Articles

Nov 30 2015

The life of a blanket

Author: Kerry

81UXwQ7xCoL._SX522_

This little guy… pictured above…. This is his story

Im not really sure of his origin… He entered my life at a time that I couldn’t get enough layers between the world and I.

I walked into the studio at work… and climbed on the purple couch and poured my heart and soul out to the people I work with … I wiped my tears with the blanket… and took naps and such with it during lunch because I could not sleep at night.

Things calmed down for me… My divorce was finalized… Mr Amazing had been introduced into my world… when one snowy march morning I took the off ramp from the interstate towards work at even a slower speed than was recommended and caught a patch of ice and rolled my beautiful car into the the ditch at the very bottom of it…

I was bruised from head to toe… But my knees are what really took the brunt of the accident… and arthritis took up residency in them… That same blanket from that same studio was brought to my desk… to wrap my knees against the cold … to keep the pain at bay as much as possible.

This last July I took a huge leap of faith and left that career of 15 years… I left those boys in the studio who I adored… and set out to really discover who I am.

The blanket came along as I couldn’t bear to leave it behind and as I packed up my belongings… I put it in the trunk of my car…

Where this last Thursday I finally took it from its dark resting place and covered a homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk down the alley my car was parked as I came from a Holiday meal… I wrapped it around him and told him I loved him… and I left wondering what adventure this little blanket would go on next.

Oct 06 2015

Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice…

Author: Kerry
Coffee Talk! Share your first pumpkin spice latte of the season with us.

Coffee Talk! Share your first pumpkin spice latte of the season with us.

Sound Track for this post… as they sometimes have… just go ahead and click play and keep reading…

Sunday afternoon… No Smalls!

Just Mr Amazing and I driving up the winding canyon road… talking about everything that is important in our lives right now… about getting older… and how priorities change… and perspective… He is turning 40 in just a few days… it is very daunting to him… I cannot help but laugh because I remember just two years ago being in the same spot… I remember being so afraid of it…but it came anyways… and something magical happened… I changed… much like the seasons… much the like the colors starting to touch these leaves we were making the journey to see their change…. their change is beautiful

Alpine Mountains

Alpine Mountains

And so are the changes we go through in life… I remember thinking how it was a measure of who I was… what I had accomplished at 40… which was not what I had wanted… not what I had imagined… and not nearly good enough.

But then the day after 40 came… and then another… and then another… and it didnt matter anymore… infact… most of my preconceived notions about life… who I was and how it should be did not matter any more… Some kind of dark magic happened. I quit worrying about it.

Alpine Mountains

Alpine Mountains

And I listened to him worry that he had not done enough… and he didnt know what he was going to do… and I smiled at him… fondly… because I am so full of the fondness for this man… and I told him to just wait…

We are not what we do… we are not where we have been… where we are going… what we have accomplished… None of those things are who we really are … We are what is inside of us… and something about 40 makes what is inside of us scream to be heard finally… to be paid attention too… to be expressed!

He shook his head and laughed his “if you say so” laugh… and I told him how sexy he is… as we do.

We stopped at some dirty gas station for cokes… when I spotted it… that old school… probably full of bacteria… one button wonder…. Pumpkin Spice Machine… and I drank that shit.

Because Life is not as short as we think it is… and fall brings out the best in all of us.

Sep 17 2015

All my life…

Author: Kerry

Something you wanted to be when you grew up.

Something you wanted to be when you grew up.

<settles in with popcorn, a drink, grey sweatpants, messybun, dog on my feet, TV on in the background>

My Entire life… for as long as I can remember … I have wanted to do one thing….. Write.

Sure I took classes for writing… along with child development… business development… then I went and worked a Marketing career for most of my adult life.

My dreams of being a writer were prior to blogging days… prior to internet days… yes… I am that old

My first memories of wanting to write come in Elementary school… where i remember being so moved by a book that I described it so emotionally in the book report that a teacher mentioned my flair for drama might make me a writer.

Through Junior Highschool I switched to the gothic poetry writing… life is bleak… wear all black… stick it to the man. stuff.

Highschool brought more poems… and cutting… and then I began trudging the road to a happy destiny… that included the stopping of wallowing in the wrongs of the world… and the impending demise of it… and onto looking at the brighter side of things…. and the writing stopped for a time….

Once I wrote a story… about 500 pages worth of it… it was a mixture of real and fabrication to make it sound better… and then I put it in a garbage can and set it on fire.

The internet happened… which was quickly followed with message boards and forums… I wrote like a mad woman… really… I was mad about so many social issues.

Then blogs… Ive had several.. finally landing here years ago and settling in nicely … see? notice the popcorn and pajamas?

I joined some writing groups… not much unlike this favorite workshop of mine (Kats)

and a story started… a fictional one… and it is beautiful.

and I write.

I have always been a writer… from even before I knew I wanted to be one…

It kind of reminds me of this… I am just gonna leave this right here… I’m done… the popcorns gone.

 

Sep 02 2015

Filtering the world.

Author: Kerry
The Light and Shade Challenge

The Light and Shade Challenge

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. 
Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

– Oscar Wilde

How many masks do you have to put on each day…

mom… evil stepmother… wife…  friend… tortured soul of a writer.

there are variations of these… to protect us in social circles… good girl… bad girl…. tough girl…  caring girl.

The poem, written by Charles C. Finn was titled Please Hear What I am Not Saying.

The opening lines read, “Don’t be fooled by me. Don’t be fooled by the face I wear, for I wear a mask, a thousand masks, masks that I am afraid to take off and none of them is me.”

Personally I think we hide ourselves because we’re afraid that the truth of who we are will not be acceptable… That if others…  even those who we trust with our love… were to see who we really are they would turn from us… that we will be seen not as angels but as monsters.
But we can’t all be monsters…
Feelings are not right or wrong… they just are.. and it is what we do with them that determines our worth.

 as a child… I was wearing a very self destructive mask through those years… one that almost fuzed itself permanently to my skin… in the process of taking it off I found…

a journey of self discovery is as simple as deciding which masks are the faces you want to show the world… they are not someone else’s masks…and if they resemble others… it is simply because you took part of what they offered up to the world… they are not foreign objects … the are slivers of personality… leaks of truth… partial revelations…

all of our heroes wear masks.

I cannot find the source to attribute this photo to... sorry.

If you truly want to know yourself… or another…. it is not about removing the masks… but seeing them all at once… forest for the trees and what not.

 

 

Sep 01 2015

Free Falling…

Author: Kerry

Write a blog post that ends with the word: leap.

Write a blog post that ends with the word: leap.

Looking for work when you don’t really want to work is hard…

I have always worked… always… since I was fifteen…I am turning 42 this month…  Im sure there were stretches I have forgotten about where I was between jobs for a month or two… but I cannot remember a single one… and I was with the company I just jumped ship from for almost 15 years… I am entering my 4th week of not going to work… It is time for me to get serious about doing something about that… I have gone on 4 or 5 job interviews now… nothing has felt right..either for them or me… <sigh> I am getting a little discouraged… which is funny because I am not desperate yet… Im worried I will get there… but I planned this well…

Here is the thing though… The filling out of applications is easy… submitting a resume … I have amazing skills… Its the interviews that are killing me. I feel like I am selling myself… which I understand I am… and I come out of those things terrified of two things… one.. that I didn’t sell myself well enough… and two… that I over did it and my days of laying in bed plunking away at my cute purple keys on my macbook air are over… I am torn with whether they should be or not.

So far… I have only not been the right candidate… or the job is not right for me… but I am going to have to decide what I am doing next…

I love being home … I love the alone time… I love the writing… I love the coffee sipping… bird listening… housework upkeep… the freedom… the lack of stress… but at the end of day I get the better of me and it ends with worthlessness… not earning my keep… gelatinous pile of netflix watching flesh

Today is September 1st… and I am feeling weepy… guilty… always always guilty… I think it’s my middle name… Guilty that Mr. Amazing is working his ass off… Guilty that I am home at a time when Small Child doesn’t need me to be… when he could have used me his entire life… until now.. he just gets up and drives himself to school…. guilty that I am not cleaning enough… or at all really … guilty for breathing… The wind is blowing outside… the sound of it against the windows is just enough to keep me from continuing down that flight of stairs inside my mind…

Oh... Look... No Make Up... Bags under eyes... Still fucking sexy.

Oh… Look… No Make Up… Bags under eyes… Still fucking sexy.

So here is the thing … For someone that has zero religion… I tend to believe that everything happens for a reason… and my life has always had a way of working out… very much despite my best efforts… now that doesn’t mean I dont need to do the footwork… and maybe it works out because I make the best out of whatever is given to me… Im not really sure… but I do know that even though I feel the need to constantly justify it… I am doing the right thing for me right now… which is pretty much nothing at all. There is a saying “Leap… and the net will appear” … Im working with out a net here people… I don’t even want one…FUCK the net…  so here I am… after the kamikaze yell… and the barrelling towards the edge of what I have always known… every time I choose to leap.

Jul 26 2015

You Matter…

Author: Kerry

Picture if you will…

It was a beautiful Saturday evening… sitting in the courtyard of the local shopping plaza on plush out door furniture… and fake green grass being cartwheeled across by a handful of rambunctious children.

The fountain is spraying in a choreographed multihued performance to the music playing from the well placed speakers… out of sight in flower boxes as if the flowers themselves were singing to us…

Happily seated between Mr. Amazing and Small Child… waiting for our XD 3D center row seating to the latest magic Marvel has put before us.

Perfection … halted by the alert of a text on my phone…

The following image was received from my  best friend… She explains that she was cleaning her teenage daughters room while she is off at camp when she climbed into her bed which is in a nook and saw something that could only been seen by someone laying there… that is was not visible from any other angle… and she sent me this image as she lay there as her daughter does daily…

IMG_0835

A lump formed in my throat and dread settled around my heart like a cloak… and I can only imagine this is a sliver of what my friend is going through… I try to imagine how she must be feeling… and try to say the right thing…

I do not need to imagine how the girl is feeling… I do not need to imagine the depth of shame and self loathing that drives someone to write such things… to punish oneself so brutally. No Imagination required… I have an infinite pool of experience to swim in to know exactly what she must feel like… and what it must feel like to wake daily and look at those words. I run my fingers along the scars on my arms… they are 23 years old… I touch the deep gouge of a scar on my thigh… I can still feel it even through my jeans… I remember carving the word “Worthless” on myself… I remember my journal entries filled with too many feelings… filled with hate and pain.

It is wrong how we sometimes treat ourselves… If someone on the street… or in the children’s school spoke to our children that way we would beat their asses… we would intervene… we would get them help and support them and make sure they knew they were not alone…

But what do you do… when the bully… the abuser… the hate is being spewed by the person you love… in the case of our offspring more than we love anything else on the planet… People are left speechless… afraid and confused in these situations… They say horrible things… “They just want attention”… “Its the media… the marketing… the music… their friends”

So we did what anyone in my situation would do… We awoke early this morning… and I went to the craft store… I took small with me… not only to talk about the situation… but because we all love this girl so very much…  Her amazing mother and older brother hauled the bed in pieces to the carport and covered the words that beautiful girl… whose only vice is feeling maybe a little too much… and they painted over them in her favorite colors… Small Child and I went to work with stickers, stencils, acrylic paints and sharpies… 3 hours later…

IMG_0844

She may be angry with us when she discovers it upon climbing into her bed… and finds we paid little attention to her want of privacy… and space…she may be embarrassed… she may be revolted by the cheerful affirmations.. and flowers… and butterflies… but the message is loud and clear… “You Matter”… “You are loved” and if anyone had seen two teenage boys painting her bed pink and moving it around so that us mothers could tell her to “Shine” they would understand how very true those words we adhered onto her bed… with nothing less than gorilla glue…. were.

They were true for this young woman… they were true for the young men taking the time to make sure she heard them… without judgement… they were true for the mothers so concerned as we worked so hard to give her a different perspective…

They are true for everyone…

So if you needed to be reminded… as we all do from time to time… You are Loved… and You Matter!

20150726_200209_HDR

Jul 17 2015

Dear Son…

Author: Kerry

It’s so fucking hard to believe you’re turning 16 today.

Apparently… when I blinked, your little blond mancub self… who used to spend hours catching grasshoppers and swimming and music has grown into a tall…kind.. thoughtful…  smart teenager who loves games and girls…

I know this journey hasn’t been easy.

I know your dad and I (especially I!) have made mistakes… but we have done our best… I promise to continue to do so.

It’s not easy figuring out what should be said and done and those words that should remain unsaid and the actions that should remain undone.

Because sometimes, the hardest thing to do is to stay back and let the lesson teach itself… I am so sorry about your dad not being here.

There have been a couple of close calls–a few times I felt my heart in my throat.

When you chased your sister and her friends around the block… with myself and some neighbor lady trying to catch you… when you got past the dead bolt for the first time… when the lump formed on your neck… and later when they wheeled you away to surgery to remove it….when you broke your leg… when the scuba gear sank you like a lead weight…. when your dad died…

Sometimes, it’s hard to tell you what I want you to know. Many times… we don’t see eye-to-eye. Sometimes…  I don’t do well when I’m put on the spot. Sometimes (most times),  I do better in writing. So here goes.

I know you think you have it figured out. Life, I mean.

And in many ways, you do. You get good grades, you get along with your peers, you love music and your viola,. You feel things deeply… and injustice bothers you.

These are all attributes that make me proud of you.

Please–never fail to listen when somebody older and wiser tries to give you advice… Let the BFG offer to help with math…  You don’t always have to take it (many times you shouldn’t!), but listen to those who care enough to try to help.

In just a few years, you’ll be going off to college– Now you are driving without me… making decisions on your own.

I’m not worried about that. Well shit…  I do worry a little, but I think you’ll be fine.

Your moral standards will hold. I know it may sound cliché but I’m going to say it anyway…  follow your heart. Follow your conscience. It’s kept you kind and compassionate.

One thing I do worry about: I want you to make time for friends. I know you are introverted and it’s easier to stay by yourself … but you have so much to offer others: your sense of humor…  your knowledge of current events… your integrity…  your wit. You’re so funny!

Please, don’t sell yourself short. Shoot for the stars! Set high goals. It’s okay to not always succeed — sometimes falling is part of the process. Don’t let yourself get discouraged. Sometimes, you’ll get told “No.” Even though it stings, it’s not the end of the world. If it’s important to you, keep trying…don’t let one person (or opportunity) hold you back. Never let YOU be the one to hold yourself back.

When you do win…know you deserved it. Nobody can say you didn’t.

I’m your mom, and I love you more than I can say… more than there are words to write…and I can’t wait to see how you’re going to shake up this world of ours.

It’s going to be beautiful.

You are My Sunshine...

You are My Sunshine…

 

 

May 05 2015

#Huckabee2016

Author: Kerry

It has been too long since I have shared one of our chats… Also… yes… we know hashtags do not work in chats…

Kerry: #Huckabee2016
Mr Amazing: #FatChanceInHell2016
Kerry: Bahahaha!
Mr Amazing: #ReligiousMinorityRules
Kerry :He just threw his hat in the ring…. which btw… i think they should literally have to do if we are going to keep saying that
They all should wear a hat… and throw it in a ring
Mr Amazing: LOL the poll numbers are crazy
Kerry: Im gonna need some hats… Im gonna throw that shit in all the rings
Mr Amazing: Bush 23, Rubio 18, Walker 14, Paul 11, Cruz 11, Huckabee 5, Christie 5, Carson 7, Perry 2, Santorum, Kasich, Graham, Jindal, Fiorina 1
Kerry: it is a sad sad day when bush is the lesser of all those evils
Mr Amazing: LOL, yes, yes he is
Kerry: Jesus save us all… and take the wheel
Mr Amazing:  <facepalm>
THROWING MY HAT IN THE RING…. More Specifically… This hat!
hat
Apr 28 2015

Uprising

Author: Kerry

AelNight3

I despise the words ‘riot’ and “thug” carelessly thrown into the conversation… They do not understand… They scream their condemnations.

The term “The Final Straw” has never been more literal … and that straw is on fire…

We watch it on the TV… We question who we are… We wonder if the flames will spread… to our own cities so very far…

I am not going to pretend I am someone I am not …and with a heavy heart I look around me…trying to see anything that makes me feel right as I type this from my privileged neighborhood… in my middle class home… on my macbook air…  2 kids… 2 pets…  the news on the big screen…

From this view point I watch as images being filmed in the firelight…show people being ridiculed for stealing their most basic needs.

Fire is vibrant in the dark…

I study the faces of those gathered… Peaceful. Stoic. Calm.

They are not vigilantes… simply vigilant to the cause

They didn’t start the fires… but they feel a deep burning within them….

They do not condone… but they do understand… as they hold their ground on the street

They do not see a riot… but an uprising… and this is the language of The Unheard, The Ignored. The Downtrodden.

and oh I know there are a million different point of views… thousands of opinions… and everyone thinks they are right.

and I apologize if I have offended you or any of them…with these very broken thoughts

But I have to hope that one day the image of the street ablaze will be remembered as the start of how we changed… And that the word ‘thug’ will die out with the flames

and my heart goes out to those Mothers that are praying for their children that are not home tonight…. while mine are tucked into bed safe and …. White.

 

This post was so painful to write as I follow the current events …

I have been paralyzed in my writing for weeks as I am unable to even process thoughts and feelings with all that is going on with our world… I am grateful for the prompt from the Light and Shade challenge for letting me shed a little of the weight…. and I cling to the belief that there is still more good than evil… even if we forget to report on it

The Light and Shade Challenge

The Light and Shade Challenge

Feb 25 2015

No Loitering…

Author: Kerry
Image from WikiCommons, taken by Elia Biraschi and used under the Creative Commons Agreement

Image from WikiCommons, taken by Elia Biraschi and used under the Creative Commons Agreement

I cannot walk through the suburbs in the solitude of the night without thinking that the night pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memory does. ~Jorge Luis Borges

After finding refuge under a tree… though it’s roots make my lawned mattress a lumpy bed… where I slept away the daylight hours… with one eye open… and my wrist twists through the handles of my satchel to avoid it being lifted… to the sound of someones small children playing on the playground littered with broken glass and sharps of all variety… Knowing that people stared… pitied… loathed me… crossed the way to avoid me… patrol cars counting the hours before they can tell me to move… I did move finally.

I pass the homes… still some windows lit even at this late hour… my mouth is dry… I have no water… my stomach is angry that I have no food… my skin crusted with a salty layer of dried perspiration… the summer heat is not too far off… but here in the night it has not found me yet… Soon it will hunt me and haunt me even in the night… though I just barely have recovered from the last attack… a bitter winter war hunt that many of my tribe elders did not survive…

My shoes are so thin that I feel each crevice in the walk way… each piece of gravel beneath the parchment thin sole between my foot and the road.

My legs ache and knees stiffen giving my walk a quirky swing that will soon cause my hips and lower back to beg me to rest…

There is no rest for me… No where to sit… So I continue to shuffle along both longing and fearing the suns return

At every bench… and every bowery… there is the mark against me… the unwelcome sign.

“No Loitering”

and so I walk.

This is a work of fiction.

I see this each night in my city.

Do not cross the street from them.

Do not lend to their belief that they do not matter.

They are not invisible.

Every Life Matters.

 

Brought to you by…

The Light and Shade Challenge

The Light and Shade Challenge