If Only

If I had known how much I would miss
The people in the ether
The incorporeal ones that I love
I would have named children and pets and cars and trees
For them
Sung their names on the wind
Called the dog Floyd
Named the girl Joan
Spoken them into my life each and every day to keep
them present and part
of us and threaded through
All that we do as a quiet benediction
A nod to love
An affirmation of the people who
were my person

If I had known.

BL 12.27.15

In Which I Investigate The Missing Pieces

It has come to my attention that for all the word-spilling and storytelling and general tomfoolery of my blogging, lo these many years, I haven't been communicating properly. Because I can tell you, two people that should be very close to me, in fact Experts, don't Know Things! Integral Things. Facts about B! Let me lay it out for you.

Exhibit A, the husband: On hearing me chatter about some fantasy author or another.
"But you don't read fantasy, you read romance."

GAH. Glkjhsdfenm!!
In what universe does this person live, and breathe and what in the what! We live in the same house! Here's your spousal parallel:  I will freely admit, I don't know the names of athletes, or which teams they play for. But I for sure know which sports my guy likes, and I for damn sure know which teams! Because eyes! Apparently I have to come out of a closet I didn't know I was in, and announce myself as a Reader of Fantasy and All Manner of Other Interesting Things. You know my love of all things fantastical and paranormal. The monsters, I like them. The magic, I need it. The superpowers, give me more. The amazing and freaky new worlds, I am into them. The fight scenes, where asses get kicked and rowdy hijinks roll in on a cloud of crazy-town, yahoo. I sure like a good romance now and then, and can go for some Nora Roberts or Elizabeth Lowell. But I'd have to say the main chunk of what I read is fantasy.

Exhibit B, the Mom: This morning, She Who Lives Under A Rock informed me that she had heard at the Pack N' Ship that there's a new Star Wars movie out. Thanks for the hot tip Mama! I think she blocked out my childhood years, in which I was in love with Star Wars in general, and Han Solo in particular. Mom, I'm a nerd. I love Star Wars and I read freaky fantasy novels.

And this is how you get to age 39 and realize that your mother and husband are missing pieces of you. I've been toying with the idea of book blog posts, and now my mind is made up ... I want to post about some upcoming books - January/February are going to be big months for some of my fave series!
Here's what I'm looking forward to in January and February:

Feverborn: A Fever Novel - I am obsessed with this series. I re-read all 7 books every year. This is Karen Marie Moning's urban fantasy at it's best, set in Dublin but with the world of Faery bleeding into our world. It's got your Seelie and Unseelie Fae, it's got your bad-ass fight scenes and it's got Mac, Barrons, Dani and Ryodan. *le sigh* I'm almost done with my re-read, prepping for January's release!

Morning Star: Book III of The Red Rising Trilogy - Pierce Brown blew me away with Red Rising and Golden Son, and his Mars-based revolutionary adventure. Darrow, a Red, is caught in the lowest caste of a new class system... but not for long. I burned through the first two books in 3 days... they were that good.

City of Blades (The Divine Cities) - I just finished Robert J. Bennett's first one in this series (City of Stairs), and I absolutely loved it. He writes effortless prose and dialogue, and builds a city of such intrigue and beauty... Shara and Sigrud and the mysteries of Bulikov were entrancing.

Here's to worlds unknown, my friends, may we learn more about each other each year.

XO

A little Rumi on your Tuesday

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don't go back to sleep.

From Essential Rumi

by Coleman Barks

Fear and Love in a Modern World

I was a fearful child. I was easily spooked, easily convinced of creatures lurking because I could see their movement out of the corner of my eye. I startled awake at a dog's bark, certain that intruders were closing in. I saw aliens in the night, in the form of bee-like swarms, hovering over my bed and ready to invade me. I had recurring nightmares of Nazi war crimes. I lived in my head and in my stories and a rampant imagination kept me on edge.

 With a preacher father and a Scripture-laden home, there was surely a verse for this ailment. My parents had a verse for everything. I used this one as a mantra: "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." And as a fearful girl, would mutter it in a long unbroken string of sound, much like Jenny on Forrest Gump dear god make me a bird, so I can fly far, far, far away...  It was like the beads on a rosary, rubbed smooth and reflexively. I would shout it in my head, pronounce it firmly to my racing heart - hoping for peace and a quiet mind.

Fear exists to be tamped down, to be put in its place. To be shoved aside and railed against.

We are shoving it aside right now, in our home. The local media alarms us that Atlanta is on the list of terror attack locations. A sleepless daughter whispers she is afraid. She is afraid there will be an attack and she will not be with us. She is afraid her school may be on the list.

I think back to my fears; I look deep in her eyes and tell her we all have fears. And then I confidently demolish every spoken fear with logic and assurance and overall, love. I lie face to face on her pillow and I hiss fervently of protection and power, whisper of evil in the world that will try to press fear upon us. We will not accept it. I choose not to live in fear. Having tamped down imaginary boogeymen my entire life, I am armed for bear. I speak in fast, unbroken cadence as though my words will draw the fear from her head.

L'amour gagne toujours L'amour gagne toujours L'amour gagne toujours
Love always wins Love always wins Love always wins

It is the only battle cry for me. There will always be a sea of troubles to take arms against, but I do not fight on that battleground. My fight is in every ounce of love and light pushed toward our leaders. In every step forward, refusing to give up liberty and live in fear. My fight is in raising compassionate children that will one day be compassionate adults. Adults who still see the endless possibility for peace in our world. Who accept the flaws but do not dwell on them.

Be strong. Hold fast. Don't give in to boogeymen.
The only way a small minority wins is through the overlay of fear on the majority.

Burn Notice or Not

"There were no hot beverage sleeves in those wild days. It was ok to burn us without warning."

I'm writing today and I'm really into this line. It is saying many things to me. I am saying many things to myself. Most of them are a kick in the pants. Others are gentle sweet murmurs of encouragement. I think I've read too many time travel novels and have slipped under the notion that time doesn't exist. It's the only explanation I embrace.

Here, have another line:

"Grown-up minds think the top shelves are safest; childish minds go straight for the top, certain that Things Worth Finding will be up high."

See? We don't even mean for our thinking to change, but it does. Constantly. When do we go from hiding things in truly good places, to simply hiding them up high? Any good Thing-Finder knows the tricks to finding things. (I hope your children are reading the brilliant Pippi Longstocking, she speaks their language.) And even more, knows the knack of valuing what they find. 

That's the banner of the day, friends. Value what you find. In yourself, in your friends, in your words, in your world. This must be what is called a gentle kick in the pants. Or a murmured kick of encouragement. Go out and be dear!

B.

Something True

Tell me somethingTell me something true...

I have a lot of true things rolling through this brain these days. It's like I've lost the filter, you know, the one that tells you pretty lies. And reassures every little worry. Was it just me all along? Does everyone not have that filter?
Then let me tell you a story.

Sometimes, in some places, there is a girl who lives without anxious hurry. She believes the best about people; she believes in life and the wheel's potential to bring good things. She believes time will allow for many desires and goals to be fulfilled.

This is why I have begun asking friends what exactly composes a midlife crisis. This is more of a midlife evaluation, no? I am digging and brushing away chaff, and I am looking for substance. I am pushing away the pieces of life that hold no interest or value to me, and I am swallowing whole the experience of no filter. No hiding from myself. 
I am experiencing 39.
In classic style. 

Examining emotions
Considering angles
Implementing change 
Dissecting paradigms

Fun, right? 
Come along and join me. Tell me.

The Love Song To Words

If indeed our time here is spent
On a track riding a circular rail
like a roller coaster loop-de-loop on repeat
then I have surely seen this view
and made these choices
ramped up for the next Big Idea
and sat down at these keys
I've played a love song to words
have looked off into the trees feeling them
whisper through my mind
Woken in the night to snatch a dream onto paper
Gathering my words and torn scraps of ideas
come onto the track with me
We spin through time
and maybe I'm leaving a trail
capsules of times
Amuse-bouches for the mind
Listen for my scream on the final turn

BL
10/20/15

Availability for fate

Being available to fate is a celebrated thing. Imagine the setting; it is one we all pay lip service to - being in the right place at the right time. But we are so small and self-absorbed! How can we manage this! We might be distracted by a beautiful scarf or a latte or a street musician, and miss our window for fate's meeting! We might simply scroll through our twitter feeds for a few moments more, and if that act is a guilty one, then good luck fate.
We toss around the concept and acknowledge it when cool things happen. And though I believe it is swirling around us waiting to make connections all the time, I also believe we are strong-willed and independent creatures and not often easily led in the most auspicious directions to connect with The Whimsy of Fate.
Hi, I'm here to talk about fate today.
Have you had your fate today?
Eat it up, yum yum good!
I know this much for sure. When fate orchestrates an event in your life, call it. Shout it. It gives us all the hope that sweet fate will swirl around us and lend an inside tip. A hand. A shoulder. A love. Fate has many names, but no-show ain't one of them.

City Snapshot

I saw a photo this morning in a collection. A girl stood looking out a window, with a 30th floor view of a city.
I knew that view. I stood there once, in a midtown hotel in New York. Stood there with my face against the floor-to-ceiling window, taking it all in. Feeling like one face among millions, all of us falling in love with the city. My eyes shifting from landmark to avenue, admiring the flow of it all. The lights in different colors; the architecture of the Chrysler Building; the streets dwindling to a maze along the south side. The warm certainty of anonymity, like a craving.
A different slice of the city from my usual, that of a second story alley-view.
But still, that echo sits in me, that love of being unknown. Being swallowed up whole by a place and welcoming it.
Maybe I've always been fighting myself. Armored against being known, by the sheer willingness to be unknown. I've been in the market for an invisibility cloak all along. I've run away from the small places and hurried to the large places, desperate to be a stranger.
On weekends I want to leave my city and go to a city that is completely new, an area I have never walked and cannot be known. It is my version of wanderlust. The nothingness.
Maybe that's why I anchored myself with family.
One for each point of the compass.
In case I wander into the wind and sand and the pure comfort of a new experience each and every day.

Truncating

I've started dozens of posts in the past few months. But I'm losing my words.
After a decade of this
Worlds to words to ?
The code of stories is cut off from me
and I communicate in dashes and dots
expressions
a semi-colon, or on a sad day, a comma punctuates my parenthesis
The lines that ran through my head
beautiful words and expressions
have become emoticons
How do I feel
How did I feel
How will I feel
I am less I am more
I am
I am becoming
Truncated.
`\_0_/`

Stealthy at night

Tonight I will steal away
my breath will hitch silently
and my feet will curl down lithely as I hurry in the dark
Don't find me
I need to wander and listen
I need to hear the rain and wander

Tonight I will drink sweet coffee
and steal, steal away while the fire is in me
I want you to miss me
Like the rain misses the waiting earth
I want you to ignore my absence
as though I still stand
A statue forever bent and tending
Someone small and needy

Tonight I will take out my pages
and I will tend them
I will care for the words and I will feed them extra syllables
for dinner
And I will discipline the unruly nature
of the spilling lines
And then I will wash the pages clean
and start a fresh day

There is always something to tend.

Bethany
May 2015

Lurk

I want you to live on my street
so we can wander around
and lurk under trees
I want to walk barefoot into your kitchen
and feel the grit
and we can't care
I want to whisk you away
for hours
so we can laugh until our faces hurt
and all I do is make a face and you dissolve
into hilarity
I want that
That meaty filling part of life that is helpless laughter
and sublime enjoyment
And the certain knowledge that it will
all
be
okay

XOXO for my Greenway Therapist
-Bethany

Pensacola Beach

Well, as you can see, we survived the Great Beach Trip and did not see a shark. Or die. A blast was had by all, and you can tell by my parting words: "Let's plan the next trip here. How soon can we come back?" Usually I need about 3 years between vacations. Pensacola Beach - our new favorite beach!

I love this... morning on the beach... 

Sand pits for all!

 A hug after Isabella convinces Phoenix it's ok to go deeper than his ankles... 

Everybody jump on Dad & photo bomb Isabella

Phoenix's first words every morning - "When can we go to the lazy river?"

The Holiday Inn resort was very nice, the restaurant was good, and the beachside tiki bar makes the best Bloody Mary you will ever find. Garnished with two jumbo green olives, a lemon wedge, and 2 green beans - and a dab of horseradish. Mama likey.

I had a story brewing this morning, but beach photos distracted me. Maybe this weekend when it rains I will make some writing time. 

xo

Bethany

Sharks and Sundry

We announced that we would go to the beach for spring break. There were squeals and shrieks and general loud cheers of excitement. And then there was Phoenix, bringing down the hammer. Making me regret those years of Wild Kratts cartoons even though I really love the Kratt Bros. I mean, at least he has some facts to go with his fears. In my day, I just had fear and the Jaws soundtrack in my head.
But as with every Phoenix Moment, there is no actual conversation or reply necessary - he performs the running commentary and Q&A and ignores any of our attempts to correct his science.

"Whoa. There will be sharks in that water. Can the sharks come up to the shore? I know they can come to the shore. Maybe only the baby sharks, since it's shallow. How many sharks are harmless? And how many have sharp teeth? Will there be whales on this beach? Water snakes? What IS an eel, exactly? And how far away is the deep part? We're gonna die there. We will go in that water and get eaten by a shark. I am not going near that water. Will the sharks be able to jump over into the pool? Maybe just a small one will. Like, just to check it out. I'm gonna want you to hold me in the water. Even in the pool. I won't be using a float or anything you will be right with me."

Like rainwater down a drain spout, we just let him chatter. And then finally I have had enough and it's my turn to chatter, and I'm louder.

"We will go there and we will enjoy being away, and seeing the beautiful water and the warm sand and the sparkly pool and we will just feel how nice it is to be AT THE BEACH. And I am not worried for one minute about sharks because I am 39 years old and I grew up an hour from the ocean and I have never seen a shark any bigger than my arm, swimming free in the water. And PLEASE stop saying that we will die because that is just wrong."

But I am not a negotiator, or I would know by now to Never Engage. Because he will take a twist, and the conversation will suddenly step into the heart of existentialism.

He replies, eyebrows raised:

"I can say we're going to die, because we will die sometime. Everything dies. Everything. Like that little mole in the backyard or Pop-pop or Mamaw. Well, that's great. We're dying. Sometimes it might be a shark or a snakebite. There ARE snakes in the woods, and they will bite you. I don't know why everybody has to get all mad at me and be mean."

So we're going to the beach! Hoopla!
It's gonna be great.

Menagerie in the Yard

This morning the small inhabitants of my home accosted me, with accusatory demands for a mouse.
Not just any mouse, but the Four Dollar Mouse. (Which makes it even more of dreadful of me to say no.) This Four Dollar Mouse is talked about in wistful tones, and the low, low cost meant to dig the knife in deeper. Like, "You will buy us a FIVE dollar pizza, but not a FOUR dollar darling, living creature to have and to hold??"

I tell them we have a house full of predators: cats, dogs and Phoenix, who is certainly part raptor and whether I mean raptor as in bird of prey, or as in velociraptor, I am not sure. Distract and divert, that's my game. Bring up the thrilling chase of a predator! The poor cowering mouse, alone in a house of meat-eaters!

It doesn't work.
It's my parents' fault.

The next part of the accusatory demands go like this: "Yeah, well tell us what animals YOU had growing up." And here goes the litany, rather than the lies, lies, lies I should spill out of my mouth.
("None! We had no pets. Only books and dustballs. And the occasional bat.")
I shouldn't blame Mom, I know she was a victim of the menagerie that our house became.
My Dad could not say no, and since he is no longer here to argue, he is getting thrown under the bus. I feel certain that if I had pressed him hard enough, he would have found a unicorn and tethered it with starlight in the backyard.

But in the absence of unicorns, he sure did deliver: A breeding pair of German Shepherds, and dozens of wonderful puppies for years; a pony named Spanky, handily delivered in the back of a pick-up truck; a smelly goat named Thomas; inside kitties and outside kitties; colorful finches in a cage on the stairway; an Appaloosa horse named Liz; white geese, farm chickens, Bantam chickens, ducks, goldfish, and a terrarium of lizards captured from the yard. And water turtles from the river. And a Cairn terrier named Sidney, who was an inveterate leg-humper. I have the nagging feeling I'm forgetting some.
And I can't deny, my brood is right - it was a perfect pet-ridden childhood.
But I'm still not buying a Four Dollar Mouse.

The Tree and the Thoughts It Brings

I'm captivated by this towering, old tree a few steps into the woods in our backyard. Interested in such a way that I walk to the back window several times a day to look at it. I step out onto the deck and shift sideways, looking for the perfect view of it, with the hill rising at its base. I think about designing our backyard, and benches come to mind. Ornate, lovely benches to sit alongside of it, and complement the graceful lines of that tree.

It's got a little magic to it. Feels like anything that has been around that long must have a secret.

I trimmed branches and brambles in a path through the woods, intending to wind up at the tree. I know that if I sit under it, I will think strong thoughts and imagine fantastical things.

I remember at 14 I would lay in the tall, soft grass underneath a willow and write, and think and watch clouds. That was when I started with poetry, and would draw pages full of word-association bubbles, with spindles to connect the ideas. That was when I let the words run through me and out my fingertips for the first time. That was a magic of itself, like letting An Other take over and say things you didn't even know you had inside.

It still feels that way, when it steals me over, and I feel that I have to get away quickly and let it flood in. That the connections have to be made and put down when I'm tapped into that moment. Right? You sense the stream passing by and through, the stream of the poem or the scene or the beginning of something. And you just have to let it pour on through.

Grabbing The Funny Feels

My dear life mate Rick said to me recently that I should start blogging again. He brought it up because we've been in a cycle of annoyance with The Brood, and the ever-changing moods and 'tudes and general winter-time orneriness. I speak of One Member In Particular, and his name starts with a "Ph" and ends with a high-pitched screech.
I wearily nodded and said yeah you're right, I guess. Just not feeling the humor in it right now.
He insisted we have to reclaim the humor! Must grab the funny feels! Learn to laugh again at the madness!
Maybe I'll start today.
Like I used to do, in ye olde good days, with a stream-of-consciousness, yeah that should work. Phoenix narrates his entire life anyway. There is not a moment when he is not talking, even during supposedly silent, solitary activities. It is a constant, running chatter full of challenges and attitude and devil-may-care. It goes like this, as he plays a motorcycle game online:

"Watch out boy, it's me, na na na na na,  look who came out to play! Oh yeah! You're going down! Hey I just died. I did not see that coming. It's going to go DOWN . Charge! This is awesome. *break for whistling serenade* Break it-break it-break it! Take that, number 4. Ooh, you're right, I came to the right place. I just went down that hill?! Coooool... EPIC... woohoo! Woohoo dun-na-na-na-na, na-na-na, going foot first, yeah check me out. Stealin! Number 4's gonna be cool *break for evil laugh* Huh?! All these are about farms? This is a tiny little place. Man I was having fun there. Charge! Welcome to the game. Dun-na-na-na *break for evil laugh* It's going straight down people. Cooool. This is awesome! *break for whistling* *break for evil laugh*"

The formula is that I leave this right here, and when I come back and re-read it, I will snicker and get misty-eyed and think of the good ole days. Deal?

"Cool!!! *evil laugh* I'm standing on the streets, ready to laugh, suckers!"

Good lord when is February over.

To the tune of Muskrat Love

Greetings erstwhile readers!
That's the song that should be playing as I log in to my blog and look around. Or some other really old kitschy tune from some other time. What has happened here? It's feeling stale and dated.
I wonder if my stories have dried up for the moment.
Someone near to me suggested I start writing again, as though I willfully called a halt to the living-out-loud. I feel like the demands on my time are very real - and yet I surely also spin away hours doing other activities.
I write and delete and close the page and move on.
It is, after all, February.
I am weak in February. I could research the fact of this and ascribe it to my stars and Mercury rising or falling or hovering in retrograde. I could grimace and slowly shake my head while smirking "seasonal affective disorder." I could blame responsibility for sucking the marrow and energy from my small bones.
Instead I own it in my head and wallow and chain-read. You know? Like a junkie, I stack books and series to never stop for a moment to think in February. I fall into my favorite worlds and live there for as long as the books last. I walk along my bookshelves and wait for friends to signal me. I go for fantasy and battle and world-ending or world-saving or some really good magic. There are no light reads, no chick lit or beach reads. I want heavy immersion. Weighty issues please and maybe they don't get resolved by the end.
Meanwhile in real life...
Sure, I am present. After all, I sat on a bench for an hour yesterday and conversed with friends. Even got a little worked up over some current events.
My toes were bitten by the cold.
My eyes could meet your glance.
My heart can still pound a bit.
But it does so from a distance and the watcher that is me is removed from immediacy.
I need a buffer in February. I am figuring things out in February.

Fresh Year

In the new year we can slough off old skin
old desires
tired grudges
spent struggles

We endeavor to start fresh, our kind
We sparkle at the thought
of doing better, becoming truer
Stripping life to the essentials

We long to grasp substance, and feel our hearts tremble
Steep in the marrow of life
And we each see an image in the clouds
A separate vision
A glimmer of possibility
That makes our particular race worth running

Hello, fresh year
Let's play hide and seek

BL
1/4/15