Amber Glow

Rosy wax transformed.
Amber light warm sensuous.
For Freyja's delight.

Synchroncity

When the Universe wants my attention it usually sends clue by fours in patterns of three.

A week or so ago I felt a nudge to chat with all of you regarding self and how we can build our selfhood on a foundation of love or we can build our selfhood on a slope, overlooking a cliff, standing by a breakwater filled with sharks, rusty nails and glass shards.

I have been balanced over that very cliff for a few months.

The loss if the pregnancy and subsequent car accident has turned my admittedly weak selfhood foundation to jello on a plate of quick sand.

I've known that for a month or so and had been dragging my feet not doing something about shoring up the old gal and digging a french drain.

#1. I was on the Facebook page of Curvy Girl Lingerie:  https://m.facebook.com/CurvyGirlInc and I saw a book called "Hot & Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls On Life, Love & Fashion" (by Virgie Tovar). What followed was a few hour long trip down the rabbit hole of Kindle reading and a new found desire to integrate more of a self love into my daily existence.

I ordered a few titles via my local libraries and had a brief discussion about my choices with a friend.
Titles I currently have out:
1. "beautiful you" by Rosie Molinary
2. "The Unapologetic Fat Girl's Guide To Exercise" by Hanne Blank
3. "Angry Fat Girls" by Frances Kuffel

#2 The very next day this article at Huffington Post via the blog Bridgette Tales by Bridgette White: http://bridgettetales.com/2014/07/14/exposed-by-my-children-for-what-i-really-look-like/

I cried for about two hours after seeing the photo and reading the piece.

I am a fat mom who's ashamed of my body and hides all but my face. I saw the photo and thought my god that's me.

But I am fat but relatively healthy. I've been having blood sugar scare lately. My fasting rates were very low 66 and under. For a few days my after food testing never went higher than 75. But since I am tracking I see I am low a lot but reach acceptable highs in the normative range.

So I am reading body positive literature and making a plan to make sure I stay healthy. I've read for years, blogs by amazing body positive folks like:

Jenni Chui at Mommy Nani Boo
Mommynanibooboo.com

And

Kim Rullo at Mother Blue
motherblue.wordpress.com

And

Jes Baker at The Militant Baker
themilitantbaker.com

And I have been attempting to build a scaffold to start my own reconstruction project when today (#3) the Universe dropped this last hint that it was time to get going into my news feed:

http://sirenafire.com/embers/blog/

Amoret's words hit me like a nail gun.

Here I am beginning to turn the stone wheel of my own creation and the reminder to be kind to myself as I am now hits me in the face.

No one has mocked my body or mind but myself. All the self love work in the world will fail if my inner dialogue is based on shaming and disgust.

I am so very awash in synchroncity today. I get it Universe!!!!

This fat woman is okay with the curves of her hips and the full roundness of her stretch marked breasts. I am going to wear sleeveless tees and stop hating my arms. I am doing the necessary hard work of silencing my inner busy body.

I am hoping to be able to smash the fun house mirrors I wrote about here:
http://drolleryandpathos.blogspot.com/2013/05/a-big-thank-you-to-militant-baker.html?m=1

And live happy inside this skin. I am raising my fist in solidarity!  My "Tiny No" is to my own inner voice.

Thank you ladies for the shots in the arm.

Letters to the Kidlet part I

Dear Kidlet,

Today is Wednesday,  July 16, 2014. And thought I've hand written you letters since before you were born I've not addressed a virtual letter to you specifically here on my blog.

And since this is forever I promise to not be overly sentimental or maudlin. One must consider your teenage sensibilities after all.

I've privately written to you of my desire to give birth to you. I've written of my hopes for you. I've written love letters and volumes of private messages on my doubts and fears and failures as your Mom.

Here and else where you will find the words I've penned about my struggles to live a good life.  And when you are much older you and I can talk about 99% of my childhood and your Dad's and my life together.  The last 1% is mine alone. That's a lesson I hope you'll understand when we have those talks. Because some things are too precious or painful to share.

So what am I going to write about to you today? Summer.  Glorious childhood summers.

You will start school in a few weeks.  Friends and freedom and responsibilities and pulls on your time all await your eager and open mind.

Time has flown.  It feels like yesterday we we toddling to the park together.  Exploring the grounds. Building faery houses.  We'll do more of that I promise!

And I also promise we'll do more family things like camp and random drive and Creek walk and map explore.  And honestly we'll do that way past the point where you'll want to participate.  Your Dad and I have those kinds of hearts. We do what we love and exploring together is what we love best.

I promised you some of my summer childhood so here goes:

I know you don't remember Great Grammie. But she was my world when I was five. Every morning I'd run down our back yards,  which was truly our side yard divided, through silvery grey predawn. 

The grasses were so dew drenched that my legs and socks would be soaked through. 

The cold squishy sounds of my sneakers slapping down on the hard packed path to their house are still loud to my ears. It was only a few hundred feet but I dreamed through several worlds each morning. 

The path ran past the yew sentinels that shielded the driveway from view.  The patch of heady scented double roses with their oddly sticky stems where I'd hide for hours drifting in rose scented oceans being pulled a sea by the buzzing of heavy laden bees.
The Rose Arch. I still think of it in capital letters. Twining red and white arms of razor thorns seven feet high. Scent less and perpetually scornful of hijinks.  Ever ready to rip shirt or skin alike if proper care and decorum were not taken when passing through their watchful space.
The wall. Only a small step stone down to the lower yard. But an ancient fieldstone thing with only the one pass through guarded by The Rose Arch. No hand holds.  I'd always jump. Landing in the amazingly soft taller grass of the lower yard. It was a lovely plot of grasses.  Twice the size and length of our own yard now. We never used it except to run back and forth to Gramma's or to cross with the trash cans that lurked at it's far end hidden under a blind of lilacs that were 10' tall. This grassy patch became a steep slide down past a row of pine trees to the right, tall and blue, and to the left a hedge of Rose of Sharon, grey and peeling.  At last to the front gate and Gram's! Grandpap would be sitting on his rocker on the porch waiting for me. And then we'd go inside.

Even in the hottest part of the summer there was a smoky smell to the living room. I imagined it was the dreams of the fall sleeping in the potbelly stove that I could smell.

Through the dinning room arch, I never took the hallway route, and I to the kitchen. Gram always had her house coat on. And there we'd sit and eat watching the sun rise drinking tea, chamomile with lemon for me and hot lemon water for her while eating toast and butter sometimes with tomato butter and sometimes with American cheese. What's tomato butter you ask?  The sweetened heart of the fruit made spreadable.

Here's another summer memory for you my dear kidlet:

Just like you and I haunt the park in late June to see if the berry patch is ready, black berry season was a huge event each year.

Understand that what we call black berries here in western Pennsylvania are actually black raspberries.  But it was a goal post each summer. A milestone to let you know Summer was half done tripping and tramping over the land.

Watchful for weeks we'd wait impatiently for the white berries to green then blush then bruise to deep dark purple.  Then with sleep crusted eyes we'd wake before the dawn chorus.  Dress in layers of long john's, dug out the night before from the back of the wardrobe, and jeans. Two pairs of socks and three shirts. All to ward as best we could our skin from the brambles. And then heavy in cloth and burdened with as many pails and bowls and bags as we could muster we'd run down to Gramma's.  They'd meet us and help us shed a shirt or two. Feed us a small meal of cold cereal and then we'd start picking.

We'd finish the hedge of brambles along side their lower yard by the time the sun was up. Then we'd travel down into the hollow they owned below their manicured lawns and gardens. It was the one time a year we were allowed down into that thicket. We'd run down to the spring startling deer and critters.  And then we'd cross over the big oak. The big oak was a huge fallen tree it spanned the spring's creek. Larger than 3 men's arm length around we'd bridge the gap from lush dark wood into a full acre of brambles growing unchecked in the sun at the edge of fallow field.

For the next two days we'd repeat this trip. Those days of cuts and stings and eating so many berries that it amazed us that there were any left to fill bucket after bucket are some of my most cherished.

How can you truly describe the sound of thousands of bee and wasp wings humming in concert?  How can I help you smell the scent of crisp dew, overripe berries and hot sunshine as it mixed into the permanent smell of July for me?

I can tell you of the time your Uncle Chris decided to climb under all the arching blue brambles to eat the berries underneath.  And he fell asleep and we searched for hours calling him but eventually found, after tearing strips of shirt and skin from our bodies, asleep in a curl with the sweetest smile on his face.

I can tell you of being dead center in the field when the neighbor's huge and vicious dog found me too far away from anyone else to rescue me. The smell of my sweat an acrid cloud as he came slinking through the vines towards me. I can still recall the relief that causes me to lose the strength in my legs and get so tangled in the vines that later my Grand pap had to cut me out when Smoky our 1/2 wolf charged out to discourage the huge beast from eating me.

And oh the bounty. Four refrigerators full and two freezers packed with purple globlets of sweet/sour heaven.

Then the days of pies and jams and jelly making. The week of drinking blue milk at the end of our cereal.  The stains. Oh Lord the stains.

The pretty red ish - purple turns blue then brown. On everything.  Hands and arms and faces and socks and underwear. The brambles loved snagging our undies.

The love and joy becoming repulsion as the week draws closed.

"More berries?!" "No thank you!" "What's for lunch/dinner/breakfast?" "Not those things again!" "Can't we have peaches yet?"

But as sick as we always were by mid month we secretly waited until New Year's Eve when the cordial was ready and the treats frozen were shared. And we knew that come next summer we'd be watching and waiting for the fruit to turn again.

So when we say let's go have an adventure.  What we are hoping is that we are making for you my dear the kinds of memory that I've shared with you above.

If I repeat myself in waxing on about those halcyon days. Be gentle.  Because I promise someday you will have glorious stories of your own to tell.

Xoxo,

Momma

The Wagner in me

I just finished watching Stephen Fry's gorgeous documentary: "Wagner & Me".

And it's evoked in me so many memories.

My Great-Grandmother (on my Father's Maternal side) was Margaret Wagner.

We are cousins of Honus Wagner. And my Gram loved to tell tales about what a hard guy he was. His famous refusal of baseball cards because they were in cigarette boxes and he didn't approve.

The family lore surrounding the cards. Worth so much when we all were folk of modest means.

Family to be proud of.

The stories of Margaret's second husband William Runyon (My Gram's step dad) and his famous writing relation. I remember the stories being my Great-Grandpap's brother. But I don't know for sure. One day I'll track all the history down.

There was always music in my Gram Audrey's home. I lived with her for a goodly portion of my life. First as our only neighbor then in my Dad's small crowded house. I loved music. And especially opera as a small kid. Classical music was a 'safe' form allowed and encouraged by my Mom.

My two favorite pieces of orchestral music were "Night on Bald Mountain" by Mussorgsky. And "The Funeral of Sigfrid" by Wagner.

Independent of the opera I listened to a recording of the Ring Cycle Orchestration in my deepest times of distress as a child. Ad nauseam to help lull me into sleep as a hyper vigilant insomniac I played this music.

Until one night my Gram pulled me aside and asked me to stop.

I was in high school. I was obsessively researching the Second World War. I was driven to delve into the madness of the Holocaust. I read everything. I watched the news reels. I sat through lectures and hours of Nazi propaganda film. I took a special history course specifically on WWII.

All through this the sounds of Richard Wagner soothed the pain in my heart nightly. The horrors of the war were a way to struggle through the nightmare of my own early days. I talked to my Gram about being a teenage girl during the war.

She brought out the original family copy of "Mein Kaumpf"( which my Dad and Uncle had punched holes into Hitler's eyes) and told me about our family. And my obsession with the war and the man who wrote the music I loved.

My Gram said that at first the family had received the book written by Hitler from relatives still in Germany. They saw him early on as a force of healing for Germany. But my Gram was mostly raised by her Grandmother Rose. Rose didn't like that "nasty filth book" or it's author.

My Gram revealed that she had been raised Catholic by her Grandparents. This was a shock for me. We always identified as Protestant though my Gram never once went to church that I recall. And being Catholic was somehow unsavory to our family.

More astounding was the idea that were were related to Wagner. But something made our family intensely dislike him.

I knew no history of Richard Wagner. I knew only the notes played. The story in liner notes. The intense pitch of the Valkyrie "Hi ya ah". The Bugs Bunny in drag of Wagner.

Gram told me of his antisemitism. She told me that was why he wasn't allowed to be played in Great-Grams house.

And then the story went deeper.

My Gram told me that her beloved Rose was Jewish. She converted to Catholic to marry my Great-Great Grandfather. This was Never spoken of and would be denies as high treason by the older generation. No Jews in there good German line. (This was in the early Thirties as related to my young Gram)

Margaret died when I was a small child.
My Gram only spoke of these stories once to me. Then showed me photographs of my German Wagner relatives. Honus and the brothers and back to the family Wagner who came to Heidelberg Pennsylvania from the old country.

So here I was a kid immersing myself in the history of the Holocaust. Trying to understand the culture of a people who some how survived. And now I find out that I lost family too. I had lost Jewish cousins and there was strong ties for an against Nazism in my close family tree.

I found out the music I so loved was written by a man who hated Jews. Who hated the idea of my Grandma Rose.  Who's music was much beloved by Hitler who used the Ring story to feed his madness. Wagner's, I learned tonight,  son in law openly embraced that hatred. More history to trace.

So I watched Mr. Fry who too loved the music as I do struggle with the Nazi taint to Wagner's work. I saw a gay, Jewish man come to terms with the spaces where Hitler stood to bask in Wagner's work.

And I understand better now bits of my own history.

Now did my Gram tell me the truth? Or is the connection to Wagner in name only. I'll never know. She and all the family are gone.

But I choose music. I am choosing to love the music. In itself for itself. And I feel pretty much like Mr. Fry in the end.

They Like You, They Really Like You

Well... until they don't.

I am talking about virtual friendship and the pitfalls of acquaintance.

Today I received a terse and rather unhappy private message from a social media acquaintance.

My prolific sharing of "homo & devil worship" materials, memes, articles, associations and events over our year and a half connection had driven this soul to frothing rage.

I was summarily dumped from their 'friend' list and wished in distain that I "find Jesus before I drag my whole family to hell."

Obviously I am not sad to no longer be this person's acquaintance.

As my writing in this blog should attest I am fairly open about most aspects of life.

I speak freely and openly about sex, love, religion, politics, and nature.

And if I've accepted your request for friendship, virtual or otherwise, it is because I want to get to know and like YOU. 

It's not only the parts of you that we can agree about that I like but the whole, glorious, human that makes you.

I don't have to worship, love, look, speak, vote, live, shop, grow, parent or exist lock step with you to LOVE you.

I am perfectly clear that you and I can disagree on oodles of stuff listed above and we BOTH are great people. As long as we agree to respect each other's boundaries. As long as compassion rules our passions.

And when we step over each other's boundaries, screw up, get furious with one another we can always come back to the core of our mutual love and respect. We all fuck up or get genuinely angry with each other. It's how we repair the trust that matters.

I tried to ask this person to discuss their obvious discomfort and distaste with core portions of who I am. That too was shot down because apparently I have "an agenda!"

Yep. You betcha I do! And here it is:

Respect.
Love.
Equal opportunity to express those two concepts in all facets of living.

The mind is like a book. It can only be opened if you want it to be.

As I posted to my page on said social media, I am sorry you didn't get the memo that I am a bisexual, neopagan. But when you sent me the friend request I saw that you were a conservative, fundamental Christian. I was fine with that. I respect your values and form of worship.

I tailored my feeds to you so that you had limited access to most of my posts. A courtesy I extend to anyone I don't know well or who may not want to see everything I share.

Grandma wants to see my kidlet grow. She doesn't want to know what I am eating, reading, or watching on the boob-tube. Or how my relationship with her child is strained because the garbage went out late. Or that I love using curse words.

But it is my page. I don't cross post or tag folks without full consideration. And I am going to share things that are relevant to me on my page.

And we all earn the right to enter each others deeper, closer circles of connection. It takes time. And value calls on who gets what access are vitally important.

I wasn't this person's cup of tea. And not all getting-to-know-you periods lead to friendship. And that's okay. Okeydoke! No harm. No foul. Until....

You take the time to yell and wish eternal torment at a fellow adult (me and my whole genetic line) because you don't believe like them (or I refuse to worship exactly like you).

So if my being an animist and hard polytheist who currently is part of an ADF style druidic congregation bothers you? So be it!

I will still be proud to share that my first public liturgy is a Blessing rite to LBGTQ and hetero normative love. I wrote the invocations and closely worked with my Grove liturgists and I think it is going to be great. And if you don't care don't come. Really don't come.

I am proud that my husband & I have been together since 1992! Our decades long, loving, monogamous partnership doesn't change the fact that I am a human being who is sexually attracted to both sexes. The soul I love is part of a male body. You don't like non-heterosexual couplings? Don't engage in non-hetero coupling. But don't tell me and those I love how we are doing it 'wrong'.

My delightful cousin, who I've adored since we were both toddlers, said it best:

"I wish people would spend more time trying to help others than worrying about what they are offended by.  It's silly."

I 100% agree!

Mothering Day Part 2

Last year I tackled a very hard subject: my uncomfort with Mother's Day.

See my post: Obligatory Mother's Day Post http://drolleryandpathos.blogspot.com/2013/05/obligatory-mother-day-post.html to see how much can change in a year!

This year via the interwebs I learned this year is the 100th anniversary of Mother's Day in the United States.

Read about the cool origins here in the Huffington Post: http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5280493 How incredibly amazing is that? It moved my distaste for the day from high to a thoughtful pondering. How could I reclaim the day?

So what I've been dreading as a saccharine card-store holiday and yearly reminder that my maternal cords snapped long ago has shifted for me here in the year 2014. Even more so than last year's acceptance and partial repair of familial bonds.

Today I would have been 5 1/2 months along in our pregnancy. And that tidbit caused me to suck air a bit. I won't lie.

But this year has so far taught me how much mothering is so needed.

The unconditional compassion for others is what I feel is at the heart of the word mothering.

Through the darkest hours of this year thus far I witnessed astonishing acts of mothering:

Between us women who found courage in each other to grieve our lost babies. In some cases to speak on those loses for the very first time!

Between my husband and I and in turn with each other to our one living child.

I save seen that my words of truth on my loss here have helped comfort others.

And what has occurred is a small community of men and women who need and want to share mothering.

I am glad that though my uterus failed I was able to birth a small safe space online where we can and do support each other unconditionally. We mother each other and give to one another courage and comfort and occasionally a swift kick as needed. It's glorious!

And I am grateful and astounded by the love, support and courage of all these folks!

But as happy and life affirming as my revelation and grief process has been I still must ask a small favor:

Be gentle in your well wishes to any and all females you know on this 100th anniversary.

You may not know how she braves the day. Can you know if she is dealing:

With the painful reminder of her own loses?

With the empty womb where love should have grown but sadly has not?

With the overwhelming love and resources to adopt or foster yet has been denied?

With the terrible loss of her own Mother or Grandmothers or beautiful gay man who taught her trust?

With the unwanted questioning as to when or why or why not she's a mother by now?

With feeling her own parenting is a miserable failure?

With exhaustion and feeling of being overwhelmed or postpartum with their new bundles of joy?

With an empty nest where the birds never return?

We don't know. So if someone wishes me a happy mother's day I'll smile and thank them. And if I truly know them I'll well wish or offer a hug, or let her grab a quick shower as needed.

But for me this year I'd rather be mothering and being mothered than toasted for my status as MOM.

Though the excited whisperings of the kidlet as the plotting of how to spend my day is more welcomed thus year than I ever imagined. And I'll gratefully appreciated each minute on Sunday.

I love you all. And if the day is getting you down, I am here for you. And you might just hear from me too!

Dancing

Everyday Death and I
do a slow dance.

I look up longingly
trying to read Her face.

Today? Today perhaps?

But alas no. Not today.

Some days I twist
and turn my face from her
and whisper

Today? Must it be today?

But thankfully no. Not today.

Sometimes we move swiftly
across the floor.
Our feet gliding in and out
To and away.

Today? Is it today?

But no. Not today.

My whole life we've been
moving in this tango.
I know all life does.
But our bond is closer
We are more intimate.

There have been so
many days in which
I cry:

Today!! It is today!

But no. As you can see, not today.

Death dances thus with
others I love too.

Each day they glide and
dip and spin with Her.

And all too many have asked:

Today? Is it today?

And have heard:

Yes!

Today we dance no more.