SUMMER!

School is out. Finally. It's time for heat and shorts and no work or obligations, freedom and friends. Oh yes, it's glorious. This summer, however, I have more obligations than I had realized. I will be dancing as normal (approximately 15 hours a week until June 18, the day of "Cinderella"), volunteering at the Museum of Nature and Science (hooray for science nerds!), babysitting, and trying to have a normal summer (hanging out with friends, staying up late, etc.). So. There's my summer for ya, until I leave for camp on July 15 (hurrah!). I'm actually looking forward to it, despite my moans and groans. Now I really ought to go enjoy the sun (while taking care to prevent skin cancer, of course). And you should too! Have a wonderful day!

An Inspiration

Once, when I was asked about an inspiration of mine,
I told them about you.
I told them about how much you love other people,
and about how strong you are.
I told them about how you never forget to tell me you love me,
or how you can't really be mean.
I explained to them that you give up so much to be with us,
and that you work harder and with more care than almost any other person I know.
I said that your words could fix so many problems, no matter how large,
and that your smiles are worth more than money.
And I told them that I felt like the luckiest girl in the world
just to have you.

The Little Girl Who Loved Her Mama

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who loved her mama very much. She loved to bake cookies and dance and read, because her mama loved these things, too. But then one day, the little girl started to grow up. She put her dolls and toys away, her baking sheets and fiction books; she worked more and played less. And when all of her child-ness was gone, so, too were her smiles and giggles, her open arms and listening ears. Instead, she was a whirlwind of math problems and Shakespeare books, late nights and long days, driving school and high school and dancing school. It seemed like there just wasn't time for her to be with her mama anymore. It started to seem, to her mama, like maybe the little girl didn't want to spend time with her mama anymore. So one evening, when the little girl had a moment of time, her mama told her how she felt. And in that very same moment of time, the little girl told her mama exactly what she had always said, and what she will continue to say for a long, long time. She said that even when she's busy, or grouchy, or tired, or far away, or angry, or sad...

that she will ALWAYS love her mama.

If I Have a Daughter

If I have a daughter, I want to be just like you.

I want her to be proud to call me her mama,

Because I am so proud to call you mine.

I want her to be able to find me in a crowd

Because I could find you in a second.

I want the smile on her face to grow when she sees me,

Because even if I don’t show it, there’s a smile somewhere when I see you.

I want to be her inspiration

Because you are so many of the things that I want to be.

I want her to point to me and say, “that’s my mama, and she’s the best one out there,”

Because it would be the truest thing I could say about you.

I want to tell her that I love her every single night,

Because not once have I forgotten that you love me.

I want her to learn things from me

Because I wouldn’t be half the person I am without you.

But what I want most is for her to see that her mama loves her own mama almost as much as she loves her. 

Mother's Day

It's mother's day in just two days, and I have yet to decide what I will give my mother this Sunday! I've written a few pieces that I am considering giving to her, but I can't decide what one I should give her, if anything at all. So I've decided to launch a... competition. For myself. More like an election. I'll post all of my poems/stories/whatever they ares as separate posts and put a poll on the side of this blog. If you would read them, vote for which one you think I should print and give to her (or if I should choose something else to give her altogether), and direct your friends and mothers to this blog as well to help me choose, you would probably be my favorite person in the entire world. Maybe. But you should do it anyway. Thank you oh-so-very much, and if you happen to be someone's  mother, a very happy mother's day to you!

p.s. The poll is kind of small, so make sure you vote! Thanks for helping me out here :)

Lessons Learned

I had it all planned out. He was going to perfect and we, we were going to be able to do anything. We were going to be able to climb mountains and save nations and fly. We were going to be magnificent, a glorious pair, wreathed in heavenly light and an aura of happiness. He was going to be the boy I dreamed of, the one who would lift me up and spirit me away, and we would laugh and talk about everything we had in common- and everything we didn’t. He was going to be intelligent and witty and make me laugh. My face was going to be sore because I had smiled so much. We were going to be the king and queen of our own summer world, filled with puddles of sunshine and little sisters and overcrowded swimming pools. I tell you, in my head, he was incredible. But then we walked down shady city streets and he told me about everything he’d done and the other girls he’d pretended to love. We meandered aimlessly down artificially lit, tiled hallways in the middle of the day and he talked about things I’d never even thought about doing and about how he wanted to kiss me. I nodded and grimaced while he talked, and he didn't notice. Everything I’d imagined was gone, carried away by his terrible teenage soul. I felt the canyon between us grow until we were so far apart that I couldn’t even see him anymore. I walked myself home, because I didn’t want him to know where I lived. I didn’t cry, because I didn’t feel anything. I just felt empty, like he’d pulled all the life out of me. I saw him again in a French class, where he pretended he spoke French by using the word orange. He moved away and I switched French classes and it didn’t matter anymore. All that was left was a strange concoction of a calm hatred and remorse and a feeling that I had learned something. And you know what I’ve learned? Don’t ever plan it out. 

By the Ocean

She watches the waves and thinks, I don’t belong here. And she doesn’t. She’s a city girl, or a mountain girl, but not this. Not the obtrusive exhalations of the sea, the salty spray or the writhing foam. No, she’s not made of heat and summer and smiles. She’s born from freshly fallen snow and grimy subway stations, from the whispers between the branches of the trees that never die and ruts in city streets. She longs to be free, but not like this. Not here, not now. Oh, no, she didn’t arrive here to feel the dirty sand squelch between her toes, to feel the wrongness in her body of the crashing of the waves. She’s not meant to feel the humid air press against her skin, her eyes, her mouth. She knows that her bones ache for the Rocky Mountains, for snow days and bus passes and Subarus and wildflowers. She can’t hear herself think over the ocean. With each swell she feels tightness in her chest, a longing, a pining, an aching for home. There’s nothing for her, even if everything was here. She knows where she comes from and that that’s who she is- everything she is. If she didn’t have that, she wouldn’t exist. And now she’s absolutely sure of it. 

While Trying to Forget

I watched the world through my camera lens until there was nothing left. Nothing but a rectangle of space, reflected light. When I looked through that space, it didn’t hurt anymore. The mysteries locked up somewhere inside my heart vanished with my peripheral vision, and the steps where I saw you last became just steps again. They were steps, with the light falling on them in such a perfect way. Perfect like the lightness of your hair, and the way you smiled. Perfect like the way you once told me I looked pretty. And in the second that the shutter was closed, in that darkness, I remembered you. I remembered just how awful it was that you were gone, and just how terrible it was that it was my fault. I remembered that it hurt, that it hurt so badly that I wanted to curl up and cry for days. I remembered that I hadn’t, because these are the things I keep stopped up in my chest, the things that stay there and make it hard to breathe. I remembered just how ridiculous it was for me to even think about you, because you are so far gone. I remembered that I probably won’t ever see you again, and that you won’t care. I looked at the picture I had taken and remembered that I had forgotten, for a moment, so I put the camera back up to my eye and tried to see the world again. I spent a long time staring through that tiny hole, but I still only saw your ghost, floating up the steps, haunting me. I felt one lonely tear streak down my cheek. I considered photographing it, seeping into the ground, but I didn’t feel like it. So I went home and sat on my bed and tried to forget, and ended up thinking about you more than I have since I saw you that day, on the stairs.  

Found Things

I found this poem by Shel Silverstein today:

I know you little, I love you lots,
my love for you could fill ten pots,
fifteen buckets, sixteen cans,
three teacups, and four dishpans


and decided that I really quite liked it. I also found that, when failing to perform my best,  I become so humiliated that I very nearly cry. That was my day today. I hope yours was considerably better.