Humans

Scars and Blood

Scars and Blood

That’s what we are:

Scars and Blood.

Time makes the scars,

Experience draws the blood.

Scars and Blood 

Scars and Blood

That’s what we’re made of

Scars and Blood

Nails and Bones

Nails and Bones

That’s what we break:

Nails and Bones.

Nails do the scratching

Bones do the tapping.

Nails and Bones

Nails and Bones

That’s what we’re made of:

Nails and Bones

Tongues and Eyes

Tongues and Eyes

That’s we use:

Tongues and Eyes

Sharp are the Tongues

Blind are the Eyes

Tongues and Eyes

Tongues and Eyes

That’s what we use:

Tongues and Eyes.

Teeth and Hair

Teeth and Hair

That’s how we judge:

Teeth and Hair.

Teeth white as white

Hair bright as bright.

Teeth and Hair

Teeth and Hair

That’s what we’re made of:

Teeth and Hair.

Gut and Ears

Guts and Ears

That’s how we hear:

Guts and Ears.

Guts are the wise ones

Ears are the dull ones

Guts and Ears

Guts and Ears

That’s how we hear:

Guts and Ears.

Tears and Fear

Tears and Fear

We need to lose our

Tears and Fears

Tears do the excusing

Fears do the killing.

Tears and Fears

Tears and Fears

We must lose our

Tears and Fears.

Happy 4th of July

It's a common misconception that the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4th 1776. That famous painting with our Founding Fathers gathered around the document is inaccurate. There was never a large gathering like that to sign it. After it was drawn up, it had to be ridden to several towns where the various Founding Fathers were at the time. We forget, that even when the war was over (in our perspective) there was a lot of political turmoil: What's fair and what isn't? Whose the Governor or leader of this city and so on and so forth. There was a lot to be done, and while that document is now considered to be one of the most important in our nation's history, it was actually just one of many legal documents that needed to be taken care of, and it was well into August by the time all of the signatures on the Declaration of Independence were in their places.


This song is one that I grew up listening to, the country radio stations would play it on every patriotic national holiday, not exclusively on the Fourth of July, and then of course after 9-11-01 they only played patriotic songs for what seemed the longest time. Since I no longer listen to the radio (they don't play what I enjoy listening to anyways) I haven't heard this song from start to finish in several years, and I figured it was long enough.

I have a Plan

For the past few days I have been very stressed out. Since I joined Avon, I’ve had to learn the Avon terminology or “language of the business” on top of that I needed to figure out what I wanted to do with the job. Did I want to earn the bare minimum of what I need, or more? Then I realized I didn’t really have any idea how much money I need to do the things I want to do with the money. So there were a lot of questions that I needed answered and most of which I didn’t know how to ask, or where to look. The worst part of it though, was that there were a lot of questions I didn’t even know that I needed to ask. (That was the part that really sucked.) Learning the language of the job, finding out what I wanted out of the job, figuring out what I want and need from the job, and whether or not I tie everything together into something I was capable of doing. I put myself under a lot of stress to find these things out, and I have been very uptight and “not fun” as my Mama would say, (and I think did say at one point).

  But I’ve figured out what I want the job to pay for, and how much I need. I’ve learned enough of the Avon language to achieve that dollar amount, probably not as fast and as effectively as possible, but I am learning as I go, so it’s good enough for me. After all the right questions were asked and most of them answered, I feel a whole lot better, and not under so much stress. I now have a plan, and as anyone who knows me well can attest, (and not many know me well) I am much more fun when I have a plan.

Belief

I remember when I was much younger and my family went to church, I didn’t realize for the longest time that people actually believed the stories in the Bible. It was a gradual realization, there wasn’t really a specific moment in time that it struck me that people took those stories seriously and as actual documented events. Like the Ancient Greek stories that my Mama told me, I thought they were good moral stories to learn from, and that church was just a place where people who had a particular connection with those stories gathered (which I found kind of odd, because I found the tales a little hard to understand because of the way they were written, but they were adults, sometimes adults did things that didn’t make sense to me because I’m the kid. It would all make sense once I was grown up, which in my mind was around fourteen or so). I remember not wanting to accept that adults believed these stories, and having to keep on reminding myself that they thought it was all real so I wouldn’t make a comment that might offend them.

  At one point I tried to think it was all true, I even said it out loud, but it rang false in my ears. The statement made me feel dirty, because I didn’t believe, I just wanted to, really badly, I wanted to, but I didn’t like the feeling that the Lord’s Prayer gave me when I recited it, it was the same feeling I got when I was trying to lie to someone.

  So for years I discouraged my family going to church. When my parents asked if I wanted to go, I would just say I didn’t like getting up early, and they would leave it at that and let me sleep. One year on Easter Papa was feeling some pressure from his boss to go to this Easter play his boss’s church was putting on. I tried to pass the “too early” excuse, but it was an evening show. So we went, and I remember feeling some surprise after the show was over and everyone was invited to come up to the alter and be forgiven all of their sins, and neither of my parents budged. Later, our parents bought us some shakes for behaving so well, even though none of us had wanted to go. As we slurped they explained that sometimes in the work world you had to do things that you wouldn’t normally do, and in this case it was either Papa would have to spend hours on his boss’s boat to go fishing, or go to this play; and that if he didn’t do either, it would have been very awkward. We asked what they thought of the Easter story; the most that they would commit to was that if Jesus was a real person, it didn’t really affect us because it was so long ago. I felt a rush of relief, because I felt that way too, though I wouldn’t have been able to put it to words. It wasn’t until years later that I found out that my parents never stated their own beliefs because they wanted my brothers and I to find our own way, and not be influenced by their opinions when we were too young to make our own, and no matter what conclusions we reached, they would accept it and love us no matter what.

  In my late teens whenever I made a statement about beliefs or religion in general, Mama would present the opposite side of the arguments, which baffled me, then she told me she just wanted me to have my arguments down to the letter, so my opinions would be complete, like a house with four walls, a door and a roof (I’m paraphrasing, she didn’t say this exactly.) As I became more observant and I just saw more of the world in general, I learned that there were people out there who had their opinions, and stood by them, even though their “house” was very incomplete, the one thing that they had finished was a closed and padlocked door to keep all other options and opinions out. So because of my parent’s unique and wise way of upbringing, I feel confident in my house, and that I try to keep all doors and windows open, and I’m not afraid of remodel as circumstances change in my life.

Storytelling

The more I think about it the more I realize that everything that I enjoy doing involves storytelling. Think about it: acting and watching others act is a way to physically show and recite a story; writing is of course storytelling in its roughest form, no colors, no pretty decorations, it’s just wholly dependent upon the writer’s ability to portray an idea, and the readers ability to process and envision that idea and understand it; music is an emotional story whether it is wordless, in a foreign tongue or otherwise, whether you are the composer of the story or the listener, you are portraying an idea or tale through sounds; dancing is another way of acting out a story; so is a painting and drawing, these pieces of art each tell its own tale in a still form. In this respect, the arts themselves are just a way to communicate ideas, feelings and stories to those who have the ability to understand them.

Last Day

Today is the day before my eighteenth birthday. Not only is it the last day I shall be this age, but it is also the last day I shall be a child as far as the law is concerned. It’s a big thing, according to many. Lots of people mark their eighteenth birthday by doing something they weren’t able to do while they were children, such as going to an R rated movie, or buying a pack of cigarettes, not to smoke them, just because you can. I’ve decided to reflect on what I’ve learned before I turn eighteen.

If there is one thing that I have learned during the last seventeen years of my life, it’s that you can always be a kid inside, even while you’re dealing with adult issues. People that look upon the world with the eyes of a child laugh more and cry less. They are more content because they know what makes them happy. People with child’s eyes can cut through the drama and see the heart of a problem. Children know life is simple and that life should be fun instead of hard and cruel. Adults make the world hard, not the world.

I’m facing my adult life with the determination to keep my child’s eyes well taken care of, instead of letting them be blinded by “obligations”, and “responsibilities”.

As long as we live, we learn, and as long as we learn, we make mistakes. Making mistakes is a part of being alive, so why sweat it? Why tangle ourselves in the delusion that life is hard when we hold the key to making it simple? When you hurt someone, you apologize. When you fall, you get back up and clean you wounds and heal. When someone hurts you don’t let them hurt you again; whether that means talking it out, avoiding that subject, or avoiding that person all together.

When I was thirteen, I dreamed that I died. Mama told me that it was my self-consciouses way of acknowledging that my life and body were changing from girl to woman and I wouldn’t be able to go back again. In a sense my childhood was dying, but she said “with every end there is a beginning.” My childhood would be over, and I would be an adult, there is no way to turn back the clock. I will go to college, get some degrees and do things no child could ever do. I will not be able to go outside after a rainstorm and throw mud at my brothers unless I wanted to be put in the psycho ward. There are things I can never do again; but that doesn’t mean I can’t have fun like a child, smile and laugh like a child, and be carefree whenever the opportunity presents itself.

With this last essay as the seventeen-year-old me, I bid you farewell.

A Conversation Between Three Parents

Linda: How old are your children?
Jim: Thirty-five and thirty-three.
Martha: Nineteen, seventeen, and fifteen.
Linda: Ooh.
Martha: What?
Jim: Don’t worry, they’ll be gone soon.
M: Why should I worry?
J: Well, when my children were teenagers, my wife and I took every opportunity to be out of the house: golfing, fishing, hunting, women’s group for her and poker every Friday and Saturday night for me, and adult church supper every Sunday evening.
L: Yes, yes. I have a three year old and a five year old, so I know exactly what you mean by needing to get away.
J chuckling: I still remember all of those sleepless nights getting the baby to stop crying!
L: Tell me about it.
M: Well, that’s the deal with babies, they don’t understand how to wait; when they need something they need it now.
L: Yes, yes, but they’re so….needy.
J: That’s how they are, and it doesn’t ever stop. Even now my kids call me: “Benny broke his arm and I don’t think I can pay the bill.” Did you ever think of getting health insurance? He’s not my kid; it’s time you take responsibility.
M: Is Benny your…step-grandson?
J: No, he’s my grandson, why did you think-
L interrupting: Maybe they can’t afford insurance.
J: Oh they could if they thought ahead and saved.
There was a silence.
L: I can’t even fathom three teenagers.
M: It’s really not that bad-
J: Oh, you’re just more patient then the rest of us.
M: Perhaps.
L: I must say I’ve never seen three teens more well-behaved. How did you do that?
M: Love, care, coddling and being honest.
J scoffs.
L: Well, we all do that, but what’s your secret? What do you do to make them behave?
M: I don’t do anything. They learned basic manners when they were really young. Every once in awhile they need reminders, but we all do, don’t we?
M gives a laugh to break the tension.
J: How did you do that?
M: I was always right there reminding them. If I said “No” and they didn’t listen, there was always a consequence. I never let them get away with anything, so they grew up knowing that if they chose to cross a line they would get into trouble.
L: But that sounds so time-consuming.
J: And straining.
M: Sometimes that part of raising a child is hard, but I found most of it all a joy.
J grunts and walks off.
L as she walks away: Well, I have no idea how you can have all of that energy.
M to herself: You don’t care enough to make the effort. That’s too bad for you.

Wolves - If everyone cared

I found this yesterday. I believe it to be a great representation of the beauty of these animals. Wolves have been greatly misunderstood for centuries. If we all learned to think with clarity and logic, we would all understand that the wolf is a needed animal in the wild to keep the balance of life and death. The elimination of this vital strand of the web of life can only lead to disaster. Not to mention the wolves serve as a reminder for us humans that all things of nature have a place and are beautiful.

Carlin on Campus 5 of 6

I'm sick, so I thought I'd post something funny about being sick. It's near the end of the video, but I hope you will enjoy the whole thing.

Rose Dog

I went out to pet my dog today (who loves the weather here. I guess if I had a fur coat on all the time I’d prefer the cold too.) At one point he jolted away to the opposite side of the yard, at first I thought he was just being goofy, then I looked at the bush he was standing in front of and I saw what he wanted to show me: a little rose that was just beginning to bloom. He and I share a special love for flowers; on walks he will pause to smell every flower along the way. This particular rose was too high for Merlin to reach and sniff. So I gently bent the rose down so that he could smell it too. It was a very special moment for girl and dog.

Death

I don’t suppose a lot of people think about Death these days. When they do, they think of it as a disease that needs to be solved, rather than a natural course of events.
Aging? A disease? Get out of here! What’s next? Pregnancy is a parasitic condition? That actually makes a whole lot more sense to me.
There are so many interpretations of Death that I enjoy studying its many interpretations. One thing that’s evident to me is that everything dies eventually. Even the mythical Gods couldn’t truly escape it, if one wished to “off” the other; it was usually possible. (Although, usually the Gods got so angry at each other, they prefer to keep their enemy Gods around to torture them.) But that’s besides the point. The point is, everything dies, so why be afraid of it? Why pretend there’s a way around it? It’ll come eventually to everybody, so just live your life and be happy. The only thing that’s known for sure is this life, so just live your life and be happy.

Clumsy

I’m really clumsy. There I said it. Always have been, always will be, I think it’s safe to say everybody has clumsy “spells” but some of us are born clumsy, and we just have graceful “spells”. I wish I would have one soon, before I lose an appendage. It’s been crazy lately.

On top of the ordinary bumps and bruises that I inflicted upon myself on a regular basis, I have one freaky accident, or one bump or scrape that’s more serious than the rest, or something that could have been avoided, had I just paid more attention every two or three months. This week I’ve had each of these things:

1. The Avoidable Accident
Friday, I’m baking cookies and the timer goes off. I can’t locate an oven mitten within the first three seconds of looking, instead of looking a little longer, or asking where one was: I grab a towel, thinking: “I hope this towel’s thick enough…Nope, guess not….ouch! Cookies were saved and I had a huge blister on my right hand index finger, and a little one on my thumb.

2. The Serious Scrape
Last night I got up from my futon to go to the bathroom, and I felt my bed tilt with me. So, I lean back so that I don’t flip it over and I think it flips all the way back. When I come back from the bathroom and climb into bed I feel the futon is at a slant, but I’m sleepy, so I’m not sure. I lean over to feel if the futon leg is on the ground or in the air: sure enough, as soon as I find the leg bottom the futon shifts and lands on the floor, with my right middle and ring finger squished in between. Luckily nothing was broken, however, I did bruise my ring finger a little, and I scraped layers of skin off of my middle finger.( I had no idea the futon leg was that sharp.) So now I’m out of practicing piano for a few days, and I’m typing with only nine fingers.

3. Freaky
This morning I was playing with a pen; and the clasp for pinning it on a shirt broke off and a piece went flying straight into my eye. My eye wasn’t scratched, even though I hadn’t had time to blink to keep the foreign object from hitting my eyeball, but it sure did make it water. I walked around like a one eyed pirate for about a minute.

All in all, I hope that this was the last of my accidents, because frankly, I don’t want to know what might happen next.

Driving

I recently received my driving permit (RED ALERT! Watch the roads!!) No I’m kidding…a little. I’m keeping most of my driving in abandoned parking lots, so you don't really have to worry about bumping into me...or me bumping into you, I guess would be more accurate.

So far I’ve managed to crash into six imaginary cars while backing out of parking spaces, which I was pretending was a crowded mall parking lot (rather than an empty college parking lot); and I’ve hit two more imaginary cars by forgetting to look before changing lanes. Just for laughs, I gave backing into a parking space a whirl, and I’m not even going to tell you what happened. All in all, I’m getting better, and I was unleashed upon a real road with real cars yesterday, and I didn’t freak out…not on the outside anyways.

My car of choice hasn’t sustained any damage, and I haven't given Mama (who has been my licensed driver in all of my driving adventures) whiplash. So all in all, I guess I haven’t done that badly.

This is What You Get

This is what you get with me
What you get is what you see
I don’t ask for much
My demands are such
That an honest person can
Keep it all in han’.

This is what you get with me
Just be who you were meant to be
Then I choose to stay
Or to walk and keep away.
Keep honest and
Find your place to stand
I cannot find
it for you; I do not wish to bind
Myself to you
If you don’t know if you can be true.

This is what you get with me,
There isn’t much to see
My cards are on the table
For anyone who is able
There are no games to play
The price to lose, I can’t pay.

This is what you get with me
What you get is what you see.

Mama

Mama

She does all she can for you.
Not for the pleasure of telling you what to do.
But to let you learn from her experiences
So you won’t have to burn the way she did.

She loves you like no one else can
She always has a plan
For something fun and new to learn
Never indifferent she is always filled with concern.

Never does she ignore
She runs when you cry
Never speaks scathing words
She asks what’s wrong when you sigh

She is love. She is Mama.

Stairs Leading to Nowhere

I was flipping through one of my composition books and came across an old writing prompt that said “Stairs leading to nowhere…” My first story was about a crumbling staircase in a graveyard that used to be a part of a building that’s function was long forgotten.
Today when I looked at the prompt it brought up things in my mind that were completely different from what I had come up with the last time I looked at it.
The first things that popped into my head were the unfinished “Adoration of the Magi” painting by Leonardo Di Vinci, and the stone steps in our old backyard in Bella Vista, and how Arkansas is a place that will lead a local to nowhere and an outsider to certain ruin…
Then there was something else a lot more profound than the others. Drugs and alcohol are “stairs leading to nowhere” in a symbolic sort of way.
Everyone can look at history and see what those things do to people, that it leads to absolutely nowhere, or like the “Adoration of the Magi” they lead to a shear drop that could kill you.
Anyone can see it, yet generation after generation continue to choose not to look beyond the step directly beneath them, and when they run out of stairs they may not even realize that their falling until they hit the ground.
Then what? What do most people do if they survive hitting the ground? Turn around and start looking for a staircase that will actually lead them somewhere? Some do, most don’t.
Sad to say a large number of them get right back on that same old staircase, thinking that this time they won’t climb so high this time, and they’ll avoid falling. A number of them do succeed to a degree while others take the big tumble all over again. All these people continue to use the stairs, never seeing that they will never bring them anywhere.
They just stay stuck in place, never moving on as human beings, never progressing, they are content to remain stationary, content in their nothingness and insignificance, until they become another step on the stairs leading to nowhere.

Photo Albums

Now a day’s everybody is going digital with everything. I find myself asking: Is this a good thing?
It seems to me that people who do their billing, banking, picture taking, writing, communication and filming all digitally are just one Super Virus away from becoming nobody. I don’t read much science fiction, but I’m sure that there is some author somewhere who has addressed the issue of a technologically advanced species that lost everything in a major power shortage, and everybody was reduced to a very primitive way of living. These people forgot who they were and where they came from and went back to telling stories about gods who control everything that happens, because that will seem more logical than microorganisms, atoms and neutrons. Because these people forgot their own histories they became in essence, nothing…

I’m not about to go into all of that, I’m not predicting that something like that will happen, I’m just planning upon making a smaller point, that will demonstrate that going digital is not necessarily a good thing.

Photos

I love my families albums, I love being able to just sit down and remember things that happened, and even the things that I was too young to remember, I like to imagine that I can. I’m not capable of relating how much these albums mean to my family and I. The ability to recount events and recall old conversations and events that we shared together helps us stay strong as a family, and helps bring forth our individuality.
Another thing I don’t think I could ever live without is our old family portraits. I can’t remember a time when Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Mezzano didn’t gaze down at me from a wall in my families home. Although I never met them, it’s a constant and comforting reminder that I am a part of a family; that a piece of those two people lives in me, and I feel as if as long as they hang on the wall, they will always be alive as well.
I feel similarly about the photo albums, except they have me and people that I know and have met in them, I can’t help but feel as long as they are there, I will always live on. My history and my story will always be there for someone else to see long after I’m gone. It gives me a sense of long lasting security. I will never disappear. I will always be there in those happy, or angry, or frustrating moments, it’s captured right there in that second.

Now this digital thing, I’m afraid of it quite frankly. I walk into people’s houses and there isn’t a single picture on the wall. Not a family portrait, or a school picture. It’s like these people are ghosts, these homes feel as empty and as expressionless as a hotel room. I immediately feel alien from these people; there isn’t a sign of them anywhere!
So when I hear that people have gone digital and their kids are rebelling against it, my immediate reaction is: “of course they are!! Why wouldn’t they?”
They’re growing up like ghosts. No wait, if they were ghosts, they would have a past, and they would be clinging to it. These children are without a past. When you’re growing up, you are constantly wondering “Who am I?” and “Where did I come from?” It’s in human nature to ask these questions. To have a past gives you your identity, something that can never be stolen from you. Photos in easily accessible albums, and hanging on the walls were children can see it gives them a sense of security.
Growing up I know that man on the wall is my Great Grandpa. I know that my Great Grandpa immigrated to this country and married my Great Grandma. That's the greatest feeling in the world: to know that there is a place for you; to know that you are an essential member of a family. Even though they never met me, I am a part of my grandparents lineage, and they mine.
Humans need that sense of belonging, which is why it makes perfect sense that the kids are rebelling against the going-digital thing. What doesn’t make sense is the adult’s immediate willingness to strip themselves of their identity in their own homes.

Moving On

Moving On

Moving on is hard
Leaving the known
Is hard
For all you receive is unknown

We all put it off
No one likes a change.
We can no longer put it off
We need the change.

To keep life like this
Will suffocate us
To accept everything as is
Will mean the end for us.

I can’t stay with you
If you continue
To allow those who harm you
Around you.

I seeing you hurt everyday
By those who
Have the audacity to say
They love you.

I always ask myself: How can you hurt
Those you say you love?
I want “this take and hurt”
Way of love.

If this is the way it is
I will skim above
Any chance of
This so called “love.”

All that is left a web of lies
With mere whispers of the love
That first made the ties
Of a home of peaceful love.

So many tears fall
I fear there’s more to come
God can’t count them all
Yet each partake in who I shall become.

It is a burden on my heart and mind
I cannot fight your fight
I can’t cut the ropes that bind
Your will and might.

I walk away
So that I may breathe again
And I will pray
That you will learn to Fly again.