The other day I saw a huge weed at the side of my art space building...it was a huge tree. Kind of embarrassing that I let it get that big, but it seemed to have emerged from no-where overnight. When I say "it was a huge tree", I really mean most would have mistaken it for a sapling tree (it was big as far as weeds go). I looked at it and thought that I would call Bernardo, my lawn care guy, and tell him to uproot it next time he came. As I thought this I was walking towards it getting a good look up close. Just as I thought, it was huge and beyond my gardening skills. But for some reason, I bent and grabbed it by its base and pulled with all my might...the craziest thing happened: it came up with ease and I fell back on the grass (having exerted too much energy). That "huge" weed had little to no root system.

Though it looked impressive from the ground up (making me think I couldn't up root it), it had nothing holding it underneath. This made me think of so many things in my life that intimidate me from the outside. There are things that I don't do because it seems too hard, too deep, too insurmountable...too everything. There are walls that I don't try to scale because I don't know where to start or because it looks to big for me. This weed showed me the power of perception and the beauty of truth. My perception was, "it's too big for me to remove". The truth was, "it had no root system". What things really are and how they look often exists a disparity. How many things have I not done because I believed the perception instead of what was truth. Sometimes, truth takes a little digging to find. But the moment we start it becomes evident. I'm no longer going to let the weeds in life intimidate me. The least I can do is dig...chances are that what lies beneath is doable.

Action does have magic in it and a grace to fulfill that which calls you with an unknown name...we inhabit a life larger that the life we now live...we inhabit the world. Growing more into me everyday in that way that makes me say... it's good to be freely me. Taste good being the most real fruit of your self that you have seen. And, we can't help but acknowledge the way of our being and how it beckons us to come. How it insists upon our presence at the table of who we were born to be. In flux this being is, in movement our souls grow and become. Not stagnant, not still but it is an ever expounding reality that shows us glimpses of who we are in that secret place that we have yet to find and in a language we are currently learning. The adjectives, verbs and nouns take shape with each passing day and we soar on the whispers of our hearts and visions of our minds eye...and we FLY..., FLY..., FLY...

Flying, with purpose even though the direction is not clear...what calls us though blurry in form is most indeed in front of us, so we fly: to parts unknown by the only known part of us...this is the exciting and exhilarating task. it is a drink of nectars far and deep and of the most delectable tree...the tree of being our selves. FULLY. This is the journey: to be who we are. For who I was yesterday is no more and who I am becoming has yet to appear, but i see her silhouette and I dance towards her shadow cast on the grass of the path that I am on. And in this dance I am fed...and am feeding my soul in ways that I have never. Thank you God for the chance to dance and fly...

On thinking green...

the colour green has been speaking to me...maybe it's the hope of what it represents. the fresh cutting of grass. the arrival of spring on a 727. or maybe it's just the bright happiness of the colour. anyway, i hear my soul speaking, chatting up a storm when i see this colour: dream the dreams soon forgotten. forget what was said of you when. be the person you alone know you could be. and, don't go down the road of, " i forgot what i thought about me in kindergarten" and only remember that me from what they said in grad school and the rest of the professional existence. so i was a bad employee and talked all the time...i can do nothing but talk. talk i did, about everything from morning cereal to fears of the soul...to the latest song on vh1's artist you "oughta know". spring is alive in my heart and shoes, and i run to it. i jump in it with as much know how as i had when i started school...or looked up school: can't remember which one it is. needless to say, i am naive. but...HOPEFUL. and this is what keeps me going towards that me in the green...the green. oh yeah...green is my colour. my colour of starting what i thought that i finished but didn't quite start, but knew that i needed to...green come get me. oh, the green...

So i am thinking and felt the need to write...a song dips from my lips and tells me to be ok with who i am and am trying to be. i am a daughter of the world...the stories of everyone speaks to me and tells me to write. i have to write. clears my head makes my eyes shinny again; crystallizing all that i see and feel. there seems to be so many stories...hope they come soft enough so that i can pick one and go on with it till it has spoken it's final syllable.

you ever know something great is about to break...feel like you have stepped into a new life...a comfort settles and whisks you away with this truth and it is not labour but an immense satisfaction in just being...being grateful for the moment that brings this new life to your door. grateful for the knowledge of what will come. just some thoughts i wanted to write down.

Hanging with Caya...

Since Caya has come...a new me has appeared. Well maybe this me was here all along but needed a nudge in the right direction. I am growing and doing things that I always thought was possible for everyone else...I feel free. strong. on purpose...the music fills the space between and I am dancing within. Being called up is wonderful...Caya's birth has called me up. and I am answering the call. I hear Brett Dennen saying, "tell them this child has grown". Yeah...tell them, because this is the truth. This child has grown and will grow even more. I see who I can be...and WILL be in the light of her eyes...they speak loud and with love telling me to go on and be me with all the glorious...oh, the glorious

On Being Pregnant...

Six weeks ago I found out I was pregnant. My world came tumbling down. You see there were so many things that I still wanted to do: places that had been calling my name for years, that I had yet to touch. There's Greece, with its white washed buildings set amidst blue skies and sea. There's the great expanse of Australia calling me to it, to live in its outback for a few months or years. And most importantly, I had envisioned myself so much farther on the course of the trajectory of me, by now. So sadly, nothing in me screamed Hoorah for baby X. All I felt was fear and a feeling akin to being at the top of a roller coaster before it descends down a great and turbulent hill. Everything in my body says, "no!", but it's too late, the damned thing won't stop and let me off. Well, not just yet. I will have to scream and cry down the entire harried path before it screeches to a halt as it enters the unloading zone. The main difference between this and my reality is that I have to elect to get on the roller coaster. I did not elect to be pregnant. Not now, at least. And, aside form the obvious, having sex with husband, I implemented all the proper procedures and precautions to no find myself knocked up at 32. I know, I know, I'm no spring chicken and I should be more than happy to start a family at this stage in my life. The problem is that I thought I would be speaking Italian, Spanish, French and Korean by now. I thought that I would be playing the guitar and violin, composing music and writing books: the first couple published a few years ago. You see, I thought at 32 I would have it together, be so much farther in my life, and feel on top of my game...ready to be some one's mom. But instead I find myself feeling frightened and robbed. I still have to call my mother and talk to her as I process my life. I still need her to tell me that I am her baby girl and the joy of her world. I still need her to tell me that my dreams will come true and that I will dance with them and hold them with my hands one day. I still need her to tell me that my destiny is assured: that I will live the life that God and all of heaven intended for me. I need her voice to tell me that I don't just take up space, but will accomplish everything that I was born to do!

How can I be ready for motherhood when I need my mother so desperately? I thought that by my age I would have reached the illustrious impasse of motherly need and have more adult breezy interactions with her. You know, telling each other of days activities and plans, financial strategies and future savings. But instead, The bulk of our conversations still drenched in warm love, acceptance and the power of a believing mother. So I guess my fear is that I am not enough. That I am not enough, right now, for this child that grows with in me; For I have yet to rise to the level of my own precious mother. You see, I know how I view her: she sets my world straight. She is the only person who has ever made me make sense of myself in this world. She has been the loudest and most consistent voice affirming my value and power. And, frankly, I shake at the thought of being this person to my unborn child. For I know that he too will need this voice, as I have, throughout my life.

In six months I will have a child. In six months I will be a mother. In six months I will start the life long journey of being the greatest supporter my child will ever know. I'm frightened. But, I am already on the ride. So with white knuckles I grip the bar of life, hoping that what my mother freely poured into me will gloriously flow out of my soul to my soon coming son. Who knows, six months is a good bit of time, maybe by then my guitar playing will begin to sound like music (and not just noise) and I will be able to cross it off of my life list.

Tumble Me a World

So to say that my father was a philanderer would be an understatement. I am my father's only child in marriage, yet he has 15 children. That's right, 15 children in a world that's bursting with nearly 7 billion people. Not the "be fruitful and multiply" days where children worked the farm to help ma and pa~but these seem bursting days where it cost a million dollars to raise a child to 18. To not be misleading, I must tell you that he had 4 of these children before he met and subsequently married my mother. Now, she knew of only 1 child, but that's for later in the story. So I hope you now see why philanderer is much to soft a term; it's too gentle, too soft, too proper and neat. For the word still gives the impression of purpose. One is operating with purpose, much like a philanthropic wealthy man sits back and chooses a good charity which to donate an ample sum of money. He makes this decision with calculating assessment and chooses the organization he deems fit for the current stirrings in his heart and global need. Do you see the organization and precision enlisted by this guy? Well this is the same precision enlisted by one who philanders. My father had no such precision. He just went where the wind blew. The wind seemed to blow him a lot. It always blew him into the bed of a woman I did not know, and if I did I wouldn't want to be anything like. I don't say this out of bitterness, because I'm really not...Anymore. I have met some of these women throughout the years and I maintain that I wouldn't want to be like any of them. So like I was saying philanderer is too many clicks to the right of to fully hurl to your heart what my father was. I have thought a lot about this through the years (I'm now 31); my father is a thief. He single handedly stole parts of who I was to be. I have since replaced those parts with good stuff. Really good stuff. Stuff that I wouldn't have know existed, but for the theft and the residual vacant spots where these things (stuff) once were. So don't cry me a river and don't hate him as I once did. For though I have no idea of who I would be if enlisted as my father were Bill Cosby instead of Al Capone, I like who I am becoming. The excavation process has proved itself priceless.

Tumble Me a World

My childhood was much like a washer machine...my life tumbling about with as much direction and stability as the rince cycle. my father absent is soul and direction, never peering into my soul or trying to give to it in any way, while sleeping with every woman that was not my mother. And she, my mother, trying to keep it all together with work. Working long and hard hours at a realestate and furniture company we once owned. We no longer own them, these businesses are no longer a part of our reality: haven't been for some time. But I am getting ahead of myself here. That's not really the part of the story that I wanted to share. I'm not quite sure what part I wanted to share, but that part seemed too cumbersome.

I really love music. The words and soul of music flows to my soul. It pierces my way of being, capturing memory and bringing it back to me in waves. After a good song, I feel like I've run 1,000 miles and had years to ponder the reason of life. And at the end feel closer to knowing that reason. I love great Spanish and French ballards. These songs sound so lively, so full of grace and delight. But there's just this one thing, I like the idea of liking them more than I like them. Because I can't understand the words (I must learn both french and spanish fluently). I studied French in college (2 years in Monaco), but my French is so rusty , because I put it on a shelf and never used it. So when I hear these great songs offering up stories in French, I can feel the spirit behind the words but I can't lace them together so that they can reveal something to me. It's like reading an old faded newspaper, there are a few words that I recognize...but I can no longer understand what the article is saying. So I am left a bit frustrated. There are diamonds there I know, but I am clueless as to what they are while I'm holding the brittle paper straining to read.

In many ways my childhood was like listening to great French music. I knew there was meaning in it, I just couldn't see it then. Then it left me frustrated and wanting more. Now, only now have I learned to read the language of my past. And to be honest, I'm still not fluent. But at least I am beyond conjugations and can string words together to form a sentence and hence gather meaning. Some of the meaning is coming together as i write. So I know this labour is more for me than for you. To be honest, I have no idea whether or not any of this will speak to you or clarify anything. It's just my story. A part of me, ok a huge part of me, hopes it does. Maybe that's beacuse I want you to hear my French song and sway to it with lithe arms and legs and feel alright. Because you understand what I am saying; because you feel closer to understanding your reason of being in life. This is lofty, don't I know it. But I can't help but believe that our stories, all of our stories, bring meaning to our lives individually. Because some how my story, my song needs you...and, your story and song needs me.