choices

Step Write… On

/ lovizmytrio / 1 Comment

I started this blog on January 3rd, promising to write every day. Now I am entering my 363rd post, and even if I missed a few days here and there, I still managed to update the blog according to my goal. As I enter 2011, I am wondering what the future will hold. I was thinking about writing a blog called “Writing my Bike,” but there are so many other things I like to write about besides biking. My aim to stick with this for a year was partially inspired by the movie Julie and Julia. Not that I was thinking I would become a famous writer, exactly, but that I wanted to commit more of my time to writing. Sticking to one subject, as she did, just didn’t seem to work for me. Over the course of the year, the most hits I receive are for my posts about living on one salary and co-teaching. Interesting. There’s really not much more I can say about living on one salary, because most people are swimming in so much debt that they wouldn’t be able to consider it anyway. As far as co-teaching goes, my situation has improved quite a bit this school year, as I am working with different teachers, so I really don’t have anything bitchy to say, and can’t think of what I could add to the positive benefits I’ve already mentioned.

So… for 2011, perhaps I will continue to add daily posts… perhaps not. I love having a record, although at times an obscure one, of my day-to-day life, so even if few people ever read the blog, at least I will know what was happening at that point. Isn’t that really what a “web log” is supposed to be anyway? A log of one’s life?

Before I close, I would like to put down my resolutions. Just two. First, I would like to try to be more responsible with money, as we have racked up some debts in the past few months, and second, I aim to be consistent with providing the girls a weekly allowance. The only way they are ever going to learn how to manage money themselves is to start now. We’ll see how it goes.

Happy new year everyone! 2010 was an up-and-down year, so I’m hoping that 2011 will be smooth and easy.

Dimension

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i am not here in this moment
of screaming, cussing anger.
i am magically moving my father’s car
into another dimension

here, at home, where i have a husband
who in thirteen years has barely
raised a voice, let alone allowed a cuss
in a world that is love, love, love.

you may pull forward your Sorento
and disappear into your hateful reality.
i prefer to remain in the dimension of love
that shields my heart from your evility.

you will drive home, your elderly parents
unable to determine where they went wrong.
i will drive until he takes the wheel from my
shaking hands, his hands on my hands, my heart.

Underbelly

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we are here now,
sister, brother-in-law, niece,
grandparents who have filled
the underbelly of the tree
with Wal-mart’s
explosion of Chinese reality.

he and i lie in the dark
on our basement floor mattress,
the tint of the waning moon
lingering light upon his whiskered face.

Santa has already arrived,
stripped down because
the underbelly of the tree
regurgitated its recklessness.

i will never forget,
i tell him,
this time at my own
grandparents’ house,
when my mother,
her measly salary
half of my father’s pittance,
after seeing the
gifts my grandmother
inundated us with,
turned to him and said,
‘I hate being poor.‘

i try to remember this
as we rise before the sun,
set up the camera
in anticipation of their anxious faces,
and spend hours
exchanging money, goods
from the underbelly of the tree
that seems to mock,
wealth, wealth, wealth
with its shedding branches
that drop needles
like tears onto the hardwood.

Christmas Come Early

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the tears disappear
as we light the fire
and with Amaretto in my belly
and Christmas music
dancing its way across the room,
they talk us into
Christmas come early.

it is only a few hours, really,
and the daylight
would steal the mood
we have set from years past.

ten minutes later,
the few gifts are opened,
and three little girls
play dress-up,
performing their
latest dance songs
for the video camera.

this is as small and simple
as i would ever like it to be:
the Scotch pine,
the warm fire,
the relishing of items
shared by all,
the love of what is here
and what is not here
all in the same moment.

Light

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she shines a light
that she’ll only sometimes
allow us to see.

for the most part,
she’s masked in mystery
that neither of us understands.

so when i see a ray
shine through, please do not
block its passage into the night.

i have coaxed her for years,
just as i have coaxed you. yet,
light eludes me, darkness ensues.

Snatch

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i see the words today
hovering over my early morning
they follow me over snow-dusted streets
and evaporate in a cloud of breath
against the blaring white lights
as haunting as ghosts
as they disappear into the sunrise.

they are mine
and as much as i wish to let them go
i crave to snatch them back
for they are forever on the page
in the realms of all who wonder
what it is i might have to say.

but just as the earth turns
to let in the light of day
my words will remain
where i have chosen for them to be.
and me? i cannot snatch back
the pieces of my soul
that i have offered to the world.

Love, Hate

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who you see here tonight?
it’s the me he dislikes
how i laugh, laugh, laugh
exposing everything
in my (their) disbelief

it’s a standing joke now
(gift card to prove it)
and i will smile all the way
until tomorrow

carrying her hands on my hands
her eyes on my eyes
how i see what others do not
how i know what others do not

everything, everything exposed
just like that night in the car
when it was so, so, beautifully orgasmic

and i swallowed it whole
my love
i swallowed the cool air
the bitter whiskey
the smooth rum
the cream cheese

because it is all a part
of the here and now,
the then
the me whom i love
and hate
whom i love
and hate.

Choice

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do we fight this fight
or give in for one night?
do we stand our ground
and put up with the sound?

it’s hard to know what to do
when it isn’t us, but you
we can’t control what others want
only their actions tonight will haunt.

sleep will come when exhaustion wins
and we’ll forget this evening’s sins
moving on to the light of day
we’ll say what we want to say.

Giggling Circles

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I was your age once
and when the teacher said,
Do your homework
and everyone sat
in giggling circles
of middle school talk,
abandoning all ambition,
I sat alone at my desk
and finished my assignments,
never once in three years
taking one home,
yet had a straight-A report card.

Perhaps that is why
I cannot relate to you,
finals coming down your pike
faster than the bullet train,
yet you sit in giggling circles
of apathy, no worries for home life,
your future, education passing
by before you can hold out your ticket.

I wish you could see yourself
ten, fifteen years from now,
remembering (forgetting) this time.
Perhaps you would look back
and wish you had taken
your seat on that train that passed,
or perhaps you will still sit
in giggling circles,
unaware of all that you have missed.

Enough

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two months and half a day later
we have three grocery sacks
filled with homemade breads,
a peach box filled with apple butter jars,
miniature bags of homemade candy
and an early Christmas gift
for everyone we know.

it could be more, it could be less.
sometimes i wonder if it will ever be enough.