i may not be a smart girl but i know what love is

okay.  that’s a lie.  i don’t know yet.  i’m always learning on a daily basis.  mainly (and please don’t gag with a rubber spoon on this new age-y crapola line) i’m still learning what it means to love myself.

and so this post is dedicated to the guy i saw today at world market wearing the skirt.

technically it wasn’t a skirt, of course.  skirts are what girls wear.  even though this was tailored, pieced, sewn, hung, worn EXACTLY like a catholic school girl’s pleated skirt, it was a “kilt”.  and not to be confused with fruitcakes that wear kilts just for fun, this was a “utilikilt”.  that’s right.  a utilitarian kilt.  a tough guy’s skirt.  a skirt that a plumber would wear with work boots to clean out the septic tank.  just so no one is confused, it had “utilikilt” printed out in large black letters on its label over the ass.

for a brief second, i understood why we as women have been brainwashed to thinking that skirts are more ladylike.  i couldn’t tear my eyes away from his legs.  it wasn’t like when a man wears shorts and each leg has it’s place, but BOTH legs were coming out of that skirt and i couldn’t help but think that where those legs joined…well…you know.

where was i?

so this guy wore his skirt to shop for grilling supplies.

i will never feel self-conscious again.  ever.  i have no need to.  i am an original too.  we all are, you know that.  so don’t be afraid to let your flag fly or your skirt flap or whatever you need to do to assert yourself.  nobody really cares.  except some random blogger who will use your freakiness to be inspired.

all in day’s play

i just want to give you a general run down of my day to understand how i thrive:

i woke up and watered the herbs.

i got dressed (jeans, t-shirt, vibrams, large hoop earrings, lipstick-my uniform).

made bacon and coconut/almond flour pancakes and ate them with the boy.

put the boys (the human one and the canine) in the car and we went hiking through the woods.

we went to the really rich part of town to a grocery store and my shoes were peered at without much discretion.  i made a comment to the couple that was looking. they laughed.

my son said to me “you made white, snooty people laugh.”

“it’s a gift.” i said and am now somehow some kind of hero in his eyes.

got back to the house and planted some beets, carrots, lettuce, and brussel sprouts.  i don’t care if it’s late to put them in.  i grew up without seasons and am just, quite frankly, stubborn.

then, i combed the 4 legged boy’s hair.

then, i cut the 2 legged boy’s hair.  he sat in the bathtub while i squatted on a bench and chopped away.  this way, he can rinse off when some hair gets on his back so i don’t have to handle a neurotic meltdown when it starts to itch.  (this is the voice of experience speaking.)

after that, my friend came over and we discussed our latest project.

took her home and dropped the boy off at a friend’s.  i went and had sashimi at my favorite little sushi place.  there was a new guy there behind the counter making the seaweed salad.  ”come here often?”

“yes, i do…or i did”.

“all alone today?”

“yes fucker.”

the sashimi was a piece of art.  my favorite kind of art: art i can eat.  even ate a whole fried shrimp head.

then, i went for some hot chocolate at the park with extra extra whipped cream.

i got high on essential oils with my boss.

got the kid and fed him.

then, i sowed a field of rye grass for the chickens.

i just got off the skype with my sister.

and now, it’s time for bed.

not bad for a day in the life.

literacy saves lives

so this woman comes into the store.

she has some empty bottles and a photocopied page from prescription for nutritional healing.

one of those bottles is a natural source of lithium that i get down from the high shelf for her.

she asks me if she can take that and something else on her list.  i ask to see the list.

i am confused.  i ask her where lithium is on the list.

right here, she points.

lecithin, people.  LECITHIN!

one is a product that helps manic depression.  the other is an emulsifier.

i point out the distinction.

oh, she says, mispronouncing them both, is that why this hasn’t been working for me?

my life is a badly written screenplay

i woke up in the best mood in a long time this morning.  i have currently (like two days ago) put my bed in the darkest, smallest room of the house.  i’ve really needed to feel hugged, even by space.  so i’ve been sleeping in my little makeshift cavern and it’s the best sleep i’ve had since 112.  seriously, my insomnia and inability to stay asleep has been extremely difficult.   i think i’ve complained about this pretty steadily.

anyhoo!  back to the story….

so, i woke up rested, bristling with energy.  i put on my cute shorts and cut up a grey t-shirt in honor of flashdance.  (MANIAC, MANIAC on the FLOOOOOOOOR!) and slipped on a cheerful hoody.  the sun was shining warm.  a light breeze ruffled my hair.  hair dancing in the wind is one of my favorite sensations.

it was shaping up to be a glorious morning!  the loose schedule for the day included picking up some hibiscus to plant, playing in the dirt, and absorbing as much springtime into my skin as possible.  there would be deep purple basil to introduce to the earth.  small leafed things that hold the promise of sunflowers were sure to pass through my fingers on their way to the dirt.

i piled my tools into my car, popped my sexy-making sunglasses onto my very cute (negroid) nose and turned the music on.  i’m not ashamed.  i was singing along, very loudly to shania twain…”this kiss, this KIIIIIIISSSSS!”, with my window down and my hair storming around my face.  you know…happy.

and there he was.  right there.  walking his dog.  in the park.  this kiss, this KIIIIIIISSS.  i could almost feel the needle scraping across my heart as the song came to a stop inside me.

i could see this in a movie.  girl feeling great. laughing to self.  singing along off key to cheesy love song.  girl spots ex walking in park with dog.  girl stops singing.  girl calls friend to cry.

it would be almost funny on screen.  aw, poor girl!  i would giggle at the absurdity of it all.

and absurd it all is.  i just wanted to walk alongside him with that dog.

i miss that dog.

bawon samdi and manman brigitte have their hands full these days

while i was going through all sorts of teenage angst in the caribbean, obsessing with the size of my belly compared to the size of my little lime-shaped breasts and all the tension, insecurity, and fear broke out all over my face, my twin soul was toddling through some philadelphia winters and running wild with his brothers.

today is saturday (and if my son wakes up and busts me using electronics during the day time, i’ll have to clean his room).  thursday i was pruning some trees, some rosebushes, some shrubs.  i understood the necessity to cut away the dead parts of the plant that no longer served.  the next day, i ended a relationship that had outlived its expiration date.  i have also changed the way that i eat and am slowly pruning away some habits that only use up my energy but produce nothing.  it extends to everything.  i see refrigerator space being taken up by things that are no longer edible.  why do i collect facebook friends that i never talk to?  in my closet, stacked on my washer/dryer and tucked away into boxes are clothes that i never wear anymore.  these are all dead branches of my centered self.

not having grown up with seasons, i can remember gardeners pruning (too delicate a word…let’s say hacking instead) orange trees, century old hibiscus bushes that behaved more like trees with a machete.  death seemed to be a far more natural part of life.  it wasn’t reserved for any particular time of the year.  here, since the manic avoidance of death nervously laughs from every commercial, billboard and a glut of NEW consumer goods, it is good to touch the plants and remember death’s place.

yesterday, my twin soul called from california.  it wasn’t very long into the conversation before he raised the topic of death.  and from somewhere deep within the composted material of my thoughts and experiences came this, if i may say so myself, gem:  ”When you really think about it, death is what nurtures us.  Life is the expenditure of the energy that death gives.”  I mean WTF?  It came out of me unbidden, but the more I process it, the more I realize that there is something there.

we cannot, quite literally, function unless we consume death.  something MUST die in order for something else to live.  we can take this quite physically and talk about fried chicken dinners with large vats of rice and beans.  all of those things died so that we could live.  or we can talk about habits.  my very bad habit of taking better care of the men in my life than i do myself has to die in order for a new habit of putting myself first has to live.  then, there is something like the massive death toll in haiti.  can i go there yet?  only on delicate cat feet that barely touch the earth…..i will leave this one up to my readers and their intelligence.

oh death!  life’s twin soul.

quickie…

this takes the cake (and apparently eats it, too)

if there is one section of industry that really annoys me (that’s a little joke right there…it all annoys me, but for the sake of this post….), it would be the diet/weight loss industry.  but here’s a little gem that sums it all up for me.

customer comes running in to the store in a panic.  she finds her item and chooses me to ring her up.

“whew, you have this!”

“oh, you like that weight loss product?”

“yes.  it works so well!!!  you have to work out like a dog when you take it.  but it works so well!”

true story.

okay KEITSA…jesus!!!!!!

**this is mostly free writing so hold on for the ride.

i’ve been holing up in a sanctuary of my own making after the earthquake trip /car accident.  i decided that i didn’t really want to write more about the trip for a while.  it will probably work its way back in from time to time but for all the haiti goings-on, www.eziliexpedition.blogspot.com is really the place to go.  this blogger writes so well and has the perfect perspective for those who aren’t there on the ground.  i hear she also has a really rad sister.

the accident was a life defining moment for me.  it was a huge jolt back into my body, back into the present moment.  i couldn’t think about anything else as it was happening.  it propelled me back into my animal self.  adrenaline.  raw.

the trip to haiti showed me the frailty of life.  the accident showed me the frailty of MY life.  that’s a different basket of eggs, y’know?  so, i decided that since my life is so very fragile, i will not wait until everything is just so to live it as i want.

this is what has happened since that decision:

1. i pulled the boy out of school and am homeschooling him

2. broke ground for a huge garden

3. planted rose bushes and trees on my property

4. got a job working with a gardener so that i spend most days touching the earth

5. got chickens and am watching them grow until they will give us eggs

6. started taking really good care of myself: a) i’ve been eating so well b) i’m being rolfed c)i see a personal trainer once a week for corrective training for old dance injuries

7. i have eliminated most of my wardrobe and want to keep going until my minimalist dreams come true

8. the boy and i have (mostly) built a chicken tractor

9. i spent one day doing NOTHING…really nothing.  i lay in the lawn chair outside from the time i woke until bedtime around 10:30.  i didn’t speak, i barely ate.  i just sat and watched the sky.  it was probably one of the best days of my life

10. i’ve gone back to working at the health food store

there is just so much going on, i guess.  but it all feels so right.

i am so drawn to the earth right now.  i feel the pull to touch dirt, prune away dead branches, plant seeds, nurture fragile birds that will one day feed me.  there are two frogs that found their way into my pool in the last rainstorm and i leave them there for now.  after “the trip” i need to be surrounded by life.  i need to be enveloped in rainstorms and howling wind.  i need to feel the the sun on my nose.  the grime of life wedges its way under my fingernails and i feel not dirty, but purified.

kenai went primal a couple days ago and took out three of the chickens.  i know he didn’t want to kill them, he just wanted to play.  (jeux de mains, jeux de chiens)  so i buried three little chicks.  in this deep embrace of life, the intimacy of death is just an enthusiastic dog’s head shake away.

the place of death in this dance, here on this little piece of land that i rent from the american government, is rightful.  it is not the overwhelming devastation that brought me to my knees a couple months ago.  it is not the crushing horror.

i need to see death this way again.  i will never be able to go back to thinking that death is something that always happens at a time or scale that i can process, but for now, here, my hands can hold three lifeless chickens.  the lace of their closed eyelids stretch over empty eyes.  the pads of their feet are still soft.  their bellies still warm.  the necks flop over the edges of my palms.  they feel like nothing.  they weigh less than a breath.  in two swift movements of my wrist, the grave is dug.  i bury them laying next to each other near the garden gate.  i bury them facing the coop where the other chickens still peck away at tiny shoots of green coming up through the dirt.

dirt.  i read today that it is at the top of the food chain.  it is the one thing that eats everything.  i LOVE this.  it frees me somehow from my overblown sense of importance.  i am just going to be food for the dirt one day, just like those chickens, just like those thousands of people in mass graves.  dirt is the greatest predator, the most generous provider, and brings us all back to our place of equality.  all of us.  the worms, the grass, the redwood, the hawk, the mouse, the rich, the poor, the brave and those of us less so.

sleep is difficult to come by.  p.t.s.d. apparently.  but i question how this can be a disorder.  if i could just roll over and sleep soundly after the demolition of my home, THAT would be to me a disorder.  but, my nights are fitful.  i dream often of different disturbing, bloody puzzles that i have to solve somehow.  in all these dreams, i have a crucial role to play.  but the only person that i’m truly saving is myself.

being raise to view martyrdom as the most noble of all vocations, i struggle with this.  i understand that right now, i am living to truly save myself and nothing more.  i do not have a religion, but the closest i can come to professing a faith in anything is this:  all is one.  every thing, from a flea to a mountain, is just part of a whole.  i hope that through saving myself, everything changes for the better.

***thank you keitsa, for getting me back here.

better to be pissed off than pissed on

so, i’m angry today.  okay…more than angry.  i’m enraged.  livid.  i want to throw things, bite off little animal heads, scream like a banshee, allow my serpent hair free slither.

what is making me upset?

oh…EVERYTHING!

1. after everything we’ve gone through…an earthquake?  i mean really!

2. women are still second class citizens the world over…and so many don’t seem to mind.  ”hey, i have a really good idea how to eliminate class struggle..ooooh…pretty shoes!”  or  ”i will run for president…after i lose 25 pounds.”

3. i am going to be 37 in a couple of months and my baby-making years are coming to an end.  little known fact: i’ve always wanted a big family.  loud, raucous, wild….but it’s just me and a soon to be 14 year old.

4.  only 4 more years of the 14 year old.  it all went so fast.  why didn’t i pay closer attention?

5. i totalled my car.

6. okay, i know, i know…i walked away without a scratch but i’m forgetting things.  am i destined to be stupid after valuing my intelligence all my life?

7. if i do go stupid, my ass better lift itself back into its rightful position.

8. since i tend to be pretty easy going, i get taken advantage of.

9. my dad.  shit. fuck. damn.  i miss him.

10. love?

11. green consumerism.  the oxymoron of the decade.

12.  NO THIS PILL WILL NOT MAKE YOU SKINNY/GORGEOUS/LITERATE/GREAT IN BED!

13. um…oh you forgot your bag again?  why, ha ha ha….carry this one little bottle in your damn hand then!

14. money. money. money.  good.  people?  people? people? meh.

15. U.S.A. is number 1….except in any way that really matters.  Seriously, check the stats, then take a fuckin’ humility pill.

16. pizza gives me the shits.

17. i have called 3 different pool cleaners and the toddler killer is still a dense green muck pit.

18. when was the last time that i danced?

19. the ocean has become a cesspool.

20. i hate every last thing in my closet.

21. a woman’s body is STILL more valued than her mind.  STILL.

22. there is freedom of religion, but not freedom of thought.

oh, yes, i could go on!  but, i won’t.  (you’re welcome.)

give me your reasons you want to throw things.

the skinny

i am working on a post that summarizes what i did in haiti.  it is like a bowl of spaghetti in that it is growing the more i try to finish it.  after that post, i want to tell some of the stories that were entrusted to me.  of all the things that i did when i was there (and it will never seem like very much), i felt that the most important was just bearing witness and listening.  i will be segueing into my regular day to day life, which believe it or not, can get quite strange and interesting in its own right.

in other news, i noticed today that the only thing missing from my vita-mix blender (red, mind you!) is a leg for me to dry hump.  it is that crush worthy!  we won’t point out that it is an appliance that is getting me going these days…too pathetic.

also, tomorrow night, i will be attending comedy night at the bean.  i’m still debating if i have anything funny to say after all this drama.  it will be a good time anyway, so come on out.

there would have been far more posts these past couple weeks if it hadn’t been for very inhibited neck mobility and muscle relaxers.  i am slowly coming out of the haze.  i’m also able to rotate my neck like a cranky eighty year old instead of like the crypt keeper, so there is progress.

i’ve also started my book of shadows.  yes, that’s right.  sue me.  so wisconsin doesn’t have the monopoly on cheese, so what?

glad to be back.

help me help you help me

watching work teams come in and paint a church wall or build outhouses or just come to teach new praise choruses all my life has taught me a thing or two about the concept of “help”.  when we help someone, it is rarely helpful.  at least, not to them.

more often than not, the people who are doing the helping come away changed.  lighter loads of guilt are the result.  it is easier to return to the same entitled, money chasing, narcissistic life that so many of us have once we’ve “helped”.

in one of the post-operative tents at the general hospital, a senior soldier and one of lower rank walked in.  along both sides of the tent, amputees moaned, the sides of their beds nearly touching.  family members sat.  some fanned the flies off the wounds of the injured with pieces of cardboard.  this soldier, in full combat uniform, including the automatic rifle, helmet, and flak jacket, was a middle-aged white man of rather tall proportions.  the soldier that accompanied him was a short, black woman, also in full gear.  he strode into the center of the tent, raised up his arms like the rio de janiero jesus and began to pray.  LOUDLY.  he would say a phrase.  the woman would translate.  she spoke creole, so must have been haitian in some distant past.  while she translated, in a quiet voice, she texted on her phone.  she didn’t look up from her phone.  it was rasberry red.  it glittered.

he didn’t notice, because his eyes were closed and he was caught up in the ecstasy of his “help” to these people.

while he prayed, the amputees moaned.  the family members sat.  some of them fanned the flies off the wounds of the injured with torn pieces of cardboard.

for whom was this done?

this was a microcosm of the situation as i’ve seen it all my life.  i think that in order to truly help anyone, there needs to be a relationship.  as i translated, i held hands, caressed foreheads, listened to stories.  one of the doctors commented on it and was so happy to see that i was bringing “the love of jesus” to these people.  it wasn’t the time or place, but i wanted to tell him that it wasn’t jesus’ love.  it was mine.  these were my people, my countrymen.  i didn’t need any supernatural inspiration to love them.

it was something of a revelation for me.  when something is done out of duty to a diety or belief system to win its approval, it doesn’t really help anyone.  there must be relationship.

contrast that egotistical, attention seeking soldier with my friend michelle.  after my trip, after my accident, i came home to oatstraw infusion and soup in my fridge.  it was so quietly done, she actually had to tell me it was there.  it was done with no strings, no fanfare, no glory.  it was invisible and it nourished me.  ME.  not my soul or my spirit, insuring an afterlife, but it nourished my body, from which all things flow.  that is help- appropriate and with zero condescending.

so next time that you feel the need to help, ask yourself who is really going to benefit from your help.  it’s okay if the answer if you, just don’t delude yourself that it is them.