pocoyayo!

what we tell them

>> Tuesday, January 24, 2012

I saw you when I was pushing my daughter in her stroller. You were with your two little girls. We were walking to the same bookstore. You knelt down and told them, Please be good when we go inside. This will be quick. I just need to get one thing. You held the door open for me, with my cumbersome stroller, there were no automatic doors. You stepped to the kiosk just beyond the entrance. See? This is what I needed to get. I pushed on, wandering, thinking, browsing, chattering to my girl for fifteen, twenty minutes. We headed to the magazines, and that's when I saw you again. Snaking through the magazine racks, your girls trailing behind you. I wasn't surprised. And I couldn't blame you. Not telling your girls you were there to daydream was the only way to keep the peace. Peace is what you really came for. Just that one thing.

chopped.

>> Tuesday, January 10, 2012

I did it. Just a few minutes ago, in my daughter's bathroom with a pair of kitchen scissors. I'm probably going to need professional intervention to fix what I've done, but I got it into my head that I had to do it today, and I had to do it myself.

Strangely, I'm not horrified. Maybe it hasn't hit me yet. Right now, I'm happy, and I feel free. And my curls feel bouncier already.

My mom is gonna have palpitations the next time she sees me.

I hope K doesn't hate it!

P.S. What you don't see in this picture is the little rugrat, known around here as Miss M, grabbing onto my legs and nearly tripping me over. But she was there, and that's what she was doing. I don't think she noticed my haircut, by the way. I could have shaved my head, for all she cared, as long as snack time was on schedule. :)

chop.

This has me daydreaming (obsessing) about chopping my hair off. Over the years, lupus and childbirth have ravaged my hair, leaving nothing but a long, stringy-curly remnant of what used to be. I want to start fresh. See what's underneath all the straggles and split ends. See what grows to replace the damaged mess. Fear is the only thing stopping me.

Over recent months, I have been paying attention to who I really am on the inside. Resisting the urge to please others, the urge to cram myself into the ill-fitting sweater they think my life should be. I've just grown tired and weary of struggling, and am finally beginning to let myself be myself. It's refreshing, this not having to fight.

If I chop my hair off, it would be like graduating.

Opposite Day

>> Sunday, January 08, 2012

When I was a little girl, my family lived in an apartment complex in Northern Virginia, just outside D.C. I was friends with many of the girls my age who also lived in the "courtyard," as we called it. Our buildings formed a rectangle in the inner portion of the neighborhood. Between the four buildings was rectangular sidewalk, and within that rectangle was a plot of grass and trees. After school, on weekends, and in the summer, we played out there like it was our job. We roller-skated, jumped rope, rode bikes, used the fence as a balance beam, hung upside down from the trees. We played with our dolls, did all those hand-clapping games (including the one from the Cosby Show*), and sang kid songs.

What I'm about to relate to you now is a song I made up during that time, when I was about six or seven years old. Although my friends and I definitely had our squabbles and "mean girl" moments, I think I was just having fun with opposites when I composed this little ditty. It's sung to the tune of "Say, Say My Playmate".

Say, say my enemy,
come out and fight with me
and bring your bulldogs three.
Fall out my apple tree.

Slide down my thunder cloud
into my jail door.
And we'll be enemies
forevermore.

There, now I've made myself vulnerable. Please don't judge me. I really wasn't a dark and morose child.

See?

*Skip to minute 4:55.

Stuff I Need To Learn

>> Thursday, January 05, 2012

1. How to quilt. I have made exactly three blankets in my life. Most recently, I made one for my daughter (finished just in time to present it to her as her eighth-night Hanukkah gift). It is a pinkish floral print on the front and soft fleece on the back. And it features some crooked stitches. As much as the crooked stitches add character, I would love to learn how to quilt for real. Learning to quilt has been on my "someday' to-do list forever. Maybe it's time to cross that item off. I'm tired of feeling jealous when I see things like this.

2. How to play guitar. I bought a guitar maybe five or six years ago. I tried learning some chords, but gave up when I felt like I was too clumsy to keep up with the rhythm of the karaoke-style practice track that I had. Yesterday, my daughter pointed to my guitar case, so I opened it up and showed her what was inside. I strummed randomly on the un-tuned strings. Surprisingly, my girl liked it, even though it sounded terrible. She whine-cried when I put the guitar away. So, I owe it to my girl to learn how to play that thing. Actually, I owe it to myself, too. Learning to play guitar has been on my to-do list since I was a high-school girl enthralled with the likes of Oasis, Pearl Jam, and Nirvana.

P.S. These items will be added to my general to-do list for the year, which includes taking more "fine art" photos and submitting at least one poem per month for publication. What's on your to-do list?

I Can't Resist

>> Friday, December 23, 2011

Every year, I find it impossible to resist taking pictures of the Hanukkah candles. So, here is a cell phone picture of our candles from last night.

Please pardon the messy table. It's covered in junk. I wish I could say that it's covered in junk because we are moving. But, really, this table always looks like that. (We rarely use it for eating.)

See the laminated piece of paper underneath the menorah? That's an apple print place mat that Miss M made in the nursery for Rosh Hashana. It's been sitting on our table since around that time.

So, anyway, once we move, the messy table will be a thing of the past. We'll still have the table, but without the mess. I decree it.