Things to Say...

This is Esmeralda the second.  i don't know if she is going to grow or not.  she is from a pit i got from my son.  i am saying this as a form of prayer, because i'm grateful for the lesson, for the blessing and the mercy of this weekend.  more on Esmeralda later.

i have seen so much sadness this weekend, and i can't really do a damn thing about any of it.  i've been without my money, i've stayed in a home of despair and quiet desperation...hell, i've learned what quiet desperation looks like manifest in other lives.  i've visited a friend who may be leaving this realm of reality soon.  i've gone to breakfast this morning with old friends who are now nearing the end of their journey together.  i have thought of the nature of loneliness, visiting places where last i was with Rachel, and now i have to redefine more memories.  and yet, i feel as if i have been blessed, rather abundantly in fact.

it would have been nice to have been able to see everyone that i want to see in Columbus.  it would also have been impossible in 2 1/4 days.  and i only had one full day and 3/4 of a second day.  so i stuck to the nitty gritty.  i visited Yvette on saturday, that's what the mission was.  i stayed with my son, i saw my friends Keith and Ronda on sunday for breakfast.  i got back on the road.  i thought as i drove, how sad the city is now.  i remembered when i was 17, and i first went to visit Columbus, to see my brother and my uncle.  how it was a true alternative town at that time, how there were no real labels for what people were, except the hippies who clung to the skin of the city like intelligent bruises.  i was a freak among freaks then, smoking weed, drinking whatever and trying not to be more frightened than i actually was.  but it was fun, and it remained fun for a lot of years, even through the rough times and the single parent times and maybe it stopped being fun when i was struggling to care for my children and i began to see just how fucking trivial people could be in the city.  myself included, i have to say.  as i was ready to kill myself for failing, when failing was what i did best at that time. 

now, i am home.  i've had dinner.  i've watched most of a movie and i'm going to finish it tomorrow.  i've talked to some people.  Lonnie has brought me groceries due to the fuckery with my check from work, which i'll call on tomorrow again.  i've returned my mother's car with gratitude, as i still have a few dollars left that were earmarked for gas.  my clothes have been washed and dried and are ready to be put away.  my alarm is set, i'm showered and shaved and i'm going to have a busy but great day tomorrow, God willing tomorrow comes and the creek don't rise from the melting snow and ice. 

so i say these thing.  because they need to be said.

i saw this in a box in the spare bedroom at my son's townhouse where he resides with his girlfriend.  his spirit, mind you, is an owl.  this one has a wing that has been snapped off.  likely it was accidental, but in the realm of the spirit, there is always a significance to such things.  also in the box was an award he won for something at his school involving his cooking.  it looks as if they are preparing for the coming separation, and he is getting the short end of the stick.  i worry about him and am very sad, but he must be the one to fix that wing.  he must remember he is a bird of prey, as a hawk or an eagle, and not a scavenger feasting off roadkill or carrion.  i can't make him remember; i can only pray.

then, there is the redefining of forgiveness.  i used to deal with it as in Peter Gabriel's 'washing of the water' song, where he speaks of taking hooks out of himself and out of the person he has to forgive.  i understood that completely, combined with the notion that to forgive truly is to forget.  real forgiveness unhooks two or more people from each other and the bad event.  it gives the offending party the opportunity...to forget.  'letting them off the hook' has a deeper meaning when considered this way.  but for a lot of people, there is no forgetting, there is no letting go.  and perhaps i've drifted back into this again. 

i wasn't really nice to Ronda, and i had nothing to say to Patrice either.  i know they are both simply in their own character, but i am weary of people who have no room in their souls for anyone except themselves, for no better thing that doesn't benefit them directly.  and that's not really Ronda, who is caught up in a madness i don't understand completely.  but it is the same principle.  friends don't just leave friends drifting in the ether.  so i had nothing really nice to say, but i think i need to learn something different.  because i do want to be forgiven, and so i must forgive.  but its not the forgiveness that's so hard, as it is the desire for something more in my life.  i'm tired of text messages, calls unreturned, greetings unanswered.  i'm tired of friends so absorbed in their sex life or their 'adventures' that they don't have room for anyone else, and that includes me as well.  i'm weary of a technological world of automatronic people who just go through push-button emotions while regurgitating the latest nonsensical meme's of the moment.  i'm sick of the bullshit.  i want something substantial, and i want to know that it can be supportive of my best interest.  but those are my wants, and they smack of a lack of gratitude.  so i'm going to work on it.

as for Esmeralda the second...

this is Esmeralda the first, my baby from the apartment, growing toward the light of my cherub lamps.  she died after a decision to take her outside for some sunlight on a day far too windy for her comfort.  she deserved better.  and so did i.  or so do i, because i won't live in lamentation any longer.  who i miss, what i miss doing, where i have been and what has changed about those places...they don't stop this train from rolling now.  the only thing that can stop this ride is me.  and if i get out of Jehovah's way and just let him do his thing, the ride is going to be great.  for now?  i have a seed from my son.  i'm going to see if it sprouts, and i'm going to see if it grows.  and maybe it will be like the Lorax, if you can dig that groove. 

i'm grateful to Jehovah for bringing me home safely.  check out The Dining Room for today's food log.