Whispered In The Wind

Whispered In The Wind
Just a fairy blowing in the wind, singing tales to the west wind

Saturday, July 30, 2011

The Policy Of Truth

-One of the most flawed, most truthful stories, if it can be called that, that I have ever written.-

You, you used to have all the answers. You knew why the moon set and what made the water blue. You were the girl with the chin held high. Sometimes they said you were stuck up. But you were just self assured. Confidence was your stride and pride came with the territory. And why not? You had the grades, the potential to wear the pride. Doubts were held on leash, your pet insecurities with little collars, totally under control. Sometimes they might pull you through the park and you would scrape your knee, but what's a little blood?

There was the year she just tried to pull you down, taking..taking...because your heart only taught you to give. A living sacrifice is a horrible way to live, dearie. And your little chin was pulled down a few notches of air. Isn't it funny to think of notches of air? Well sometimes air is just as hard as wood, and hides delusions easier. There was that year you didn't feel pretty, like some ones old rag doll. You couldn't sing like an angel and your feet felt like some one's old hand-me-downs. Like they were bought from some store of clumsy, defective body parts. “Little feet, damage is fine as long as they are cheap..have any in stock?” The teacher said you were the only one struggling with the math in a pool of D's and C's. The B on your report card was a blood stain. You watched the boy, the one with the personality like a tarnished pearl you wanted to clean. You said you had no more respect for him. His face fell for the first time and you felt a bitter, empty surge of control of people's hearts and you didn't want it. An ice queen was born inside of you..

The next year was spent thawing, restoring your hope in humanity. You over-dramatize everything, child. You never did have any great tragedy, it just felt like it. You closed yourself because its so very hard to respect people. But because your greatest fear is to end up without pieces of your heart. It's an over sized heart and you protect it like a ferocious dog. I'm afraid you will bite someone one day for touching it, darling. You grew up and you stop hurting..you relearned the meaning of love. Or learned it for the first time. Love is to serve, to care about others more than yourself. But you care a lot about yourself.

Why? Why not? You fought to be who you are, to feel like sometimes you ARE pretty and that you aren't hand-me-downs. You fought to have a voice like an angel, but you found it through ink. It isn't all that beautiful but it has the hope of something angelic. But more importantly you learned sometimes it isn't about the fighting. About the faith that your life isn't yours to control. You work your hardest and then you let go. But you never were good at that. You know humanity is worth it, even though they are black and tarnished. Even though you are black and tarnished.

Sometimes the very people who have insulted you, you find are the most beautiful. Because despite whatever mean things they say, parts of them open, and you see who they really are. Just as broken as the rest of us. She told you about her past life, her brother put up for adoption and her marriage and wasn't it strange? An entire perspective changed. You always did love the broken, because some of the most beautiful things start broken. A mosaic of a broken heart that you watch turn into art.

You still fight so hard to be worth something. To paint yourself in gold and be looked at like art. You try to wrap yourself in profoundness, drink meaning so that humanity will know your name. You ought to have learned by know to let go, to just let life unfold. But you always were the folder, and unfolding is something mysterious and unsettling to you. Doesn't it it create paper cuts?

But then doesn't life produce paper cuts? I guess we just have to suck our thumbs, apply bandages and move on? One day they might call you whimsy because you never could stay in one place, always off to chase the fairies. It's not because you don't see what is in front of you, but rather you see more in front of you. As an artist you feel more because you chose to be more. Or because you feel more, you must be more? You have to be more than you are now. But the secret to be happy is to be content. Well maybe for some. For you, you need to learn how to fly. And one day when you learn to fly, you can just sit down on a rocking chair and smile. And why they ask you why you aren't flying every where, I just bet, you will say “I know how to fly, I want to learn how to sit still now.” Because you did always have all the answers, by the end.



Wednesday, July 27, 2011

A Spoonful Of Childhood

 -When I grow up I think I want to be a little girl in a pink dress, tossing her curls to the wind and collecting butterflies. That should suit me just fine.-

When she was little she liked big teacups and warm blankets. She loved her slippers, soft as rabbit fur and her mama's curls. She rubbed lavender on her fingers to pretend she was grown, wearing  perfume. She borrowed her mom's big orange heels and wore them around the house, sliding across the wood floor. When she swept she pretended she was Cinderella and sang. As she ran up stairs, she always made sure to drop one of her shoes on the stairs. When she came back down, she would put the shoe back on, pretending to be amazed it fit. An imaginary prince would escort her back down the stairs to his castle.

She believed the wooden fairy in her room was alive. She would cover its eyes when she changed. One night she woke up screaming, convinced the fairy had touched her nose. She never did trust that fairy. She did not give it a name because names give power. Everyone knows that once something has a name it becomes even more alive. The more you say a name, the more alive something becomes. For example: her favorite stuffed animal. She said her name over and over and over again. And with each repetition of the toy's name she swore, she could see it's sleepy eyes twinkle, more and more. She bathed it in the sink in a mass of bubbles.

She knew Lucy lived in the back of her car. Lucy was always bossing around Charlie Brown in the trunk. She didn't really like Lucy..though as she got older her mom said she was most like Lucy of all the Peanut characters. She would like to resent that statement. She dressed up as a unicorn every time her mom dragged her to the bank. She had a head band with a silvery horn and ribbons, a little pink skirt with a silvery and white tail. The banker lied to her. She invested all her savings, a sum of one hundred dollars into an account. The banker told her about interest. He said if she kept her money in long enough, so long she was an adult her interest would grow. He said it grow so much that by then she could buy as many toys as she wanted. She began to plan what toys she would still want as an adult. Then she tried to guess how many jelly beans were in the jar at the bank. But she didn't get to eat any.

She had a little book about fairies. The only male fairy had fiery orange hair and freckles. Simply put, she thought he was super cute, but she had no idea what that meant. She always looked at the pictures of him, over and over again. One sad day, she realized something. His hair was not orange at all..He was wearing an orange caterpillar on his head! She then assumed he was bald and stopped reading the book over and over again.

The fuzzy blue caterpillars always looked like small oriental rugs to her. The kind she wanted to put in her dollhouse. But she couldn't put caterpillars in her doll house, so instead she conducted weddings for them. She made little arches out of daisies and clovers and read them verses from the bibles. Then she made the little fuzzy blue caterpillars kiss, guessing where their lips were. Do caterpillars have lips?

She saw an elf one time and heard a dwarf laughing inside a tree trunk. She also knew a house where an elf lived..but only when it was warm enough. Years later she brought her brother back to the house and yet again, neither of them saw the elf. He always was elusive. Some say elves are tall and willowy, gorgeous creatures of grace and honor. But the elves she always knew were short, bubbly creatures with cheeks the color of roses. They liked to steal little things and the really small ones would even drive off in some one's little remote cars. At least her dad said so. But then her dad seem to be the authority on all of this. She should have had him scare away the three witches in her closet. She always thought they might eat her one night. Thankfully she scared them away herself. Though to this day, she can't scare the gollem like creature from her vent.

On her 15th birthday her friend gave her a box of chocolates shaped like mushrooms. That night, before midnight they each ate one, promising never to grow up, to always stay children at heart. So she wrote poetry and walked down her street in a black cloak. She wore a crazy green skirt shaped like a bon-bon out. She skipped in the rain. At camp she gathered flowers and weaved a wreath for her hair. She danced like a spazz and sang Matchmaker at the top of her lungs. She chased her dog around the beach and fell down to wrestle him. She stuck her tongue out and made people pinky promise. She went to Busch gardens and hugged Cookie monster. She kept calling her little brother 'Boo-boo' and told her dad to tell her stories.

  Her grandpa always said, “You have your entire life to grow up, anyways.”




Monday, July 11, 2011

Pelicans And Memories

The moment  I picked up that dying fish, flopping in the sand, the salt on my tongue, sun in my eyes, I wasn't Hannah. I was the fisherman's wife, saving an enchanted fish. I was the wide eyed girl drunk off the words of a tale, late at night, under the covers, sneaking each sentence as each sound around the house meant imminent trouble. When I gently lifted it up and dived into the sea with it, being gentle as I could, I was swimming with my grandfather in Montauck, amazed he actually jumped into the ice cold water. The fish wouldn't swim, helplessly floating on it's back and I was the little girl, crying because she came home to her fish floating in her little glass bowl. But it couldn't be dead, like how my dog came home, hit by a car, guts coming out of his side, but still breathing. When I talked to the fish, gently telling it it couldn't give up, I was out my counter sighing over my math, convinced against myself I could do it..yet I could not. When I threw the fish, hoping somehow it would regain strength, I watched it fly throw the air for three seconds and land into the water. I remember learning to swan dive and I would feel like I was flying, then hurling to the water in an embarrassing flop. My legs curled too much and I thought I just couldn't. Sometimes things stop fighting, so other fight for them. I think about babies and how we are literally their voices, their fighters. I leave the water and walk to the shore, grandparents looking sympathetic yet impatient. I sometimes look at my brothers when they are close to tears but too strong or weak too admit it, full of sympathy and think..well that is life. But is it? The sand is hot and sticks to my wet feet..a small sand storm follows me wherever I go. Two boys kick sand at something moving on the sand..their dad yells "DON'T TOUCH!" I run to the fish, blood a puddle around it. I won't let it go. It has to live. I remember the swallow that was pushed out of its nest. I named him Dandylion and I took care of him. I even told him about flying, created places outside for him to practice. I tried to fly with him..holding onto some small hope, that deep inside flying is only a matter of how hard you believe. I saved Dandy and one day he flew away. I can save this fish. I throw him back into the water, over and over again. He can't swim, his fin is injured. I wonder why I care so deeply for this fish, a little bigger then my hand. I know if I leave him on the beach, that is part of nature. He will be a meal for the squeaking pelicans..part of life. But somehow this fish is part of my life. He feels bigger to me. I can't let him go without a fight. I talk to him, refusing to lose him. I want to save the world and so I start with this fish. I am afraid to fail. Fail at life. What if I can't change the world..want if I can't feed hungry bellies or help orphans? What if my writing is meaningless trash? Does it make you cry? Make you smile..make you laugh? When I pour out my soul..do you see melted brass? So here with this fish, I try to touch its fragile life..help it. It sounds ridiculous, even wrong. And eventually I  must accept, Herbie is a meal for the pelicans. I let him go, watching his frame float back to the sand bed. I want to run back at him, throw him back in the water. When I was younger my dog killed my favorite chick and I wanted to breath life back into it, pull part of my dogs life and breath it into the little chick. For a moment I hated my dog. How could something so innocent be so brutally destroyed? I want to chase all the pelicans and seagulls, away from the beach. Then they couldn't hurt this little fish, that I inexplicably had bonded to. But soon I realized sometimes you can't save the fish, sometimes you do fail, it turns out you helped the seagull..and sometimes..that's okay.

"I want warm summer nights, to lie in a hammock, staring at the stars, telling you stories. "

"I want warm summer nights, to lie in a hammock, staring at the stars, telling you stories. "
"When asked not to make waves, I just smiled and said, don't worry this is just a ripple"