My mom is dead.
I still can't believe it sometimes.
It's been 15 years and I think about her all the time.
I miss her.
I look into my daughter's big brown eyes and I understand what my mom felt when she looked at me.
I used to ask my mom,"what are you staring at?"
My mom would look at me and gently touch my face with her rough, warm hand, "You. I'm looking at you." she would say.
Now I understand.
I used to look at the furrow in my mom's brow while we rode together in the car.
When I'm driving, I look in my rear view mirror and see that furrow in my brow.
Now I understand.
I miss her.
I wish I had recorded her voice.
I can still hear it in my mind, but it's like a faded recording.
A comforting recording I play when I need to hear her say, "This too shall pass."
It's different when your mom says it.
Dead is dead.
That person is really gone.
I know right?
We know right?
There will always be a part of me that doesn't believe it.
I'm not analyzing why.
Somehow, I want the moment to be different, to be better, to be what I want it to be.
It is just the moment.
My mom is just dead.
I can still love her, miss her, and hold her in my heart while I share her with my kids.
My daughter looked at a picture of my mom this morning and said, "mommy, that's you!"
I stopped in my tracks in the middle of the kitchen.
"No, that's not me Emma, that was my mom."
"It is you mommy! " She insisted
I felt a sharp tingle squeeze my heart.
My chest got hot, my throat lumped,
Silently, I thought, wait......
That is me.
I love Emma the way she loved me.
Maybe she's not really dead after all.
ATL Summer, 2011
One of them is always crying....
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
You had one of those Days? I have one of those Lives......
I was raised in San Francisco.
When I was growing up, my parents had cocktail hour , they passed around joints and listened to Brazil 66.
My dad dropped an occasional hit of acid and hung a posters that said fuck the draft.
Before I was born, he painted every room in our first house a different color while flying on LSD.
He also had a perm and wore hawaiin shirts with thongs.
He drove a lime green 1969 porshe.
My mom had long dark hair parted down the middle and rich brown eyes, she liked to drink vodka with soda and a twist of lime, and she smoked benson and hedges lights 100's.
She wrapped my dad's porshe around a tree one night.
When we were teenagers,
My mom told us to drink at home if we were going to drink at all......I mean why take the chance?
My brother grew pot in my closet with tinfoil and hallogen lights.
Never mind that my high school uniform reeked of skunk.
He was an innovative guy. He used to microwave the leaves from the pot plants and we rolled joints and smoked them in the kitchen on friday nights.
"waste not, want not!" my mom would say.
My mom would sometimes pick me up from the 10pm movie with wine on her breath, or even a "traveler" in the car.
Needless to say, I grew up in an environment where drinking was accepted, not rejected.
Meanwhile, my curfew was 11pm until I turned 18, but I could smoke and drink at home.
Mixed messages sent me to therapy for a long time.....
We had a french exchange student named Christian who lived with us for a while.
He helped me with my french homework and made good crepes.
We also had a long lost cousin who lived with us, Bruce.
He was from Alaska and he had a ten foot boa.
We used to feed the boa live mice.
They would squeal and then sit like golf balls, slowly sliding down his throat.
Discovery channel shit.
I had a pet rat named Egg Nog and I loved her.
One night, my brother blew an enormous cloud of pot smoke in her face and killed her.
He blamed it on our dog.
I cried and cried.
My mom helped me bury her the next day.
I wrapped her in my pink Benetton sweater and put her in a shoe box.
We dug a small hole in the back yard, and buried her next to a tree.
I cried more.
We also had 2 dogs, black labs, Tasha and Stormy .
Tasha was blind in her left eye, it had blue specks in it and she ran around in circles a lot.
Tasha had a brother, Hawkins, but he was totally blind, and got hit by a car.
Stormy was our other dog, she was so sweet, she couldn't have hurt a fly, much less my pet rat.
We also had a green parrot named Daffy.
My brother taught him how to talk .
He would sit on my mom's shoulder and occasionally say "Hello.", or "Fuck You."
My mom sat at the oak wood kitchen table with a vodka soda every evening at about 6pm to chat with her best friend.
There would be bird shit all over her shoulders by the end of her converstaion.
My mom drove a station wagon, the kind with the wooden panels, even in the 80's.
It had the kind of radio with knobs and plastic squares that you punched with your middle finger to change the station.
There were white t-shirts on the driver and passenger seat.
It smelled like dogs, cigarettes, and an occasional christmas tree.
She had a bumper sticker that said, "you had one of those days? I have one of those lives."
And she really did have One of those lives.
Her mom died in a fire while smoking and drinking milk with whiskey.
She fell asleep and her mattress combusted.
We lived down the block from her, so the night it happened, we were just a dozen houses away.
My dad was a fireman at the time, he went to save her and she was already dead.
So many tragedies, perhaps not appropriate even for this blog.
Oh, not to worry, I'll end up sharing them with you.
I have written some haiku poetry about my experiences as a child, so I thought this would be a good time to share one with you.
DAD, IM TRYING TO LOVE YOU
Cocaine up his nose
bottle under the front seat
dad you passed our house
When I was growing up, my parents had cocktail hour , they passed around joints and listened to Brazil 66.
My dad dropped an occasional hit of acid and hung a posters that said fuck the draft.
Before I was born, he painted every room in our first house a different color while flying on LSD.
He also had a perm and wore hawaiin shirts with thongs.
He drove a lime green 1969 porshe.
My mom had long dark hair parted down the middle and rich brown eyes, she liked to drink vodka with soda and a twist of lime, and she smoked benson and hedges lights 100's.
She wrapped my dad's porshe around a tree one night.
When we were teenagers,
My mom told us to drink at home if we were going to drink at all......I mean why take the chance?
My brother grew pot in my closet with tinfoil and hallogen lights.
Never mind that my high school uniform reeked of skunk.
He was an innovative guy. He used to microwave the leaves from the pot plants and we rolled joints and smoked them in the kitchen on friday nights.
"waste not, want not!" my mom would say.
My mom would sometimes pick me up from the 10pm movie with wine on her breath, or even a "traveler" in the car.
Needless to say, I grew up in an environment where drinking was accepted, not rejected.
Meanwhile, my curfew was 11pm until I turned 18, but I could smoke and drink at home.
Mixed messages sent me to therapy for a long time.....
We had a french exchange student named Christian who lived with us for a while.
He helped me with my french homework and made good crepes.
We also had a long lost cousin who lived with us, Bruce.
He was from Alaska and he had a ten foot boa.
We used to feed the boa live mice.
They would squeal and then sit like golf balls, slowly sliding down his throat.
Discovery channel shit.
I had a pet rat named Egg Nog and I loved her.
One night, my brother blew an enormous cloud of pot smoke in her face and killed her.
He blamed it on our dog.
I cried and cried.
My mom helped me bury her the next day.
I wrapped her in my pink Benetton sweater and put her in a shoe box.
We dug a small hole in the back yard, and buried her next to a tree.
I cried more.
We also had 2 dogs, black labs, Tasha and Stormy .
Tasha was blind in her left eye, it had blue specks in it and she ran around in circles a lot.
Tasha had a brother, Hawkins, but he was totally blind, and got hit by a car.
Stormy was our other dog, she was so sweet, she couldn't have hurt a fly, much less my pet rat.
We also had a green parrot named Daffy.
My brother taught him how to talk .
He would sit on my mom's shoulder and occasionally say "Hello.", or "Fuck You."
My mom sat at the oak wood kitchen table with a vodka soda every evening at about 6pm to chat with her best friend.
There would be bird shit all over her shoulders by the end of her converstaion.
My mom drove a station wagon, the kind with the wooden panels, even in the 80's.
It had the kind of radio with knobs and plastic squares that you punched with your middle finger to change the station.
There were white t-shirts on the driver and passenger seat.
It smelled like dogs, cigarettes, and an occasional christmas tree.
She had a bumper sticker that said, "you had one of those days? I have one of those lives."
And she really did have One of those lives.
Her mom died in a fire while smoking and drinking milk with whiskey.
She fell asleep and her mattress combusted.
We lived down the block from her, so the night it happened, we were just a dozen houses away.
My dad was a fireman at the time, he went to save her and she was already dead.
So many tragedies, perhaps not appropriate even for this blog.
Oh, not to worry, I'll end up sharing them with you.
I have written some haiku poetry about my experiences as a child, so I thought this would be a good time to share one with you.
DAD, IM TRYING TO LOVE YOU
Cocaine up his nose
bottle under the front seat
dad you passed our house
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
My Meeting with The Master
(by Stacie)
It was a steamy Saturday morning in Atlanta.
My husband had been out of town for more than a week.
I think I was going off the deep end, pretending like everything was fine.
Both kids desperately needed a hair cut.
It was also an activity, something to do, that made me feel like I was doing my part to keep my kids looking somewhat civilized.
Although, Emma was wearing a snow white dress with a huge rip in the butt, and Jaxson's diaper was duct taped (purple), and there was a huge dirt stain on the butt of his plaid shorts.
I looked into the window of Great Clips and the line was too too long.
Getting a hair cut at the end of a half an hour line is no bribe for a 2 year old and a 4 year old.
Then I saw a sandwich sign on the sidewalk to my right:
"Faith Barbershop"
Why not? I thought, let's go in there, how different can it really be?
I'm almost sure we were the first white customers they had ever had.
The '20 somethings' waiting in the front seats, all looked at us like we were purple smurfs.
Maybe they thought we were white martians visiting their barber shop.
After all, they were regulars.
I didn't care.
"how can I help you darlin?" the friendly barber said. "I'm L.J."
Three black guys turned their heads and looked at us like , are you sure you know you're in a barber shop white lady?
"They need a cut, both of em'" I replied.
He started with Emma, it took him about 15 minutes just to comb it out and sprayed it with water.
First lesson, combing, not brushing. (I didn't think of that) No brush? No, there were no brushes.
It really wasn't that snarled. I swear.
I don't know what he was doing.
He bragged to me, " I been cutting white hair for 20 years, a lot of black people don't know what they're doin', but I do."
First RED FLAG.
Bragging = Bullshit.
He was nice though, and who can screw up a kid's haircut?
More will be revealed.
Emma did fine for a little while, but then she started to get antsy, and a little scared of what was happening to her hair. I think it was the combing.
I assured her it wouldn't be much longer.
Then, the tears started. She looked at me with that desperate glimmer in her eye, Save me mommy, save me.
I didn't really want to make a big deal, so I assured her again, it wouldn't be long.
She was not assured, she cried more. (pretty normal for Emma.)
L.J. called me over and whispered to me, "your daughter, she's special, she feel the devil in that guy over there, so she's crying."
He was very sure his intuition about Emma was strong and right.
The man in the chair across from her did look a little different.
He had long jerry curls and a gold front tooth and he was tapping his feet to the beat of the music.
He had a very mean look to his eyes, like he had hate inside that he wanted to share with anyone who'd make eye contact.
I felt it, but I think Emma was just upset about the hair cut.
I was waiting for Emma to ask me out loud about his gold tooth but she didn't.
That would've really topped it off.
I was sure her tears were of impatience and fear of L.J's comb, not the devil with the gold tooth.
I just made him think he was an intuitive genius.
"yes, she is special." I responded.
"I can't stand that guy." L.J. Said. "And she felt it, she felt it too."
I'm thinking to myself, really? It has NOTHING to do with the hour long
comb out, I mean "hair cut" you just gave her.
It's that guy, with the shitty attitude's fault.
Almost an hour later, her hair was cut. It looked exactly the same. what haircut?
Okay, the bangs were a little shorter, and it was combed like it had never been combed before.
Now it was Jaxson's turn.
He had already been waiting for his sister, so you can imagine his mood.
I eyed the place for a lollipop, anything to stick in his mouth.
I asked around, "Does anyone have a lollipop?"
The Devil with the gold tooth looked at me and grunted,"No."
But then a nice lady at another barber chair pulled a stale one out of her drawer.
"Thank you!" I said with enthusiasm, like she was giving me gold.
It was yellow and flat, and stuck to the wrapper, it was so stale.
Jaxson sat in the chair and looked at me with that look- "What the fuck is happening mom???!"
I gave him the lollipop and he mellowed out.
Then, of course Emma started whining about how she
wanted one too. If she weren't a 4 year old, I could have said, "you don't want one, they're stale!"
Jaxson cried a little, sucked his lollipop, cried a little more, and never took his eyes off L.J.'s scissors.
Okay, less than ten minutes later, his hair was cut.
Kind of like how when you chop celery and there are all those little wiry stray green things on each piece. It was chopped, and uneven.
Kind of like a bowl cut with layers.
Oh well, he's only two.
Just like my mother used to say to me when I'd be in a pool of tears over a bad hair cut.
"It'll grow back."
Yeah, no shit sherlock.
L.J graciously told me to come back anytime.
"Sure, " I smiled, literally lying through my teeth.
Then, for the best part, he gave me his card.
It said L.J. Master Cosmetologist.
It was a steamy Saturday morning in Atlanta.
My husband had been out of town for more than a week.
I think I was going off the deep end, pretending like everything was fine.
Both kids desperately needed a hair cut.
It was also an activity, something to do, that made me feel like I was doing my part to keep my kids looking somewhat civilized.
Although, Emma was wearing a snow white dress with a huge rip in the butt, and Jaxson's diaper was duct taped (purple), and there was a huge dirt stain on the butt of his plaid shorts.
I looked into the window of Great Clips and the line was too too long.
Getting a hair cut at the end of a half an hour line is no bribe for a 2 year old and a 4 year old.
Then I saw a sandwich sign on the sidewalk to my right:
"Faith Barbershop"
Why not? I thought, let's go in there, how different can it really be?
I'm almost sure we were the first white customers they had ever had.
The '20 somethings' waiting in the front seats, all looked at us like we were purple smurfs.
Maybe they thought we were white martians visiting their barber shop.
After all, they were regulars.
I didn't care.
"how can I help you darlin?" the friendly barber said. "I'm L.J."
Three black guys turned their heads and looked at us like , are you sure you know you're in a barber shop white lady?
"They need a cut, both of em'" I replied.
He started with Emma, it took him about 15 minutes just to comb it out and sprayed it with water.
First lesson, combing, not brushing. (I didn't think of that) No brush? No, there were no brushes.
It really wasn't that snarled. I swear.
I don't know what he was doing.
He bragged to me, " I been cutting white hair for 20 years, a lot of black people don't know what they're doin', but I do."
First RED FLAG.
Bragging = Bullshit.
He was nice though, and who can screw up a kid's haircut?
More will be revealed.
Emma did fine for a little while, but then she started to get antsy, and a little scared of what was happening to her hair. I think it was the combing.
I assured her it wouldn't be much longer.
Then, the tears started. She looked at me with that desperate glimmer in her eye, Save me mommy, save me.
I didn't really want to make a big deal, so I assured her again, it wouldn't be long.
She was not assured, she cried more. (pretty normal for Emma.)
L.J. called me over and whispered to me, "your daughter, she's special, she feel the devil in that guy over there, so she's crying."
He was very sure his intuition about Emma was strong and right.
The man in the chair across from her did look a little different.
He had long jerry curls and a gold front tooth and he was tapping his feet to the beat of the music.
He had a very mean look to his eyes, like he had hate inside that he wanted to share with anyone who'd make eye contact.
I felt it, but I think Emma was just upset about the hair cut.
I was waiting for Emma to ask me out loud about his gold tooth but she didn't.
That would've really topped it off.
I was sure her tears were of impatience and fear of L.J's comb, not the devil with the gold tooth.
I just made him think he was an intuitive genius.
"yes, she is special." I responded.
"I can't stand that guy." L.J. Said. "And she felt it, she felt it too."
I'm thinking to myself, really? It has NOTHING to do with the hour long
comb out, I mean "hair cut" you just gave her.
It's that guy, with the shitty attitude's fault.
Almost an hour later, her hair was cut. It looked exactly the same. what haircut?
Okay, the bangs were a little shorter, and it was combed like it had never been combed before.
Now it was Jaxson's turn.
He had already been waiting for his sister, so you can imagine his mood.
I eyed the place for a lollipop, anything to stick in his mouth.
I asked around, "Does anyone have a lollipop?"
The Devil with the gold tooth looked at me and grunted,"No."
But then a nice lady at another barber chair pulled a stale one out of her drawer.
"Thank you!" I said with enthusiasm, like she was giving me gold.
It was yellow and flat, and stuck to the wrapper, it was so stale.
Jaxson sat in the chair and looked at me with that look- "What the fuck is happening mom???!"
I gave him the lollipop and he mellowed out.
Then, of course Emma started whining about how she
wanted one too. If she weren't a 4 year old, I could have said, "you don't want one, they're stale!"
Jaxson cried a little, sucked his lollipop, cried a little more, and never took his eyes off L.J.'s scissors.
Okay, less than ten minutes later, his hair was cut.
Kind of like how when you chop celery and there are all those little wiry stray green things on each piece. It was chopped, and uneven.
Kind of like a bowl cut with layers.
Oh well, he's only two.
Just like my mother used to say to me when I'd be in a pool of tears over a bad hair cut.
"It'll grow back."
Yeah, no shit sherlock.
L.J graciously told me to come back anytime.
"Sure, " I smiled, literally lying through my teeth.
Then, for the best part, he gave me his card.
It said L.J. Master Cosmetologist.
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