Tag: Thoughts

DEADLY SINS

~ graciej311

Every day at 5:30
I turn on the television
and watch the evening news.
I am a glutton for punishment,
as I rub my eyes and mumble,
“What now?”

Will today be
a new tax policy
that will help “everyone”
(i.e. those making more than $1 mil. per year)?
Or perhaps I will see 18-month-old
babies being torn from their mothers
in attempts to escape gang violence and
be welcomed in “the land of the free”?
Or will today be another black teenager
shot dead in his own yard because he was
holding a cell phone in a threatening manner?
Surely I will see his royal highness
showing off an executive order,
freshly signed with a fat Sharpie marker,
and looking like the daily specials
at a restaurant, as he holds it up, proudly.

Some days,
it is all of these things.
Some days,
I realize how weary I am
of all the hashtags,
and I am not even on social media anymore.
But I have to stay aware and ready.
I must be resilient and angry.
There are more fights to be fought.
More bubbles to break.
What world will my daughter and her generation inherit,
if I give up now?

SEISMIC SHIFTS

~ graciej311

I lived in the long shadows
of the Wasatch Mountains
the first 22 years of my life.
The fault lines always
bubbled below the surface
bounced somewhere beneath,
like a moth trapped under a glass.
On a spring day in middle school,
rumor ran rampant —
a major earthquake would happen
the next afternoon.
Predicted not by scientists,
but by conspiracy theorists.
Those who typically foresee
natural disasters and the end of the world.
“The Big One” never arrived.

When I moved to Nevada,
the first fissure felt
was my mistake-of-a-marriage —
dissolved and crumbled,
thin layers of heart’s crust
pulled away, delicate as snake skin.
I was several months pregnant
and awoke during the gray hours.
The pictures on my wall rattled,
ever so slightly,
and I peered out the window
to the eerily empty street
where only lights on the lampposts
indicated any signs of life.
My bed swayed
just enough to rock me back to sleep.

The next morning,
I figured it may have been a dream,
because no one in my family felt it.
But the news confirmed I was correct.
A fault in the California desert,
hundreds of miles away,
cracked and shifted
during the night.
No one was injured.
No one was deceased.
Broken jars of spaghetti sauce,
fallen from store shelves,
the only casualties.

And my baby girl
leapt in my womb,
elbowing her way to comfort,
lacking amniotic fluid,
fighting for her life.

THE DEEPEST PURPLE

~ graciej311

Red is motivated. Red is proactive. Red is power. Red is a nasty argument that you want to win. Red can’t hide its crimson. Blue is perfectionism. Blue is thoughtful. Blue cries during commercials and movies. Blue is all the emotions.

I’ve always had a somewhat split personality. I frequently veer between type-A and “I don’t give a shit”. Many years ago, my therapist suggested a book called “The Color Code”. The book contains various quizzes, drawn up on a points system, to determine what color represents you. Each of the four colors: red, white, yellow, and blue correspond with various emotions and personality traits. Upon taking the quizzes, it determined I was equal parts red and blue. Those two colors are so different from one another in the code that I thought, “That can’t be correct.” I took the various quizzes again and received the same results. While this book helped me make more sense of myself, being “purple” is still sometimes a terribly confusing experience. I’ve often described myself as being equally obsessive about things I love (blue) and things I hate (red). If I like you, I love you and would do virtually anything for you. If you cross me, I am unlikely to give you a second chance and will probably loathe you with every fiber of my being into the eternities.

I have this war inside my heart and head; and it’s deeply ingrained. When I look at my dad, I see all that is inherently red and all that is inherently blue. I know he gave these colors to me. This purple rose that is such a deep hue, it’s nearly black.

I’m trying to overcome the parts of each color that have weighed me down: The impatience, the annoyance, the unforgiving nature, the salty sting that creeps into the corners of my eyes when I am frustrated. But sometimes, the hardest thing to do is deny your genetics. Deny what is your material. Regardless, I have been trying more vigilantly the last few years to find an in-between. The attempt has, at times, been futile and I have had to start over more than once. My husband is the picture of calm and collected, even in high-pressure, stressful situations. He also has unparalleled levels of patience, even in the most frustrating scenarios. I am trying to emulate him in these regards, because those are character traits I admire greatly (white) and areas in which I have been lacking.

I don’t think I am as deeply red or blue as I used to be — but the changes have continually required me to re-think, re-draw, re-write. It’s been draft, after draft, after draft. But that’s the way it is when you are creating a thick biographical book, a masterpiece painting, or an album that is destined to be a classic. Toil, sweat, dark places, light places, and everything in between.

On my best days though, the scale finds a balance and I realize that purple, especially the deepest shade, is the most stunning color in the spectrum.

SOMETIMES, OKAY, ALWAYS

~ graciej311

Sometimes
you just can’t.
When the wound is too deep.
When the love is too strong.
When the bend becomes a break.

Then, other times,
you devour the whole beast.
Eat all flesh.
Tear apart sinew.
Suck marrow.
Save fat for later.

I drew a blank for six months,
while all the flags were drooping emblems
constantly at half-staff,
wilting among thoughts and prayers.
Even after warm bodies gone cold.
Headstones and ashes.

Always
you return and remember.
The time your fingers tickled the pages.
The time we laughed until we bled.
The time we sighed, chests heavy.
The time the world turned around again

and the thrum of life moved on.

THOUGHTS OF AN INSOMNIAC

~ graciej311

Did I lock the deadbolt? What’s my favorite kind of cheese? Whatever happened to that cast member from “The Real World Hawaii”? How many books have I read this year? That moonrise in Alaska was one of the most stunning sights I have ever seen. What does it take to become a Canadian citizen? Small talk has completely died now that everyone has smartphones. I hope my daughter gets financial aid, a couple scholarships, and doesn’t let losers take advantage of her once she’s in college. My nephew is the most adorable toddler on the planet. Mmmmm…a bagel with cream cheese sounds delicious right now. No wait! A chocolate Croissant from Starbucks. Why is anyone thinking we can live on Mars? That’s the dumbest idea ever. Scott Pruitt pisses me off. Betsy DeVos too. I need to make a donation to The Committee to Protect Journalists. How many licks DOES it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop? Should I get up and shower now? What book do I want to read next? Why do so many artists and actors OD or commit suicide? The next time I organize the closet, I have to get rid of that quilt. It’s bulky and takes up tons of space. “Garden State” is still one of my favorite movies. It would be amazing to hang out with Mike D and Ad-Rock. Does David Sedaris have a reading coming up soon? I am stoked for the Kings of Leon concert. Why is summertime such a waste land for TV viewing? How old would John Lennon be if he were still alive? I wonder if he would have reunited with Paul McCartney to sing duets. What’s on my to-do list for today? I am going to need a nap. Can’t sleep. Clowns will eat me. Can’t sleep.  Clowns will eat me. Mmmmm…donuts.

BEGGING FOR ANSWERS

~ graciej311

I came of age in the era
of argyle socks
and plaid shirts
stolen from your father’s closet.

We stopped before school
to fill Super Big Gulp cups
with frothy Orange Bang!
which we kept in our lockers all day.

We didn’t realize
that MTV would soon cease
to be music television
and would peddle us “Jersey Shore”.

There was no comprehension
of intrawebs and internets,
and the smart phones
our children gobble up like Candy Crush.

I think about the pivotal moment
when he filled three pages of my yearbook
with a break-up message
that I didn’t fully comprehend until age 38.

I sometimes remember
the way he smelled like Play-Doh
and combed his hands
through my wet hair.

Then I wander to the artist
with the wire-framed glasses
who tasted like Budweiser
and smelled like paint thinner.

They tell us not to look back,
but they also say if you don’t examine the past
you’re doomed to repeat it.
So which is it, huh?

NOW IS THE TIME

~ graciej311

My husband says that I’m getting old. Actually, it may have been me who said, “Do you think I am getting old?” And his reply was something like, “Well, you do read the newspaper every day, watch the evening news (often on more than one channel), and wake up early on Sunday mornings to eat a bagel while you watch ‘Meet the Press’. So…yes?”

I always claimed to be the type of person who wasn’t “into politics”. Even as recently as early 2016, I frequently said I didn’t care about caucusing. I would rarely bring up my own political views in public forums, and especially refrained from doing so on social media. (I no longer participate in social medias, so that wouldn’t be a thing for me now anyway.) While I wasn’t into politics, I always voted. The first election in which I was old enough to vote took place in 1996. I was sick as a dog and still made it to the local fire station to cast my ballot. Our rights as citizens of this nation have always felt important to me. I have never been affiliated with any political party. I have always considered myself an independent. I thoroughly research all the candidates and then have previously proclaimed, “I vote for the one who seems the least loserish.” Everything changed for me on November 9th of last year, when I realized with a slap in the face, the importance politics plays in every single aspect of our lives.

After the election, I found out that a few people I knew had voted for Trump. I wanted to know why.  The answers were varied: “Because Hillary thinks abortion is okay.” “Because Hillary’s personality is annoying.” “Because, Hillary’s private servers.” To me, none of those reasons are valid. Donald Trump’s shortcomings bear much more weight and are hugely massive compared with any of those reasons. He has let into his orbit many horrible humans, has thrown rallies filled with hateful rhetoric, and has admitted to groping women, because he has a right as a wealthy man to do so. He’s the worst kind of xenophobic, racist, narcissist — and now he has a world-wide platform and attention for all of his bad behavior. Not only does he have a platform, but he scoots over occasionally to share it with others who should have no place being able to spread their fear and vile words.

After the occurrences last weekend in Charlottesville, I noticed that some people, including Trump, don’t seem to understand what rights The First Amendment protects. The Bill of Rights wasn’t designed to protect the hate speech and incitement of riots by white supremacist groups. They are never out to peaceably assemble. If you have seen or heard any of them speak, you can tell they are a soulless mob and they are armed to the teeth. I’ve heard many news pundits and others claim shock and surprise that Trump seems to be endorsing these groups. I am not surprised at all. Haven’t people been listening to his words for the last two years/decade? People who were hoping he would become more “presidential” once he was actually elected were fools. As my uncle used to say, “People don’t change too goddamn much too goddamn much of the time.” Trump is a zebra who has been showing his stripes since day one.

Now is not the time for silence. Now is not the time to say, “I’m not into politics.” Now is the time for shouting about what we hold dear. We need to band together as citizens of this world to protect the environment, safeguard our children and schools, push for the rights of immigrants and women and healthcare for all. Now is a time for action. We cannot tolerate the aforementioned perversions of democracy. This famous quote I have heard several times recently sends chills down my spine. It should prompt all of us to act. It is from a Nazi survivor named Martin Niemöller:

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

ODE TO MY YOUTH: I WANNA GO BACK

~ graciej311

I long for 1991 —
before Bill Clinton
stained a navy dress
in the Oval Office,
and a narcissist had taken
the oath to become President.

<Hand on the Bible,
semi-shocked
it didn’t catch fire
as his hand touched the leather.>

I wanna listen to Jesus Jones
“Right here, right now/
There is no other place that I want to be…”
And E.M.F.’s semi-snarky,
“You’re unbelievable.”

I want to sit at the coffee shop
across the street from my art-deco high school
and eat chocolate chocolate chip muffins
without gaining a pound.
I would even do calisthenics on the football field
while Coach Parrish barks his orders
if it means I can go back to 1991.

Give me my R.E.M. t-shirt.
My Depeche Mode S&M poster.
My locker mirror.
The three-mile walk to a friend’s house.
Cleaning our above-ground backyard pool —
always a little more chilly than was suitable for a swim.

Take me away from the misogyny.
The Russia investigation.
The deregulation of the EPA.
The Mitch Turtle McConnell.
The de-funding of Planned Parenthood.
The world as it currently exists.

MY BREAK UP WITH SOCIAL MEDIA: A LOVE STORY

~ graciej311

I should have known long ago that social media wasn’t going to work for me. I should have known that being part of so many fake lives, conservative spewers, and uppity trolls wasn’t going to add positivity to the construct of my everyday life, and would only serve to make me bitter and depressed.

I would say the signs that social media probably wasn’t going to be my thing started more than a decade ago. My sisters had both moved away from home and started blogs so we could keep up with their lives. I read their blogs occasionally and sometimes left comments. At one point, my sister posted about how much she disliked hearing about “Twilight” and could people please stop talking about “Twilight”. I was also extremely over hearing about it, and this was before the movies had even been made. I left a comment akin to, “The only people I know who have read ‘Twilight’ and think it’s the greatest book ever written have pretty much never read any other books in their entire lives.” My comment wasn’t long. It wasn’t slanderous against one particular person. It was just an observation I had made, because a couple of the people I knew who were practically illiterate felt the need to tell me what an amazing book “Twilight” was. My sister told me shortly thereafter that her mother-in-law had been offended by my comment, because she and her daughters all liked “Twilight”, so my sister had deleted my comment. I was honestly quite perplexed. In sharing what I viewed as a pretty mild and not-that-big-of-a-deal opinion, I had been censored. It was not long after that when a friend of mine mentioned to me that another friend of ours was “upset” because I didn’t read or comment on her blog. 1. Why did she even notice? 2. Why did she care? I decided from then on that I wouldn’t leave comments on anyone’s blogs. I was done. Within the next several months, I pretty much never read blogs anymore.

It was around this time that I joined MySpace. What a weird community. I don’t even know if it could be called a community. I didn’t personally know many people who were actually using it, but several of the bands and musicians I liked were on the platform, so I followed them and even corresponded with a couple. It lost its luster rather quickly for me though. It didn’t seem like a sustainable platform. Shortly thereafter, in early 2009, I created a Facebook account. I had said to many, many people that I would never join Facebook. I weighed the pros and cons for months. I’ve never been one to give into peer pressure. In fact, I’m more likely to not do something everyone else is doing. Pros: I would be able to reconnect with people I hadn’t seen in a long time. I would be able to share random thoughts I had during the day. (Many of my thoughts are pretty amusing.) I could better organize an upcoming class reunion. I could see pictures of my friends’ babies and my nieces. After a while, the pros seemed to outweigh the cons. I look back now at how fun it was when I first joined. Back in those days, people weren’t posting links to news stories. Fake news was many years from coming into existence. I don’t even remember seeing many politically charged comments. Re-posts and memes weren’t in heavy rotation yet. It seemed like most people still had original thoughts. Eventually, both of my best friends joined as well. Since they both live out of state, this made me extremely happy. I ended up reconnecting with a handful of people I hadn’t seen or talked to in ages. I was working from home at the time, so it helped me actually feel social. There was probably a juncture, which I’m embarrassed to admit, when I would spend hours a day on Facebook. I would log in at night and hope some of my friends from San Francisco would be online so we could chat. I would post random comments or thoughts on friends’ walls. I had a good time in the medium. I didn’t have a smartphone yet, so the only time I was on Facebook was when I was on a computer. It wasn’t always with me. It wasn’t sending me a continuous stream of notifications. Not everyone I knew was even using it.

I eventually joined Instagram. I was a fairly early adopter of the tool and created an account about a year after it came into being. I liked the cleanliness of the Instagram format. Facebook had started to lose its appeal, because of the changes they had made to their algorithms. I don’t want to see what my friends were liking or what comments they were making on a public link. I found that I was hiding more and more posts and people. I also had some Facebook battles with former high school classmates about what myself and a couple other individuals had planned for our 20-year reunion. The nonsense of it all was quite miserable. Once the reunion was over, I removed myself from our reunion group. Before that, I had taken extended breaks from Facebook, a couple which occurred in conjunction with squabbles with my brother-in-law over religious matters. I won’t go into details regarding this, because it could be a post unto itself. I eventually ended up unfriending him, which he didn’t figure out for about six months. But once he noticed, feelings were hurt and my sister said it was awkward. (I didn’t think it was at all.) There are just some people who can’t retain a sense of decorum in online forums. I was also upset because given the context of why I unfriended him, I felt like my sister should be on my side, but she clearly wasn’t. I felt like myself and my friends who felt the way I did and voiced opinions about particular subjects were being trolled. This past September, I started one of my extended hiatuses from Facebook. I didn’t do it thinking “this is election season”, the fact that it was just constituted as a bonus. After the election, my sister left a comment about the election results on one of my Instagram posts. We had a major difference of opinion. I had a lot to say to her, but it wouldn’t have ended well. I knew that eventually, I wouldn’t be able to keep silent. I would bottle my annoyances, and end up exploding at one or more people, potentially damaging relationships. I am a passionate person and rarely ride the gray line in any regard. If I believe something, I believe it with all of my heart, so it’s a wonder that I lasted as long as I did without getting into serious altercations with certain individuals who were spouting racist or sexist ideas or propagating fake news or extreme alt-right views. I couldn’t sleep on election night. Once again, I weighed the pros and cons of social media, and this time, the cons far outweighed the pros. I knew I was done with it all. At 1am on November 9, 2016; I deactivated my social media accounts.

People keep asking me if I miss it. I miss a couple aspects of it, like seeing pictures of my nieces and nephews, but I make a more concerted effort to send them snail mail or talk to them on the phone. I also created folders in my cloud so that I can see pictures of them whenever I want. For me, the benefit of expunging social media has led me to a sense of peace and calm I had forgotten was possible. It’s made life slow down and not feel so crazed. It’s created a greater sense of patience for me. I spend more time reading and thinking. After the election, I felt such deflation and sadness that it was hard for me to sit at the keyboard without crying, but I am now feeling compelled to get back into writing as well. One of my biggest accomplishments since exiting social media is that I have lost 20 pounds. Instead of lounging around checking my accounts, I’m up and moving and logging my steps, water, and calorie intakes.

Mark Zuckerberg thinks the world cannot survive with Facebook. I read an article in a magazine not long ago which stated that he thinks everyone on this planet should have access to a computer so they can be on Facebook. I am living proof that not only is survival possible, but living life to the fullest is more possible when one casts off the tether of social media. I have been making a concerted effort to get together in person with friends. To hold social gatherings — something that’s difficult for me given my proclivity for wanting alone time. To write letters, cards, or send packages. To call or text someone directly when I am thinking about them. All these things seem more personal to me than social media ever did. Some of these things seem like lost arts with all that social media has lead us to believe is “normal”. I have also found more time to devote to causes which matter to me. If you don’t think you want to delete or deactivate your social media accounts, I recommend taking a break from them to reconnect with yourself. You may be pleasantly surprised with what you find and suddenly remember a simpler time that you didn’t realize still existed.

UNENCUMBERED

~ graciej311

I am unencumbered by dog,
by man,
by theories.

Take your sideways glances,
your sharp-toothed grin,
and your crazy elsewhere.

I will glide,
nyet, nyet,
slide along slowly and surely.

Take off this rag-tag coat.
This long shouldered burden.
This freedom from being free.

Set the funeral pyre alight
With bow and arrow
Become a viking and rebel.

Salt stained tears become your face.
Heart eating becomes a hobby.

Sequestered by the calm.