Taking a Break

My Mom wants to clean my house and I don't.

I'm not in the mood. And I refuse to be forced into manual labor at 10:19 on a Saturday morning.

So I'm putting my foot down. Or to be more exact, sitting on my ass to write this post while drinking a cup of coffee from my chocolate brown big girl mug.

Unfortunately this isn't going to last long for two reasons...

1. My Mother is on the phone talking to Ken.
2. Break time is over the moment she hangs up the phone.

And just for good measure...

3. Have you met my Mother?

I love the woman but honestly, she's got a one track mind that when set in motion does not deter from its predetermined course. Ever.

Normally this would be a most excellent trait. And for the most part, it is. It's just not my favorite trait at this exact moment when what I really want to do is a whole lot of nothing much at all.

I'm thirty-three and I'm feeling seven, getting ready to be sent to my room for bad behavior.

Aha!

Saved by the bell. Or to be exact, Brenda ringing my cell. And if she's ringing, it can only mean one thing...

There's something she doesn't feel like doing either!

This is Stacey. Over, out and off to the rescue...

Soul Stirrings

Another quiet Adirondack morning and it's just me and the sound of this keyboard while my Mother creaks the floorboards in the other room sorting through piles of piles of more piles. The rain falls straight, from sky to ground, as if it's worried someone will come to take its measure.

I could get used to this quiet. This ticking clock. The sound of cars passing by through rainy puddles on the street. The slow nature of life in a place where I have nowhere to go and no true schedule demanding that I be diligent in all my duties.

For the moment I am relaxed. Just enough to breathe a sigh of relief, but not enough to ease the worry knots knitting down my back. Vacations cannot last forever. It is a sad and sorry fact and I am counting down the days until it's done.

If wishes were horses, I'd put my own out to pasture here. Up in this quaint mountain view town and city. Up here where time stops and starts on whims, pushing me forward into the future, calling me back just as quickly to the past.

Places such as these that whisper home. Here is where you are, and here is where you should stay. Why return to places that do not speak to you such as I?

But how can I be true?

Too many obligations call me back to where I am. Home, job, family, friends... There is no option to pack them all up and move away.

So I cement myself down as best I can.

Making do.

Marking time.

Waiting.

Sound Reasoning

Love is passion, obsession, someone you can't live without. If you don't start with that, what are you going to end up with? Fall head over heels. I say find someone you can love like crazy and who'll love you the same way back. And how do you find him? Forget your head and listen to your heart. I'm not hearing any heart. Run the risk, if you get hurt, you'll come back. Because, the truth is there is no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love - well, you haven't lived a life at all. You have to try. Because if you haven't tried, you haven't lived". [William Parrish] from the movie, Meet Joe Black (1998)

Sleep Walking

I need a vacation from my vacation and I am missing my bed terribly...

Why I'm still awake, I've yet to know. But here I am, trying to make good on writing just a wee bit more than I have well, lately.

Visited my Grams in the hospital today. Mom and KC disappeared for a short while, and I wasn't really sure what it was that they were doing, although I was placing odds that somehow the somewhere involved a revolving door my daughter has decided is the coolest thing ever... A good example of what the big city has to offer.

Honestly however, I'm too tired to write much more. My eyes are closing. My brain is shutting down. And I'm quite certain, I'm already asleep.

Dead Drops

There are moments such as these when you give up on sleep as sleep has pretty much given up on you.

I've been thinking for the last twenty minutes that I should probably just suit up and head over to the gym. Waking up early after all doesn't have to be a curse when it could just be a gift horse in disguise.

Still I can't put my finger on what exactly it was that pulled me from my bed this morning. I could blame my dog, but then again, we get up at least once most every night so she can do her business, and normally getting back to sleep is a non-brainer.

But not this morning...

It may have something to do with the dream I just had, or the small amount of stress I'm feeling this morning, or the laundry list of concerns, things to do, and things I should have already done being so much on my mind that my mind can no longer focus on the importance of sleeping.

Either way it seems as if I'm up for the long haul and there's no point now in trying to deny it, regardless that it's the first day of my vacation and here I am, up with the birds as if I'm going to work.

And work be damned...

I need a week off from that place to regain what little bearing I have left as of late.

I am convinced that I can attribute much of my energy drain on a windowless office, and a desk decked out with an invisible chain. Many negative vibes and the job I used to love is more like the job I loathe, and the only time I marginally like it is on payday when they grease my palm.

Still it would be nice to do something I love... Then again, I'm not really at a place in my life where struggling writer sounds like a wise career move. And though I do what I can when I can, I've got to admit that I'm on a snail trail for completing the things I really want done.

Last night I went to bed thinking about what I refer to as the dead end drop. The point in a story where the author has weaved their tale from the initial plot, to the but it has to end here somewhere part. Or much like my accidental dip in the water, the point where the ride was going smoothly until you hard stick your paddle into the water and end up all wet.

The dead drop is sudden. Unexpected. An ending so quick you had no idea that you were even being led up to it, convinced that the pages still left to go hold some sort of words of explanation rather than more author acknowledgements for why they suddenly cast their characters so harshly from the boat.

I too am guilty of the dead drop. The point in the story where my brain just says, "Okay, Stacey. Time to bring this to a close. We don't have all night, you know."

And I hate to do it. Hate the lazy way it just seems to say, I couldn't think of any other way to end it all. It leaves the reader unsatisfied. Stuck if you will inside a story that forces them to imagine an ending other than the one they were forced to abruptly accept.

As writers we have a responsibility to work an ending until the ending turns out right. Though don't confuse my statement as an argument for a happy ending. More often than not, the happy ending is a worn out cliche. Not that I want to end every book I read with a box of Kleenex by my side and a raging migraine just to prove my point that some endings require darkness rather than light.

Every story has to answer to its own end. And when it doesn't, the reader knows. Sensing the deception that has been passed off as completion, they close the book with less satisfaction than any writer would want them to.

An unfinished story is like a Picasso half painted. A great masterpiece lost to an even greater ambition to please the masses when all that matters at the time of its conception is pleasing yourself.

It makes sense if given some thought.

And this is why we write. Why a painter paints. Why a musician composes. It's not, as some would believe because it's what we want to do. When we're called, it's a summons that refuses be ignored. Not even at four in the morning when it calls us from our beds, and wakes our mind with endless possibilities.

It's for the love of the creation. The sound of a thousand words on our lips. The thirst we have to impart whatever knowledge it is we believe we've gained. An attempt to reach, to touch, to be a part of this great big world. To make you laugh, to make you cry, to make you remember from where it was you came, and push you to go to the places you've just begun to dream to go.

We are a destination. And an invitation.

A journey that begs you come explore.

The Kayak Story... Many Weeks Later

When you're swimming for shore, it's best not to be in the middle of the lake...

This is a life lesson I learned just a few weeks ago when my sister Jo and I went on a kayaking expedition.

It was one of those perfect bright blue sky, big white puffy pillow cloud kind of days with just enough of a breeze to keep us from feeling like fried eggs sizzling on a sidewalk. Blingy sunglasses, bathing suit top (bottoms implied) and lunch stored safely away in the waterproof compartment of Jo's kayak, we launched ourselves off, into the great blue yonder.

Yonder being in front of my Father's friend's camp with them waving from above, safely up on shore.

This would be a good time to mention that I'm slightly wary of water. And believe me when I tell you that's there's not enough therapy in this world to combat the irrational fears of my childhood. (And no, I'm still not over that damn cartoon Hobbit movie my elementary school made us watch every year as if it were some kind of treat! Frodo Bagins be damned, I was scared of ring wearing frogs and goblins I was convinced lived in my basement.)

Rewind to one really bad perm, a tin can disguised as a boat, and a girl completely clueless as to how to get herself back in to shore, and you've got yourself a serious situation. In other words, a completely inappropriate time for those posing as responsible adults to merely watch the events unfold as if it's comedy night at the Improv and I'm the star attraction.

Yeah... Not impressed. Not then. Not now. And pretty much never hits the mark on me finding anything about that moment in time to laugh about. Which reminds me that whoever took that picture belongs high up on my shit list! I mean hello, abject terror, fear and more tears than the lake had in it is not my idea of a Kodak moment, Mom!

So who could blame me for being more than a bit freaked out about putting myself in a craft that could pretty much land me in the drink without the slightest provocation on my part?

I am however a great believer in doing the things I'm scared to do... One cannot be a role model for one's saucy mouthed daughter if one doesn't prove that it can be done by sheer force of will and fortitude of spirit. Luckily for me, I fear a great many things so I've lots of options to explore on quite a regular basis.

Karaoke kindly is not on this list... Been there, done that and did it quite badly. Then again, whoever thought Me and Bobby McGee should go country ought to be tarred, feathered and dropped into an eel infested pit, right along with the big belt buckle wearing boy whose bright idea that was.

But I'm digressing.

It was a bright blue day, the sun was warm, and the water was cold as we cut a sharp path through the water, taking the small waves from motorized passersbys. And we'd gone far. Two miles perhaps. To a little island populated by sand ants, and more dog shit than I've ever seen on an island so small. Yet it was here we decided to bank and have ourselves a little lunch. After all, islands don't come around all that often and quite frankly I was beginning to feel my arms turning to mush.

Satiated and well rested, my confidence was soaring high. "Here I am," I remember thinking, "Practically a pro. And seriously, who needs these stinking water shoes anyway? I can just take them off and store them away for later."

You know when you watch a movie, and you're really rooting for the good guy or in this case girl but you can see the calamity that they can't, and you clutch the seat of your chair, close your eyes, shake your head and wish you could just bop them in the side of the head to get them to wake up to the stupidity all around them?

This was exactly that moment.

The one I couldn't see coming...

Heading back in the direction of which we came, Jo just a bit farther ahead from where I was, my kayak suddenly decided that it wanted to go a different way then where I was headed. And me not wanting to find myself turned around (and without much thought for the frailness of my existence) dunked my paddle in hard to correct my motion. Only it didn't correct it at all. It stopped me, it turned me and then it did exactly what I was hoping it wouldn't do...

In a split second, I was sitting in my kayak upside down talking to the fishes. It took me about three seconds to slip out, surface and sputter in what was a combination of warm body hitting cold water and the sudden realization that I was seriously screwed.

Jo, equally freaked out by me being freaked out, quickly turned back to come to my rescue. Treading water, clutching my life jacket, and feeling something slimy slip across my leg, I immediately began cursing my own idiocy.

I won't repeat exactly what it was that I said, but I can assure you that the "F" word was used with great abandon!

But to be honest, I couldn't help myself. I laughed. And kept laughing until a little water in my mouth reminded me that this wasn't exactly what the moment called for, at least not when the water was threatening to take my kayak under to the same (may they rest in peace) place my favorite pair of sunglasses and bright orange water shoes now call home.

So I did what any good kayaker would do. I righted the kayak, kicked up my heels, grabbed on to the toe handle and started swimming... Very slowly.

Karma being the bitch goddess she is known to be, made damn sure that the moment my stupidity put me under, I was also dead center in the middle of the lake. Thankfully it's not all that big of a lake. I was however far from shore, and completely freaking out everytime I felt something plant/fish like touch my legs. I am against all things slimy!

But swim I did... Swim, swam, swum... You name it. I did it. And when I tired, I grabbed on to my sister's kayak and let her paddle me in. And no, I'm not ashamed to admit that the closer that we got to shore, the more I body hugged the bottom of her vessel and prayed that the rocks scraping against the small of my back wouldn't leave too many a damaging mark.

I do after all have a little dignity left to hold onto...

Though at this point, it's much less than what I started out with.

Writer's Block

I've been wanting to write something. But lately everything I really want to say is having a hard time coming out the way I want it said. I blame distractions. All of them! Like KC sitting in the living room with the TV on, driving me crazy with nothing but noise when all I really want is silence.

And yet I can't send her to bed. Not when she's waiting up to see my Mom come walking through our door with open arms and a hug to spare. Instead she burns the midnight oil, sketching quietly in her notepad while blaring my eardrums out with programming not worth paying any attention to regardless of the fact that I'm having absolutely no success in the ignoring.

I've become old.

Noise for the sake of noise, no longer impresses me. And though I have great skill and talent for blocking just about anything annoying out, right now I'd gladly throw a shoe, or whatever I have on hand, at my coveted flat screen just to shut it the hell up.

(Fast forward forty years from now and I'll bet the last few dollars in my bank account that I'll also be that cranky old lady who stands scowling behind thick, dark curtains just waiting for some young whippersnapper to make the mistake of stepping on my lawn...)

Not a pretty image. And yet, what I would do for quiet right now surprises me. But then again, not really...

Maybe I should just order KC off to bed. Or put up my latest foreign movie Netflix film. Hell, if I could figure out where Connect Four last got put away, I'd grab that out and challenge mini-me to a game.

I should probably just go to bed...

I have nothing to say.

Good and Going

I am exhausted.

I seem to spend my days doing. Running here, running there. Logging on the miles with my feet and with my car. Going, going, going...

I can't remember the last time I spoke to Brenda on the phone. Can't remember the last time I took the time to read a good book. Can't remember the last time I allowed myself to sleep the morning in.

I've gone from being a possibly maybe kind of girl to a count me in even if I don't really want to go gal. And though I'm overjoyed to finally be living life to its fullest, I'm quite convinced that a little down time needs to be on my docket soon.

And as usual, finding the right balance is far easier said than done.

And there are moments when I have to right myself from turning the wrong way, or keep myself from making new choices more reminiscent of the old. So much so I've become my own best reminder of what it takes to get where you want to be.

After all, I know exactly what I won't ever settle for again...

Trapped

Ten minutes ago I was carefree. Relaxed. Reading a book with no thought of anything to trouble me before sleep.

Now I'm wide awake. Stressed. My mind scrambling with information in a drunken shell shocked way.

And all I can think to myself is, "Not again."



I can't live with this again.

All fun and kidding aside, noisy neighbors are one thing, but a noisy neighbor with a boyfriend who comes complete with a level three sex offender level rating just three seconds from my backdoor, that I can't live with. Not for a minute. Not for a second. Not at all...

I'm out of answers on what I should do. Contact my landlord who in his usual clueless way will do nothing until something forces his hand? Start looking for a new place to call home and hope to God I can afford it? Or cross my fingers that this problem will go away all on its own...

I'd feel numb if I didn't feel so much like throwing up.