A Poem and Some Good News

I found out last Friday that I am going to be published. I sent an essay to Home Education Magazine and they are buying first publishing rights from me. I am getting paid for something I wrote!

I am suddenly repulsed by the artwork I am working on right now. I am thinking about abandoning the Red Thread Series all together and moving on. I'm bummed, but I'm just not feeling it right now.

I woke up feeling agitated.

I couldn't get to sleep last night. Thank God for Comedy Central.

Am I a bad Mom because my kids are getting their own breaksfast of cheese sticks and peanut butter toast right now? Seems reasonable to me. Why interfere in their self sufficiency?

I don't think it is necessary for me to be engaged with them every waking moment, but sometimes I wonder if it is okay to be here in body and not in mind.

But that's just life sometimes. Isn't it? I think so, especially when you spend all your time together pretty much.

I watched Goodfellas last night for the 25th time AT LEAST. Since I have watched it so many times and I was busy working on a drawing, I put on the Cop and the Criminal Commentary and listened to Henry Hill's reaction to the movie. It really deglamourized the lifestyle to hear the fear and emotion in his voice as he talked about his memories as the scenes played. I recommend it.

A poem:

I went to bed afraid last night
The eyes of my mind open wide
Like two white search lights in a cavern of thoughts
Heart racing...sounds echoing...breathe

I went to bed afraid last night
Clawing through dusty shrouds of memories quilted together with a purpose...
To be beautiful and to stay that way...forever
Ripping and tearing at threads
Straining to see more..to know
Yet not wanting to...too beautiful to shred

I went to bed afraid last night
Flipping through channels of thoughts
Desperate for the glowing embrace of even an infomercial at 1 A.M.
To remind me of tomorrow and the impossibility of being swallowed whole by my own mind
No mess...one gulp...without chewing

I went to bed afraid last night
Finally, when exhausted in body by a mind pleading to remember,
yet begging to forget
Sleep catches me
Like an aged gazelle I can run no more
I fall unconscious

Reassurance of morning brings comfort
In the way old men walk their dogs and drink their coffee in the park
In the way sounds of traffic below my window increase as men and women head to work
In the way that my children wake giggling
In the way that my toes tingle as they make their way across a fuzzy, lint dusted carpet and my body begins to busy itself routinely
In the pattern and design of a new day.


Thought: There is a groove. I just need to get into it!