Thursday, June 30, 2016
The Door Girl, Part 17
Days that should have been filled with mediocrity never were-and honestly, I think I liked it that way. I didn't know any other way.
Aunt Cassie let us do things none of the other adults did. Probably because she was busy smoking pot all day and grieving the loss of her beloved.
Regardless, my comrades and I slept in sleeping bags in the back of her station wagon. We never had to check in from morning until the streetlights came on at night. We caught frogs. We had impromptu Halloween parties. In a way, my life was magical.
One day, and now, I can laugh at it, Aunt Cassie picked me up from school with my mattress strapped to the top of the car and asked me where my 13-year old self would like to live. She didn't have any money so she had to move in with my grandma (they didn't have room for me).
So I said, "Lucy." Just as casually as I would answer "Fries," if you asked me what I wanted at McDonald's. I was used to this shit by now. Lucy was my friend at school and apparently her mother had no problem with my mattress being dropped off at their house, because I never heard a word about it.
So, there I was at Lucy's without ever having said goodbye to my trailer park family. "People come, people go, " my mother would always say, so I never got my panties in a bunch.
That was the second time it was engrained in to me that people were transient. They came, they went. And this time, it was time for me to go.
Aunt Cassie let us do things none of the other adults did. Probably because she was busy smoking pot all day and grieving the loss of her beloved.
Regardless, my comrades and I slept in sleeping bags in the back of her station wagon. We never had to check in from morning until the streetlights came on at night. We caught frogs. We had impromptu Halloween parties. In a way, my life was magical.
One day, and now, I can laugh at it, Aunt Cassie picked me up from school with my mattress strapped to the top of the car and asked me where my 13-year old self would like to live. She didn't have any money so she had to move in with my grandma (they didn't have room for me).
So I said, "Lucy." Just as casually as I would answer "Fries," if you asked me what I wanted at McDonald's. I was used to this shit by now. Lucy was my friend at school and apparently her mother had no problem with my mattress being dropped off at their house, because I never heard a word about it.
So, there I was at Lucy's without ever having said goodbye to my trailer park family. "People come, people go, " my mother would always say, so I never got my panties in a bunch.
That was the second time it was engrained in to me that people were transient. They came, they went. And this time, it was time for me to go.
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Weekly Schedule
Monday: Beach Day
Tuesday: Library Day
Wednesday:
Splash Pad/Park
Thursday:
Dollar Theater Day
Friday: Farmer’s Market
Summer Sanity Plan/Schedules
Summer Schedule
|
9:00
|
Breakfast
|
|
9:30
|
Screen
time
|
|
10:15
|
Chore Chart
|
|
11:15
|
2
pages in summer packet
|
|
12:00
|
Lunch
|
|
11:30
|
Play
Outside/ Fun Activity
|
|
12:30
|
Quiet
Time
|
|
1:30
|
Screen
Time
|
|
2:30
|
Play
Outside/Fun Activity
|
|
4:00
|
Help
mom clean up
|
|
5:00
|
Dinner
|
|
6:00
|
Play
Outside/Fun Activity
|
|
7:00
|
Bath
Time
|
|
7:30
|
Book
Time
|
|
8:00
|
Bed
Time
|
Sunday, June 26, 2016
The Tragedy and Goodness of the Wind
There is a tree that stands alone in a field of wheatgrass. The wind loves to play with it; it dances and drifts and never takes for harm what is meant for good. Many might use the verb "ravaged" the tree or "tossed," but I prefer "played with," because nothing from nature's goodness is meant for our harm.
The wind, this life, it plays with us until we learn to sway with it and let it sweep us under in a gentle tumble. There is no breaking of twigs, only the game of life gently teaching us our lessons in whispers. They were never meant to destroy us.
Today, I sway. There was a day I allowed circumstance to render me lifeless.
But now, this wind, this tragedy, I humbly bow and accept that I am but a student kneeling at my master's feet.
Inhale the wind. Let it do with you what it will. And then exhale...joy, deliverance and purity of mind.
Let me tell you a secret...
I'll teach you the magic in the soul. I will let you eat the forbidden fruit.
But there is a reason you were not meant to eat from that tree. You have to suffer to make this life worth anything. Knife-cutting suffering. Wake-up-in-the-middle-of-your-sleep-crying suffering. Because then, my darling, you will know what joy is. And how it smells and what it tastes like...what it feels like to know joy. It's all a trade-off.
Did I choose to suffer? Perhaps subconsciously? I like to think that I did. That I had the courage to take the fruit from the tree and to know that there is life on the other side of the Garden of Eden.
It took me a long time to understand that. That to suffer truly is joy in the end. It's true, but you don't know that when you are just trying to make it to the other side...to the place where it doesn't hurt.
And then your world opens up and you remember...
You are alive.
But there is a reason you were not meant to eat from that tree. You have to suffer to make this life worth anything. Knife-cutting suffering. Wake-up-in-the-middle-of-your-sleep-crying suffering. Because then, my darling, you will know what joy is. And how it smells and what it tastes like...what it feels like to know joy. It's all a trade-off.
Did I choose to suffer? Perhaps subconsciously? I like to think that I did. That I had the courage to take the fruit from the tree and to know that there is life on the other side of the Garden of Eden.
It took me a long time to understand that. That to suffer truly is joy in the end. It's true, but you don't know that when you are just trying to make it to the other side...to the place where it doesn't hurt.
And then your world opens up and you remember...
You are alive.
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