Tag Archives: Rebeccahaswrote

Springolicious

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cherry_blossom_tree

This Picture has been swiped off the Internet. Had this been a real flowering tree in my neighborhood, I'd still be sitting under it.

For those of you that live down South, yes you, the people that have been gloating and posting beautiful pictures of spring flowers and teasing us cold Northern friends with tales of 80 degree weather, running through the sprinklers to cool off and sunbathing on the beach, (you know who you are)……this entry is not intended to evoke further poking of your green Southern Spring Stick in thy cold Northern eye.

Resist I say, Resist!!!

I found a few little purple crocus flowers peeking up through all the dark and stark brown everywhere.

The temps reached an amazing 70 degrees yesterday (That’s a heat wave by my current frozen standards)

The birds were chirping and announced their recent return. Even the damn terrorist squirrels have been out sunning themselves and doing a little spring nest cleaning. They almost look innocent, but I’m not fooled,  they are simply waiting for me to put out my summer furniture so they can commence with shredding cushion seats up for the highly valuable stuffing.

For the first time in months I hustled all six of my pets outside and no one was staring ten seconds later through the glass door with pleading eyes that said, “Good God Lady , it’s freaking cold out here! Let me back in!” Cats and Dogs alike stayed outside, mostly belly up to the sun, enjoying a little spring sensation. The delightful bums.

I think some sort of Spring Voodoo has overcome me as well. I’ve been doing things that are highly out of character for me and irreversible.   The two major spring spells that influenced radical changes are as follows:

  • I’ve shared some of my ‘writing’ with a few people. Things I’ve written, story type papers. I’ve asked for input and editing. I’ve requested critique and opinion! Now, that may seem insignificant to most considering how much I write, but in my little sheltered bubble, this is a first. A banner moment. Sharing in a support group for the first time sort of big deal. I have never, ever, done such an act of bravery on the writing front. Now, I’m not sure if this is a parting of the sea moment where I’ll be walking across the ocean floor to get to a better side, or if I’ve brought on a crack in the earth and I’m falling to a fire and brimstone oblivion. Time will reveal all and hopefully I’ll be able to swallow again in the next few days.

And for my second undeniably Spring Possessed Action

  • After 5 years of blogging behind closed doors, hiding this zone of obscurity from 3-d family and friends, I revealed this website to my parents last night along (gasp) with some writing as well. My Mother is a beautiful writer and an extraordinary editor, so it’s about time I let her have a go with my work. After explaining what I’ve been doing all this time in the big landscape of Internet, plus throwing out a long list of ‘be prepared’ cautions,  I turned on their computer and showed them the map to get here. I took them on the grand tour and showed them how to sign up for the feed. It’s official, now, the family is here!

Welcome to my zone Momma Anna and Father Dan (waving) don’t say I didn’t warn you~ (oh, and I’m adding here a sweet princess daughter Rebecca smile. :o )  the one that lets me get away with anything) I swear, I’ve never wrote anything to bring shame on the family ( I don’t think anyway) and have only wrote nice things about everyone once in awhile. There are long time readers that could even vouch for me on my innocence if needed~~ Just think, I could have sat you down and revealed to you that I was moving to France to become a nun, or that I had been secretely working as a stripper on weekends. Right??

 It’s all good. I’ve been good. I promise. Love to You both.

Oh Sweet Memories

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Shelby, ” Mom, please don’t talk, gasp, groan, cry out or exhale loudly and please turn your cell phone off”

Mamma Me, ” I swear, you won’t hear a peep outta me. I pledge a vow of silence”

Shelby, “In fact, make sure you sit behind my seat, not behind the Driving Test guy. That way I won’t even see a fraction of your face. I’m sooooo nervous and you make it a thousand times worse” (she’s nervous?? I took a Valium before we left the house)

We arrive for the official Driving Test, so that my daughter can pass with flying colors and be a driver licenced card carrying citizen.  

Drivers Test Dude, “Ok, we are going to pull out of the parking lot. You’re going to look to your left to check for traffic, and then turn right.”

I have hunkered down in the backseat of my car directly behind Shelby. I have buckled up, and although I’ve taken a vow of silence for the duration of this 20 minute driving test, I chant a few Hail Mary’s (there’s no rule that states you must be Catholic to borrow a fantastic notion, right?) I’m worried before we even leave the parking lot. Shelby, who bless her sweet soul, can be extremely nervous when she’s doing something uncomfortable. She wrings her hands and fidgets, she becomes painfully quiet and bites her bottom lip. She’s been doing that for over an hour prior to showing up to take the drivers test. At this point in time I can feel the nerves vibrating off her like the string on a guitar being played by a 8o’s heavy metal rockstar.  

She eases the car out of the parking lot and starts to turn left…

Driver test Dude, “Stop, stop,” (might as well have been a cops siren)

Shelby slams the break which lurches all three of us forward, not enough to cause whiplash, but enough that Test Dudes clipboard goes flying off his lap. I immediately slink a little lower in my seat and cast my eye’s to the floorboards. Vow of silence has not been broken, score one for the Mother, but I’m incredibly worried about my kid now. If she had any nerves left, I’m pretty certain they just short circuited.

Test Dude, sorta calmly, ”I said, look to your left and turn right. Now, put the car in reverse, back up, then lets try that again and turn right.”

So this is what I know, and during moments when your life suddenly passes before your eye’s, things can get distorted, but I shall try here. Shelby put my car into reverse, she lightly put the gas on and started to back up. All systems go. At that point in time I was still looking at my floorboards thinking I should have them shampooed and I remember the Dude saying, “Stop now.” ( so this is my guess, she was already panicked/jumpy about the first stop, so when he did that, she went to slam the break again, but instead slammed the gas)

So suddenly, there was a reverse  acceleration at a G-force rate of speed backwards into the parking lot. If anyone has ever wondered…. if that whole exorcist head turning on it’s spine in a 180 degree maneuver is possible, I’m here to say,  it is. I don’t think my body moved, but my head spun around to guesstimate what she was going to total my sweet sports car into. My fingers made permanent indentation’s into the leather seats, but by God, I didn’t scream out “OHHH FUCK” or “GOODBYE LIFE” or anything at all! (score two) But Holy Hell, Drivers Test Guy made up for my mandatory silence. He started screaming, “BREAK BREAK BREAK STOP BREAK STOP.” I imagine his foot was flailing for the emergency foot break on the right side of the car, but since they make these kids take the test in their parents car, no dice for him.

With inches (seriously, teenie tiny inches, all I could see out the back window was looming tailgate) to spare, Shelby stopped the car before plowing into the back of a parked pickup truck. We then had 3 seconds of painful silence broken only by Freaked Out Driver Test Dude pulling the emergency break (a little late), unlocking his seat belt and flinging his door open so he could make a dive for it in case the car became possessed again. And my poor Shelby. She was slumped over the steering wheel and I could see her little shoulders moving up and down, hair cloaking her face. I had no idea what would happen next and the silence was killing me.

Drivers Test Dude with a Heart to my silent crying daughter, “Would you like a tissue?”

Believe it or not, after 10 minutes of soul searching, in car therapy and a reassuring hand from the back seat on her shoulder. Shelby was able to finally pull out of the parking lot and ace the actual driving test. She lived. I lived. Test Dude lived and my car lived.

No innocent bystanders (THANK GAWD) were harmed in the making of this infamous Mommyhood memory.

Folie à deux

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shhh2big175I’ve noticed a measure of evolution within myself of late. I realize everyone experiences moments of improvement, or backward progression, which makes my shifts neither remarkable or extraordinary. However, paying attention to changes and at best claiming them from time to time feels like a sound notion.

By natural design, I am reclusive and private about my own actions and thoughts. My ’personal quiet’  is notorious among my circles and for that I have always shrugged my shoulders, tossed a smile of distraction and moved onto the next topic. I even have a scary pic of me shhhin one of my kiddoes (proof and smile after the pic)

In my world,  privacy is the crown jewel of self respect and secrets usually resemble a throw rug of shame. There is a relevant difference if anyone stops and thinks about it. Privacy/Secrets. Unless it’s a surprise party or a gift, secrets are rarely good things.  Privacy on the other hand seems like a fading notion of times past when I listen around to the things people are willing to offer up as general conversation.

Since this is public and bound for interpretation, I shall clarify something. I do believe there are experiences, extremely private and personal experiences, that should be shared. While every experience is individual, when there is opportunity to teach other souls, or find solace through sharing, I would always encourage one to venture down that path if I believed it would help others and find individual balance to the experience………

My swing to the extreme of privacy all these years hasn’t exactly been a comforting place. Solitary experience, meaning those moments in a persons life that aren’t shared, tend to take on a life of their own, yet, never formulate into a solid memory of truth. Experience not shared is an embryo of life never quite birthed. Being extreme in anything typically creates an imbalance. And for that reason, I haven’t been a balanced individual.

The shifts I’ve attempted and actually achieved are important (to me)  moments of sharing my madness. From the subtle tones of admitting I was a high school dropout, publicly, to a rather hyperventilating moment of sending a good friend an entire handwritten journal of my thoughts, scribbles, observations, drawings and writings. The Rebecca I used to know would never, ever, have considered opening such windows. And many more examples I’ll spare the room here.

The most interesting change I’ve experienced is sharing my feelings with those that are close to me. Feelings, emotions, all the thoughts inside a person that play tug of war and bind up a persons mentality under the surface of a smile. I can claim that I now start sentences with, “This is what I’m feeling……” and actually finish the emotion verbally. Those that know me express that it’s an interesting change of communication, one they can work from and build off. The truth is, I rarely gave people that opportunity.

Maybe some of this new revolution will filter it’s way into my writing here, maybe only in little slices and dices of sharing, but the most important piece to my shifts in mentality is I am willing……and realize, able…..and it doesn’t feel as violating as I once assumed. Today, I am willing to share the madness (and joy and experience and life) that is me with another, and another and another. That is change, that is shifting and I find it relevant enough to voice~~

Seventeen

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sizedshelby1My eldest daughter turned 17 years old today and I have to admit, this birthday has given me a brick in the stomach feeling. If anyone wants to feel the full effects of the clock of life spinning wildly at warp speed, they only need to have a child.
Since I’m only 36 (for three more months), one can do the math and see I welcomed my sweet daughter into this world when I was only 19 years old myself. I look at her and can’t imagine her having a child of her own 2 years from now. The heart attack I must have given my own Mother!

I wasn’t married when I discovered I was pregnant with Shelby. In fact, the only reason it occurred to me something was amiss was the fact my favorite Guess jeans, size 3, wouldn’t button up. I was clueless, and honestly, not in a good place when I made my jeans/baby discovery. At the time, I was a poster child for alcohol and drug abuse. I was also a high school drop out (substance abuse and school don’t combine well) and living in a world that revolved around me, myself and I. (and yes, I fixed the education issue)

Shelby doesn’t know those things about me. Most people don’t to be honest, it isn’t the sort of thing one broadcasts for table chatter. She doesn’t know that the moment I found out I was pregnant I decided to live and hide sheltered at my parents house. That I shunned every single friend I had at the time. ( I knew I couldn’t be around them and do right by my baby) She doesn’t know I quit all the things that were bad for me in a split second and prayed to a God and everyone that the things I had done before I discovered her presence hadn’t damaged her in what should be her safe haven, my womb.

She does know she was supposed to be a twin, but that little baby didn’t make it past 3 months inside me. Somehow, Shelby held on and I will always wonder if the things I had done when the both of them were only weeks old inside me was the miscarriage factor. But I’ve gone on to lose several more babies that way over the years, so who’s to say……..

I don’t credit my daughter with turning my life around. Was becoming pregnant a factor? Of course, but it was a choice I made on my own, for myself, and for her. I was rather tired by the time I found out about her, the life I was immersed in can wear a mind and body down. But I had many choices at the time. Adoption. Abortion. Continue on my merry way of the fast lane dragging a baby along, or cease and halt all activities and focus on myself and my child. I choose the last option. I’ve witnessed many others in the same situation make different choices. To each their own.

Since the hells of my prior years were so fresh and still touchable in my mind, one of the first things I explained to my newborn daughter was, “you and I, we are going to be just fine. And know this, you are officially in anti-teenage hell training as of right now.” My Mother laughed when I said it to that little hours old baby. But I was dead serious.

17 years later, my daughter is just fine, better then fine. She is amazing and I couldn’t be more proud. Of her, and of myself……….

Four Square Reality

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It’s been awhile since I waxed online about my ventures in writing. I still do it, beyond this sort of medium that is, prolifically. My Mantra in life should be, “Hi, my name is Rebecca and I’m a writeaholic…….” 

This morning I finished a book. Nothing unusual about that right? Well, I find myself mouth agape, eye’s bugging in a not so attractive way and dumbfounded by a sweeping discovery.

I was at the bookstore a week ago and purchased a newly released book that looked appealing. It has the  sort of cover that stops me short and beckons a person in for a closer look. The title was succulent (it has the word river in it) and a quick overview on the back produced content that felt a bit….familiar? I had to purchase it.

So I became the reader (who writes a lot), and started to devour the words of said book. From the beginning to end, I uncovered more and more similarities between what I was reading, and something I have been writing about for sometime..(ouch)..The reading process of this book became a tisk for task. A pro and con situation with potentially disastrous results. I started to wonder, did this author crawl inside my head? Or vice versa, did I somehow channel her thoughts? Not good. Not even salvageable good. So much for thinking one’s idea’s are original, enough. That theory has been officially buried in shit.

It was a good book and NO, I’m not going to say which one it was publicly (google factor). I also have no desire to try and re-work 75,000 words of my own to make my work less, similar. That notion feels like a logistical nightmare. I have other projects I can work on that I haven’t found a fraternal twin to side them up with. (notice I didn’t say identical twin, but fraternal twin is too close for my comforts!)

Here’s the reality of writing a story. Unless you venture into a fantasy world, something supernatural, science fiction, magical or make believe, you are boxed in with plain old simple humanity. When you look at humanity through a writing approach, people and situations are as cliched as the poem roses are red and violets are blue. 

Try to break the mold or redesign reality any way you wish, but when it comes down to it, writers (and humanity if you think about it) carry the responsibility of telling (living) the same stories (over and over) in a new manner. Pulling a mystical Chris Angel to defy the binds of reality and the mold of originality only works if you set the tone of that possibility out the gate. However, that tosses one back into the above mentioned fantasy worlds. Either you make it true to life believable, or you ask a reader to imagine along side you in fantasty world. Break the rules and you’ll get tar and feathered for cheating.

So we who write, try to take the realities of humanity and sew them up in a new squares. The challenge is finding a slice of the  quilt someone else hasn’t already penned a stitch in. This is not as easy as one may think it should be…………..

New HouseKeeping’s.

1) For my blogspot friends, I found and added a Google Friends Connect~~~> over there. I’m not sure if it’s the same as what we have on Blogspot, that is still undetermined, but sign up if you would so I can test it out~
2) Do I look too skinny? As in, someone had emailed and said the font was extremely tiny on their screen. So, I’m trying to figure out if that’s an individual issue, or an over all problem. Input? Font opinion?