I am your quiet place,
you are my wild.

I am your water wings,
you are my deep.
I am your open arms,
you are my running leap.


from You Are My I Love You, by Maryann Cusimano Love

a new life begins

Nothing is simple when you love someone this much. Nothing is neat when you’re this needed. Life doesn’t stop because you’ve given birth. A new life begins and you own it and make it yours.

Jill Scott

thoughts and questions and shit to say

I am a woman with thoughts and questions and shit to say. I say if I'm beautiful. I say if I'm strong. You will not determine my story — I will. I will speak and share and fuck and love and I will never apologize to the frightened millions who resent that they never had it in them to do it.

Amy Schumer

Full transcript of Amy's speech from the Gloria Awards and Gala can be found here.

heavy

Something awful happened a few days ago in Isla Vista, CA and since Phil went to UCSB it strikes a chord with him I guess, so he's had this appalled and morbid fascination with the event and consequently I have heard way more about it than I ever would have wanted. Saturday night before I went to bed I was on Twitter and saw the dramatic outpouring of experiences being shared under #yesallwomen. It was powerful and I'm not sorry I read them but it made me feel sad and vulnerable and it was hard to go to sleep after that.

I mostly follow comedians; some of them got serious, others satirical. Here are some gems from my Twitter feed:

I don't want women to judge me by the same high standard I use to judge them. That wouldn't be fair at all.

— Mark Leggett ✂︎ ☹ (@markleggett) May 22, 2014

Women are still represented as a minority in politics, entertainment & business, even though we are over 1/2 of the population. #YesAllWomen

— Eliza Skinner (@elizaskinner) May 24, 2014

"Can men really have it all? A family and a career?" Isn't a regular headline. #YesAllWomen

— TaylorAileenHarrison (@goldieharrison) May 25, 2014

"I have a boyfriend" is the easiest way to get a man to leave you alone. Because he respects another man more than you. #yesallwomen

— Rylah (@JBRylah) May 25, 2014

Because the friendzone is the fictional exile of the entitled. “Sexual partner” is not a woman’s default mode. #yesallwomen

— Harrison Mooney (@HarrisonMooney) May 25, 2014

we're trained to avoid stereotypical “abuser” types, but I was only abused by people who were supposed to love & protect me #YesAllWomen

— keply (@keplyq) May 25, 2014

Of all the things we're told to be scared of (Muslims, black men in hoodies) nothing terrifies quite like entitled white men #YesAllWomen

— Ally Maynard (@missmayn) May 26, 2014

"Hey will you wait and make sure I get into my apartment safely?" -Not men.

— Jhon Rules (@JhonRules) May 25, 2014

#YesAllWomen because I get asked about my relationship status and my diet before I get asked about my career at a family gathering.

— Rosenasty (@RoseNasty) May 25, 2014

Guy I went to high school with asked why I'm not married I was like I don't know why are u gettin drunk in a folding chair life is a mystery

— AmberTozer (@AmberTozer) May 26, 2014

Observations: 1) When people get defensive, it's because it hits too close to home 2) How many men do you know that carry a rape whistle?

— Sam Grittner (@SamGrittner) May 26, 2014

I think the reason this particular crime has had this kind of response was due in part to the disturbing videos the shooter put out beforehand, placing the blame squarely on his victims and describing what he was going to do to them because they didn't think he was as amazing as he did. But above and beyond that, more attention should be drawn to the fact that he purposefully distributed the videos to several people, all of whom who could have done something to stop him. And nothing was done. And people died. And this fucking asshole is getting publicity and even sympathy and it makes me want to scratch my own eyes out and punch a lot of people in the throat and I honestly don't even think I'm overreacting. (If you tell me that I am, you may be added to my throat-punch list.)

Anyway. I've been really agitated the last few days. I don't have the heart to link to the story or the youtube vidoes, but I'm sure they're not hard to find if you feel like you need to see them to understand what I'm talking about. I have more to say but I also have a baby to take care of, so. I guess that's it for now.

happy new year

whoever you want to be

Happy Birthday, Lissie.

Right Where I Am: 2013

Ailis - almost 6 years / Noah - almost 4 years

I don't track days anymore. I have to stop and count on my fingers, now, to be sure of the years that have passed. Ah, they would be so big! Kindergarten, for Lissie, can you imagine...?!

Alas, I cannot.

They have made me a mother but I am deprived of the experiences that make up the stories that make you friends on the outside. Prison terminology seems appropriate to me; babyloss is too much like a life-long sentence for the wrongfully accused, or maybe involuntary committal to a psych ward. Except there is no release for good behavior, no cure, and even if you escape, finally, on a rainbow, there's still a part of your life that almost no one will ever be truly comfortable hearing about unless they've been there too.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.*

My heart is changed. It contains more than I ever thought possible. It is bigger on the inside than on the outside, and through its transformation I became half time-lord, half human, all whole. I have gained a perspective that is dizzying and grounding at once. The universe fits inside of me. Profound and simple and holy and profane. There is room for you too, and in you too.

Mama, mama, be calm. We know how to wait. We are not afraid.
Be calm, mama. We'll wait.

My children are extraordinarily zen. They cannot teach, but I can learn. I suppose that's rather zen in itself.

Into the air, into the earth, into the fire. I am with you.**

Peace. Love. Light.

I am not broken, and neither are you.



*You do not have to be good, Mary Oliver
**Xenocide, Orson Scott Card

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You can read my previous years' posts here: Right Where I Am 2011 (Part I)(Part II) & Right Where I Am 2012, and link up with us on still life with circles.

style

You can't try to be somebody you're not; that's not style. If someone
says, "Buy this, you'll be stylish," you won't be stylish because you won't
be you. You have to learn who you are first, and that's painful.

Iris Apfel

I've been really wanting some new clothes, but I can't seem to find anything lately that speaks to me. I try to shop but the current trends don't fit my shape or my life and I leave frustrated. I'm struggling quite a bit with getting dressed in the mornings and I wish with increasing frequency that I could just walk around naked.

I think it's true that you have to know who you are to choose clothes you like and that you feel spectacular in. And it's true that the learning of it is painful, as any kind of honest self examination can be. I think the reason I want a new wardrobe and the reason I'm having trouble choosing it are the same: I feel like I'm at the start of a new chapter of my life, poised again on the brink of some major changes... But this time I'm not scared, or confused, or anxious. I've discovered that I'm not a lot of the things that I once assumed defined my existence. So how do I choose a look that conveys a state of mind I've never experienced before? How do I dress for a future I never thought I'd see?

destiny

with one glance of your eyes

You have captured my heart,
my treasure, my love.
You hold it hostage with one glance of your eyes.

Song of Solomon 4:9

the time it will take

Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.

Earl Nightingale

notable quotables

(a la Nadyne)

this terror and this beauty

The choice to love, to really love, is incredibly, ridiculously brave.

It is not a surrendering of self but rather, a time when you scramble a bit to find your footing, and then you stand in your own power and look the Vast Beast in the eye and say, “I choose this.” I choose this thing that can both protect me and tear me apart; that can and will bring me my most enthralling joys and my most excruciating and unanticipated pain. I choose the risk. I choose the possibility of endings. I choose to be as simpatico as old souls and to be equally, heartrendingly misunderstood. I choose to be at intervals rashly taken advantage of and unexpectedly worshiped. I choose this terror and this beauty. I choose love.


Rachelle Mee-Chapman, Magpie Girl

we learn nothing

We think of color blindness as a defect, but it enables those afflicted with it to see through camouflage.

Tim Kreider

John Lennon

When I'm dreaming it feels like the most real thing. Until I wake up, and awake feels like the most real thing instead. And if there is another state, after or outside of awake, maybe it's the realest thing yet. Like the first time I ever fainted, and I seemed to see events playing out from a long way off, speeding up and speeding up until I rushed into the present again, into my body and what was happening to it, into pain in my arms where my friends were gripping them to keep me from slipping further away, to keep my body from slipping as far as my mind had gone. I laughed, because they were gripping my arms so tight, as if that could keep me here. As if I were tangible.

I'd only gone for a minute. But I'd gone to where no one could reach me, and it was huge and narrow and pitch black and bright and full of colors and unutterably, ineffably real.

It was more real than my fingertips on a clacking keyboard and skinny dark letters appearing on a flat white screen in an attempt to make you see. It was more real than tick tick tick and imaginary measurements of time, more real than faith or science, more real than pain. And it made me laugh, that they wanted me back. I didn't particularly want to come back, although there was something, something important to do, and I was forgetting. I was already forgetting.


Afternoon ramblings sparked by this John Lennon quote.

the universe is in us

via Bits of Beauty

black & white

hush, hush, shhh

I think I will never have too much of the sound of the wind and the sea.
It reaches me in a way nothing else can.

----------

Not quite sure what's going to happen with S. It's not over yet, but it might be soon. I spent the weekend at the beach to distract myself from the fact that we decided to not speak for a few days, while we think things through.

It's been a really hard week. I don't know if we can bounce back or not. And I was right: it hurts. Even the not knowing hurts a lot. But this is what you open yourself up to, when you let yourself love someone.

I'm obsessing about it, even though I shouldn't. I can't help myself.

Or don't want to.

Either way.

----------

Hush, hush, says the ocean. Shhhh...