glad he was with them.

The next day I took a long walk with my dear friend in a local park and then we sat at one of the benches under the pavilion to continue our conversation in some shade.  We noticed a long-haired person lying on one of the bench seats, but he was keeping to himself so we kept on chatting.  He got up from his bench and asked if he could bet us that he could change our view of everything in one minute.  He was about 20 with lots of full, brown hair, board shorts, a tank top, and he wore a long pendant that had what looked like a dragon with wings outspread, but there was a symbol underneath my old eyes couldn’t make out and I didn’t want to get closer to discern.  I said, “I won’t bet you, but what’s on your mind?”  And he sprang into preaching the view of flat earthers.  Oh gawd… really?  Sigh.  My friend sunk into her cell phone while I engaged the young man in his beliefs, not trying to debunk him because you can’t tell an alcoholic to stop drinking just as you can’t tell a flat-earther not to believe.  I understood his reluctance to believe in what science espouses because it’s all just a conspiracy to get us to be afraid and conform and turn away from God, but once he said, “Just like they pound it into our heads that we have to accept trans people as normal….” all my light-hearted goodwill shut down.  I no longer wanted to let him take up any more of my time. I stopped engaging him with questions, I think he got the idea that I was done, so he got in his car and drove away.  All I could think was that if my son had been sitting there, he would have been up in that guys face, and it would not have gone well.

I am driving a car that no one could ever believe existed.  We are defeating diseases that no one could ever believe we could.  We build towers and bridges, planes, vessels, and armament that no one would ever believe could be true all those years ago, but here we are. I am typing my thoughts on a keyboard and screen knowing that there are people who will refute the science of vaccination.  I can’t disprove it, so proving it is impossible, like proving the moon does not have a light of her own, which she does not.  Right now I can’t prove that Newton and his society wanted to control the world with fear, nor can I disprove it. Only you can, and I ask that you spread the word of reasonableness. I want to ask that everyone set aside their emotion and look beyond yourself, your children, your grandchildren, and their children.  We are alone in the universe at the moment, not because the earth is flat but because we haven’t found anyone else yet, and even if we did, we need to take care of each other as we would brother and sister.   I would like to stress that the future is not white and god-fearing hetero, but it’s a future that understands we are tender, fragile humans that would like to go on, but you must use science to do so.  Science is not the enemy, no matter what anyone says.   Your beliefs are relevant and no one should ever shut you down, but at a certain point you need to believe that one plus one equals two. And those two need to embrace and keep the whole thing going.

Being In The World

15 Thursday Jun 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Ares, bandwith, birds, life, truth, wheelhouse, writing

Good morning, world.  It’s my favorite kind of day, when the clouds and humidity put a veil between me and the sun.  I doubt it will rain, but the sky wants me to believe it will. Everything is still.  Leaves on the trees are greener on days like these, allowed to show their true colors instead of being washed out by the sun’s rays.  My prayer plant’s leaves are more erect, they appreciate the softer canopy and lift their leaves in appreciation.  Haze covers the sky and the horizon so I cannot see across the bay.  What I see is only in near focus, not afar.

I woke thinking about something someone said to me long ago.  He became CEO after being plucked from his accounting office to lead the company.  He was variable as the weather, and my feelings towards him was equally variable.  He said something to me, publicly, humiliatingly, that left me with no response, but in these days of living quietly, of reflection, I realized what I should have said just then. It was a learning moment that passed me by.  Some might say I should be grateful for it.  If we are lucky we learn how to accept and rise from our mistakes and be humbled, grateful for the things we endured in the past, that we can develop our selves and become stronger persons.  Meanwhile, we wrestle with the hurt and grief that never leaves us. And that is not wrong.

It’s a morning where the black kids, employees of the building owner, head back from filling up their hands with buckets of paint and cordless drills, singing–not rapping–but singing.  I appreciate their youth, their working in the hot sun, and still maintain a good attitude against it all. I messed with them this morning, and we laughed, and god, it’s just what I needed.

As I write, the lady finch has finally stopped calling.  I’ve been up since dawn, and she hasn’t stopped making that sound, that “chew” or “two” sound, loudly, over and over and over again. I don’t know if she’s trying to protect her nest or keep away a prospective mate. She’s like Mrs. Roper on Three’s Company.  Why did Stanley put up with her? I wished she would go away last year, and that feeling is back again, but then I remember how silent the world is in winter without her.  I often wonder how she survives her passionate, endless “chew” or “two” call, hours on end, without stopping for food or drink?  Finches are tiny things, and I thought for sure I’d find her body in the parking lot by now, done in by fervor and lack of hydration, but she is stronger than that.  As I write this, her calling has stopped. A reprieve for my ears and for her body, too?  Perhaps she’s feeding or drinking fresh water somewhere.  When I stepped outside last night, all was still. No birds. Tree limbs frozen. The world is changing around me and it’s awesome. I can’t decide if I like activity or silence more.

As for this moment, it’s all about discovery.  Who has access to unending energy, bounty, the desire to create vs. those who watch red balloons floating away and make wishes? Meanwhile, I closed all my windows and turned on the a/c because my spirit, the god of war who turns his back on infants who cry incessantly, needs a rest.

Of Gemini, Vanilla, and Truth

11 Sunday Jun 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

anger, evolving, Gemini, mother, peace, truth, unobtainium, vanilla, woman

It’s the dog-walking hour, the hour before the sun takes your breath away. It’s the hour of elderly neighbors standing on the sidewalk telling naughty jokes, or breakfast with a neighbor before church lets out so we are guaranteed a seat in the cafe.

And now is the writing hour, the time before my gumption heads for a sofa and a dogeared book, the hour that I will stand barefoot on the cement balcony to watch neighbors go by with their groceries or work on their next hangover before they deploy, thinking about things I cannot repair or undo with a swish of my wand.

Nothing is the same as it was last year on this spit of land, least of all me.  The beach is wide and flat now. Neighbors are missing and favored dogs have passed away. New dogs and new neighbors have come.  But always, the pastel sky and the wonder of the wheel is present. I opened a journal to read where my heart was on this day last year. Nothing is the same, as it should be, but some things I still carry forward I see.

Today would have been Mom’s birthday, a Gemini through and through. She wouldn’t appreciate that pagan description, but oh well. One thing you could count on with Mom: you never knew who you were getting in a day.  Her moods shifted quickly, and I wonder now if the happy happy joy joy sing-song Mom was for real or just one way she masked her pain? Or maybe both? I will never know, and that’s okay.  But in those days, watching her devolve from parent to child trapped in a desperately lonely life frightened me.  She used to sit at the kitchen table paging through a big Sears catalog picking out rugs and clocks and furniture that she said would look great in the house she imagined. These were not casual musings.  It was hard feigning pleasant conversation about how this rug would go with that sofa, hey how about this one, but I couldn’t tell her I didn’t want to be part of her game.

It’s funny how you can pick up pretty seashells to keep or share, or pick up grocery bags full of cigarette butts, plastic bags and bottles from the same spit of land: the ocean just coughs up more of both every day.  I have two good hands that can manage both, and I struggle to remember this.  Sometimes I feel a very distinct two of me, truly torn, and on those days I worry for my spirit.  I recognize the gentle, rational, creative me and then there is the angry, fightful one, and often the angry one wins, the one that cannot handle the song Hallelujah.   I forget that I have the ability to manage whatever the world throws at me with both hands.  It’s the reason I don’t reply to most social media posts, or the reason I give you one word responses: Momma said if I don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.  Well.  On those Two-of-me days I want to create new social media sites where I give myself permission to vent and rant and troll the trolls, to hate the hate– a “safe” place to curse the darkness instead of being the light.   On those days, it is easy to judge others, to rage at injustice or simply complain about a visitor disparaging another person’s sweet dog.  On those days I forget I am free to seek another venue where I can return myself to kindness because anger is just too easy. Now, I am not wrong to feel pissiness, anger, or the rage, just as I am not wrong to want the peace that lives in me, that wells up and allows me to cry.  But feeling the peace, the beauty, the truthful good, when it wells up wide and deep, it often makes me feel overwhelmed and afraid.  It nudges out the anger, my protective shield:  how can I face you, or anything, anyone, naked?  I feel like a piece of beached jellyfish that everybody pokes with a stick or scoops up and tosses back into the ocean.  Most days, for the sake of my peace, I will show you some calm vanilla, a quiet void of non-words. On the days I don’t feel torn in two, when I feel strong and whole, viable and certain, useful and creative, I can speak and write truthfully and happily from my vulnerable place.  I can manage me and you with both hands, but those days are rare, and I want something more.   So.

Here’s to weaving the All-of-me’s together, the polyester, cotton, paper, leather, seaweed, barbed wire, and spider silk together, to threading them with my glitter beads and wampum and balsa, to painting them with silver stars and onyx night, adding a touch of unobtainium, and everything will be just all right — so you and me can know who you are getting on more than any given day.

A Day Of Silence

06 Tuesday Jun 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

authentic, meditation, silence, truth, woman

Soft.  Soft.

Yesterday, full of meditation.

Full focus on being present.

Refocus. Refocus. Refocus.  Because the mind wanders so easily,

treading paths that sound like jealousy, heresy, inadequacy

detours around

a little girl’s pain

a woman’s leaving

music that reverberates in my bones

dredging a stick through embers

igniting memories and regrets

calling me back to my body that sits in silence, suffering

writing thank you notes and apologies in ink and in blood

so much good will that do unless I put these hands to use.

Yesterday, full of silence.

No candle, no ritual.

Reflection,  insomnolent

Your pure truth was a light for me, your woman’s authenticity.

I’ve never been clear with anyone and not sure I ever will be,

but I learn from you and I hear and remain sleepless.

All I can be is grateful for voices I trust in a field where I walk

looking for wisdom, peace, and silence

amid chuckholes that break a horse’s leg.

ID Please.

17 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

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.  

 

← Older posts

Recent Posts

  • Night of the Curtain
  • Dear Right Shoulder,
  • A Perfect August Night In OV
  • Metallica & Iron Maiden Before You Knew Them
  • Fourth Of Us….. ?

Tags

amwriting angry woman birds blessings brother change child childhood Choose cycles dad daughter death destiny dog dream evolving faith family father fear fight Flash fiction friend goals grief help Henry Rollins hope HoW human inspiration International Authors Iron Maiden justice life listen love march memory Mom morning mother music nature neighbor not writing ocean pain peace poem poem? poetry politics power progress prompt rain reading season silence sleepless social media Solstice son sorting spring storm sunrise thoughts truth Universe weather woman writing

Blogroll

  • Duotrope
  • Highbrow
  • International Authors
  • Listen to Uncle Stevie!
  • terribleminds
  • The (Submission) Grinder

Social

  • View @indigovales’s profile on Twitter

Housekeeping

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Stay in touch with good ol' fashioned email here at indigovales@gmail.com

Join 127 other subscribers

Archives

  • October 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • October 2021
  • July 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • May 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Indigo Vales
    • Join 127 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Indigo Vales
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar