My friends and I circle things.

We circle things that need focus, that need support, that need energy and prayer and love and light.

There’s more to it, but let me just begin today by asking for some circles.

I’ve got two friends across the country who are dealing with parental health issues. It’s strange, when we get into this demographic, to think that THIS is what we are thinking about. Worrying about. Dealing with.

I’ve got another friend who is the pillar of support for a family member dealing with Fucking Cancer. It’s exhausting and weary.

Kikimama’s lump has returned. When we had it removed this year, it too was fuckingcancer. So I’ll schedule an appointment and get her in to see the doc.

Life, I think, has a way of giving us the extra whatever to deal with this. It levels a whole lot of shit out, so that we’re able to deal with the bigger shit.

Maybe that’s just ridiculous logic. Maybe it holds water. Either way,

Put us all in your healing energy love power praying support circles today.

 

I think that sometimes after a big big event, where I am just completely blissed out and refueling for the days ahead, I think I go into a slight depression afterwards.  I miss being around the people I’ve been around. I miss their voices and their laughter and their energy. I get a little nutty in my head because I think I’m going nutty when really, all it is is that excess bliss I’ve absorbed trying to find space and get comfortable inside of me.

I worry that the connections I’ve made are all in my head, that they aren’t really real and that it was all just a dream…so I hone in on something…latch on and just focus on it to keep it all alive. Seeking validation, affirmation…putting one foot on the floor to stop the spins and make sure there is something solid underfoot.

I’ve been that way today.

Last night, really.

I felt just incredibly lonely. I was sad for my classmate at school who unloaded all about her fresh break-up and imminent divorce the minute I removed my ear buds and quit listening to music.

I was sad because it was so quiet here and the laughter that I was so used to seemed so far away.

It’s all connected to this time of year. It’s my power time. I feel more in tune with the energy around me during these months on the calendar than I do during the rest of the year. All of my senses are at attention, my witchy blood starts to boil a bit, things seem achievable. Like I can just manifest whatever I’m focused on.

Sometimes my focus skews a little left and manifests some wonky shit.

Why yes. Yes I will give you an example.

While the energy crackles and I seem to really have it all together,  the loneliness can sometimes be palpable. So of course, thoughts go to rectifying that situation, daydreams happen, whatever.

I got asked out yesterday.

By someone who I’d already been sort of set up with years ago. And for reasons that I will only give as “I came in 2nd place” and “whew” I absolutely knew that this was a song that I wasn’t about to sing again.

It felt icky. And I felt icky. And compound that icky with the icky from my classmates divorce story and toss in the feelings of withdrawl from my mountain people…

I was a hot mess on the way home last night.

But I got an A- on my literary criticism paper with some quality remarks on it.

And my friend’s lesbian aunt gave me some sweetass compliments online yesterday.

And I had a great conversation with another friend who said perhaps some of the nicest words to me I’ve heard in a very long time.

So the loneliness went away. And it felt like all was right with the world again.

The same and not the same.

I do think that’s called balance.

 

 

 

 

In a year that started out worse than any that I can remember in my 41 years on the planet, I have somehow managed to take every opportunity to travel, or to do something new or different, everything that came my way I figured out a way to say yes to it and to find the lesson in it. I’ve had moments of guilt, though. Like I shouldn’t be traveling as much as I did, or seeing the people that I’ve seen, or laughing as much and loving as much as I have this year because I should be grieving. It’s a strange break in my brain. I know it’s a ridiculous thing, but please note the name of this blog.

I rest my case.

—————————————————————-

 

I went to Harvest Fest for Fall Break. It is a bluegrass/folk/indie rock festival that takes place atop Mulberry Mountain in Ozark, Arkansas. This is the same venue, the same producing company that puts on Wakarusa, the fest that Trish, Gabe and I went to last year. Trish and I had this planned and on our calendars since the early Spring, and then when they moved to Florida this summer, it was solidified. We were going to meet on our mountain in October. We were going to camp and listen to great music, and enjoy Fall weather and de-stress from Life. The plan went from great to BRILLIANT when we added in Gabe’s best friends, the Twins, and Brad and Lisa who are Trish’s friends and mine through her. Mark finished up our group. He is a longtime friend of Brad and Lisa’s, and had hung out with Trish maybe four or five times previous to this. I didn’t know him but for a brief meeting at Brad’s birthday party early this summer.

SO. On Wednesday afternoon, the Twins arrived from Norman at my house, loaded their stuff in with mine, and we three headed West. Trish and Gabe had left Florida early that morning and we were planning our early arrival to the campground to stake our claim. Traffic jams and a variety of delays later, we met, we drove, we claimed our spots and proceeded to set up a campsite that would befit JayZ and Beyonce. The setting up is the worst part. It’s after 10pm, it’s dark, we’re among the group of people who paid for early admission, we’re excited to see our friends and just want it to all BE DONE! I couldn’t remember how to assemble my rain tarp that goes over the tent. I forgot one of the lanterns. I didn’t remember to charge up the automatic inflating device on my mattress. I forgot my rain boots. I was tired. My brain and my heart and my body were being held together by stress and I just wanted to be finished with this part and having fun. Trish killed her car battery. Seriously dead. Phones were dying, my car has to run to charge a phone, and service was sketchy to non-existent and we needed to know when our friends were arriving the next day.

Farfughumph.

A good night’s sleep in the mountain air made things so much better. We had morning coffee from the best most amazing propane camp coffee maker ever designed. Our friends drove up and I saw the moment it happened so that connection happened easy. We took their gear over and help set up camp, and decided that since we had appropriated about one and a half extra campsites to ourselves, that we’d make our place the base camp.

With everything settled and set up, it was time for some fun.

 

We got some beer,  got to the venue and proceeded to make one of the most epic group trips in history come to life. There was music and bands that took us completely by surprise. There was tentative initiating of friendships and reconnection with those already in place. The stage was set for something special to happen. I made the statement, “we will leave this mountain forever changed.” Which was pretty bold considering we were 2 hours in to a 4 day festival. But I had a feeling…we were on the precipice.
And then the rains came.

 —————————————————————

I was cruising through the channels last week, or possibly cleaning out my DVR and came across an episode of Oprah’s Last Chapter. She was interviewing T.D. Jakes, a pretty well known tv preacher. I haven’t ever watched him, someone bought me one of his books at one time but I’ve never read it. So I paused and took a listen. He was preaching on the scriptures that tell the parable of the loaves and fishes. The story says that Jesus and the disciples were among a crowd of 5000 men, not counting the women and children among them, and the time came to provide some nourishment, something to sustain them. When all that was procured were five loaves of bread and two fish, it is written that Jesus took what was offered and gave thanks to God for that. It then multiplied and fed the crowd.

Now, I’m not interested in your belief system with this post. I’m not asking you to suspend any kind of disbelief and buy into it. I read it now through a lens that is colored by my reading of Christopher Moore’s Lamb, so I’m coming at it from a different place, too.

What I want to point out, what the tv preacher also pointed out that stuck with me was the part where Jesus gave thanks for the five loaves and two fish. He gave thanks for something that was not enough. He gave thanks for something that was not enough, it was not what he asked for, not what was needed. 

He was thankful for that which was not perfect. 

It then, and only then, became enough.

It became what he asked for.

It became what was needed.

It became perfect.

————————————————————————–

The rains came.

And they stayed for about 5 hours.

And I had flip flops, a pair of Tom’s, and my good Nike’s. No boots. Gabe forgot her’s too.

I had the foresight to bring my NorthFace and ponchos. I chose the flip flops.

Everyone geared up, suited up, did the best we could with what we had, and trudged out into the slanty sideways rain and saw what I will forever believe to be, the best day of live music in the history of music festivals. Mark and I “rushed the stage” and got up close to Brown Bird, thus making way for the first of many new talent crushes I would develop over the course of the festival. We then slogged our way over to the big tent, and while there was nothing beating down on us, we were in mud.

How many of you have traipsed across a mountain in ankle deep mud…wearing flip flops?

There is no traction.

There IS, however, pretty amazing suction.

I reached a point where I gave up and took them off and walked among the hippies as one of their own.

It’s a good damned thing I’m not a prissy girl because that in itself would’ve made me cry. The porta-pottie situation on top of that would’ve sent me to the hospital.

The rain didn’t let up. It was after one really random set with a song that had the lyrics: “I peed on a bird. I peed on a bird. I stood on the edge of a cliff, and I peed on a bird.” that I decided to just bend. Accept what was being offered and give thanks for it. This was going to be something that we could either embrace and be in the moment or it could be ruint.

RUINT.

Ruint is the new YOLO, by the way. *inside joke what will forever make me laugh*

We chose beer. And we chose fried oreos. And we chose dancing. And this group of people metaphorically pushed all of our chips to the middle of the table.

All. In.

I got to see Shua and hug him. I saw wish lanterns lighting up the big sky. I danced in the mud under a giant lit up octopus puppet. I sang Gin & Juice at the top of my lungs, and laughed at our camp revisions to the song. Trish’s car got fixed. We ate amazing brisket that Brad brought. We laughed and laughed and laughed. I made a new friend in Mark, someone that I’d never met before this and bless his heart, he was the one closest to me when I cried…you knew that was going to happen. I cried because I was so full of love for my friends, old and new, and because the music was so beautiful and the moments that made up the day were so perfect, so brilliantly perfect that it hurt and I had to make room for more to fit inside of me.

There are many stories that happened to make up the moments, and many moments between moments that will forever connect this group together. Random, crazy, laugh till you cry kind of moments.

My favorite one was towards the end of this water logged, mud squished day, during a set by honeyhoney when I looked over and saw a guy dressed up like Jesus surrounded by a group of people and he was holding the inside bladder of a box of wine above each of them and giving them a drink.

It wasn’t the most random thing that went down on that mountain, but for me, it certainly was the most vivid, most obvious sign of the lesson I was to learn.

You must surround yourself by true, authentic people and those relationships will sustain you. You should take risk and seek out new experiences as often as possible. And sometimes, sometimes when you bless what is broken, and give thanks for what isn’t enough, you have a day that changes you.

Forever.

Well it’s over. I got up this morning, took my test, came home, started some laundry and slept for three hours.

I didn’t do fabulous.

I did well on the verbal. I could do better. I don’t get the scores to the analytical until they come in the mail in a few weeks. The math, the quantitative reasoning? I scored 8 points higher than the lowest possible score.

I have no idea what any of that means anymore. The numbers and the lines and the letters.

So I will be taking it again. I will spend some time really working on my verbal and analytical and take some practice tests. I’m going to schedule some help with the math. I have to. Because seriously, I don’t think anyone believes me when I say, if it is any step higher than basic math, then I’m out. I don’t have it.

I may need to schedule my test for the afternoon next time. This morning, I was really aware of how sleepy I got mid-way through. How my brain quit absorbing the words I was reading, which in turn ate up time when I had to re-read for comprehension, which in turn stressed me out because the clock was ticking down. Ugh.

But I can do it. I haven’t quite blessed it and let it go. It’s still in my mind, wiggling about and poking. There is some disappointment though I knew full well that there was no preparation time given to this round. Someplace up in that brain of mine, was some random thought that I might just pull it off and be successful the first time.

Now, I’m not knocking the verbal scores I got. Those are good. They could be better, but they, as it stands, would get me into grad school today.

But I’m not applying to grad school.

I’m applying to ph.d programs, where everyone applying is better.

So. Now the list includes study time for the next round of testing, which I believe will all fall in the week of my birthday. That’s just fine. Bring it.

For now, I’m prepping to leave it all. I’m going to get up tomorrow, load the car, fill it with gas, go to class for a 20 minute writing assignment, go to the salon for an hour and a half appointment and bang a little hair. I will pick up the twins, Gabe’s friends and we shall reload the car and hit the road.

Four hours away we will meet our girls, go up that mountain and build our campsite. We will gorge on the outdoors, on the music and on friends.

There will be a little work each day, as coming back on Monday I’ve got things due. But for the majority of the time, I’m going to be.

Just be.

I’ll use the time to disconnect. To focus on the last part of this semester. To make a plan to attack the tests again.

And I’ll come back fighting.

It’s the day of the test, ya’ll.

As I went to sleep, I repeated the mantra, “It will be fine. You can take it again. Go do what you can do.”

Here’s what I know.

With some reasonable, meditative kind of mindset my chances of doing well on the Reasoning and the Verbal are beyond good. My chances of doing well on the Quantative are dependent on how calm I can remain and not block myself because I have the fear of the math, and the lack of any recall on doing anything aside from counting and basic functions.

It was years ago, grade school years, when I was diagnosed with dyscalculia. I remember having to do “therapy” but that wasn’t ever really enforced at home, so it just kind of went away. I flip numbers. I skip, skim, delete numbers altogether. At that point, comprehension becomes a mute point.

But I have people in my life who can and will help me, should I decide do to this a second time and raise that score.

I know that the admittance is not based solely on this test score.

I also know that everyone applying to these programs will be the best of the best.

I want to be part of that group.

No matter what happens, this will be done by 1:00 pm today. During these morning hours, in that moment between thoughts, as you’re applying on some chapstick, or refilling your cup of tea, as you’re walking from your car into work, or trying not to get frustrated on your commute because there’s some jackhole on your train that smells like patchouli, in that space between the space in your brain…

send a little focus my way, would you?

Buster sent me a GRRR GRRRRRRRRR which translates into KICK THIS TEST’S BUTT! (I’m sure)

For you, Buster, I will give it my all.

 

The wedding was wonderful. The day of getting ready was fun, and full of music and laughter and hairspray. The venue was gorgeous and candle lit. The room was full of friends, smiling with support. As the bride walked down the aisle to her groom, I was immediately back in high school, and we were children, giggling and getting ready to “go out” and talking about who we liked, who we wanted to see. Double dates and late night girl talks that ended with

“I love Vernon.”

And Saturday night, they stood before all of us and told each other that they still loved each other, and that they always would, and they kissed and we clapped and the party began!

Save one tiny blurp with the photobooth malfunctioning and the kid working the even being a total assbag, it was a night of perfection.

The new Mr. and Mrs. dropped by last night, retrieving the bits and pieces of theirs that I got home with, taking home a container of homemade soup that I made yesterday, leaving me some wedding cupcakes…and we were just worn out. Exhausted.

It was a love hangover, to be sure.

Reality sets in with today, school, classes, research and studying for me. I take the GRE tomorrow. I have to be at the test site at 7:30 a.m.

I know I’m going to take this again. I’ve planned it that way. But it would be amazing if I could blow it out of the water and not really have to, wouldn’t it? I got my subject test scheduled officially. I had to switch locations from Stillwater to Weatherford, which sucks for my birthday celebrations that were going to happen afterwards, but whatever. I would just make poor choices for my life if I were in Stilly. At least it’s scheduled.

After the test tomorrow, I do my provision shopping for Harvest Fest, and home to ready the house and working on getting homework and projects posted for my online class.

Thursday we leave, bright and early and head for the mountain, where friends will meet up, set up our commune, and listen to some music for three days.

That kind of reality, does not bite. Not at all.

 

There are moments in life, that just add up to magic.

That is the only explanation.

Magic.

And if we’re lucky, if we are really good and we brush our teeth and floss and wash our make up off and do the dishes and take out the trash on time and make sure that the vegetables in the crisper don’t rot before we eat them, and then actually eat them, if we are really really good…perhaps…

We get just such a moment.

It’s such a crapshoot, really, because who, if they are brushing their teeth and flossing even and washing with the expensive face wash, and remembering to do the dishes and get the crusty bits off BEFORE loading the dishwasher, and taking out the trash, and passing up that mac & cheese for an extra helping of turnip…WHO has TIME to be aware that they are in the middle of a magical moment?

Some days it’s just a win if I have a pillowcase.

However, on the off chance that one of the voices in my brain has done their yoga, and is all zen’d out, and happens to be driving the bus that day, moments of magic seem to be all around.

This is a weekend of magic. Lucky for me, I’ve won the game of craps, and am aware.

Oh am I aware.

Tomorrow night, two people, that I have known for the majority of my life, are pledging to love each other and be best friends forever.

I will go to my hometown tomorrow and hang dresses of silk and taffeta and sparkle, I will do the hair of women and children that are my heart, I will slip into shoes that may or may not kill me and whoever I take down in the process…

but I will be there.
in the thick of it.

relishing in the love, knee deep in a bliss that began over twenty years ago.

It gives me hope.

Just that…

It still happens.

I am in the midst of miracle.

and wonder.

and magic.

 

I snoozed on my alarm for over an hour this morning.

Last night was a no sleep night.

Too much going on in my brain. Too much caffeine. Wednesday night is TV night with Michael, and we begin after I get home from class, so we eat late. . . and they’re always bizzert.

I lay awake in my bed last night, trying to de-stress my body. I could feel the tension in my feet, my legs, my back, my wrists. I did some breathing, some stretching, I tossed and I turned. I smooth out kicked Sammy in the whiskers. I got up and had some grapefruit juice. I contemplated just getting up because as apparent on the list in my head, I had reading and things to do.

Sometime in that delirium I fell asleep. And five minutes later the alarm went off, and I didn’t know where I was, what day it was, what I had to do today, where I had to do it.

Tonight begins the wedding events. Rehearsal for Missy and Vernon’s wedding followed by a truly hometown meal of onion burgers! I picked up my dress last night. It’s just a titch too short in my opinion. But I need a spray tan, so maybe that will help. Tomorrow. Hopefully I can schedule that tomorrow. Tomorrow night, just a quiet little girls night dinner with the bride, then Saturday two things happen.

It’s the Wedding Day! Lot’s of hair to do, fun to have and memories to make!

Hell, in fact, appears to start freezing over.

It’s a crazy cold front. Record Breaking Wedding Weather! (what is it this year with the wedding weather?) The high is 49.

The Universe may be giving credence because it took this couple 25 years to get it together. I wouldn’t be surprised if at one time in their post-high school glory, one or both uttered the phrase, ‘when hell freezes over’, in regards to their relationship’s longevity.

Heh.

I’m excited to be a part of this amazing thing. I’ve got more to write about them, but right now I’ve got to clean my self and get to the salon and do a way with the bride’s roots.

 

I am acutely aware of how fast time is passing me by.

I don’t know when I became aware. I know that when I was young and would make a comment on how fast the summer went by all of the grownup’s would just cluck cluck cluck, tsk tsk tsk and say, “The older you get, the faster time moves.”

Maybe they engrained a fear in me. Deep seeded, rooted in the idea that my whole like could pass and I wouldn’t have paid a bit of attention to it.

I am acutely aware.

Every month when I send the bank my mortgage payment I think two things:

a) we get to stay here another month.

b) didn’t I JUST do this?

From the beginning of this semester, I knew that life would be nuts. So many things to accomplish, deadlines to meet, pieces of business to work out. Knowing is one thing, living it is a horse of a nuther feather. I’ve whined and complained and taken myself completely out of my social circle.

Don’t ask me. Just support me. Like that cheating-ass robot from the future, “I’ll Be Back.” Understand that this is what I have to do. I have to close myself up in my house, or at the library and get this work finished. It is important to me, and imperative to my cause. Believe me, no one is looking more forward to Christmas break than this girl. I promise you that.

And it will be here in a blink.

This month is mid-terms, papers due, exams taken. It’s Fall Break and HarvestFest. It’s Fall Fest and family. It’s the GRE/round one. It’s birthdays of two women who hold pieces of my heart wherever they go. It’s a chill in the air, it’s sweatshirts and long pants and snuggly kitties and the beginning of my favorite time. My power time.

My calendar for Saturday’s in November are already booked, save one, with tests for college, literary conferences**, and holidays. Boom. Done.

I am determined, however, to not let it pass me by without recognition. It’s too beautiful to let go without experiencing it. So, this morning as I’ve got on my sweatshirt and sip my coffee, as I ruminate on the week ahead that will bring about glorious celebrations, and fierce deadlines, I take a moment and feel gratitude.

Because I am acutely aware of how fast it is all going. . .

and because we get to stay here another month.

Cheers, ya’ll.

 

**I was notified yesterday that my paper submission was accepted for presentation at the literary conference held yearly at my university. It’s a pretty big deal, with international participation as well as possible publication. I like the topic of my paper, so it won’t be awful. Though now…I guess I’d better write the damned thing.

 

I finished the novel A Handful of Dust, last night and completed my homework postings. I went into the reading with a hearty approval for it by Trish, who said it was one of her faves. I was excited to be excited about this one.

Satire is some of my favorite stuff. It really is. Waugh is pretty genius at conveying his disdain for the triviality with which his characters live their lives. Aristocracy and the working man, life and death, relationships that are just as much a facade as anything else, he covers it in this one.

In researching him, it was pointed out repeatedly his disdain for the modernization of society, the commerce, the ‘advances’ made in the name of progress. His true love was the England of old. Written in the 1930’s, Britain was really struggling with the repercussions of the Stock Market Crash of ’29, the politics were unsteady with great upheaval with the Labour Party. All of this is at the base, in the pulse, of this book. The humor, the brilliant dry crispy tickity tackity clip of the conversations, moves the pace and the story along without the reader even knowing it.

There’s a scene that shows Tony and his friend Jock getting snotfaced drunk, or ‘tight’ as it were. It’s one of the most brilliant drunk scenes I’ve ever read. I could see the farcical circles within the conversations, stumbling over feet, words, thoughts, curbs. Love love love it.

I’ve never read or seen Brideshead Revisited. He’s famous for that one, too. There is a movie version of this one, starring Kristen Scott Thomas in one of her first roles.

 

We’ve two more novels in this class and then it’s finished. I’m beginning a Graham Green piece this weekend. One more that I’ve never read. As is par for the syllabus, I’ll keep you posted.