I'm scared.

There, I said it.  I'm scared.

In the midst of what has so far been the busiest month I've ever experienced as an artist, I surfaced from all the due-dates and painting projects to really listen to my husband as he remarked (again) about me looking thinner...Sure, it had been a stressful month, I'd prolly lost a few pounds.  But I didn't think it was a big deal...

But I weighed 113, when I should have weighed 125-130.

So, we made an appointment.  Doc had a lot of questions.  I tried to get them all right.  I mentioned that my husband also thought he felt a lump in one of my breasts, but I kept thining it was just one of my ribs...

Well, no, turns out there *is* something there.

I got a bunch of blood drawn.  A chest Xray too.  And now a mammogram and an ultrasound are getting scheduled.

I hate waiting for answers.

I came home to stumble across a recent FB post from my sister, announcing that she has a new phone number...and then checked to see if she'd bothered to send it to me, my mom, or my Grandma...and she hasn't.  And I got really.  really.  really mad.  Its old news that my mom and her had a falling out a couple years back because she borrowed $1700 from my mom and never paid her back... (She's borrowed way more in the past, and never paid that back either.  In fact she has borrowed a lot of money from a lot of people.)  But this time my mom put her foot down, and my sister tried to get out of it.  They exchanged some nasty words, and it basically boiled down to my sister not talking to my mom anymore.  Even after two surgical procedures this year...my sister never even called to see how she did.  She also stopped calling my grandma, which was unfair, as she'd done nothing to her...

See, I've long had this opinion that my sister doesn't give a shit about you unless she needs you for something.  The last time she picked up the phone and called me was to ask me to dog sit her poodle.  I did, but I also shaved his matted behind because it was so gross from all the dried-up pee in his fur...(She is a nurse and works long hours so sometimes he has accidents and she never grooms him enough.)  Grandma is broke so she can't get money from her.  My mom has refused her anything else until she is paid back.  My dad pays her phone bill, helps with her other bills, etc...So, guess which one she talks to?

The worst of it is that she makes more money than any of us...

Anyway, I called my dad crying today because she hadn't even bothered to give grandma her cell number, and my poor grandma isn't doing so well, and dammit *LIFE IS PRECIOUS* and grandma doesn't need to be thinking she did something wrong when she didn't!!! ...In hindsight, I can see it was a tad bit of an over-reaction, no doubt stemming from the fact I'm scared shitless about all these pending test results...and I can't control any of that.  But goddammit I can control whether or not my sister gives my grandma a call thats long overdue.  Somewhat.  I'll have no way of knowing until tomorrow, when I call grandma to check in and see... but I can hope my mini tear-fueled rage did the trick.

You see, a friend of mine lost her mom real recently and real suddenly.  She has had a rough week with illness and shitty luck and all, and I've done what I can to be there for her...but what she really wants is her mom.  And just seeing her go through all that makes me realize how much I'd be lost without my own mother...

...and how shitty it really is that Mallory just doesn't give a shit unless there is something in it for her.

(I assure you if my mom won the lottery tomorrow she'd call her up in a heartbeat.)

...and how I wish I had a real sister to talk to when stuff like all these pending tests scare me.

...And meh.

I'm just...scared.

Hey.  SO LJ has an interesting new feature...It restores your previous draft of whatever entry you were working on but never posted.  I've not been on this site in roughly 2 years...so imagine my surprise when it asked to restore a saved draft.  I hit yes, and this is what it gave me:

Wow. First day on the new job, and I went home close to tears.

Mostly due to frustration, but still...

It was freezing. They said they would have a shirt and a hoodie there for me, and so I dressed light. They had neither. It was a balmy 45 degrees in there. All day. Even the dogs were shivering.

My coworkers turn into lazy POSs soon as the boss leaves. I had to interrupt their phone calls to find out what I'm supposed to be doing...and boy did they ever treat it like an inconvenience.

I'm fairly certain some one went through my purse.  One of the employee's dogs clearly pissed on it, and while I'd like to believe my bag was open because they were cleaning it up, it wasn't really cleaned up.  But my bag was opened.  And it just made me uneasy.

Got lost on the way home, in the rain, thanks to St Louis's tendency to not post interstate signs anywhere but on the damned on ramps.

Woo. So looking forward to going through all that again today.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

I've been out scouting eagles lately. I happen to live in an area frequented by these majestic birds and their fledging young. They come for the rivers and the winds that skip off the ridge tips and rocky hills. Toad comes out with me on many of these excursions. She sits quiet alongside me, watching... Listening. She is so many more years older than her 10 months...and the bond we have developed and share is something different than I've had with any of my dogs since Chloe or Suka. It is difficult to really label. Part of me feels that she has entered my life during a crucial period of transition... Many of you who know me, know of my bond with Milo. We've been together the better part of 16 years. And he won't be with me much longer. A part of me feels Toad has found me, and I found her, because I needed her companionship, I needed that bond in my life...

Don't get me wrong. I love each and every one of my dogs for their individual personalities, quirks and so on... But there is something markedly different about the bond I share with this mutt.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Winters chill has finally crept in, just in time for Christmas. Just in time for me to come down with a spectacular cold, too. Ugh. This holiday season is in terrible need of a do-over IMO.

I haven't written here in so long... And it really hits me how unlike me that is. I love to write. I've been keeping journals since I can remember. For me not to participate in this treasured pastime tells me something...just isn't right.

But, more on that later. Much love and good wishes to all my LJ buddies this holiday season. May your smiles be infectious, and your kind acts multiply in the hearts of others...Oh, and yeah. Monkey sends her "love"...

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

"I feel like I'm basking in the sun," I said, tilting my head back and soaking in the warmth of the campfire through my skin.

"You are," he said, with a smile hiding behind his words.

I sank into his simple statement, drinking in the implication with a sigh. The fire was sunlight, the kind stored all through the tree's long life. Every day revolved around drawing in the golden essence of the sun..., storing it, and thriving off of it. Here, at the end, that sunlight was being unleashed, springing to life in it's molten, dancing form. That tree had been sunlight, textured and thriving, pulsating and growing, given the gift of life by the Father Sun.


Everything was sunlight.

Every sound, every taste, every touch, every sight...it was all feuled by golden, dancing sunlight. All of it. The garden in your yard, the current of wind on a crisp fall day, the sting of snowflakes on your cheek, the taste of warm honey...would be nothing without sunlight. The Earth would be nothing but cold, hard stone with a raw core that ached from the loss of it knew not what
.
The oak standing proud over it's prairie began as the Mother Earth took from the Father Sun the golden threads of sunlight, and with them she wove such a tree. Strong of root, and broad of trunk, with a crown of such leaves as to make the darkest shade fall across the ground he claimed as his own. His own sunlight, his own swath of ground upon which to provide the buriers his children, his own water that fell from the turbulent storms that shook the sky, bolts of sunlight splicing through their depths and plunging into the Earth to create the fires.

Fire. Fire was sunlight. And as the fire pulsed and flashed and snapped and grew, I marveled at the sheer magic of it all taking place at that moment. That moment I was watching sunlight come to life, springing from the plants that stored it all those seasons, flaring to bright beautiful mortality before it crumbled away into wavering embers, tumblng to ash in the end. It was magic. There was no other word for it at that moment.

The wind kicked up. The fire purred and snapped in response, ducking fast against the coals. I sighed and shut my eyes, feeling the sunlight on my skin shine straight into my core.

Not all brushes with mortality have to do with death.

Sometimes they have to do with life, too.

This weekend I missed the wedding of one of my cousins.  She was the first of all the grandchildren to be married, and the youngest of the girls.  The wedding was gorgeous...almost like a fairy tale.  The place was packed with family from all corners.  They're pulled out of their daily lives to witness and celebrate the beginning of new life.

I was not completely left out.  I got pictures from many of them, snippets of events, and smiles shared over things that will probably never happen again...such as my grandmother dancing for an hour and a half straight.  It was all wonderful, and it made my chest warm to think about it, and I couldn't help but smile...

...and at the same time, events like this cause you to consider where your life is going.  So begins the consultation with my mortality.

 I am 28 years old...and I do not know where I stand.

Last night I lost myself to many worlds in the span of 7 hours.

During one venture, I was part of a documentary on this young black girl, and interviewing her about her life...only to discover that she felt powerful only when she was creating life, and was obsessed with getting pregnant...But, she would never carry a child to full term. She kept having these awful, gory miscarriages, some of which were self-induced.  I was powerless to stop her.  Instead I had to listen to her talk about her pregnancies, hear her define their potencies and potentials...it was ghastly.  I was frightened, and I could not let it show.

In another dream, I was working at a different clinic from the one I work at now, in a new city, but with the same doctor.  Things were...hectic.  The city surrounding the clinic was dark, dingy and very...twisted in a way.  I recall how the bright florescent lights inside our building contrasted sharply with the world outside, and the darkness beyond the entrance door made me...wary.  I slept at the clinic most nights.  

Another episode followed me through the infatuation with this...man.  He was...well, nothing terribly special, really.  Not even some one you'd look twice at...at first.  He was handsome, but in a quiet, humble way.  He himself was quiet...kind, patient, and with a surprising sense of humor that caught me off guard.  He was...charming?  I suppose...I just recall being surprised by him, time and again, until I felt my heart affected.  It was like discovering a whole new, wonderful person that other people overlooked, and I was...enchanted.  I have no other way to explain it.  It was odd, how this dream--much like the others--seemed to cover the span of weeks.

I dreamt I was a tiger, strolling beneath the moonlight, my ears drinking in the sounds of a celebration not far off...lights winked through the forest, and I sat just beyond their reach...listening to a world I was still trying to grasp that I didn't belong to anymore.

...That is all I remember.  Funny, how so much stayed with me from this past night, when some nights I can hardly draw up a glimmer of what I visited in my dreams.

I stand in the woods, barefoot, my toes sinking into spongy, leaf-laden and twiggy earth.  But, I do not feel it.  Not entirely.  My head is flung back, arms spread, eyes closed...I am listening to  song.

The song drips from the satiny leaves overhead.  It is green and gold fire, silver-kissed sapphire and partly cloudy.  The wind carries in down and through me, filling my lungs with it's sweetness.  It tastes like sun-spliced summer rain, with a hint of dusty books, crushed grass, strawberries and wet clay...just a few fragments of my most treasured memories.

Dark eyes raise to meet my own through a curtain of multi-colored lights.  The brush of feathers across my cheek.  The hint of laughter at the corners of my mouth as I whirl away, and the whisper of dead leaves that follow...all of these rise and fade in quick succession, and I find myself on a wall...

Moss grows here in abundance.  It adorns the stones in shawls of lush emerald, cold and soft and wet beneath my feet.  One foot follows another.  This is my secret place, as precious to me as the tape recorder clutched to my heart.  My feet move over the stones in a rhythm known only to the beat of my heart and the earth beneath the cadence of my footsteps.  

I am safe here.  

This is sanctuary.