Tuesday, March 31, 2015

My Birds Fly High

3/31/15

My Birds Fly High

I flew too high and singed my wings
I won’t back down for anything

When I think of you
I know why I needed to

I flew so high and touched the sun
One day ends as another has begun

I am not you
You can't be me


My Birds

I want what’s best for everyone
Turn back a clock
Rewind time
To the day when we all shine

I flew too high and singed my wings
I won’t back down for anything

When I think of you
I know why I needed to

Fly so high and touch the sun
So you can see another day has begun

I used to think birds weren’t supposed to fly so high
Safe at home, in my nest watching over all of you

Now I know you need to fly
So high you singe your wings
You can do anything
And whether I am leading high or hanging low,
I’ll never, never let you go

Except to fly so high you touch the sun
Singe your wings and embrace everything.


M

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Guest Author - 10 and Under "The House Across the Street" #kidswriting

Who doesn't love it when their child embraces something they are passionate about...so I'm sharing a special blog, a very short story written by my ten-year-old son...
Future Famous Author


On Halloween night, I am thinking about the haunted house across the street.  I want to debunk a rumor that, whoever enters on Halloween night, never comes out. 

At midnight, it’s time to enter.  I walk across the street, but I realized there was a black cat on the front lawn of the house.  I grab a rock to keep the door open just in case I get locked in.  I brought a camera to record my experience.  Also, I wore black clothes just in case someone is in there, they won’t be able to see me.  I was ready!  When I took a step in the house, I felt something grab my leg.  I jumped back outside in total fear and passed out

When I woke up, it was 12:01 a.m. and I found I just passed out for a minute.  Then I ran to get back inside, but this time I forgot to keep the rock on the door.  I looked back and the door was locked!  I am going to have to stay alive now.  I flicked the switch, but no light!  I rushed to the basement to turn the power on.  As I was rushing in, I saw a baseball bat out of the corner of my eye.  I grabbed it just for protection.  I flicked the power on, and all I saw were skeletons of animals and people!  I was going to scream, but I didn’t want to make any noise.

I came out of the basement and realized this was a fright attraction for our neighborhood.  I walked around and I kept seeing skeletons-every turn I took…. SKELETONS!  I realized that it was 1:00 a.m.  I rushed to the door of the attraction and…it was unlocked!  So I turned around, but I saw a mob of angry ghosts who were screaming, “Stay with us!”

At that point, I opened the door, ran out and yelled, “I made it out alive!”  Then I realized that I hadn’t made it out alive.  I looked at my legs and saw I was hovering above the ground.  Then my soul was dragged back inside the attraction.

THE END


Thursday, March 26, 2015

TBT 1992 - TO LIVE

TBT - 1992 
1992 - At a time when I struggled to focus my passion and energies ... funny how some things don't change.  Life is a constant struggle, but no longer alone.

People spend their entire lives trying to be someone they're not.  Like the pages of a calendar, the pictures in a phone album neatly arrange just what they ought to be...yet somehow falling short of reality.

If one is never truly satisfied, if genuine happiness is not an attainable goal, why then try so hard to make it so?  Why look for so long for something that remains just out of reach...familiar enough to believe in and strive towards, yet stifling and frustrating as time goes by and remains elusive.

A larger degree of happiness is found alone when we unmask ourselves.  And yet, once revealed, we find ourselves longing for the innocence lost along the way.  Romantic notion....perhaps ignorance is more apropos.

A child believes in all that is good until the wisdom of adulthood steps in and adds disbelief for good measure.

You ought to grow up, get married, and live happily ever after.

Then, in the state of marital bliss, the disillusion is beyond belief.  Give credit to human nature - to those who care enough.  Facing the greatest foe...they turn not away, but stand tall and continue to try.

For life is not living if you cannot go on believing...but this too is only a temporary state.  You can only go on so long with such a charade.  And since none ultimately controls destiny, even a bad play at life must have a closing night.

Once again, left with the self and not believing it worthy of anything singularly.

Transition to isolation comes slowly.  You have to hit the lowest point of despair to achieve the height and depth you can create on the way back up.  To realize self worth...true self worth.  Once accomplished, tempered with the knowledge that we can never be knowledgeable enough, that claiming wisdom is the admission of ignorance and true ignorance is merely an oversight of reality.

No more belief in people....no need to have anymore.  So grateful we found ourselves the first time around.  A preparation of the journey to walk this life alone.  So glad the time was taken to grow and love oneself.  It gives courage to care for oneself and resist the urge to settle for something; enabling us to hold out for everything.

So many grow tired of searching for ideality, taking less than needed but somehow enough to feel complete.  Yet it leaves them slightly agitated for the rest of their lives.

So this one would rather live for oneself than to act a part with lines unrehearsed.

Caring so much about everything...no definition, just the knowledge that the life that is lived holds up under scrutiny and is not lacking in intensity.

M

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Throw-Back-Thursday - Disney Dating

1994
GQ said "no thank you"

I spent a decade as a single mom, raising my oldest...and trying to keep my sanity on the dating scene.  This was my perspective at the time and I'm sending it out there for my friend, Mandy Ciccarella. 

If you've ever wondered what to expect, as a male, in the realm of dating women with children, or often wondered, what you did wrong after having passed on over into that brave new world and having crashed and burned in the past, take a little trip with me into the world of Disney Dating and learn...

It's happened to the best of you.  You've been at a party or club and looked across the room and found yourself engaged in an intimate gaze with an attractive blonde or brunette or whatever your preference for the night is.  You instantly tell yourself she's the one you've been waiting for all your life.  You take a moment to collect your thoughts (translation: best line of the night) and walk over to her with confidence.  She gives you a warm reception, so you advance with the introductions.  Before you know it, you are having a conversation with a woman, who possesses both beauty and intelligence.  She must be perfect.  How, you ask yourself could you be lucky enough to meet someone like that who isn't already married or involved with someone else?  Details, details...the main concern is to get a phone number and make a date.  Although a little put out that she won't share her home number, you take the consolation prize...her office phone.

You go home a happy man, anticipating your next meeting.  The following Monday, you sit in your office, at your job site, or wherever your career finds you, and start to pick-up the phone to give her a call.  But wait, you don't want to appear too eager so you give it a few more days and finally make the call.  She's glad to hear from you and agrees to see you the following weekend - she hesitates though, and says there is just one small thing she must tell you before making the date.  You brace yourself, expecting the worse...a husband.  No wonder she wouldn't give you her home number!  

While trying to digest your anticipated fate, she shares that she has a child.  You are momentarily stunned.  You immediately go into denial.  Surely not such an attractive, well figured creature could be a mother?  Mom never looked that good in your house, right?  Wrong!  You just never noticed that mothers never cease to be women.  And real women have children and still manage to remain people - interesting, alluring individuals that obviously still turn a head or two if your interest is any indication.

You quickly regain your composure...so quickly she takes little notice of the slight pause before your next words.  The resilience with which you take on this new challenge leaves her feeling just a twinge of admiration for perhaps an exception to the rule she has come to know in dating men.  Your concern and interest in her child sparks her interest in you.  Your original plan for a romantic candlelit dinner is replaced with a day at the museum (at your suggestion).  You go out of your way to include her child in everything, insisting you think that kids are great.  Initially she is reluctant to allow you into her personal life with her child.  But the zeal with which you pursue her quickly erases any doubts from her mind and you're off!  To the zoo...the video store...dinner for three at McDonald's, Discovery Zone.  You are suddenly in the know of every kid oriented event in town.  You never stop for one minute to think about what you are projecting in doing so.  She's still quite attractive on your arm, she still manages to get the Friday night sitter for your benefit and you can still go everywhere you always went on the nights she can't get away.  The perfect set-up for a single man.  All the luxuries of a family without the responsibilities to go with it.  You never have to take it home with you.  Funny thing is, though, eventually she starts to seem a little more possessive than you noticed at first.  And maybe she starts displaying a more serious side than the carefree girl that made you laugh at every possible moment.  You see some expectations there that you hadn't thought of before.  But when you pull away, she never pushes the issue.

She is, for every practical purpose, the most independent, self assured lady you've ever met.  She cuts her own grass, balances her checkbook, and once, you even saw her change a tire.  She seems very content with her life as it is and makes wonderful headway all things considered.

But you start feeling a little anxious at the end of each date.  Maybe her child starts giving you a hug as you leave.  Or maybe there's a school picture her child had to wait up past bedtime to give you.  Or my personal favorite of life's most embarrassing moments . . . the child very calmly asks you if you are going to marry his mom.  You nearly go into cardiac arrest and there is talk of you starring in an upcoming Rescue 911 episode.  The headline reads, "Small child saves man from choking on his own stupidity!"  That's right, stupidity!  Suddenly you don't think you make a very good role model, and you don't know much about kids.  You can't relate to them.  You're afraid of getting too attached.  In short, you try to destroy the image you have created for yourself over a period of months...in a matter of seconds.  Once you realize how far you have gone, you can't get away quickly enough.  What was at first a novelty has turned into something that smothers and threatens your sanity.  And single mom, in the world of Disney Dating prepares to chalk up another one to experience.

Okay, we've looked at the male reactions here.  Now let's look at the other side of the coin (heads).  First of all, single mothers have the same wants and desires that single women have (after all, they are one and the same).  They have the same expectations, standards and desires as single women without children.  They still like men.  They still hate men.  They still hate liking men.

So when you come along portraying quite simply, the perfect man (though a fictitious character as far as I'm concerned), she is naturally interested and your continued admiration and support only further entangles her emotions that she works hard to keep guarded.

Her mission is not as you see it in the end.  She is not a tentacled creature looking for a host to maintain her on life support.  She takes nothing and asks only for as much as she, herself, is willing to give.  And yet you suddenly see this as a very large undertaking.  The initial fun is over and now that you have convinced her of your good intentions, you realize they weren't so admirable after all.  You never thought beyond each day.  You never once stopped to consider how long you'd play this game - proving yourself different from other guys only to find yourself not merely the same, but the epitome of that standard.  You can't bear to think about her or her child anymore.  A mistake you made; a flaw in your character you never knew existed.  You always thought yourself one heck of a nice guy.  She proved you wrong.  She believed in you and you didn't measure up to the superficial farce you'd projected.  You quickly turn this around and say there were no promises.  You never suggested any future commitments.  Which is worse?  To make promises you can't keep or to project an image that clearly doesn't exist?

And the final straw - that part about the kid asking if you were going to marry her mom.  That one really finished it, didn't it?  You may find yourself hard enough to believe she put him up to it or maybe you just think she talks of nothing else but marriage.  Regardless, you know it's gone too far.  This wasn't what you had in mind at all.  Trouble is, you had nothing in your mind.  As to laying the blame on an innocent child or the mother of that child, who, only a few months earlier you held in the highest regards...rationalize in whatever manner that leaves you with the fewest traces of guilt.  But before closing the book on this difficult chapter in your life, know this...

A child's perspective is uniquely innocent.  It is a treasure that most of us lose as we get older.  Only in our children are we able to recapture this in watching them.  And even then, our emotions are torn in what their expectations are and in the reality of the world around them....and our desperate need to protect them.  You're interest in the child proves this.  It's like having a second childhood.  Having someone to be a kid all over again with ... perhaps you didn't realize who you were really seeing.  Trouble is, if you have to break it down at all, you shouldn't be dating women with children.  They truly are a package deal.  Trying to maintain the self as both a woman and a mother is insane.  Repeating again, they are one and the same!  They are not looking for anymore than a typical single woman; their liabilities are simply a little more obvious and difficult to conceal.

Our children's words are not an indication of what we strive for or what impressions we leave upon them.  Their words are spoken with more sincerity than you may ever know.  Enjoy them for their special beauty.  They are worth more than anything you have ever encountered before.  They are trusting, vulnerable and loving.  And their honesty, though ill timed albeit, is from their very secure world that hasn't expanded yet at the same level as your own.  

And while Disney makes millions entertaining children, it is important that we all consider the impressions left on such trusting little souls:

Beauty met the Beast and tamed him into a handsome prince.

Sleeping Beauty was awakened by her prince from a world of darkness.

Cinderella wore a glass slipper that just happened to be the one Prince Charming was looking for.

Alladin rescued Jasmine from the cruel Jafar and showed her a "whole new world."

Snow White managed to find a giant of a prince even surrounded by dwarfs...

AND THEY WERE ALL MARRIED AND LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

If all these characters managed to find true happiness as the credits rolled across the screen, why wouldn't a child believe you to be the next Prince Charming for his mom?  Your fiction bears the same striking resemblance to all the other make believe characters he's already familiar with.

After all, those heroines, though lovely to be sure, are nothing in comparison to a child's own mother.  We are everything to them.  Both mom and dad on a daily basis.  And in their eyes, you should be grateful for even a chance to get to know us for however short a period of time.  I doubt you'll ever forget us.  We are the real super heroes of this age whether you know it or not.  We love our children and have loved the likes of you, unconditionally.  And because we have been given the gift of a child, we can never admit defeat or accept a world without fairy tale endings.

Our knight in shining armor may never come, but our belief in him is no indication of weakness, merely a desire for what every child dreams of.  Happy endings vary from the storybook endings.  If you're not part of the big picture, get out of the credits.  

And, for the record, Peter Pan never married the Wendy lady, this isn't Never Never Land, and yes...you do have to grow up someday.

The End

M

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Somewhere in the Middle

1/15/94

I am of no origin
Standing still in time and space
Waiting for enlightenment
Expecting wisdom, realizing ignorance
Seeing the future repeating the past
Trying to break the cycle without knowing the course
Believing in everything, standing for nothing
I think of me as a formidable one
Capable of expression
Yet the ability to say nothing at all
I speak of times to come
Through traces of what used to be
Somewhere in the middle
I'll find the rest of me

M

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Dreaming



Following my dreams


“The difference between dreaming and making that dream a reality is subtle…it’s at the point where you go from hoping and wishing to going and getting.” MLR




M

Thursday, March 12, 2015

TBT - Guest Author....Mabel Sally Daly (RIP): Greeting of Love after 48 years of marriage

Among my Granny's things when she passed away years ago, a few treasures found lingering.  A surprisingly intimate and old fashioned love letter representing 48 years of marriage.  So surprising, yet heartwarming to know there was so much more depth than her role as Granny in our lives:

Love has no sense of time and is ageless


(Greeting of Love)

Covington, KY November 18, 1986

To My Dear Husband,

(after 48 years)

Familiarity Breeds Content

Although our married life is full of strife, if you proposed again I'd grab it.

And while it's sometimes very hard to be your wife,
It's also quite a pleasant habit.

Although our being wed has often led me to bemoan your imperfections.

It also seems that I have grown accustomed to you're face and other sections.

Althought there've been some tears throughout the years, it's been less hell than its been heaven.

We've loved each other well.  Let's keep up the good work in 1987.

Mabel Daly

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

The Quiet Spoken Christian Heart

In a world of shouting, sending out a whisper from 1992



The quiet spoken Christian heart lacks not conviction but courage in awe of the presence and respectfully enthralled

The quiet spoken Christian heart lacks expression not emotion
Loves not any less than those who profess but rather loves from within

The quiet spoken Christian heart loves Christ with the heart as others do

But is unable to convey the magnitude in words or actions

The quiet spoken Christian heart admires those who openly praise His grace

And is ashamed of its own ability to do the same

The quiet spoken Christian heart hears what it cannot speak, believes in what it cannot see, feels what it cannot express...but loves Jesus no less.

M

Friday, March 6, 2015

Radio Silence

What channel are you listening to?



Turn down the volume in your life
Kick irrelevant static channels to the curb
Listen to the echoes of silence reverberating in your mind
Select favorite buttons for anything that makes you smile




Listen closer still to what remains
If the silence is deafening
Keep listening
Focus, find what still remains
Keep it…it’s your sanity, and your brain!
The rest is just background noise

M