happy things

Garret and I went for a long walk today.
It was nice and humid outside, it rained last night.
We saw 5 baby foxes!
They were brave, came very close to us.





Then Garret made fun of me because I got scared of cows.
They had gotten out of their fence, and onto the paved trail we were on.
Hey! One was a BULL, ok?
With HORNS.
Hey, it COULD have gored me to death.
No need to laugh.
It could have.

Also, Garret decided to cut down some tree branches.
While up on the vantage point of the roof, he discovered that there is a dead deer in the backyard.
We thought the smell was from a dead cat or something.
But, nope. A deer.


I will spare you the sight of the picture.
Instead, here are some pics of my garden:

Peas. (Yes they recovered from the cats eating them.)

Collards.

Radishes are the only things that can be eaten yet. They are SO HOT.

SEER (ponies)

The 1st journal, the one Mommy started for you, you write in sometimes, when you are 6-8 years old. Some pages you tear up later, like that one about the worst day of your life, and also ones that sound really silly and dumb, like about what boys you are in love with. But some of the pages are left, and here is a copy of one of the last entries...

So, as you can see, you were very into ponies.

So, 5-8yr old Amanda Joy... I want you to know that I am so sorry if there is no pony in your story...

Someday, there will be ponies.

But, if today is not then yet...

I want you to know, that I feel VERY sorry that you have no pony.

I also feel VERY, VERY sorry, if you also at this point, are starting to feel panic because there are also no ponies even close.

And, this time when your parents were telling you to stop asking for a pony, you realized they might not just mean NO, you can’t have a pony today, but NO, you can not ever, ever have a pony ever, until you have earned a million dollars and can go buy yourself a pony with your own money.

And you feel very afraid that they might really mean it.

DON’T WORRY! I know there will be a pony before this story is over… but I also know that it is very hard to feel hopeful about that right now when all the joy has just been crushed out of you.

Which, just proves how much you could really use that pony right now.

I know that you have been trying to get that pony for awhile, and if you have read a very excellent poem by a Mr. Shel Silverstein, about why parents need to give their children ponies, you may be feeling pretty betrayed by Mr. Silverstein right now.

(poem excerpt)

"Be quiet and stop nagging--You're not getting that pony."

And Abigail began to cry and said,"If I don't get that pony I'll die."

And her parents said, "You won't die.No child ever died yet from not getting a pony."

And Abigail felt so bad

That when she got home she went to bed,

And she couldn't eat,

And she couldn't sleep,

And her heart was broken,

And she DID die--

All because of a pony

That her parents wouldn't buy.

Because, you really thought he understood you, but if your parents will not listen to the poem, it does not matter that the poem perfectly explains your feelings about how you know you might die if you do not get a pony.

Because, your parents do not seem to care if you die, as long as you stop being melodramatic and learn that you can’t always have what you want when you want it.

Which, you already understand perfectly, because THAT just says you can’t have a pony now, but in a different way, and you ARE ALREADY AWARE OF THAT PART!

You did not just suddenly realize the pony was missing from this picture.

You would have no reason to question a pony that you had always had. And, if you already HAD the PONY, and would have no reason to OBTAIN said pony, and you already know the part about how you don’t have a pony right now.

And you are trying to learn HOW to get a pony TODAY and not in a million or 17 years because that is really far away, and you already know that waiting makes the reward better, but that is still a very long time to wait, and can’t you just have a very small pony that does not eat much, but could still poop a lot, and you could sell the poop because people put animal poop on their yards, but not dogs, just certain kinds, like hopefully ponies, but you are not sure because no one will answer that part for you right now!

And, so maybe the poem did not mean to be helpful either, because it certainly did not help you, so that was kind of mean, if the poem was just making fun of you, and maybe this Silverstein guy is really not on your side at all, and he was trying to gain your trust just so he could try to trick you into thinking that the pony is not really important because, well, I‘m not really sure why he would do that yet...

But, it seems like if he really wanted to help you, it would have been much more useful if he could have told you how to get your parents to listen to you better, because they could really use some work on that, because they keep saying things that have nothing to do with the subject, and you would really like to know how to help them with that, because you want the other parents to like them, so it would be really useful if you knew how to teach them better, because you are concerned that they do not see basic things...

like, if you had a million dollars already, you would already be smart enough to figure out how to get that pony yourself.

but you have no million dollars, and trying to think of how to get a million dollars, is just the same kind of question as how to get a pony.

so that answer just goes around in a circle, and does not give you any helpful info on how to escape the circle. Also, it would be good if your parents would get that you cannot stop being melodramatic, because that means you are a faker, and you are not faking, you are serious, so why do they keep telling you to stop something that you are not doing in the first place?

and, maybe you need to stop for a minute and think about all this, because this no pony situation might be serious and you need to think what you can try next to get your parents to understand the importance of a pony, like if this is a time for sneaky-ness, you need to think more about that part, because you will have to make sure sneaky-ness is ok to try, and I think it is, because it’s manipulative that you have to watch out for, which also means you are trying to get what you want out of people, but that way is the bad kind, but sneaky is ok sometimes if you are doing it for the person’s own good, and it is definitely in the best interest of your parents to hurry up and get you a pony because that would make you happy and they say they just want you to be happy and go away now, and that would accomplish both of those things exactly, and then everyone would be happy, even the pony.

Sweetie, i know EXACTLY how you feel.

and, 25yr old Amanda Joy? if you are still feeling sad and pony-less, i promise someday we are going to find that pony.

in fact, your pony is just around the corner!

(her name is Sagira and she turned out to be a Sphynx.)

SEER page..i've lost track. (2nd grade/line-leader epiphany/old writing/desire to erase it all.)

You write of lot of things in your life, but you do not keep most of them. As you get older, you think that the older writings are silly and stupid and babyish, and so you throw a lot of them away. In 6th and 7th grade, you write a lot of poems that rhyme, and have the same format, lots of couplets. But some of the scraps of notebook paper survived, and when you read your 6th grade self, it is crying the same cry as your 2nd grade self, and also as the 12th grade self, and the college one, and even after that too.

But in 6th grade, what you HEAR is that every kid thinks they are a great poet, and you suck just like all the rest of them, and stop being so melodramatic, and good poetry doesn’t even rhyme anymore anyway, and so… you listen, and you stop. But even if it WAS “tripe,” it was still YOUR tripe and YOUR truth and your life, and those other voices need to shut up.

And in 6th and 7th grade, the poems are titled WAR or FEAR, or another one-word title. Always one word for the title. (And at this time, when I am 28, I can not ever remember writing a single poem in my whole life that had a longer title, but I suppose it is possible.)

And your 7th grade voice writes these lines:

Rain
Small shrunken oceans slide down his cheek,
Restoring the yesterday’s linger and reek

Caked with mud, brittle and dry,
The eyelid recoils away from the eye

Fighting to stand in a world that knocks down,
They shove him into the gutter, in hopes that he’ll drown

They deny his existence, repulsed at the sight,
Quick! Blink away from this child of night.

…and

Nightmare
One drop of frozen happiness in a pool of rapid change,
Then whispered words of the unspeakable—all jumbled and deranged

The mottled darkness in the background declares it’s presence with strangled screams,
With teeth of icy terror, it shreds and tears apart your dreams

Drunken evil stumbles in, with it’s pocked and bloody face,
Raises innocence up to it’s lips and savors in the fleshy taste

Black rain robs imagination of it’s last gentle breath,
Sluiced down into the slimy muck, condemning it to death

Curved lightning dips and swirls in a pale-gray liquid sky,
Silenced by the roaring clouds, the voices cease to cry.


(You were in a Dean Koontz phase, and you stole all of his adjectives.)



And today, is a couple decades later.

And you cringe when you read those early poems, because you are still very hard on yourself, and can’t stand it when you feel silly and stupid. So you still feel a very strong urge to crumple up the paper, and ERASE! ERASE! ERASE!

Because why should you make allowances just because you were 12?

But today is not making allowances, so calm down, it is just about accepting your life, even all the parts that make you cringe to look at.

And today is trying to find the motivation to write another word, when you feel sulky in the knowledge that Amanda-in-ten-years is going to cringe at this....

And, too-day, is remembering that first day. when you had the can-never-escape-stupidness thought... and today is wondering how your life would be different if that thought had never infected your head to plague you...



And Today...

is that day. And you are in second grade.

And you are the line leader.

And you feel smug and prance-y about it. Because being the line-leader is a Very Big Deal. And you are basking in the fun of being in charge.

Your line is now passing by a line of Kindergartners going the opposite way, and you jut your chin in a most superior fashion, and think about what babies Kindergartners are. One girl has her dress caped around her head, and EVERYONE can see her underwear.

You are so much smarter than those babies.

And that is where the gloat chokes you, because next, you see some fifth graders.

And one looks at you.

And the look is very similar to the one you just gave the Kindergartners...

And you see that you look just as dumb to them!!!! And this is not a good thought. You realize that you will probably not be smart in 5th grade either, because there will just be more kids older than you. And you think about how you felt in pre-first, and you notice that at the time, you did not know you were stupid at all! In fact, you felt quite smart!

IN FACT, you felt almost EXACTLY the way you feel now.

And this thought is close to despair, because you realize that every moment you exist, no matter how good it is, it will at some point seem silly and pale in the future. And you will never ever EVER escape Kindergarten (even though you went to pre-first instead), you will still be stuck there forever, no matter how old and wrinkly you get, or even if you live to be a million, you will still be there, and every single moment of Present will always be weak and stupid, because the Past always is, and you can’t escape the Present becoming the Past.

You think that maybe if you could freeze time in a good moment, then you might be ok... but that does not seem likely, and the Future feels destined to shame you.

sound Affect

sagira is licking her back. rasp, rasp, rasp.

sandpaper scraping a dish, sticky shoes on a dirty floor, it could be anything.

i'm trying to think what the sounds is like. but it could be anything, if you weren't looking. sounds only make sense when you look at them.

she's in the window. to be closer to the sun. and the tree is moving behind her, in some imaginary wind. imaginary, because there is no sound. all fake-y behind the glass.

this is why i like storms. they make things real. loud. punch. demand. attention!

i am unhappy.

everything is too fake and too thick and syrupy. like someone on the phone i am not listening to. huh? what did you say? a tinny voice in my ear... crinkle-up-crush-can-aluminium. aluminium, al-you-mini-um, not aluminum, not tin... an element all it's own, all alone, lone phone, disconnected...

aluminum. lumi like luminous, num like numb...

the echo of metal in my head.
shaking a sheet like sound-effect-thunder.

effect my affect, please?

i am cold.

so many things to do, so many things unfinished.