The Resilience of the Human Spirit

I called it his most redeeming moment, I later realized he needed no redeeming. It was late last summer and my friends and I had decided to do something fun to bring us closer. After a few minutes of telephoning back and forth and awkward ideas being thrown around we settled on white water rafting. I did the research and we settled upon a trip into Buena Vista, $80 for the full day, $50 for the half, lunch on top of a mountain - corn on the cob and steak, salad tossed from a trash bag - and we thought we would have a great time, all of us together. We would be like the babysitters club, or the sister hood of the traveling pants or some other such group of friends realigned for the summer soon to be seperated for the school year. We invited our siblings, me my brother, and they their friends and my excitement slowly began to mount and my friends slowly began to find reasons not to go. Price was to high, family in town, summer was almost over and tension was high, boyfriends were leaving, one day seemed like too much to give and yet not enough. My brother too found no one to accompany us and on the day before what I imagined to be the "WHITEWATER EXTRAVAGANZA" my brother and I sat face to face on the couch with no one but each other.

Dejected and feeling somewhat alone I kind of asked, "We aren't going to go, are we?" He didn't fully answer but I realized he was looking up hotels in Buena Vista to avoid the early morning drive, I knew that anything on the am side of noon was not something that was appealing to my brother on a non workday and I thought maybe I don't even want to go anymore. All the hotels were booked up and in my dramatically tragic manner, I took it as a sign. At 5am the next morning, the alarm blared and I don't know if I woke him up or he woke me up but we went, and we drove - fast to boot - and we had fun together.

I sometimes feel like I shouldn't be invited or included in what goes on, like I should sit on the outside and look in. I feel sorry for myself, down on my luck and at those times I have a tendency to look for people to blame when there is no fault. I realize very quickly though, when the hearts of those around me raise me up that when there is love and dedication and family, no matter in what form, there needs no invitation and with that thought my spirit bounces back. I thought mostly that because my brother took me and only me and was so truly dedicated to me that that was his most redeeming moment. As I have grown into myself in the last year, however, I have come to realize that his dedication was and is always ever present and that was just one of my favorite memories. He never needed redeeming, at least not in my eyes. My brother has always been a bad ass and the one that lifts my spirit.

Maybe not much of a story right now.

I'm housesitting. I sit here in relative boredom and as I write this sentence I think to myself who would want to read this crap. Come to think of it, who would want to read any of the crap you write because you don't do anything and in order for you to have a story you have to do something, right? I'm housesitting. Literally speaking, I am sitting in a house, watching it. I am watching more specifically three men I don't know redo the hardwood,but technically I am housesitting. I listen to them. I listen to them talk, I hear them pee, I listen to them drill, hammer, sand. I hear the house sounds, the neighbors doors slam and the water run through the pipes, the relatively low buzz of the refrigerator or the elecrtronics in every room. I listen and I sit and I think to myself, who would want to read this crap. Who would want to read this crap? I'm asking, really, I am.

Then I think a story doesn't always have to be thrilling to make it relatable, millions of people just sit in their houses. Just because I sit in what I now hasten to admit is more than relative boredom and in someone elses house doesn't make my words completely obselete. What does, in fact make this crap readable is that people can identify on some level with my restlessness, my joblessness for some, my stagnation, my frustration, not just today here, sitting, listening, hearing others accomplish a task beginning to end as I might have in a different situation in a different place at a diffent time, but they can identify with my position as a post grad here stagnant in my place in life, unsure and unavailable. Many are in this same place, people in transtition, because life is full of change and it rocks your worlds and you cope as you can and we cope in funny ways. There are entire films about these stages of life The Graduate, Wall Street even, Breakfast at Tiffany's, American Beauty, all films about people changing their places in life, but all people in different places at life...

Our stories though, no matter how inconsequential, are ours and should been be shared, even if they are just the stories of the days that we sat, and we did nothing but cope with the fact that we were relatively bored, and we listened to the others moving forward and heard them pee, and heard them drill and heard the low buzz of the refriegerator humming.

What do I do? no suggestions, please.

In a time of relative loss and no redemtion I look to the things I love. Things have been fairly difficult on a personal level in that I am trying to cope with a cleanse of sorts, become someone more in tune with who I say I am. I am in essence the person that takes no shit from anybody, strong in my womanhood but when push comes to shove do I define myself in truth? As I have heard often in the past few days about influences in my life, do actions speak louder than words? So in an attempt to make my future strong and my self stronger I have decided to keep only those influences that are positive and be true to my inner beliefs but it is that journey that is truly difficult.

What I love is to stand on the grass without my shoes on when it's just sunny enough and the grass is just green enough. What I love is to wear my high heels and dress up and maybe not have anywhere to go or anyone to impress and just see a movie that is not any good. I love to sit in the driveway that my Daddy built where our handprints were set before the cement dried and let the bugs crawl by and let the shade guard me and the trees blow in the breeze. I've taken to the outdoors to calm me down and I love the pond or the trees or the flag in the wind. I love a lot of things that contradict and many people will tell me that love must be defined but as I have said in my speeches, in my life and in my lectures love is all around and unconditional and so as I need it for me love is all around so I will love the little things.

He didn't look like Santa

I used to have this recurring dream when I was a little kid. Someone was pushing my mom off a balcony, an indoor theatre balcony and it was a very vivid dream. He was a bearded gentleman, not bearded in a pleasant way like Santa Claus, rather bearded in a frightening way like someone that did it to make them look older or more threatening. He was never unkempt or dirty as one might imagine the unabomber to be, he was someone you might have seen in the grocery store and discussed the ripeness of your melons with, and he was throwing my mom over the front of a balcony.

My mom, even in her fear and agony, was looking radiant, always wearing a silk blouse and being on the cusp of a generation that found feathered hair "the thing" she wore her short dark hair in a fluffly toussle around her hair and I could see it wisping backwards and forwards around her as he threw her. In my sheer terror I would always wake up before the man suceeded in throwing my mom over the edge, in some respects saving her from my own worst fears.

Although I would save her from my imagined fears, I never did find out the outcome to that dream, but when I would scurry my pint sized body as fast as I could to my unharmed mothers side in the middle of each night I would see that the man had not won this time. Now, over 10 years later, as real life drama escalates that dream comes back to me in sleep and in waking and I wonder will simply waking up be enough to save the day?