Routines

Today, was an interesting day. Unusual, to say the least. And apologies, loyal readers. Hello, haphazard stranger. A forewarning: Today was 'magical.'
I was woken at 10 am by the maintenance,  Sophia and I, and occasionally poor, congested Drake were awake until very late due to late naps. Well, it sucks when you wake up and have to let maintenance take over your bathroom. The kids were fantastic, no fusing or fighting. Sophie read Drake his Thomas the train book as they had breakfast. We paid a visit next door, both to use the restroom and gossip. I helped my elderly neighbor with a full head of hair pick out a wig. The kids came home easily and played well, and surprisingly watched Thomas and Diego while sitting next to each other sharing a blanket. Admittedly, there were disruptions. They really didn't bother the guys fixing the toilet much either. Found out one is a cousin by marriage, AND they cleaned up their mess. I chatted with my boss, and a friend through him. Talked about plants, growing things. People and spirits. Snakes.
It was raining today, but Spring rain makes the Summer bloom. Spring, it's here. Old man Winter is holding her tight, but his visit is over. They both know it. I know it, I FEEL it. Routines.
The rain dripping, tap-tap on the window. Ping! Ding! Tick! from the rain on the outside of the wall mounted air conditioning unit. I see the grass greening, the buds fattening on the trees and bushes. The weeds, such a loose word, poking sleepy fingers into the air. There is a treed strip outside my largest window between the complex and a field and creek. I am so lucky as to have a trail, well made, in view. I've sown wildflower seeds, and I will again after grandfather frost lets go. But I feel things growing. I've seen them in my garden. The daffodils and crocus will be ready for Easter. I have a forced Hyacinth not fully bloomed, potted 8 weeks, no refrigeration, except the extreme cold of my half underground apartment, with my uninsulated walls, and drafty single pane windows. That's another rant, though. I had my coffee and had none after 2pm, Drake agreed to lay down to bed, literally. Probably because his nap was interrupted, and our hour long dancing and jumping on mommy's giant and conveniently floor located bed. But Sophie never got her nap, because my dad dropped by. That was rather unpleasant. He accused me of being high, right off. Which, by the way, I was not. Sick, yes. But not stoned. I tried to engage him in conversation a couple of times, but he was playing with Sophie, and then Drake after they woke him up. I got a few replies, mostly cold or suspicious glares. My sister always talks about her conversations with my dad. She knows all about what he's been doing, but not only because she reads his journal. He talks to her. He will maintain a conversation easily and pleasantly with anyone but me. And me? Well I'm pissed off. I'm the one asking because I care. I'm the one who took care of you when you were sick. I stayed home from school when you had kidney stones. I slept on the hospital floor when you were there to keep you company. I who strove so hard for your approval, to be shot down from the beginning. I resented you for so long, for your sheer disinterest. I took to disappearing again, and never faced interest. Only ever accusations. Never yes I'd like to hear about your waterfall. Always, playing with fire? Smoking? Boys? I didn't even like boys. Cooties, and all that. But seriously, 14 years later. I am grown, with two healthy happy brilliant children, and he is still treating me like this? I can't even get a pleasant exchange? I was pissed. Sophie felt it, and had a meltdown. I decided to ignore her and tried to watch Grownups. It worked, except she needed the seat closest to the laptop, which I was using to watch. I gave in and she passed out. It is now 2:25 am and I've been at this more than two hours. Though there is more on my mind and I got majorly off topic, I am going to bed. More tomorrow.

Friendship

My daughter has managed to keep me up past 3am the last three or so nights. Tonight she passed out before 8pm, but I couldn't get my son to sleep until 10:30. Now, at 11pm, I find myself weary and restless. I was trying to watch Anna and the King on Netflix[dot]com. However, my internet does not want to cooperate.
Now, I have a desire to write a little.

 I think that everywhere I've ever been, I've managed to connect to someone; but first, I need to express something. That is, nowadays, society has become very withdrawn, introverted, distant.  It's all about stuff, not people. Everywhere you go, 99% of the conversations you have or overhear. [This goes back to my telling you about my exceptional observation abilities. I can't tune out background noise, rather, it draws my attention 87%. Sorry, but I am an eavesdropper, simply put; though not by choice.] One after another are about how much - when you tell someone about your job, do you also find yourself dropping your salary, talking about long hours? Some new thing you bought, how much it cost, high or low. Or you may hear a set of boys or girls talking about how many- Dude, you rock. Six chicks, dude! / Felicity is such a slut, six guys? Gross.                                                                                                                                                         Life used to be about family, friends, and neighbors. Now, it's all about what you got, and what can I get from you.
That's not me. I smile and say hello; please and thank you. I hold open doors and ask how you are today. I strike up conversations. I hope, that everywhere I've been, I've connected to someone; woken them. Come on, people. Where are you?
I'm an awkward sort. My childhood consisted of abuse of all kinds, the most damaging forces were the emotional sort. My family was so dysfunctional that I honestly don't know much about acceptable behavior and interaction, and yet, I make a new acquaintance everywhere I go. Somehow, I managed to be as lucky in friendship as I was unlucky on the home front.

The writing process, A history

Usually when I write, I follow a certain process. In school, They always wanted brainstorming, on paper. Webs and diagrams, outlines, flow charts. I don't do these things, not necessarily because I don't want or need to, but because I physically cannot.
Oh, I'm eloquent enough. I can get out what I want to say, clear, liquid flowing cohesive expression. But I can't write out how I got from A to B. No matter how I try. And I was always in trouble for not having edits on writing assignments. You see, I am so meticulous while writing, I don't often have to edit. There is a split screen in my head, simultaneously playing through what I'm writing, what I need to change, and how it will evolve. I only write when the inspiration hits, and my muse has ADD.
This has been causing problems in my writing here. I can't seem to write what I intended, and have started unleashing the past. And, I think I will continue.

Plant Lady, Part III

Be forewarned, I lost what I had planed to write here while sleeping, so I apologize in advance for my lack of flow and cohesiveness.
Well, I've been trying to write on and off all day, unable to decide on what to say today. And here it is, 1:03AM, as inspiration takes me. Oh, I am a night-owl! Redundant, no? But you know what I mean, and my kids love the morning sunshine. So, off we go!
I've always loved the outdoors, and animals. Particularly puppies and cats of any age. And I've always been... what's the word? Independent, aloof, mischievous, inquisitive. All of these things, and on top of this, alert and calculating. I literally have a catalog in my brain, everything I've read, watched, seen, heard. I can honestly say I remember 85-90% of the events of my daily life from age 3 to present. I have a section on road maps and trails. Everywhere I've been, since I was 7. Survival instincts, photographic memory, whatever you chalk it up to, I put it to good use. At age 7, when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, "A con-artist, like Catwoman."
I was an escape artist. Four years old and I would slip out of the yard and through the trailer park to the back, where there were always stray and pet puppies and kittens. Now, when I said slip, I meant I would weave between the trailers, avoiding the roads like when we played hide and seek. Though I talked with whomever I encountered. I knew many people, especially older folks, through the park. Many days when I was older and allowed to run with friends we didn't come home for lunch, it being provided 'long with lemonade or koolaid by one of many elderly ladies who'd previously needed garbage taken out, mail collected from/or taken to the post house, or flowerbeds weeded and/or watered.
When I was four or five it was common occurrence when we were at the grocery store or mall for me to "vanish." Even when leashed, I would free myself, leash the little girl my mom babysat, and disappear. I could be found in the toys, or Disney store, up on the stuffed animal display below the movie screen. This behavior continues to present, though much more predictable now that I have children.
This trait of mine was most pronounced during early puberty, when I found my family didn't quite like me, and I found I didn't quite belong. I was five or six the first time I went into the woods, and I remember many adventures in them, but not which particular trip was first. There was going into the woods behind Grams' (My dad's mom) with uncle Chuck and all my cousins. Mom, Krissy (My sister, Kristina), and me going through the wooded trails between the park and the farmer's backyard where the blackberries grew. The time she took me and Krissy down the trail to the river, and I was right at home on that steep muddy hill, like an elf, like a deer. And Kristina so clumsy, she tripped on a root, and then again, slipped on the river bank rocks. We weren't allowed to go down there anymore, but I'd already been, seen and collected the pretty rocks and shells and flowers. The trail was so easy, right off the back corner of the trailer park. Soon, I was going every chance.
My Grams, she's a religious lady. I grew up going to church weekends with my dad, Grams, sister, and extended family. Southern Baptist was her brand, and probably my favorite out of established branches of Christianity. But my brand is not her brand, and probably not yours, either. That's a whole n'other philosophical and theological discussion, though. She had strong opinions, too. And well, she didn't like my mom. You see, my mom was promiscuous in her adolescence, 19 when she had my brother. For whatever reason, she convinced a man who was not his father to marry her and gave my brother his last name. When it was discovered that my mother's husband, and his mother, were abusing my brother, my Grandpa quickly ensured with a shotgun a quick absolving of the marriage. Four years later, my parents marry; and a year later my sister is born. Get this, moms birthday- May 2, dad- April 2, brother- April 12, sister- May 12. Me? December 29.
My mother was, much like my sister is now, a shopaholic. Also, a hypochondriac. She had four separate doctors, each told a separate set of symptoms gleaned from a medical text. One of these doctors prescribed a trial medication, that in combination with other prescriptions and genetic predisposition, triggered the onset of my mom's paranoid schizophrenia when I was three years old. That year my mom sewed my zebra blanket, and I watched her descend into madness further and further as she started the story-pillow set. She spent some time in a ward. She painted a picture of our trailer while she was there, I still have it.
And then the divorce. I was always mommy's little princess. You see, my sister has a degenerative hip disorder, Legg Perthes, and spent most of her 3rd grade to 5th grade in the hospital prepping for and recovering from multiple surgeries and physical therapy. Before then she'd been in beauty pageants and gymnastics. No wonder we've never been close. On one hand the crippled diva, the other the wild Fae. For a long time, I believed my Grams when she said I was a changeling, and what was wrong with Krissy and I growing up to be like mom? She was fun, beautiful, loving, ethereal. She told wonderful stories.
I didn't know, but I knew I didn't like all that yelling.
I took to the woods full time after dad got custody of us when I was 7, when Gram's started babysitting sis and I. From 4pm to 1-3AM weekdays and all day most Saturdays.
I'd always played outside a lot, but when Gram's started babysitting it became apparent that she favored my cousins. They would get snacks [Ho-hos, oatmeal cream pies, cookies, pop] after school, sis and I got nothing until dinner. My oldest cousin had her own room, the younger slept in Gram's bed. My sister and I slept on the living room floor. I tended to stay outside until dinner, and right back out until dark if I was allowed. I roamed the creek and woods, pretending to be a landscaper, an indian, a priestess. I built TPs, forts, tents, and huts. I was out, year round, except for the worst of storms. When I wasn't pretending, I was reading. Words, words are my air. Information my food. The stories, my life.

And it is getting late, lack of sleep is wearing on me, and this has gotten longer than I intended, and has not come close to what I wanted to write about. I guess I will continue to unleash the past until I can embrace the present.

Plant Lady, Part II

Let me tell you about my love of growing things. I love moss, flowers, weeds, trees, and everything that grows. I've always loved flowers. I can remember watching my mom garden before the divorce. First the crocus, daffodils and tulips, pinks (My favorite scent) and pansies. Then marigold and petunia, clematis, azelias. Summer with the roses and phlox. And the spring we planted a tree in the front yard. We planted pansies all around it.
After the divorce, and after my dad won custody of us when I was 7 years old, those pansies were still growing, barely, but with love and patience, they got strong enough to bloom. I remember tending what was left of the flower beds. And convincing my dad to buy flowers each spring and summer, augmenting with my collections of dug up wild flowers, and occasionally something from a neighbors garden.
When I was 9, we moved to Loveland, and we had a huge yard. I staked out the back corner around a tree stump, and slowly my garden grew.
I tend more towards bulbs, tubers, and rhizomes. I have daffodils, tulips, gladiolas, iris, rose, crocus, hosta, fern, blackberry, narcissus, sedum, hyacinths, minor coreopsis (what I call Buttercp Death), day lilies, naked ladies, columbine, oatgrass, dutchman's breeches, and many more. I also love herbs. Sage, and thyme, lavander, and three mints. Basil, rosemary, chamomile.

I spent my childhood in the creeks and woods around wherever I was, around the trailer park I grew up in, around the HUD house in Lebanon, and all around Loveland. Even in the holler, that's the tail end of a mountain valley, when we visited my great-grandma in Fireco, West Virginia.
I would comb the creeks for pretty stones, lots of quartz. Rearrange the stones, and build waterfalls and pools. Plant wildflowers along the creek and in the woods. Pick bouquets and berries. I've found shells, bones, fossils, arrowheads. I am a force of chaotic good. I set out to do, to fix something; it may not go as I had thought I planned it, but usually ends well.

Nothing especially bad has happened in my life, plenty of bad things. Don't get me wrong. But I'm alive, sound, healthy, and for the most part happy.
I love my kids, and would do anything for them. I love my wonderful boyfriend. I know who my real friends are, and love them. I love my job, my boss and his wife, and the circle of people he's introduced me to. I even love my family, crazy though they are. I love my life right now, I've come so far these last two years I can hardly believe I'm still me. I feel it can only get better.
But alas, whatever time it says, it is actually 1:20 am, and I shall be lucky if my kids sleep until 9. So g'night or g'day as the case should happen to be, and I'll ramble on in Part III.

I'm the Plant lady!

[Secret Message!]
Do Not read!
If you clicked the link I sent you, and read what follows, I apologize for releasing a snippet of our conversation, but I assure you it is purely my side of the conversation, and only because I feel like it's a perfect representation of me. You know who you are.
Love megs
[End Secret Message.]


                          "I was trying to grow a clematis, a flowering vine on the fence. My dad kept cutting it down, over and over again. But I nurtured it anyway. Watered it, fertilized it. It didn't grow any that year, but I put up a frame, and the next spring it started to grow again. It made it off the frame and onto the fence before it got cut down again. But I tended it, and loved it, and told it I appreciated it. I'm waiting to see it this spring, and I won't let it get cut down again.
True story. But a good analogy. Find you roots, who you are and what makes you tick, and stretch them out, and then you grow your main vine up, up, up to the part of you that'll never quite change and grab it! Then you grow your other vines up and grab onto everything you love. Some wither, some split, some twine. And when you are balanced and nurtured, you will bloom.
Does that make sense at all?"

Addicted...

Well, two posts in 24 hours, and I want to write another. Things to do, things to do.
I think I'm addicted. And on top of that, miss Jenny thinks I should expand on each event of my life and turn it into a story. Hahaha. I've always said my life feels like it'd be a great movie. Well, I actually say book. But I don't know anyone who worships books like I do. It's not just books though, any word... Hmmm, this begs explaination. I love words, all words, any word. You're aware I took three languages in high school? Through German, I was too timid to really pick it apart. One of two females, in a class of 22. In French, my teacher hated me, because we were to memorize phrases, and I wanted to know the meaning, use, and conjugation of each word. Spanish... Well, I slept. I was pregnant, school, working my butt off, and then missed a month after I had my daughter, and well, I slept.