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Ode To The Parting Gift

moon Pic

Margaret told me all the answers
He had told her where it was, but only once.
He spoke softly, which was not like him
nor was saying things only once.

Margaret asked me if I remembered all the answers
Then she whispered them quietly under her breath
Her eyes darted up to me, had I noticed?
The indent on the couch he left?

Margaret Listened, the school bell was ringing.
He was walking her by the Old Margam Mill.
She didn’t like the way he was always talking
Now she listens for him still.

How Clouds Behave

IMG_5313

Is it chronic or persistent the way they go?

Will today draw them fast or slow?

Thin and long, round and old

With graying sides and a picture show?

I see faces there of Hercules

or a fallen child with skinned up knees.

Never cornered or caged in

but simply molded by the wind

that blows my back and sets my sights

on things out of reach and a bit too high

 

So, “Its not fair”

the way things are and aren’t,

are words for smog filled cars.

Life beneath these boundless clouds

It’s clearer now

Ode to The Slime

Liberty SlimeEden Slime

It all started for a mere 99 cents

A simple reward for a poopin event

you ran to the potty

I ran to the store

for slime in a bottle

who could want anything more?

 

It was small.

It was purple.

It did not stink.

So why is it bubbling, out of my sink?

 

It was soft.

It was cool.

It’s lid could close.

So why is it stuffed, inside the dog’s nose?

 

And what in the name of parenting,

caused me to think

that buying more products,

to make this Slime thing,

would be educational?

Would be fun?

Lord help me

there’s Borax,

there’s glue stuck like gum,

I mixed it with shaving cream!

It’s attached to my thumbs!

each child for themselves

everyone run!

 

Ok, sit back

Let’s take a deep breath

They’ll thank me one day…isn’t that right?

I can scrub the floor, when they’re asleep tonight.

And smile on Facebook

And say, ‘oh how I’m gonna miss this.’

But, first, who wrapped that slime

around the cat’s dish?

 

ALJ 2017

#MakeAmericaKindAgain

Nature, flowers

“With malice toward none, and Charity toward all.”  -Abe Lincoln

 

I am white.  The kind of white that glows so brilliantly in a bikini, people actually squint when they look upon me. When I was young I got no end of comments such as,  “So your parents finally decided to let you out of the closet huh?” or “You Albino?” To which I’d proudly raise my pink chin and say, “No, I’m Arabic.”

Now a days, comments like the ones said to me would be seen as bullying, but to me it was the foundation for building this young woman from the inside out.  People’s perception of me, is not me. My actions will make me who I become.

Growing up, my Palestinian grandmother would often tell me stories about  her new life as an American. I admired the way she could always laugh off the wrong perspectives of others. I’d sit at my mother’s never empty table, laden with the aroma of spice filled dishes like Mulfoof, (Lamb/rice stuffed cabbage w/lemon and garlic.) stuffed grape leaves, or Sfeeha, and watch my grandmother’s boney hands add emotion to her story-telling. One of my favorite stories was her Mafia story.

“They thought we are Mafia!” She’d shout and laugh and briefly borrow one hand to dip her bread.

I have her story hands, I’d think, and dip my bread with hers. And Listen…

“Whenever family gathered on porch with Grandpa…Swoosh! Neighbors run inside! They hide! Shukry is coming! Scary Shukry is coming!”  She’d pause and wait for us to laugh with her.

“One day,” she’d continue, “Uncle Jo ask that his friend could come for dinner. Of course yes! So the boy come. He eat and eat and stay all night. Next I see the mom. She thank me. Of course. But I couldn’t help myself.  So I ask her, ‘Why all neighbors went inside when we come out?’ …Boosh! Her face is so red! She apologize. Of course.  She tells me, until I invite her boy over, everyone assume we are Italian Mafia! Haha!”

I often retell this story to my own girls. My mixed race girls, who face a world far too eager to judge people based on appearance. My grandmother didn’t grow bitter and jaded because of the perceptions of others. She stepped out and offered her best.  Her home. Her food. Her friendship. Kindness makes us laugh. Kindness. That was what my Arab family was made of.

And although I may not look like her on the outside, as a young woman I knew I was like her.  After all, I had her story hands.

Listen

images

I have not heard you for awhile

amidst the thunder and the rage

I have not heard your tortured heart

as it rattled in its cage

 

They told me you’re a racist

and I’m a bigot too

They said there is no unity

for the likes of me and you

 

They told me that your children

were not the same as mine

They told me that your children

will always cut in line

 

But today I saw our children

laughing side by side on God’s hot sand

Dancing on the pain they felt

As they hopped toward cooler land

 

At the sea’s salty shoreline

they collapsed, eye to laughing eye

Listen

There is kindness in that laughter

for the likes of you and I

 

No one told them this was impossible

That they were bound to a profile cage

No one told them they were angry

And had to rattle this beach with rage

 

I looked at you

you looked at me

our phones screaming in our hands

Facebook,CNN, Fox News and Hannity

All giving us commands

 

You are this

and I am that

What’s the truth in all we’re missing?

Let’s fall down

embrace our children’s laughter

and Listen

Listen

 

 

 

 

 

Help! I’m A Writer Trapped in an Extrovert’s body!

Cage, trapped

Ok, so I’m not actually trapped. I like it here. I’m just sorta baffled at how I actually happened. I’m sure there are more of us out there. But like me, they are probably talking. And Talking. Or Kayaking. Or running. Or hiking. Or swimming. Or doing something other than writing, until they’ve finally used up their verbal energy and are able to relax into their mostest favorite spot in this wonderfully noisy world…their own yappie head.

It’s hard being us. On one hand we love to write. We love to read. But we also love interacting with people and people don’t like it so much when you’re writing and reading while you’re eating dinner with them. Or kayaking with them. Or heading down the slopes.  No, we have to manage ourselves in such a way that we get our people time in AND our reading/writing time.

I just returned from a writers conference where the introverts were asked to raise their hands. Three fourths of the attendees raised their hands. The speaker didn’t even bother to ask us extroverts to raise our hands. I’m sure she was afraid she’d have to hand over the mic and she needed to get to her point… “Writers are often introverts and they sometimes hamstring their own success cause they fear the social aspects of it.”

…But that wasn’t me. I was the monkey in the church hall. I had to tell my inner self to, Shut up, and let me write.  I really needed a speaker to speak to us extroverts!

When I hear most writers talk, they revel in their love for solitude. Their revelry makes me growl.  The word “solitude”  itself  makes me quietly whimper Barry Manilow songs and head toward a tub of ice-cream to sulk. Solitude does not become the extrovert writer. It is our Kryptonite.

Sometimes I feel a little like Davey on the 1970’s Davey and Goliath show. Remember the episode where he wishes his whole family and town would just “go away!”? And they do.  He wanders around an empty world living La Vida Loca.  In good ole Lutheran stop-animation claymation style, I often wish I had the whole world to myself. An Uninhibited, uninhabited, people-free world. Empty.  Davey’s wish may have been inspired by unlimited accesses to candy and naughty behavior without the protective eyes of his parents, or the tattling whine of his little sister. I simply want to be less like my yappy, distracted Lab and more like Hemingway.  Not a very tall order right?

Hemingway managed it. He managed to live a full life outside the four walls of his writing nook and yet still produce.

So I decided to jot down a few things I need for my Extrovert’s Tool Kit.

Ten things extroverts need to do in order to write well.

  1. Talk to people– Call your mom before you head into a writing session.
  1. Go out on an adventure with people– Plan kayaking in your local body of water on the day you want to do a long writing session. This way you know you are going to get some people/ fun time
  2. Write in a public space:  If you get stuck… you can talk. There is always some introvert that needs you desperately to pull her/im back to the world of the chatting.
  1. Set a time where you write: But have a people buffer. If not before, then after. If you tend to procrastinate before hand with interacting with people, it may help to know you get to talk in 4 hours…3 hours… whatever your solitude limit is. Mine is usually 4 hours.

5.  Pep Talk: Tell yourself you only have to be alone for 300 words. That’s it. It won’t be too long.

6. Big it up: Tell yourself how healthy it is for you to have some alone time. You will be a balanced extrovert! Really you will.

7. When you hit the Quiet Wall: Leave you laptop open and your WIP open and go get a refresher. Talk to the barista. Assure yourself, Humans are still here. See? Yes, they still need you. Yes, look, you just made them laugh. Now go back to writing before someone accidentally knocks into your computer and deletes your work.

8. Write Dialogue: Write the conversations of the people around you. So fun. And you feel like you are in on it. 

Or if that’s too Creepy: Start your writing time writing a letter to a friend.

9. Reward yourself: You’re writing instead of talking, great!  After 300 words you get to make a call or arrange for a friend to meet you in an hour.

10. You are an Island: Maybe Ibiza, but even Ibiza has quiet coves. So do you.  Sit Down. Open Lap Top. Pick One Thing. And Write. Don’t look to the right or the left until you have produced something. Anything. Think of the Dad in, I Capture the Castle. He simply wrote, “The cat sat on the mat.” And look where it got him!

Any more extroverts out there? What are some of the tools in your writer’s tool kit?

Dead Poets Post

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Song of the month: Never Once:  by Matt Redman

My dead poet post for the month is my all time favorite dead woman preacher, poet, rescuer of Children, writer…

Miss Amy Charmichael….applause…..Thank you Amy for guest posting for me this month. Happy fourth of July…..even though you were an Irish woman living in India in 1895, just over a hundred years after our first declaration of independence …still, it’s a happy fourth for you too cause you got rid of all us rowdy Americans from your once cramped, yet beautiful, rainy, scone-scrumptious  continent.

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