this is what i want:
for these words to be worth something.
dollar signs.
gymnastics lessons.
food for my family.
a roof, a car, a new bike.
anything but what they are:
published to all,
read by few,
as meaningless as who i am
in this place where my words
mean nothing.
with these books,
their warm legs,
my voice,
the frazzled day
melts away.
we forget how many times
they argued over
who sat where
what toothpaste to use
whose turn it was on the iPad
and remember
the comforting magic of
words and pictures
that tie together
everything we think
might fall apart.
her words escaped you
two years ago,
your never-sit-still antics
keeping your ears
from listening.
i read aloud now,
my attempt at
a Scottish accent
as pitiful as the pink umbrella
Hagrid uses to
pull out the pig’s tail,
and you sit, still as a stone,
asking for another chapter.
though the words
your Daddy and I have loved
for almost as long as
your Daddy and I have been
together
are just now
casting their spell on you,
i am grateful for
whatever words will lead you
into our love of literature.
perhaps i wasn’t born for this.
is it etched in my skin,
a tattoo of failure that follows
me wherever my words take me?
they pull me down,
anvils on the dock,
seagulls pecking at my skin,
offering the freedom i can’t have.
i wish my words could be the wings
that could carry me away
from the place where i’m inadequate.
where i could be real, in my own skin.
instead, they’re thrown back at me,
hateful darts into my skin.
if only i could pluck them out
and send them where my heart belongs.
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.
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.
it came to me in the summer.
Writing My Bike:
this should be the name of my new blog.
will i only write when i ride?
will i only ride when i write?
winter’s creeping in
with bitter cold mornings
that make my pedals run stiffly,
my layered legs tight with frost,
my mittened hands gripping
the first wisps of light on early mornings.
He may try, but Jack Frost can’t deter me.
i’ll be writing my bike to the top
of a mountain in May (racing a train),
and i need these legs to pedal me
through everything that will come
between now and then.
just as we found our muse
young as youth with words would allow
you have crept back into my life
and reminded me of passion.
it may dissipate like water
evaporating onto the lid of a pan
but the lid, the lid is solid
and will gather up the drops
release them back to where they belong
back to you, to me, to the youth
we all have within us, the words
escaping from our passionate mouths
like butterflies emerging from the chrysalis
reborn into the enthralling joy
that we once knew, that we will always have
with words, with words, with our muse.
our lives
our American lives
exist in movies, books
filled with flashbacks
memorabilia
from our characters’ pasts.
our lives
our American lives
exist in the here, now
filled with wanton disregard
consumption
of our planet’s future.
their lives
their American lives
exist in computers, smart phones
filled with violent imagery,
absorption
of themselves, their future.
my life
my American life
exists in words, hope
filled with cautionary love,
faith
in them, us, our future.
Are we all (as my mother says)
self-absorbed Americans
bragging about our travels,
our milestones, our children,
our every little stupid success
in an age when technology
brings us together
and tears us apart?
What is the purpose
of these tools I use to write
these words, of
sending a message out
to potentially thousands,
but really only a few,
readers of my news?
And while I’m asking,
when will this bring,
instead of frustration
and anxiety, a sense
of belonging, of relief,
as I have begged for it to?
Step Write Up 