Inspiration

Some more lyrical prose:

Eking toward brightness, center bound. Layers like clothes peel away, broken, soiled, worn with care. Shed like tears to fill and fill and fill that river. Turning inside out, spinning in the wind. Wind of words and musts and oughts and shoulds and someday soon.

Eking, shrieking, dragging shuffling feet that itch to dance; to find that primal beat once forgotten but always remembered. Listen. Listen. Listen. Tap-tapping distant calls like first drops of rain. With the tears, tap-tap. Thrumming thunder emerges, memory serves me up a dish of long ago. Recognition flashes from the swamp. Aboriginal drumbeat is my heart. My feet. My steps. Step step thrum tap tap thrum. Emerge. Emerge. Evolve.

Eking timid frightened toward, forward, and through. Step step step.
Eyes off your feet now - dance!
Brightness comes.

The Gift of Dynamite

 It gets me every time.

I don't know exactly why.

Maybe it's the way he's so earnest and concentrated.

Maybe it's because it is such a bizarre and true act of friendship.

Maybe it's because it's such a statement.

Every time.

He dances, I cry.

I have seen the movie several times. I own it. The first time I watched it, I was taken completely by surprise. I knew the dance scene was coming, could feel it all heading that way. I expected to laugh. But no. The tears sprung up and I made some sort of chiffon excuse to leave the room and collect myself. Now when I watch it, I know it's coming. I know the whole thing by heart. And still, I cry.

Maybe it's because he is so buoyant throughout the movie.

Maybe it's because I know that some of the most interesting people aren't always the most popular.

Maybe it's the triumph of something genuine, if strange, over the false hierarchy of high school.

Maybe it's because I admire the strength it takes to just be your own weird self.

I don't really identify with him personally. His plight was not mine in any sort of obvious way. Mine are not the cringing tears of all too familiar recognition. I know the movie is supposed to be funny, and it is. But usually the things we find the funniest, hit the closest to home. My home would have been across town from his. I would have been the girl who is embarrassed by her friends' meanness yet too afraid to stand up for him. So I cry.

Maybe it's because sometimes the least appreciated people are the strongest because they endure.

Maybe it's because it's so self conscious and raw.

Maybe they're tears of joy, though.

Maybe I'm so glad to see someone finally stand up and dance.

Every time.

He dances, I cry.

Napoleon Dynamite.

This was written for Mama Kat's Pretty Much World Famous Writer's Workshop. Check out her blog & all the fun stuff she has going on. This is a response to one of this week's writing prompts: 'What is it about that movie that makes you cry every time?'

The Gift of Gold

Dear Ms. F,

Please excuse the jBird from being tardy to school on Friday. You see, there was something in the air.
Surely you understand as both a teacher and a mother that I am constantly in awe of this little person who decided to take a chance on me. She is such an independent child, so surely you understand how I spend a lot of time trying to convince her to lay all her love on me.

I know that school is important, especially in this particularly competitive school where the winner takes it all. And she's a mild mannered child, without an attitude of gimme! gimme! gimme!, so I realize she may fall behind her peers, but I really doubt being a few minutes late will be her Waterloo.

And I'm sure you can imagine my delight in seeing her shining like the sun; dancing, having fun, feeling like a number one. She was the dancing queen, dig it, the dancing queen. I know she'll have a little extra work to make up, but I'm sure she'll be fine. She's a super trouper.

Again, I apologize for her tardiness, but please mark her excused because I have a dream - a fantasy - to help me through reality. I don't want my jBird to grow up and remember that she was on time every single day to school. I want her to turn to me and say: Remember that time in 2nd grade I was late to school because we had to have an ABBA Gold dance party?


Surely you understand.

Sincerely,
Tangled Up in Lou

Falling Back, Revisited

This is what I meant to write yesterday, had all of my brain cells not been coated with birthday cake.

Photo courtesy of
Rachael Sereday Photography
check out her shop, Pink Pink Moon on Etsy!

Falling back,
I find you here.
With arms,
with heart,
with silence,
without question
to catch.

Falling back,
and back and back.
Through smiles,
through shadows,
through softness,
throughout years
to find.

Falling back,
we stop, regroup.
We, with gentle winding of clocks,
we squeeze the lightness of our days
and find another minute.
Our own space in time
to spend in the elegant equation
of two
equals one
and four of seven and five.
We were never good at math
or time
but this, we do:

Falling back
we find us here.

Dancing with Demons

We all have our own personal demons that haunt us from time to time. Sometimes they pop up and say hello when we least need them to. Or we think we've gone all Buffy on them and they're gone only to return with a different face and a new set of weapons. Or sometimes we conjure them ourselves in order to provide some demented sense of continuity in our lives or to give us some familiar company when no one else will do. 
I had a conversation with a friend last week to this effect. The whole thing devolved into a mutual confession of the specific demons we keep around and we were surprised to discover that we shared more than a few of them. 
I fear one of my most staunch demons has been fiercely guarding this blog for months. It's the one who sneaks up as soon as I log in to write and whispers in my ear. "What have you got to say? You think nobody's thought of that a thousand times before? Why would anyone want to read that?" Yup. It's one I know all too well and I'm sure many do. So this week I've decided that if he's going to hang out with me, I'm going to expose him publicly for what he is. I'll take him out and waltz him around for all to see, so that in doing so, he might lose some of his sway.
 I picture this particular demon as a man in beige. Terrifying in his talent for being completely nondescript. That uninteresting negative void who sucks the creativity out of the room just by showing up with his well-combed hair (is it brown? blond? I can't remember exactly) and his plasticine average looks. He's not even evil enough to be interesting. 
So, strike up the band, we're going to take to the floor, my demon and I. I have things to write and the dizzying demon dance just might rattle a few of them loose.