2018-05-12 - 5:15 p.m.

I am enjoying just taking time to Write today so am going to keep going a bit more before I make dinner for my girls.

What a nice day to enjoy being home!

The one other thing to write of is this:

I had the unfortunate experience of a low of feeling sad for about a full week.

This is not typical of me, as never recall having felt like this before, EVER frankly.

I went to a performance at an arts org which just made me CRY.

I won't write much more as want to read poetry; other than to say my balm was to make it to DC for the drum class. Just deciding to go lifted my spirits and changed that mood I was stuck in for that week. Something about hearing the mother speak of the suicide of her son was just too overpowering for me. I cried after the performance, I was undone, right there in the auditorium. I wanted this reaction to be THE NORM I wanted it to be OK AND ACCEPTABLE To be torn apart at the loss of a child by their own hand I Wanted to NOT FEEL SHAME at FEELING I wanted to let out the emotion so supressed, the fears, the judgements I felt, the sadness at the anger of my children misdirected or at times justifiably directed at me. I wanted to HUG the facilitator who created this safe space for such art to express our essential core emotional needs to provide healing, and I wanted and DID THANK him for creating that safe space where I WHO RARELY CRY who for years couldn't , felt safe enough to do so. But I did not want a subsequent full week of feeling like crying . I did not want a co-worker to approach me and say "You look so sad!" I did not want what I suppose some struggle with- this feeling of sadness some describe as a depressive spell. The other catalyst was both a wonderful literary art award ceremony where one child read a beautiful but heart wrenching poem about living with a chronic illness, and an open mic where my teen who is adamently opposed to labels (such as bi-polar) shared a teen emotional poem full of descriptions of darkness and sadness that is overpowering alternating with polarity of mood (her words!). It was all direct and no metaphor or simile in her young age of learning.... no worse than my rambles, and honest and raw.... And a bit awful to be left with a sadness that this is how MY CHILD feels. The one who does not want any help . So sadness was a very natural response faced with such reality. I was relieved it was lifted. It was lifted by my choice of self care.

I have to read the works of the poets who donated to support my talented oldest child in an educational program.

I am fan girling

just like a teen BTS fan

as I read the likes of Mark Olmstead...

who donated to her educational fund...

and others...

Some amazing poets!

She herself is one and I could NOT be more proud!!

"My Daughter's Quinceneara"

We all know in this culture
we grow up too slowly

If I could I would throw a big party
equivalent of a wedding
like the Latin American celebration

for my former baby poet
now being welcomed
with initiation
into the adult community

as she enters the ivy tower
still the only place
that gets attention
in the literary world

She learned from her best teacher
who tried to change that paradigm
sometimes tradition should be embraced
and learned from
rather than scoffed at in adolescence

That wise teacher proudly made the donation to her education fund
but more importantly shared the stage
as they both read
poems of maturity from one
and poems of hopes and possibility
and unbridled reality laced with optimism
from the other
unafraid
to try to change the tower

while climbing into it
rather than out of

where I am sure she will
be tearing off

clawing with estatic urgency
the ivy

and crashing through some of the stone
to let the light in

but until then
she will enter
and let her own light sneak out of it's cracks
while at the same time honoring
and learning what she can
from its history

both told
and as of yet
not even seen

And while there

she will observe
and see
so she can emerge
to do the task of telling.

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