If I were a Baobab,
I’d be raucous and loud, and filled with song.
My veins would be rivers blue, and deep enough
to water the world.
My heart would be an all-hours reservoir;
my lungs exhaling oxygen and
life
in joyous bursts;
my arms
aflame with love.
And I think …
that yes, I can be this Baobab.
Mosaic Art and Poetry by Pam Goode
27″H x 21″W
We all have a slightly quirky side, don’t we? For some, it’s counting (steps, minutes, peas), for others it’s repetitive motions (touching door handles or hair, checking and rechecking door locks), or any simple act that calms us. Whatever it is, we do it — some blatantly, some surreptitiously, some in the dark of night while sitting in a rocking chair on the roof of your house. Or someone else’s. (Um….) Sometimes it’s small things that just make us happy (I love to pick up bits of glitter — it’s everywhere!), a sudden memory of glorious times spent with friends, or a hidden pleasure that we don’t want revealed. And mostly, they’re all okay.
Life isn’t always a piece of cake, and sometimes we slip. But what makes us label someone as crazy? Is it the clothes they wear? A 24/7 Jack Nicholson grin? Silence? Staring? Loners?
Some of us are very blunt about our idiosyncrasies. I think bluntness generally helps us all unless there’s ill intent involved. Others are still figuring it out, which is fine, or dealing with psychoses, which is rough. I had an unsettling run-in with a very sweet person lately who changed personalities in a quick minute. Not her fault. Not my fault. Really messy day.
I’m a quiet girl. Always have been. Does that make me crazy? Idiosyncratic? Odd? Surprisingly knowledgeable about others?
I can’t say that I’m any smarter than most, but I can say that, generally speaking, I’m more aware than many, and that’s pretty much a good thing. But what would it take to move from awareness to stalking? Hiding? Fear? It gives me pause.
I pick up glitter because it was dropped by someone who revels in happy moments, and it delights me to carry that torch. Happy moments I can carry in my pocket, or spread across a new spot.
Life isn’t always a piece of cake. Keep the people and moments that make you happy.
Image: Pablo Picasso, one of my very favorite artists!
I once bought a passel of Barbies. Not whole Barbies, mind you, but just the heads. They were for sale on a friend’s website, and though I rarely (never, ever) spend money on dolls, I snatched these up like a woman possessed and gleefully began arranging them. It was a Very Good Day.
Lately I’ve been purging, and although your first thought is surely “OH NO! NOT THE BARBIES!!!!, you’ll be pleased to know that in no way shape form or teeny tiny inkling of a thought did I ever consider turning them over to a new Barbie family. Those barbie heads are mine for life.
Mind you, this large jar shows about 1/3, or a bit less, of the heads.
But OH! Surprise! While cleaning out my (grown) daughter’s closet this morning, I pulled out a box and — you guessed it — Barbies! And not just body-less Barbies this time, but fully grown and totally intact Barbies. (I may amend this statement when I more carefully examine my haul).
Interestingly, only one of the “intact” barbies is naked, and yes, it’s Ken. I’m uncertain whether he’s showing off his manliness or or was stripped to the bones by the entire box of girls. I figure it’s a tossup.
Oops, two more have stripped. It’s a party!
I guess it’s about time to watch the movie. Sometimes the oddity IS the story.
As a girl with a mirror, I never saw myself as ugly, despite my stubbornly cow-licked hair. I was short-ish and thin, with dark hair and darker eyes that could see to China and back. Out with my mother as a child or with friends in high school, I could feel eyes on me despite my shyness and disdain for beauty products. I had only a handful of photographs from those days, but it was enough. I knew my mirror well then, not because I was vain, but because I needed to see who was behind those eyes — where she came from, what she thought, where she would go. She didn’t spill any of the answers, but I had a passable understanding of her from year to year.
Coming to know who you are is a very personal journey. I’ve never been comfortable on the lens end of a camera, and early photos illustrate that all too well. So while I pulled at non-compliant hair and did my best to fit in, I was invariably the awkward girl in any photograph. And a photograph, no matter how random, how good, how bad, how bland or how earth shattering, changes the way you see yourself, does it not? Even if I could have convinced my brain that I don’t really look like that, or at least not all the time, it’s quite clear that this is the face I show to the world more often than not. But we are never just an awkward face.
My mom hated having her picture taken, and solved the issue by grimacing garishly and sticking her tongue out for every click of the button. It was a pretty effective way to erase the possibility that maybe this was her real face, her real soul, being shown. And why? She was beautiful.
It made me sad.
Thirty years later, I received an unexpected package from a very-long-ago boyfriend that held a cd filled with images he had captured in college. Back in the 70’s when few of us had cameras and even fewer had good ones, he was rarely without his Ricoh. To this day, he remains the only person, outside of my children, who could capture an image that showed my soul, simply because somewhere among those 1,095 days we spent together, I finally relaxed in front of the ever-present lens and let it see me.
And in a flash I was given the ability to see the girl I was, the girl I am, rather than the girl I’d been carrying around for decades. It made me happy.
Imagination / Perception / Memory: They live on in us regardless of how closely they match the actuality, don’t they?
My Dad wrote: “I’ve spent the afternoon sanding Uncle Alvin Howard’s workbench. My great aunt, Laura Hayward Howard, bought the bench in 1936 from Hammacher Schlemmer in New York, and then gave it to Uncle Alvin for Christmas.
Uncle Alvin quickly let on as how he wasn’t about to take up woodworking, and planned to give the workbench promptly to the local boys’ home.
Then Nana caught wind and talked him out of giving it away, saying that she had three rambunctious boys at home who could make good use of it. Both the three boys and their mother did, indeed, use it like crazy. Fifteen years ago, Dad wrote “whatever I know about woodworking tools, I learned at that workbench, sixty and more years ago. Mother is gone now, and I’ve always wanted to repair and restore it. Jeanne and Adam will be coming with a pickup truck in the morning. I’m flying out of Pass Christian on Tuesday afternoon to Atlanta, and then driving to Charlotte Wednesday morning.”
And so he did.
I can’t quite tell whether or not he ever got around to restoring it (the Pardue family wasn’t the hoity toity type), but I can definitely say that he used the workbench handily in his architecture office for quite a few years until he died in 2013. It’s now mine, and though I’m nothing close to a woodworker, I love it like crazy. Many thanks to Alvin, Laura, Nana, and Dad for always sharing their stories, and Jeanne and Adam, who I don’t think I knew, for making it happen.
We need more family stories, don’t we?
Is there a purpose in waiting? I feel a bit like it’s a vigil, which makes sense. I know it will mean a bevy of time, a tsunami of pain, a gasping of fear.
I can do that.
What it doesn’t require is my personal presence, but most definitely my spiritual presence.
And I can do that.
What it doesn’t promise is a requested outcome, allowing only my prayers.
What is does promise is waiting. I don’t mind waiting, and yet I hate it. Or maybe I don’t hate waiting, but I hate the reason.
Some reasons are joyous. Some, uncertain. Others, life changing.
And the time it takes to receive an answer of “yes, it’s this, and it will be okay. Probably” is both momentary and lifelong.
And the time it takes to receive an answer of “yes, it’s this, and I’m sorry,” is also both momentary and a lifetime.
Lifetime. Lifelong.
I’m not sure I like those words anymore.
I like the word forever. And ever and ever and evermore.
“The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh.”
― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
Love to All
“You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocket ship underpants don’t help.”
(Quote by Bill Watterson)
Today I was totally prepped for a great day. My husband has been on the other side of the continent for a week, and he flies home tonight. I’m wearing my Happy Clothes, saved for special days. The house is clean. Ish. I’ve amassed a neatly folded give-away pile with oooooooodles of my favorite (too small) outfits, we’re deep in the dregs of summer, which means we’ll soon be cooler (right?), I’m on break from cleaning the attic (self-imposed), and the garden flowers are joyously blooming despite daily basking in the bowels of hell.
But then — who knows, but something clicked — or unclicked, and hell threw open that door. And I’d say I haven’t been able to shake this Very Bad Day, but the truth is that I’m just not ready. Because you have to be real. You have to walk through these things rather than around. Otherwise they never go away, and just bury themselves in your psyche instead.
So I looked up Bad Day quotes. And honestly, they totally sucked except for Hobbes and Bill, so I made my own.
Snark: an attitude or expression of mocking irreverence and sarcasm.
Blech. I really, really don’t like snarky people. We all have so much goodness deep in our hearts — why waste it on the opportunity to hurt someone?
And I guess that’s the extent of it. I haven’t been shot or robbed or suffered a great loss. I have endless happy choices at my fingertips. But today, I guess what I really am is sad.
And I am. I’m really, really sad.
Footnote: Hobbes, named for philosopher Thomas Hobbes, is Calvin’s stuffed tiger and best friend.
Ohhhhhh how I wish I could capture the expressions (and conversation) of the two sitting next to me. I can’t hear either of them, but sometimes the expressions are more than enough.
They’re both young, but that’s as far as similarity goes. I’d say that they’re having a conversation, but he’s the only one talking. He speaks with a firm gaze as though he knows what he needs, and she quietly considers him as if he’s an ass and doesn’t know how to converse. He’s got one arm outstretched and one hand partially raised, as if she just isn’t smart enough to understand his reasoning.
She laughs slightly, but not in the way he thinks she’s laughing.
She’s wearing a cute outfit and and cool white shoes. He’s in flip flops — rarely a good sign.
Her legs are crossed and so are her arms — rather tightly — around the bag in her lap. She knows he’s trouble, and not the good kind.
Her hair is cute — free and wispy. His is tight and sits above a bit of beard. He could be cool, but he’s holding too much anger and even more superiority. He speaks low because he doesn’t want anyone to hear — or worse — to step in — which would certainly throw a wrench into the way he sees himself.
How many times can I look over at him safely? How many times can she?
He wipes down the table. She reaches out to put her hand on his and it moves while he moves, still wiping. He doesn’t look at her.
He stands abruptly and walks to the trashcan. She takes a swig of her frappucino, turns, and follows him.
I wish she hadn’t.
Dear Self: I started this blog in 2007.
Sixteen years ago.
Is that long? Not so long, considering that I’ve taken plenty of breaks. I don’t remember why, but I doubt it was for a lack of words. More likely it was simply business — family, jobs, travel, the basic what-we-do that seems to determine every morsel of our daily dailies.
But even from the start, there was such a beauty to the practice of writing. I wrote much, much more than I blogged, keeping most of it private until I found my comfort zone, which primarily means that I simply stopped worrying about what other people thought.
Boring? Often, no doubt. Redundant? Oh yeah. We all have our passions, and they’re not a one-and-done deal. Self-centered? Sure, but … as writers, we pull from within ourselves. That’s not a bad thing — we all need to pay more attention to what we have to offer instead of just sitting on it for no good reason.
My major focus has always been watching, listening, and working to understand life — the joys, generosity, foibles, kindness, hatred, simplicity, and so much more. I’m drawn again and again to grasp the tiny moments — the ones we often don’t notice or think we’re too busy to for.
And that’s not true. So not true.
The image at the top of my blog is me — my mind, my joy — grabbing moments and jotting them down as quickly and legibly as I can, particularly on walks — a phone in one hand and a scrappy piece of paper full of scribbles in the other. Like everyone else on the planet, I usually think I’m “too busy” with this or that, which sometimes includes staring into space and letting my mind follow its will without judgment.
What I’ve learned:
Listen more than you talk.
Be free with support for others.
Share when asked.
Write without worrying if it’s good or bad. The more you write, the better it gets.
Say Yes when it’s a healthy response.
And most importantly, Let That Shit Go.
Really.
Inspired by a month-long artist residency graciously provided by Olive Stack Gallery, Listowel, Ireland, Day 14
There are moments in the heart
that sing so readily
i have to dance,
and whether feet or arms or spirit
is no matter,
knowing only that
the dance
is all —
and ever in my soul.
© Pam Goode
Inspired by a month-long artist residency graciously provided by Olive Stack Gallery, Listowel, Ireland
Pam Goode Writes 