chickens on fire

Today i was so tired i thought I couldn't make it thru my shift at the coffeeshop...all the caffeine in the world at my behest and it did no damned good. Tired of never-ending endings..waking up without hope, fed up with political "short bus" world views...just fucking tired across the spectrum of my life.

Then, mom came to spend the night and we went to dinner at POP and half the coffeeshop customers were at dinner and they were all so happy eating and laughing and their cute babies waved and hugged and blew kisses all thru dinner and I couldn't help but smile and laugh and hug back and then I felt awake and silly to have been so low...

Mom and I watched Countdown, a ritual I have come to love, and we bitched about politics and laughed and swore at the pundits. Then, Katia called and I booked my flight to collect her and her belongings for the journey back home from Philly...ten minutes later Jessica called and said she was probably moving to Colorado...one daughter home, one off to explore love and potential...life...life..she's right, it is her turn to leave the safety of home and learn about life and what she's made of...bittersweet. I have to see it as forward motion and a chance for me to get to know Colorado... make lemonade mary...

Dori came over and we sat on the deck, after mom went to bed. We talked about the boys and the wonderous "village" we live in where people have stepped up to house and love the boys, now all safely placed and cared for. Damn, how I love my neighborhood and the people who live in it and are so honorable when push comes to shove...

Cry baby me, but grateful cry baby....we talked about the boys, their crazy broken mom, our own kids, hope for the future, politics, food, wine, friends...then on to the best story ever! the story about Wausau and the heroin addicts camping in the woods, chicken stealers who decided they couldn't butcher them so instead decided to just toss them feathers and all alive into the fire cuz they were hungry...didn't work so well the flaming chickens escaped and ran thru the woods ablaze and then one of the addicts who part time worked at a bbq place chased them with a keg of bbq sauce after they ran around fully afire. and one of the other junkies was confused and wanted to know if he was basting them or trying to put out the fire....JEEZUZ PEOPLE ARE CRAZY!

So, at the end of the day, I conclude; God bless good stories about people SoOOOOooo much crazier than me...nothing better than laughing till cabernet comes out your nostrils.

Tomorrow I will rescue a broken tree and swipe sumac for my friend's garden...and laugh while I do it. Ninja tree swiper me Wednesday, tattoo completion, a metaphor for my looney life inked across my back in all of it's colorful glory...mary cassidy sprung forth, at last! Then to cap it all off , art time with Jay...what coukld be better? Nada

So, tomorrow I will wake up to the life I have, in all of it's splendor...grateful for every fucking thing...including the image of chickens running thru a forest on fire chased by a man with bbq sauce...

who needs movies after all of this?

Slante

Birthdays and Bees

What a peaceful and crazy week...all at the same time....
Run, wait, dig dirt to create beauty, work, go out with friends, cry cuz Joey ran away...make more lattes, dig more dirt, create more beauty. Talk politics and throw darts with friends for my bday. Judge the Drunken Spelling Bee and hoop in heels while talking naughty and making spellers laugh...Good job Taffi. Thanks for the fun.

WOW...All of that and to still feel and acknowledge a growing peace with in. Amazing how I feel a sweetness to my life now. I love my family and friends more each day. I appreciate more each day what I could possibly lose...my house, my business... that's all up to a judge and a justice system I choose to believe in.

What cannot be lost is family, friendships, my soul and heart. Those are mine. The joy of knowing that they will be enough is maybe what creates this sweet new sense of peace.

My daughters, I hope you understand why I won't let your father in my life right now...Have to finish the cut. Have to draw the clear line in the sand for my own happiness. I have earned it. Have to stand for what I am now,( probably always was but never dared truly be).

" Mary Cassidy" is here to stay. She's a good lady. Full of kindness, fairness and more than a bit of Irish naughtiness. And most of all, she loves you. And finally, herself too...sweet.

so it’s true, the end is also the beginning

mood: adventurous
Category: Life

A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains.
Tennesse Williams


My heart and life has been ALL curves thru the mountain...family, marriage, kids, jobs, friends, divorce.... nothing straight or even slightly predictable...Sadly, I think I always knew he did not love ME, the real me. So, I chose to see that an end is also a beginning.

One year later...Today is my birthday. I will consider this a true, curved beginning. The end was curved and treacherous. The beginning is not. It is full of hope and optimism. My human heart dares to take that curved journey again....Do I dare to be alone? Hell yes. Lonely? I was for so many married years...what's new? Friends, loves, so much stays vital and real over time...Beauty, as in the eye of the beholder, flying thru the air, like that plastic bag, spinning over the road in the film "American Beauty", that's what remains...

Today I clearly see that curved road running thru my heart...it spills on out to the rest of my life. It is well- lighted and beckons. From this day on, I am free from certain ghosts, wise to others...unafraid (who knew?) even of more failures. Shit happens. for sure...

I swear, I will pick myself up and try to live by nothing more than this: to be as good as I can be, to cause the least amount of pain or harm to this world and its'inhabitants as possible, to love my friends, family and daughters with all my heart...

I promise to judge the drunken spelling bee with sass and humor...to uphold the scripps national spelling bee standards to the last sip of wine, to write poetry even if it is bad poetry, to write incredible short stories and to one day really ,truly write a great american novel. Really. I promise it to myself...and damn it, I believe i will!
On top of all of that, I will believe in goodness and music and beauty and even love again...
So, on this, the longest day of the year, my birth day, I raise a glass to new births and the suns' rotation!

Slante and godspeed to all whom I love.

lost boy

Today the boys went to court to be placed in temporary custody and finally permanently removed from their crazy, broken addict Mom...four of the five were placed. The court denied the last placement and set the wheels in motion to send hin to Saint Joseph's...he listened, watched it happen then he ran away.

He answered the phone when I called...he said so flat...nobody wants me...they took everyone else and nobody wants me...Then he said he won't tell me where he is...and hung up.

I feel like shit. I can't take him in permanently for so many reasons...my mom living here two-three days a week and slowly losing her memory...she is losing ground so markedly and I see what is coming with her. Then, my own daughter is moving home in a month... full up...no room in the inn. Lastly, the never-ending divorce...the eternal "I'll fucking show you" from the ex...absolutely no sense of where I'll be financially when it finally ends... if I take the shit offer he has given, nobody will be able to stay in the house.. After all those years, am I surprised that he sees me as worth nothing? Hell no. Hell no Fucking, hell no. The fact that the state has guidelines and he that he has consistently offered only a fraction of that...who knows what the court will do. If I got a fair settlment , I could help older brother and runaway pay rent and be together... if only I knew I'd have a fair settlement....

I feel like slapping my ex...cheap, spiteful man.. LoL.. Fair? ...he turned down my request for 100 a month to feed the boys who we've had for every Sunday dinner for three goddamn years.... it makes me feel crazy...

J, plz be safe. Plz call me, Plz do nothing daangerous. It's not that no one loves you...we all love you...we are all just as lost as you sometimes...

Come home...

tattoos and truth

Today I get the unifying elements for my upper back tattoos...a tapestry that unites the disparate pieces of my story...bittersweet.... Painful...yep. Incredible trip? for absolutely sure. My friend C says to breath thru the tattoo pain and make each twinge an act of attrition. I will do that. I laughed and said, "just like childbirth"

I feel as if I've been birthing me for the past two years.

This final tatto is about attrition for a life I never cared enough to stand up for and wasted in so many ways...I also know that during these past two years I have learned and recognized the good in my history...friends, family, most especially my daughters...

So, This attrition is to my own heart for putting it second for far too long. I am sorry for the long wait in darkness. Won't happen again. I swear!

Today, Mary Cassidy will be stung into my back with ink and thought. I will never turn my back on her (me)again. I will never be hidden or locked in a bastard closet for someone else's shame. I will never againn accept that I am not enough and stay.

Mary Cassidy is, at last, allowed into the sun to live out-loud, in person, front and center and will, from this moment forward, be aware and grateful for her new evolved and hard-earned life.

And, so the end is also the beginning.....

I will love my life. I will love Mary Cassidy, at last.

Slante

Lessons from Las Vegas and Lilly's Ladies

So little time to learn some pretty important lessons...three days crammed with sights and sounds and burlesque ladies young and old. All with a common thread, that being, TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE... to thine own self be true...some of them finding that at a great cost, some coming to it easily, with warm and loving support from family and friends. All that I talked to having come to it with complex stories as to how they got there.

But, each one was seeking a creative and somewhat fringe outlet to express their true self.

I SAW THAT IT WAS NOT JUST DANCE AND TEASE...HELL NO, IT WAS POLITICAL, IT WAS FEMINIST, IT WAS COMEDY AND IT WAS DRAMA.

Each of them danced a chosen story. Each of them danced their life. It was amazing and hypnotic and beautiful. It's one thing to speak your heart and mind. That takes courage. To do it while taking off your clothes and in heels, carrying 40 pounds of feather fans... well that's a whole new level of self-revelation.

Don't get me wrong...they weren't all pioneers and saints. Some were quite naughty. But most were so amazingly normal. Moms, teachers, bankers, bartenders, writers...all just trying to push out the boundries that held them prisoner.

Stories, stories and more stories. Couldn't take them all in.

What I did learn was this; that you first or finally, have to believe in yourself and your worth. You have to say, "this is me...I am beautiful, I am human, I am enough. If you do not like what you see, look away, but you will miss out on something worthy of seeing and exploring."

I saw that, sometimes, saying "take me for what I am", means losing some of those who we thought understood us, but never really did, except on their terms...and, that sometimes you have to just live with that loss.
Action/consequence...

So, now, I choose to dance...not like the burlesque ladies, taking off layers of costume till exposed to the flesh... instead, I will dance metaphorically, shedding layers of repression and self-loathing till I find the true self that I have spent my entire life seeking. No pretense, no settling, no hatred...just the hard work of peeling away layer after layer of sadness and failure...yep, it will all be weighed and assessed...acknowledged and learned from, then, hopefully shed like feathers or silk...till all that remains is my true self...hopefully still full of kindness and compassion, but allowing me to once in a while come first...to be who I am...proudly. Just a simple woman learning to see and understand both the darkness and light that lies so close beneath my own skin...
Once in a while I might even do that dance in heels and glitter...

Slante...a toast to that dance...

Oh, the birthday is a comin'...

It is odd how birthdays no longer mean much to me...oh, correction, other peoples birthdays are so special!
It's just that mine no longer carries much importance....one more day, one more year.

I don't think of it as negative tho. It's just so much learned, especially these past three years. Huge decisions made, consequences lived...alone is such an evolution. A wonderful, hilarious, frightening, sacred, productive curve running thru my heart.

Have learned to love family and friends like never before. Have learned to love myself, finally. In doing so, it seems as if time has rolled up tight like a ball of yarn. The string weaves in and out and around and around...there is no obvious end or beginning in sight. Hence linear time and birthdays seem inconsequential. it's that curve of time and learning running thru my heart that matters now.

I hope that curve allows me to love deeply, fully, with both feet off the ground at some point...not one foot kept safely on terra firma for safety. How wonderful to be able to love, to trust enough in myself and another to dare to float feet ungrounded...maybe.

Here is my bday list of gifts I would love:
1. To finish the divorce fairly, with dignity intact and no hate anywhere in my heart
2. to believe in the goodness in humanity
3. Barak safely elected President and real change along with him...
4. true social justice for America and the rest of the world
5.Good friends on my deck, talking, sharing hearts and laughs....wine too!
6.Meaningful touch
7. A trusting relationship
8. Laughter
9. Music, music, music...Regina Spector and her cd Fidelity to be specific
10. Garden time
11. Spelling Bee birthday friends coming to sing hey Mary 331n "party"
12. Time with both of my daughters, family and friends
13. Italy Italy Italy...sweet sensual Italy
14.To write a great poem
15. To finish my friends garden perfectly adapted to his sense of beauty
16, side jobs creating beauty in other gardens
17. Touch...soft, kind touch
18. Laughter again
19, To see beauty in all of it's small daily "cameos"
20. To go to grad school in creative writing or to just have time to write fiction every single day of my life...
21. To know how damned lucky I am
22. to see and live the difference between alone and lonely.

Slante

Vegas isn't going anywhere...I'll get there, dammit!

Tornados, straight-line winds, flight delays and cancellations, stand-by or re-book...crappity! Can't a girl just get to Sin-City without all the drama and delays?

So, tomorrow I will try again. Get a ride to the airport. Present my E-ticket, put my shoes in the bucket, take off all the bling so I don't beep...ditch all of my lighters and matches, sit next to some complete stranger who's probably gonna be an 80 yr old gambler, or some big-haired suburban housewife and beer-bellied hubby who'll tell me about their time-share in Vegas and where to get the biggest cheapest meal...

All I want to do is meet up with my hilarious lady Burlesque buddies, have a cocktai (lor two) by or in the pool, hit the Vegas strip and see all the lights, watch the Legends of Burlesque Show, where the 80year old women who dared or had to make a living and NOT strip to do so, show us all what it is to still love and trust your body no matter how old you are. Attitude, they say, is all.

I'm gonna learn me some of that!!!

Ah, a mojito, a poolboy and ladies who laugh...come to mama.

Slante

Vegas and lights

Never been to Vegas in my whole damned life. Hate casinos, hate gambling.
What I do love about it is time away with women who love themselves as they are...hoping to learn from the elders of Burlesque, those granddammes who dared to fend for themselves, to believe in their own poise and beauty.

Hear tell it's all attitude and a good push up bra and panties...hahaha.

I want to believe at last, not just in my own intelligence, moral compass (glad as hell for them!!!!!) but for the first time in my entire life, my own attractiveness and sense of style. Yes, me as beautiful.

I have created beauty in my home.
I have created beauty in my garden and others.
I have created my beautiful daughters.
I have created beautiful friendships.

Now, finally, I will create my own belief in my own beauty...maybe the hardest beauty of all to see, but DAMMIT, I'm going to.

A toast to female beauty in all shapes and sizes and ages.

Slante!!!

Lunch and gut talks

Jesus, how fun to sit over a good salad and just let loose, back and forth...bad jokes, crazy events that make you stop and wonder how people survive their own goofiness...politics, politics, politics...how nice to not have to censor thoughts or words.

Now, that's what friendship should always be...back and forth what we learn, what we screw up, what we want what we fear, and sprinkled all over the hour laughs, laughs, laughs...

I promised to send photos and really funny descriptive texts from Vegas and he promised to let me wear a really bad bridesmaid dress in his wedding whenever that happens...

Ah, somedays, life is sweet.

Went shopping after lunch for a clearance "theme" outfit to match the Lilly's gals...oh my GOD...so so Vegas, so so hilarious. For sure that photo is going to be fab. The Lilly's burlesque girls and friends all in virginal white from head to toe, stilletto heels, rhinestones too and lots of mascara and false eyelashes and lots of red lips and lots of floral hair accessories...dear god, I can't wait...I know i won't stop laughing for days...

Poolboys, watch out...

beauty and friendship heal me, yet again...

Life is sometimes so raw and some people so completely disappointing that it sucks the air form your lungs and the light from your heart...

i have been wondering just how I spent so many years with someone I no longer know or like at all. Humanity? Kindness? Ethics? no sign of any from the ghost.

I just could not stand it...the miserly choices , the pretense of compassion, the phony and fuck you behaviors...well, they just wear you down, make it hard to move or look to the future.

I kept crying, mourning the little bit of hope, now totally dead, that we could at some point be honestly civil...I mourned the death of any sort of sense of future friendship surviving this divorce.

So, I went into solitary mode..wanted to not leave my bed or house, or even see anyone...even those I trust and love. But, friendship and a promise mae me get off my pathetic ass..I had an obligation to fulfill to someone who helped me out ..a garden to be created for a dear man. a friend who gave of his time and self to help resurrect my shop. He painted, re-painted, patched, came and did it all again...

So to show thanks, a garden to make his house into a home...
We dug, we shoveled, we pulled weed after weed...silent, focused, somehow forming a new yard, a new space to be filled with beauty.

Each hour that passed healed something that had broken in my heart...
Each clump of dead grass removed made me see, clearly, how each ending is also a new beginning...each shovel load of bad dirt removed gave way to fresh rich dirt, the kind that will let green explode into life.

I enjoyed the process of creating beauty with a friend, enjoyed the realization that his sense of beauty was so different from mine and that that, was good...nice to see so many ways to beauty and healing...

So, sir, here's a nod to seeing beauty freshly, to creating it with a friend...to healing.

I will repeat and I will believe: the end is also the beginning...the end is also the beginning...ad infinitum.