I am a corn husk.

I woke up realizing that.  I’ve been feeling dried up and useless for some time.  Just being, doing, surviving and striving with no reason beyond making it to a new day.

And that just sucks.  I don’t mean the generic suck but the major Le Suck.

In my dream I was making tamales which is an arduous and long ritual with amazing results.  I prepared these rich ingredients: brisket, seasoning, onions and spicy chile paste.  Then “the masa”.  Mix, mix, mix and done.  It was then I found I had forgotten to soak the husk.  It wasn’t prepared to receive the abundance I was preparing for it in order to finish my dish.

I am a corn husk.

The goals, the ideas, the thoughts and even flights of fancy I’ve been organizing within myself cannot begin until I soak my husk.  Until I completely soften the dried up parts of me too brittle to become flexible.  Flexible enough to wrap around all the adventures (and sorrows and living) that my life is moving onwards to.

I could always just steam forward, as is, but the insides would flake apart and lose flavor.  No cohesion.  Not even a huge dousing of the most passionate tasting salsa can salvage a poorly made tamale.  Not for a blob of dry meat cake stick.

I am a corn husk in search of my personal aqua vitae.

That exuberance of spirit and uninhibited freedom of soul.  Not happiness, because that is relative and temporary to situations, but that deeper internal peace and joy.

Apparently, my fountain of youth was fed to everyone but me.  I’d best get digging deeper to find another spring, if I can, before it’s too late.

Unworthy ..

.. wow.  Isn't it crazy how you can be *this* person .. wyld, crazy, confident, positive, strong, logical, etc .. doing everything and anything to keep it together for you and your loved ones and then 1 single action or situation breaks down those sturdy hurricane proof walls you took years to build?

     And then sadly once you get it in your head that you are no longer worthy of good things you create this cycle that tells you to deserve it.  To do what you gotta do but it's just not going to get better than this.  And then weeks, months, years go by .. perpetuating your own stereotype under your facade of "everything's fine" until you hit a decade mark.

      You obliterate *that straw* and your life goes to shit and the blinders come off.  Every depressed moment, every "Oh you can handle it .. you're strong .. you never have anything you can't handle" dumps you into a burbling void of utter despair.  And with no end in sight .. possible cancer, poor health, broken bones, etc .. you say again to your self. "See .. I am unworthy.  The universe is telling me so."

      Yeah right.  Your loved ones bitch slap the holy hell out of you and straightens your head up and all of a sudden .. "Is that AIR?  Am I breathing?  Where did I freaking go?  What the seven hells is that sad, broken and lifeless shell around me?"  You decide to test the universe and ask it for answers and remind it, and yourself, that you ARE fucking worthy.

      That you are worthy and divine.

      And then .. there is .. light.

Weekly or Weakly?

One of the items on my LifeList is to write weekly blogs "faithfully" .. we'll see how this goes this time. 

I became disenchanted with writing, with emoting or allowing myself the freedom of verbal vomiting .. whichever the case may be .. many years ago.  Too many peoples negativity slamming into my emotional walls helping me to crumble beneath them.  No, not their fault, my own.

So, I start over again .. and again .. and again .. and that's all right.  Surviving through the minutae and momentous is nothing to feel small about.

Right now I'm glad to be breathing, to find out why I have been ill so many years, to be able to walk much better, sleep much better, live much better.  And very glad I have the most amazing children in the world who love me unconditionally .. even through all my medical woes.

That is more than enough to keep me waking up each day.

I started writing again Friday morning.  The end of a dream/story in my head.  The only thing I had close to hand was my cell phone .. lucky it has a mini-keyboard on it or I'd never have gotten it all out.  The tricky part is, now, to go back and create the beginning and the middle.  Those parts are hazy, gauzy, half remembered .. pretty much like real life is sometimes, yes?

I'm just grateful for my muse to caress my soul again.  If I could only *know* him, perhaps, this stutter stop chop of emoting would never be.  Was so much stronger back in the 90's as if he was closer .. maybe we dreamed the same dreams .. wished the same wishes .. longed the same longings.  Maybe.

Let her cry ..

.. if the tears fall down like rain.

Odd to suddenly burst into tears .. an overwhelming assault of sorrow crushing me almost with its staggering depth. If it's someone I'm bonded to .. and you ever read this .. oh man, I am so sorry for your pain. This really, really is impacting me to the point of sobbing and altering me from the absolute joy I have been feeling for so much time now.

Where have you been all my life?

I fell in love .. a true, deep, forever and always and sincerely, madly, deeply kind of love.



Not with a person .. with a music group, with a band, with words said and unsaid, with a voice, with the energy and inertia of people I had no idea was there for nearly all my life and who I am feeling ultimately connected with until a few days ago. Bad Religion .. coming into my life as potent as dynamite and at a point when I was starting to feel my wheels spinning to a place I really didn't want to go.



Over the course of a few weeks one of the most amazing persons I have met in many many years has been sharing Bad Religion's music with me. From the first I *knew* it was meant to be *something* .. this emotional, spiritual and soulful love affair. This physically orgasmic burst of serendipity .. and this la cosa nostra with both man and music .. will work its way as it will and, regardless, it has been a life altering eperience.



Serendipity .. culpability .. immeasurability .. within my own little world. The implosion and explosion of sound and higher thought processing opening huge vistas I haven't explored in at least 10 years. Too caught up in the simple sentiment, too caught up in a tune, in the sound of voice .. too caught up to remember that, for me, music must be the whole world and more.



So, sadly, I must say goodbye to my teenage lullabies .. Bon Jovi will always be loved for the memories .. for speaking to me through the decades.



The future, though, is calling to me .. asking me to believe and achieve, to reach and reap .. and I'm growing so much more connected to myself .. to me .. not just to the me I share with everyone else but to the *me* that only a few know truly.



I find myself writing more, thinking more, feeling more, expressing more, loving more, angry more .. shredding aside the ennui that has laden my existence with its heaviness for many years .. buried beneath the conscious and subconscious knowledge of honestly being unwhole. Unhappy. Unknown.



I'm feeling successful as a Mom, as a Daughter, as a Sister, as a Friend, as a Co-worker and as a Lover. ::grin:: No .. I don't have a lover .. but .. I know when the time becomes right .. that I will be successful .. because something one of my work friends told me recently has found a place at the front of my choices for dating going forward, "Cherryl .. no more dating men to help save them from whatever issues they have. Find someone who knows who he is, knows who he was, can see who he will be and who is working to make himself better regardless of the shit that might be in the way. You just deserve it."



And I do .. and no matter how many times I was told that .. ::soft laugh:: I never listened. Stubborn little girl kicking up dust as I pouted and flounced .. thinking I knew what I needed. Sometimes others can see your needs better than you ever can .. so .. I've been open to suggestions, remembering they are suggestions, and am going to make life choices with "my" life in mind. Not just for today but for tomorrow and all the tomorrows I have left.



Yeah, yeah, yeah .. blah, blah, blah .. all empty words until you put it into play.



I'm doing it though .. rawking it .. reveling in it. Not gonna stop now .. never gonna stop.



"You know eternity can't ever change your mind."



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



"Before you die" by Bad Religion



Porcelain and alabaster, decaying ever faster,

Unaware of imminent disaster open up your eyes.



As you ruminate the hopeless sands of time,

Did you wander out your days lost and resigned?

Or recreate the universals in your mind?



Everybody is a bastard: my world is like plaster

Crumbling apart from the pressure of the blaster, waiting for a sign



And the momentary pleasures take their turn

As a wistful boy runs out of things to learn,

The episodes of yore are never to return.



Scare up some hope, you're gonna need it just to cope,

You are the decision, numbers don't lie,

When you bite the dust, was it for purpose or for trust?



You'll never relive it, think before you die.

Yeah, think! Think before you die.



Deficit and deprevation - in the wake of desperation,

Rewrite the morals, recitify the nation.

Now may be your time!



As you ruminate the hopeless sands of time,

Do you wonder how your life has been defined?

You know eternity can't ever change your mind.

You know eternity can't ever change your mind.



So think! Think before you die!

Yeah, think! Think before you die.

Everything that glitters is not gold ..

Will you be mine in the morning?
Will it last that long?
This passionate beat of two as one.

The loss of a heart along with the soul.
Can you count the cost ..
Of not being whole?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yeah. So I've been writing a little here and there .. more so in the last few weeks. Mindless games on Facebook to fill in gaps, thinking thoughts through my head - vast and varied - and had started the poem above - but I think I'll let it just fade away. Incomplete .. as was the reason for the writing of it.

I'm starting to see that there are so many people out there that tend to think of relationships as fast food faire. Like love, or closeness, can be picked up at a drive thru .. and when you eat what you want you toss the remainder away. And you have to go back again and again .. never truly satisfied with what you get .. because its junk food. Quick and easy.

Someday .. I am going to be the meat, potatos, salad, watermelon, pie, ice cream and ice cold tea for someone. There's not going to be short cuts and impatience. There will be true understanding, respect, patience, love, depth, comittment, sharing, faith, trust, morals, ethics, family and so much more. Not sure if there are any real men .. true men .. honest and scrupulous men out there .. that aren't interested in just a moment until the next best thing comes along. Yes, I know, "Oooo shiney".

I was thinking it was me for a while now that was the reason for relationship failures .. and sometimes it has been .. but I've talked to more than a few of my ex's now and they *still to this day* do not make me feel inferior, inadequate, inconsequential, unbeautiful or unworthy. We may not be together for differing reasons .. but .. they have all concurred that the ones that I let go .. and could not even stand to be friends with .. were not good men deep inside.

So, I realized .. its not just that a man has to be strong enough to be with someone as wyld and willful, sweet and sinful, hard and soft .. all the sides of me that make me "me" .. its that the one thing, above any other thing (No hurting my children, no hurting me, no cheating, no lies, no drugs, no alcoholic, no stealing) in my life that I truly need in a man .. which actually covers all the rest .. is goodness.

I ain't talking going to church and praising whatever god you choose goodness .. because church and believing in a god does not make you a good man, or woman, since there have been many atrocities - and many even unto this day - done in the name of a god.

I am talking about a man who would lay down his life for another human being without thinking of the cost to himself, I am talking about a man who is hard and consistent but also soft and spontaneous when it comes to children or their woman - just to see their smiles, I am talking about a man who can speak what he says and says what he speaks, I am talking about a man who can offer more than empty words .. he can "bring it" and I am talking about a man who can stay true to a woman .. and love her truly, deeply, madly, sincerely .. forever and always.

Perhaps I am talking about the impossible. That's always possible. ::grins and shrugs:: I just know I have seen the possibilities of what the rest of my life could be like .. and that I think I would like another relationship again, even marriage, and am not afraid to "bring it" if I come across a man who is really, really .. welp .. real.