The Road Home

So, poetry.  I used to write poetry all the time.  The first thing I wrote that I ever shared with anyone outside a writing class was a poem.  Would it be too cliche to spin a woeful tale about how I've somehow lost the poetry in my soul?  Probably.  But it has literally been years since I've written any poems.  I honestly don't know why, but I can feel the genre beginning to rattle around in my skull a bit.  I think I should give it a try, even if I'm so rusty that I'm unsure of where to start.  I miss it.  So here goes.....


Something about
that stretch of road
overwhelms me.
The way the fields
illuminate in the afternoon
sun is so
familiar and also
strikingly glorious.
A feeling
like homesickness
creeps in and
brings to mind carefree
summer joyrides and
treacherous winter commutes.
My mind wanders
to mostly forgotten memories
and the fragility
of life.
Anything
can happen.
Yet,
on that road,
I'm
going home.
And everything,
if only for a moment,
is going to be
okay.

Open Letter to All Tri-State Area Drivers

Dear Fellow Drivers -

As we are often sharing the same expressways and thoroughfares, there are a few things I would like to address. If we could come to an agreement on these infractions, I think our comings and goings would be much more pleasant. At least mine would be and that is what I'm really concerned about today.

If you are not passing any cars on the left, stop driving in the passing lane! It is called a passing lane for a reason and that reason is not so that other cars have to start passing you on the right. I do not care what great conversation you are having on your cell phone or that you are engrossed in your radio program. You are driving and you should glance in the rear view mirror every once in a while to see if there are thirty cars lined up behind you. Get the eff over and out of the way of people who have places to go.

If you need to check your make-up, take off your jacket, search for something in the back seat, text your BFF, or adjust your mirrors, the time for this is when you arrive at your destination and not when you have been stopped at a red light for five minutes already. When you are stopped first-in-line at the world's shortest turn light, you should be facing forward, hands on the wheel, eyes on said light, ready to gun it as soon as the green turn-arrow lights up. This will ensure more people than just you can make it through the intersection before the arrow light turns red.

USE YOUR TURN SIGNAL PEOPLE! This alerts the other drivers around you that you are about to do something stupid. Something stupid like turn left from the lane you're driving in rather than taking advantage of the well-marked turn lane you should be using. It also lets us know if you are about to change lanes into us without doing a shoulder check or so much as glancing in your side mirror. Car manufacturers have placed the control for the turn signal very conveniently next to where your left hand should be on the steering wheel. It is very simple to reach out with a finger or two to signal in which direction you are about to do something asinine.

Do not pull right out in front of me when I am driving along at good clip and then proceed to drive like your car is missing an accelerator. Unless you have been sitting at a stop sign for twenty minutes and the space between me and the car ahead of me is your only shot at getting out on to the main road, this is not acceptable. I will cut you some slack if I can see nothing but headlights behind me and you speed up to a suitable speed. But if you could have waited an additional two seconds and pulled out behind me, there is no excuse for slowing me down and getting on my nerves. Especially when it is completely obvious you are in no hurry to get wherever you are going.

If you do any of these stupid things and someone is tailgating you or honks at you or is yelling at from inside their car, you do not have the right to get pissed off, tailgate back, or make obscene gestures. You should take a moment to reflect on your rudeness and adjust your behavior accordingly. Take these words to heart. This really is for your own good.

Un-Me

Today I did something completely un-'me'. I took an entire day for something I wanted to do.... all by myself. I have this thing where I am always thinking about other people. Believe me, I do not mean that in an I'm-completely-selfless-and-a-great-person kind of way. I screw up all the time. I let people down. Far too often, I fail to follow-up or follow-thru. What I mean by always thinking about other people is that there are few things I do, with the exception of the typical everyday minutiae, that do not involve giving consideration to at least one other person. This is certainly not a bad thing. Such is life when you are a wife/mother/daughter/sister/friend/employee.

What I did today was foreign to me that I actually had to make myself stick to it. I went to get my tattoo worked on without anyone else accompanying me. Every other time I've been tattooed, I've had at least one friend with me. It is so fun to make a whole day of it with a friend or some friends, to share that time and that experience, and to all come away with your own piece of permanent art. So being alone was a little weird at first, but I'm so glad I did it. I had almost three hours of time to just drive, listen to music, think, pray, and observe all the crazy drivers. I am friends with my tattoo artist, but he gets easily absorbed in his work so even my time at the shop left me with a lot of time inside my own head.

My tattoo isn't finished yet and my arm is throbbing, but I feel strangely relaxed. I know this will not be a frequent occurrence in the future, but I need to try to make time to do something like this once or twice a year. To do something all alone, away from my house, to take some time to regroup. I love the times I get to spend going on a date with my husband sans kids and (most of) the times I spend with just my kids and the times I spend with friends. Yet I realized that somehow in all that planning of special times with other people, I was counting those times as my "me" time. Today I remembered that it is okay to take some "me" time for only me.

Hands

I had this whole idea for writing about hands, but it's not really coming together. I guess I'll just ramble a while since I really have to post SOMETHING in order to put me one post closer to fulfilling my goal. This whole topic came to mind when I was driving home from work yesterday and thinking of driving and noticing my hands on the steering wheel. Then I was thinking about all the things written or said about hands. Then I was thinking about my hands.

I am completely brutal to my hands. They are tiny and useful so one would think that I would try to take care of them, but it seems impossible. I have slammed them in car doors, cut them on packaging, shut them in the door of the dryer, burned them on molten glass, and just tonight I smashed my knuckles into the bed frame looking for something Owen lost in the guest room. I'm surprised my hands even function at all.

Despite how unkind I am to my hands, I really like them. I'm glad for all the things I am able to do throughout the day because of my hands. Let me just say right now that I'm sorry for all the terrible things I've done to them over the years. Oh, and I'm also sorry for how weird and crazy this post is, but I've obviously gone completely insane and now I'm just using my hands to type my craziness out onto the interwebs.

Girl, Put Your Records On

Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song,
You go ahead, let your hair down.
- Corrine Bailey Rae

"Put Your Records On" is one of those songs that just makes you happy to listen to it. Even if it's not really your kind of music. (In my opinion, of course.) If you've never heard it, well, the lyrics really aren't all that great just by themselves. They really need the music with them. It's kind of weird that I am even beginning this post with a song excerpt from a song that isn't one of my favorites, but it's not as though I never warn people that I'm crazy. Crazy people do things that don't really make any sense.

I was on my way to work the other day, when I realized that I don't really know if I like a CD until I listen to it in the car. I just have so little time to really sit and listen to music without distraction, that my 45 minute round-trip commute has become my music booth time. When I get new music, I do try to listen to it at home, but it just seems like I can never focus on it. I may notice that I really like some of the music, but until I can listen to all the lyrics too, I don't know if I actually like a song. I have to like both the lyrics and the music with them or I can't officially like it.

So, for fun, I thought I would post some of the lyrics to some of my favorite songs. Some of these are songs I used to skip over on a CD, but then I listened to them in the car and found a song I couldn't live without. Sorry if this is boring to anyone reading it, but it's fun for me and since this is my blog....

A Fine Frenzy - From the song 'New Heights'
"From your lips, a precipice. I hang on every word"
Great imagery yet so simple. I love it.

Sara Bareilles - From the song 'One Sweet Love'
"The earth that is the space between, I'd banish it from under me...to get to you... Your unexpected love provides my solitary's Suicide...oh I wish I knew"
The lyrics remind me so much of an Emily Dickinson poem.

Jennifer Knapp - From the song 'A Little More'
"With all this motivation I still find a hesitation.... Deep in my soul.... Despite all my demanding I still find You understanding..." To me this speaks to so many things in my relationship with God. That struggle with my shortcomings and His grace. What a great song.

Jack Johnson - From 'If I Had Eyes'
I love the whole chorus so I'm just going to post it all.
"Sometimes time doesn't heal, no not at all. Just stands still, while we fall -- In or out of love, again I doubt I'm gonna win you back when you've got eyes like that that won't let me in. Always looking out."

Ingrid Michaelson - From 'Maybe'
"I don't wanna be the first to let it go,
But I know, I know, I know.
If you have the last hands that I want to hold,
Then I know I've got to let them go"
This was really true of my relationship with my husband, although I won't pretend I was that wise when I broke up with him in college on my 20th birthday weekend. I will say that us taking time to figure out who we were and what we really wanted was the best thing for us. Oh, and he has the last hands that I want to hold. Ingrid Michaelson is a lyrical genius.

Okay. That's enough for now. No, there was no point to this post, other than sharing some of the music I'm listening to or have often listened to. I also have a lot of Lisa Loeb lyrics I love, but WAY back I did a whole Lisa Loeb post, which can be found here.

Um.... The End.

Blinded

It was completely strange to not have to stay up writing last night. I kept having this nagging feeling that I was forgetting to do something important and then I would remember that I was not forgetting to do something. That I was free from having to write. For as long as I wanted.

But yesterday morning as I was driving to work I was thinking of other things and still my mind drifted to something I should write. Not sure if it works the way I hope it does, but here it is: (This really does happen to me almost every morning, but it's not exactly what I'm talking about here.)

I turn the corner and
the sun glares
off the windshield,
blinding.
I continue driving
though I cannot see the road
or the lines
or the guardrail.
I accelerate toward the
shadow of treeline.
I know it's there.
And I know I can see again
when I get there.

Trying Something New

I received an email observing that my poems tend to be full of tension, but perspective-free. I think this was a good observation. I'm going to try to put a point of view or character in my poems for a while and see what happens. This is my first attempt. I think I partially failed, but that means I partially succeeded, so that's something. Maybe. Not sure.

Sitting in traffic.
Red light.
Windows half-down
but still running the
air conditioner
because there is no breeze.
Reaching to turn up the stereo,
but then distracted
by the girl on her cell phone
in the car next to me.
She is talking loud.
Too loud.
And maybe crying.
What happened to her today?
What happened too all these people today?
We're all trying to get
to the next place
but the stupid traffic lights
make us wait.
And listen.
And wonder.