My family would keep calendars on the wall for months. There was always a reason. Dad liked the flowers on top of the April calendar. Mom wrote an important number on January 10th. My little sister ate July and then we would forget about August by the time we came to it.
I have an odd relationship to time. My year flipped over while I wasn't looking. I think childhood habits would have had me content to keep living May. A year from turning myself, a year from his death, a month before I fought a fire, three months before I was actually free.
I am actually free now.
In the freedom, there are stories, and they've been piling on themselves. If we were having coffee, I'd ask you to tell me what you'd like to hear about, and I'd tell you all about it.
Here are the story fragments, there's a poll at the end. Fill up your cup, choose your own coffee adventure... what have you been up to, Best Beloved?
He never had good eyesight while he was living. He couldn't tell the difference between myself or my sisters, and we looked so different that people were often startled we were related at all.
He believed he'd be allowed to guide me, he believed he'd look down on me from up above, but he never had good eyesight, and couldn't imagine a life where he did. He liked knowing me by my reactions, by my laughter, by my movements- he never cared to know how I was shaped.
He said he'd whisper wisdoms to me, and sometimes I find them in someone else- someone similar enough to me that we are friends, someone similar enough to me that I could see how he would get confused.
A few weeks ago my friend had a funny dream and I never said anything in response, I didn't know how to tell her that he'd often talk to strangers thinking they were me, and that it didn't stop, even after he died...
My heart is too full of holes to hold regrets, my soul is too full to hold my stories in. I like to talk about the stories we can't talk about.
I like to talk about my skin, and how it feels things. I like to talk about my heart, and what it warms to. I like to tell the stories that peel away the layers of me that cover my naked self.
I like to be naked...
On the Internet, we found a place to grow imagination, not just wield it. The power of growth is not always something you can see. You can not always measure the buttons that could have been sticks that might have been swords that yesterday were manifested on the back of a real life horse.
It is a word, a meme, it is a keystroked story that is carried continent to continent, and though you don't get to see it, it doesn't mean it isn't powerful, as powerful as the sticks that you once held in your backyard.
This new generation has not lost their childhood, they've expanded it, and it needed expanding because my own was so small that it barely existed...
Let me introduce you to the patriarchy.
Let me tell you about the ideas
that tell boys not to write poetry.
Let me tell you about the embarrassment
that would wash over faces when people realized
"all" my husband did was
create.
Let me introduce you to the patriarchy,
that smothers the boys
as purposefully as it suffocates the girls.
Let me tell you how it sparkles,
and how it shines,
and how even though it wears the blood
of a thousand severed hands,
it is still so hard to
throw away.
Let me tell you how to smash it.
Not even diamonds
are forever.
I feel like inventing something. We used to do projects and call them "Ra-Son Labs", we were always making things, doing things just to do them.
Dave would tell me that when the world finally made his brain explode, I should find myself someone to be around who would never ask why I was putting together puzzle pieces upside down.
If they don't get it, he'd say, they don't deserve you.
Everything about that story explains why I found myself on a dating site for all of a day. They say if you're looking you don't find things, but I'm not the sort to walk around with my eyes closed. I am always looking, for every possibility.
This morning I checked the clouds for signs of snow. It's August in Southern California, but it's good to keep your eyes open. It's good to watch.
They say a watched pot never boils, but you know what else never boils?
Water that is never put on the stove.
On July 4th, I released my book of poetry, Sack Nasty. On July 24th, I hosted my own book signing- and company launch, alongside my guys, Matt, Anthony, and Bill. On July 28th, I started the editing process for The Upside Down Tree. On August 1st, I found a note from Dave, written years ago, with a 30 day challenge he created so I could get used to Instagram. On August 2nd, I started that challenge called #Somethingist and have seen so many wonderful submissions that I've cried. On August 4th, my podcast "Frightfully Wondrous" got listed on Itunes and Google Play for your easy listening. On August 5th, I went to BlogHer and met a million amazing bloggers, approximately. On a Facebook Live, I called someone's hotel roommate their bunky, so that should give you a pretty good glimpse into my current level of PTSD. I'll be launching a web series soon, where we talk about really big topics. The first one is about shame, discrimination, prejudice, and privilege, so of course I used a lot of spoons. Maybe the next one will be about PTSD. I want to cover topics that we stumble over. I want to Rarasaur them.
On August 6th, Rarasaur blog turned 4 years old.
In 21 days, I turn 32 years old...