...to ramble.
Are you ready?
I’m in bed. I’m thinking way too much about how absolutely @#$%& I feel. It is heavy in my vibration. I have tried to write haiku with the best being: Although I am not//my thoughts are constipated//making life crappy. And I tried to work on a couple of other projects I love but there’s no brain power there either. There is no germination of creative thoughts reproducing in my head…only germs. They’re seducing my immune system. Biological perverts. I did get up to make my children breakfast. Yes. I washed my hands. Lunchtime was a free for all and the kitchen looks like a room straight out of Amityville Horror. But I’m not scared. I can hear my dogs barking in the backyard. I want them to chill but I know they sense me through the double doors that lead outside and they are making sure I know they’re doing their job of protecting me from the strange old man checking the meter. He isn’t strange at all, in fact, he’s very nice. We share the easement. His bill had been running high. The city had to come and dig up the ground between our homes to find the source of a water leak. They did. Their fault. Terrible waste of water and that man’s good nature. The city also had to come and cut down a few trees due to power lines. I miss those trees. I told them I didn't think it was necessary to completely cut them down but they did and now the soil is flooded with sunlight and I plan to garden there. It’s an electric co-op.* Everything feels cooperative in this place. I guess I can’t speak of living here without speaking of the places I’ve lived before. I was raised in a small town in the middle of Oklahoma. My parents move away the summer before my senior year of high school leaving me and my sister to live with my best friend’s parents. My sister moved in with me while I was in college and finish high school. It was in college that I met my children’s father who is now becoming my dear friend. When we discovered our first child was on the way, we dropped out of college and move to Kansas to be near my mother. It’s my birthplace. It is also my mother and daughter's which I think is kinda cool. We were there a year. Then we moved up to Washington State. I didn’t want to go. I had a new baby and blood family around me. Something I had missed when they moved away. I wanted to be with my grandmother, in particular. But I followed and would continue to follow and follow my friend's dream. In Washington, it took me 18 months to acclimate to the weather. I went through seasonal depression though I really think I just felt alone. But, once the metaphorical clouds cleared (because the real life ones that hung over the mountains seldom did), I fell in love with the place. As quickly as I came out of it, I began working at the refugee center and met amazing people from all around the world who wanted what my friend wanted: The American Dream. I loved being invited over to their homes for dinner. I loved the gratitude that they would constantly feed me as they intricately wove me as some small thread in achieving their dreams. It was humbling and amazing to watch their transformation into becoming Tom the florist or Alyssa the nail technician. I was always a little sad that they would change their names but looking back I understand it now. It was an expansion of who they were, a shedding of some of the pain of who they were in the stories they told me. The name change was just one step in the many they would take towards their dreams. Writing of them, I am missing them as family. Losing touch, I wonder how they are, where they are and if they know I still think of them. I think of their many children and grandchildren who will never have to walk what were often fearful barefooted paths that lead to America. I think they think of me, once in a great while, which blesses me. Yeah. Wow. K. Moving on. I also worked in group homes for the physically and mentally challenged. Of course, with my son, I consider the term ‘mentally challenged’ to be inaccurate. It’s still physical. Mouth muscles won’t move sequentially due to pre-motor/motor cortex issues. Physical firing of synapses in chaos. Movement, movement, movement in and outside of the body disorganized. I think more in terms of ‘regular’ folk as teachingly challenged. The ways and means of educating this type of intelligence have only recently appeared on radar. I'm not talking about the ins and outs of behavioral manipulation but the hardcore Stephen Hawkings waiting for some attention. There is no homogeneous method. Teaching is that beautiful process of mirroring back to someone the wisdom that lives inside them. But I knew nothing then. I still don’t much now but I've always known they deserved joy. I was in charge of community integration. I was to assimilate my friends into society. I loved the hell out of my job. One was most fond of live music. We were kindred spirits. She had autism and it was very obvious but she was older and had learn to go with the flow of her life so new places and faces did not effect her like some. We were going to grab an early dinner at a local pub and it was open mike. I never would have connected her passion for music if it had not been for the rumble in her stomach that day. It became a staple in her life. We went every Sunday to hear the local talent for a least a good year before I left that position to return to Oklahoma. Last time I heard, she was still going. That was years ago and I think the pub is now a Starbucks or something similar. But I know she knew joy, at least once a week. And I know that whomever was in charge saw that joy would continue, I'm certain. Anyway, I did complete my undergraduate degree before returning to Oklahoma. And the gorgeous babies just kept coming. The only reason I have a graduate degree at all is that the class scheduling worked out better than a full-time job when it came to caring for my children. How good is the Universe? I didn't care if I was in hock for student loans...they helped pay the bills and I was continuing my education and my kids got me more often than plan B would have allowed. Actually, the job was plan A. So my kids got me more often than plan A would have allowed. Man. I'm really rambling. This is kinda fun. You would not believe how often I've had to cough through this whole spiel. The keyboard needs some serious Lysol. Kidding. I don't even own Lysol but I have some concoction that will be more effective anyway. Wait. *cough* See? You couldn't but that was quite an impressive moment of hacking. If you could hear me sing right now, you'd swear I was Louis Armstrong. Well, I guess I'm done rambling for now. I'm no longer in the mood. It's dinnertime. Yikes. The kitchen. Maybe I am scared.
Later.
*I stand corrected. It wasn't the city but some other dudes.