Spellbound: Senora Perez

I would have enjoyed Spellbound without, but with her, it was transcendent.

Charlotte Perez inspires in me every way. All of them.

No need to expound on that kind of connection with someone where you communicate with just a look.

 

And her Jorje is a hunk of burning love.

Thank you, Charlotte, for being my beloved friend.
This sums it up...

Thank you Martha Schuster for this collage.
Martha, you have an ability to move your head and neck in a subtle way that slays.

All the Ladies

I am really loving us. You and I. You have been so giving. I really have been thinking about you. About us.

I was feeling guilty, of course, about my last post and all the whining, negative posts before it in the last year...the year of reckoning, the year my daughter starting driving and looking at colleges, the year my body is deconstructing its reproductive ability. I was feeling bad for you. For reading about my darkness and sadness and how it elicits such love and support from you, you whom has no time for me.

I don't still feel guilty today. I turned my thinking into something like this...we all will face all these same things I am facing. Either you have already buried your parents, or you will. Maybe you never had parents and had to grieve that already. It is a certain and natural thing that we will all bury our parents.

We all will say goodbye to our children. Maybe you never had any and you had to let that choice happen, maybe you have raised your kids and already saw them leave the nest, maybe you have babies and it seems like a million miles away, maybe you are just hopeful to have or get a baby. But we all have to deal with the decison or the experience in someway. Maybe you have a disabled child that will never get to make the choices my dear lucky daughter can. Maybe you buried your child, the worst imaginable of all scenarios. But it is a certain and natural thing that we all face the issue of children and reproduction itself.

We all deal with the hormonal tides. Maybe you had a hysterectomy, or cancer and had surgical removal and early menopuase. Maybe it came and went without fanfare, but still its gone. Maybe you are facing menopause yet to come, periods yet to start, horrific pain and PMS and can't wait for it to go. But it is cetain and natural that the function of our reproductive system will take up huge amounts of our lives.

We all will face my same life issues, its all just timing, when, and how many at once. So of course I need not feel guilty for you reading my thoughts nor should I feel bad about you loving me. You know you will be here or you have been here, my timing is now, all these things. I will lose my mother and my daughter and my periods about the same time. Interesting that these are all such female issues.  Female rights of passage.

And yet, you, you who gives and gives can come here and give some more. You who should take instead of give because you are tired, depleted, often forcing yourself to the grocery store yet another time, folding that towel for the 176th time, emptying the dishwasher again, deciding on a menu again, figuring out what to wear again, smiling again, buying another gift, mailing another card, reminding, listing, driving, circling, you come here and give some more.

I love us. I love us women who give until there is nothing else. Of course we plummet through depressions. Of course we share anxieties. Of course we come here for a community who understands each other.

I feel very moved by us. I am so proud of us. I think I will remember that in 10 minutes when I am guilty for not giving someone I love enough attention. We do so much.

I would never speak to someone the way I speak to myself. Critical. Judgemental. I would never let someone talk to you the way I talk to myself. And that insidious hating voice once identified and kept pretty quiet waited, opportunist that she is, until I became more exhausted and weakened and she started whispering, so quiet, so in rhythm with my own better thoughts that I didn't hear her at all. I just became more guilty and depleted. She worked on me like a seductive abuser until she was yelling at me that I am worthless and cannot manage anything. Yelling and screaming and I was cowering in the corner hating and loving and believing her.

And then I remembered us. You and me. Strong, loving, take a bullet for our people women who have this horrible, hating, self loathing voice.

You want me to keep mine quiet. I want you to keep yours quiet.

And we bolster each other. And we keep talking to each other. You lift me up out of that corner, so I can hear the ridiculousness of my own thoughts. I hope I can remind you who you really are as well.

Strong, loving, soft, hard, beautiful. Woman.

Been Menging to Mention

It was Jemellia that turned me on to The French General. Word of mouth certainly grows businesses. We took a class from Kaari Meng at Silver Bella last November. What a respite in the frenetic, over-stimulating and under-fed environment that is Silver Bella. Kaari provides everything for the class which is so nice not to lug around all your gear, much less dig through it. Or the thing I really am uncomfortable with-all that stuff everywhere, covering the tables, scattered about the floor.

I love to look at other people's treasures to be sure, but Kaari's class is a wonderful negative space filled with serenity. And...Kaari does this demonstration of how to operate a jump ring that is akin to ballet.

We made lovely charm bracelets and were charmed by the lovely Ms. Meng. I was hooked.

This spring, Kaari did a give-away asking for a memory involving that blue. I wrote my story about getting my picture made in a blue velvet dress, the fabric of which I can still remember the exact texture of. I am forever smitten with that color.

Kaari selected my memory and sent me a bracelet kit I recently finished. She told me my story had evoked a memory of standing by her father wearing her Mary Janes and white socks. She had to have each anklet at the exact same height as the other. So dear.

Another beautiful bracelet. Again, thank you so much Kaari Meng...

Earlier this year Jemellia and I went to Dallas for a Private Kaari Meng Event at Shea Fragoso and Debbie Murray's church. This necklace is an amalgam of what the Gilded Life ladies and Ms. Meng do and do so well.

I had to miss the Mary Englebreit event due to caring for my mother. Jemellia and my stand-in Shelley went. I really appreciated Shelley stepping up and taking my spot. I was blue that weekend to miss out. But of course Jemellia gifted me a kit and a book from Kaari.

Kaari even sent class kits to me. I was quite overwhelmed with the generosity. Quite. This is why I can't quit her. Neither Kaari nor Jemellia...

I have been completing a few of my French General kits lately.

Each includes vintage charms and beads making the kits limited in availability.

The product is always heavier and richer than you see in pictures.

Better than expected. Isn't that nice?

And rare? Well, that describes Kaari Meng...

Willing Heart

I received another unsolicited gift. This from Renee. While she lives in northeastern Oklahoma, we met in classes at an Oklahoma City paper store (still can't get on their email list, wth?). She also went to Silver Bella last November. She kept to herself. I just figured Jemellia and I were a bit much for her. I mean, some people don't want to have a margarita while they eat key lime pie. That is what being with Je and me is like, I think. It's a...lot.

I ran into Renee in a class a couple of weeks ago. I love seeing her. I guess because she is nice, seems a little mysterious and also seems mature. Like a grown-up. Centered? Yes, that's it. I love that in people, right? I took a picture of her train case. She had this beautiful embroidery piece there. Look, you can see a little bit of each of us in this photo.

Then, I received a mysterious package a couple of weeks ago.

Inside was this box with an embroidered top.

Nothing is impossible to a willing heart.

A note I will not reveal was something about going through the contents of this box. Curiosity. Distraction. The things we need when under stress, in crisis, hurting.

Renee knows.

 Here are a couple of things from it.

I haven't gone through it.

I just want to take my time. Be with myself. And curiosity. And feel close to Renee.

Who is less of a mystery and yet, even more interesting than ever...

One thousand thank-yous, Renee.

I receive the sentiment, labor and love.

Nannie Blue

I feel some sort of compulsion to post on this blog. I always, each week, think I will just delete it. I don't want to post one more time. I want to write about my true feelings, but a more positive post writes itself in my head and that is the one I publish. I have never liked to write. I have always expressed myself through photography. It pleases me much more to see what moment I caught in the jam jar by camera than to read my sad, bleeding heart sentences. I mean, I make my own work to enjoy it myself. If it pleases or at least touches others then I am in the bonus. So what I have been posting is that which I can stand to read.

I am feeling quite blue today. Many emotions today, the same ones I started feeling when I was four or so. I hated to miss anything. Mother was just saying how everynight I climbed out of my Peter Rabbit crib and would show back up in the living room. While I am insular and crave being alone, I also need to feel connected. I don't really want to miss things. That is why this blog is such a perfect medium for me. I can express whenever I want then read comments when they appear. I am alone yet not lonely.

I am blue today. I think this might be an upgrade from the anxiety I usually feel. Blue just is. I sort like my anxiety though. I get so much accomplished when I am anxious. It creates an energy. I make lists and produce and hurry and worry. It isn't all bad. In fact that is the way I operate day to day. But now I am blue. Blue makes me walk in circles. Blue lacks productivity. Blue makes me hungry. Blue makes me sigh and feel tired. But here it is. I don't have to like it I just have to feel it.

I am posting pictures of something lovely from someone I love. My friend Nan and I met just over a year ago in art classes at our local scrapbook store. I am tired of linking to that store. I have spent hundreds of dollars in there and yet still cannot manage to get added to their email list. That is fine. I will still shop there and recommend it and take classes there. It has become actually a new home for me. I have crossed paths with such beloved sisters there. I will just punish that store by no longer mentioning its name. Oh little bitter revenge. But I am right about it.

Anyway, Nan and I met last year. We look so much alike. She is funny and not all uber happy but positive and loving, so, you know, my kind of gal. We went to a baby shower a couple of months ago. Nan gave me the loveliest gift. A spontaneous, generous loving gift. She is a doll maker and collector of old linens and so forth. She loves fabric, like I do. She has a passion and apparently a large collection of hand monogramed linens. She used this "R" right out of her collection and made this apron for me.

Can you freaking imagine?

This is exactly why you don't give handmade things to people who don't make things. Because they don't get it. All of us that make things are so hungry to share. I have received so many spontaneous handmade gifts. It overwhelms me. It is one of the greatest joys and gratitudes I have.

Thank you, Nannie. It is so lovely and loving and I love it and love you.

Shit. Did I just make another fairly positive post?

Bon Printemps

My daughter can jeer all she wants about "mama's blog friends" but you guys know how real it is. No matter what I write. No matter what I whine about, cheer about, photograph or misspell, you comment back. One of you. Someone. Sometimes the same one for each post, sometime a random single response, sometimes every other. Whatever, whenever, someone pats me on the back.

And we all get it. And need it and it is real.

Ergo a new friend from my blog who I comment back and forth with and also email. She asked for my address, would I be comfortable giving it to her? I did and also wrote that I probably shouldn't because I should refuse anything nice she may do. But I sent my address. And I let her do something nice.

And this is what she did.

She sent a box.

I knew it was pretty rare so of course I photographed each step because I wanted to share it with the one who would understand and appreciate it most.

You.

She sent a note. I will keep the content private. But it was dear, very dear.

And there was a box. This was decorated by her own hands.

And inside a little pillow bearing the message 'good spring'.

For some reason so many of us, so many women, with all that we have in our lives... our home, job, children, partners, parents, friends, holidays, grocery shopping, hair to do, meals to cook, dishes and washing....

Somehow that isn't enough.

Somehow that isn't enough and we need each other. We reach out to the unknown and connect. And it is so special.

Thank you Cheryl.

Thank you, Cheryl,  for your comments, your emails, your support, your empathy, your kindess, your time and your gift.

You make it a good spring.

Not the First One

This is not my first post about Kim. The first time was in the Year Book during our high school junior year.

Miss Kim was our high school twirler. I was in drill deam with our marching band. Kim would don a sparkly uniform and deliver a spinning, throwing, often flaming, routine at center stage of our performances. Everything halted while Kim did her thing. I was part of a corps, but she was the star, superstar. She was otherwise quite quiet and proper, so to see her in go-go boots and {sexy} shimmering costume was intriguing to me.

She otherwise did not let her little light shine. Kim held titles for twirling in our state. I cannot imagine the silvery nads it took for her to dance and catch that spinning metal baton. It took skill to choreograph those routines, then to perform in front of crowds and judges....well, it prepared her pretty well for her carreer in law. Yes my Kimberlee is an esquire and a twirler. Know any of those? Well, there can't be many.

I was so impressed with her and at the same time frustrated with how quiet she was about her successes in dance. So I fixed that. I photographed her in costume and wrote up an article about her achievements. It made a half page spread in our junior yearbook.

Kim can forget how special and shiny she is, I think. We all forget get don't we? I whipped up a collage using that low tech image straight out off the yearbook page.  Adding the word "sparkle" to describe her, her style, the twinkle in her eye. A crown of course.

Look, a wee robin is perched on her baton. Looking up to her...

Kim, I thought I would beg forgiveness rather than ask for permission to post again about you.

Forgive me?

Dear Brigid

I am feeling all kinda prickly and like pretty bad company. Gosh, aren't you glad you stopped by? Since I moved mother in and have been caring for her, I have these times where I am kind of blue. I can't put my finger on anything in particular. I don't really mind preparing meals or dispensing meds. Checking on her, repeating myself many times. Well, some of it makes me roll my eyes. There isn't really anything else I want to do, or where I would want to be. I am a little bored maybe, a little lonely. Like after you bury someone, people are there and checking on you, then within a couple of weeks they just want to move on and not bring it up to you. I get that. I do that. I mean, ultimately it is just you and that's how it is supposed to be. So, I am in the eye of the storm. Initially there was lots of attention and there will be again when things are worse. But we are coasting right now, and I am glad for it, but, yawn. Blech. Yuck.

Since I defined for myself the need to receive the love there is and not shut it out, I thought I would chose an act of kindness bestowed on me and see if that doesn't turn things around.

This one is about Brigid.

Since I have the task of cleaning out the house I grew up in and where my mother lived for 50 years, I have felt the need to get rid of things from my own home. I put a message on my FaceBook page that I had some knitting magazines and would anyone want them. Brigid claimed them and sent her address. I know Brigid from the Oklahomans on Etsy. We have crossed paths at a few craft shows. I have even met her mother, who is a hoot and a doll. Like mother, like daughter. I was quite happy to ship my stack to Tulsa. She sent a 'got it and thanks' message, all was happy and complete.

Then I received a box.

I was in shock. Just delighted. Brigid sent a cute note of thanks. She FOUR of her handmade scrubs. All of this was just to be nice and say thanks. But the part that was just on another level was the necklace.

It has two birds and my favorite blue. So personal. She spent her time and energy on me. Beyond that, she personalized this necklace just for me.

Interestingly, Brigid's grandmother is in a bad way. I hope this makes you feel better, dear girl. I am near tears writing this. Thank you, Brigid. I feel the love. I receive that. And it did file those prickles right off me.

Girlfriends Are Essential

Lots of blogs I follow...wait, I follow lots of blogs. I am a collector, ney, hoarder of blogs. I often compulsively collect things. The nice thing about collecting blogs is they are free and take up little space. Except from an anxiety standpoint. I have actually had to start treating my blog list like I treat my closet. One in. one out. At a certain point many years ago I felt like my closet was choking me. It had become that big Venus fly trap, Audrey II, in the musical. So I went through all the clothes with a machete so to speak and pruned. Honestly, this takes a few times to get it all clean. There are unnatural attachments to clothes. I also have a cure for that. If there is something in your closet that you just can't get rid of, but also do not wear, try this: put it on and wear it. Trust me, a day at work in a sweater with shoulder pads and beading will make it quite it easy to part with that garment.

This was not the point of this post initially, but I will get around to the point. Or not. I am under a great amount of stress and have a hard time staying on topic.

The rule for my closet is 'one in one out' and you probably can understand it immediately. For each new garment entering, one garment must leave my closet. They do not have to be equal, two new sweaters may push out a purse and a pair of sandals. It helps maintain a constant number of garments. I really like to challenge myself to 'one in, two out' but frankly that second item may just be a pair of socks or a tank top. Don't forget about underwear. Please realize it is time to let go of the pair of period panties with hippos on them.

So I am a blog collector and when that list of blogs I follow hit 100, I instigated the 'one in one, out rule.' It is really hard to cut a blog. What if they only have 8 followers? They will know I have abandoned them. Number of followers is a bit like a grade, right? It is important to know if your grade is an F. Either step it up or drop out. Currently with 25 Blogspot followers I have a grade of D. I feel like I have stepped it up, and maybe I am also a D blogger. I still get so much out of this blog. I just hope my followers don't cut me. I also hope I don't cut myself.

So I started this post by saying 'lots of blogs I follow' then went on about following. That really is my point. I am a follower here on the internet. I have a whole life here. Blog friends. I also have some real friends. Quite a few. I do not however, collect real friends. I develop real friends. Real friendships are an entity like a marriage and almost all that implies. Commitment, intimacy, gifts, surprises, cards, looks, dirty looks, rolling eyeballs, snarky comebacks, fights, rage, tears, disappointments, ad nausem.

I have always felt friendships are so important. Really I have always put friendships first in my life. I am extremely loyal, to a fault, as they say. I was always far more hurt at a break up with a friend than with a boyfriend.

No idea why I developed this. I think as a little kid I realized I couldn't really count on siblings so I turned with a near obsession to my friends.

All that compulsion and obsession has really paid off. I have unbelievable, really, epic friendships. I also have some neofriendships here in Blogville that are amazing, an otherwise over used word that fits here well.

My original sentence was about many of the blogs I follow...well, many of the blogs I follow are defining a word or phrase for the year. I have been thinking about this and realized with my aforementioned low slope learning curve, I need far more than a year. I worked on forgiveness and shame for, uh, decades, but quite intensely for about four years.

I will not name a word for the year but for the horizon, the new frontier. I have rip roaring rage. Do I really want to chose RAGE as my word? I don't have to, it chooses me. It explodes out and holds me over the edge of a cliff. It erupts and lava floes form burning and scalding loved ones in their wake.

What I realize is, of course, rage is just a symptom. It is a childish, impulsive, reaction to a deep fear. That fear is probably, most of the time, the fear of feeling alone. Ergo my intense need for deep connections with people. Oh look, I am human.



I love my time alone. I need loads of it. But feeling alone is different. I have felt alone my whole life. Alone. Also, I have always felt loved. Paradox? Hmmmmmm. It is not enough to be loved. For me is about bonding. I have a bonding issue. I never realized that until this recent stress of my mother's illness, frailty and end of her life, which I am watching in my own home.

However, I really do not feel alone. For the first time.

So having close friendships and a wonderfully loyal husband wasn't enough. I needed to open myself a little further and receive that love and connection. Wanting it, and having it is not the same thing as receiving it.

So there. My new thing, my defining word, the new frontier is...receive. I will honor not just friendships, but the essential, powerful, quality of friendships in 2010 like never before.

Girlfriends are essential.

Angela Does Barbie

My friend Angie's birthday is in late August. She sure has been on my mind. We have been friends for 30 years. I know a lot about her. We sat in English together through our junior and senior years in high school. We didn't always talk as much as my other friends. Angie smiled much and brooded a bit. I knew what she was thinking when the one of the "perfect" girls snooted by. It would be fair to say we raised a little hell in high school. Now I know the only difference between 'good' girls and 'bad' girls is the truth...

I always idolized Angie. She seemed so smart and present, spiritual and mature. And she was and is. We used to talk about Led Zeppelin. Then it became our dead brothers. Now it is the tidal wave of age and all that implies. I think a true friendship started way back then but it has deepened despite how little we get to see each other.

But there is is one thing we never talked about. It never came up. Barbie. We never talked about Barbie. My friend Shelley and I sure did. She even bought my daughter Dentist Barbie. I bought my daughter so many dang Barbies hoping the fever would catch. It really didn't. She liked Polly Pocket and who could blame her? Barbie was so damn perfect and white and tall.

I didn't really play with Barbie as a kid so much as decorated for her. I would set up an elaborate compound for her and her groovy friends. There were really great bedrooms complete with shoe box lids for beds decked out with linens and those green mod washcloths of the 70s for bedspreads. Remember bedspreads? Its all comforters and duvet covers now. But Barbie had fabulous thick luscious green and chartreuse swirl washcloths to keep her warm at night.

But Angie and I never discussed it. However, I now know Angie's whole Barbie agenda via her blog. It is such a good post, a favorite among favorites. She is a brilliant writer and she always has been. I am so proud of her for launching into writing in a serious way, one that I can be a part of.

She is one of those people, because she is quiet and introspective, that after all these years I am still getting to know. She continues to fascinate me three decades later. There is one thing I do not like about her though. I don't see her enough. Hey Angie, do you and Francie want to come over to listen to 45s or for some camping?

Please visit Stalking Sunsets, get to know her, fall in love and wish her a happy birthday in any order you prefer.