“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” F. Scott Fitzgerald

Speaking of memories…

The holidays are here.

I assumed the holidays wouldn’t be easy this year and expecting that, I wasn’t all that surprised to have sly, sharp jabs of memories sneaking their way in over the last few days. While so many things in my life are going right these days, I also haven’t had much time to sit back, take a few deep breaths and acknowledge the few that aren’t. Those few struggles I do have are definitely the ones that tend to make the holidays a strange affair.

I don’t have the typical family problems around the holidays. You know the typical family problems; the family gripes, drama and panics that all culminate in singing carols in the living room on Christmas Eve and opening presents in p.j.’s on Christmas morn’. In fact, ever since I moved out of my home in my mid-teens, I rarely see family at all, much less for the holidays. I was very young when I started my own network of friends and trusted ones; creating my own family out of the supportive people around me. Is it the same? Sometimes, yes, and sometimes, no. Like anything in life, it has its pluses and minuses. It’s a pretty incredible feeling to know that the friends and loved ones I do have, love me back for no other reason than they want to. No one I know was obligated by blood or familial ties to care for and spend time with me. And yet, there they are. When I have a bad day, when I am pissy for no reason, when I want to play, when I have chattering nonsense to share; they are there to hug, admonish, laugh, and listen. So, all in all, I’m a very lucky girl.

But it doesn’t mean that I avoid the pangs of missing that blood obligation come winter. Something about family, knowing that they’ve seen your face change from a wrinkled babe, to a just-beginning-to-be-wrinkled 26 year-old, of having memories so old that they’ve become lore and no one really remembers how it went down – there is a comfort in that.

I feel compelled every so often to go walk up and down my childhood street. Feeling oddly pulled to sit on the front porch and look down the worn street littered with fall leaves at my old bus stop. To pause in front of the house where I had my first babysitting job.  And the one next to it where I regularly dog-sat – a strange house where I inadvertently saw my first Playboy (rather a mint collection of many years) and so began to get my first inkling of what men really want. I feel compelled to find the giant sewer drain where I smoked my first cigarette and the nearby creek where I had my first kiss. To sit on the stump of an enormous tree across the street in the neighbor’s front lawn. That stump is all that remains of the pride and plague that was the largest, tallest tree in our neighborhood, and for all we knew, the world.  It was in that tree that our neighbor’s boys would climb, jump and sometimes, inexplicably, pee out of. I definitely wouldn’t mind a  glare at the peach tree in my old backyard, still resentful of too many afternoons picking up the rotten, fly infested peaches that fell to the ground, uneaten. To this day, I won’t eat peaches raw. But I resist the compulsion and I don’t do any of those things. Although my childhood home isn’t that far from here, there is never a good time to walk down that particular memory lane. Especially when it’s fraught with so many potential potholes and detours of regret. And I can obviously do that just as well sitting in my room, thirty minutes away.

I’m not worried though. With every passing month, the memories of the past dim ever darker and I find a new reason to be excited about the future. Sometimes the lessons I’ve learned don’t reveal themselves right away. It’s a surprise I may stumble upon when I’m least expecting it and I find, to my pleased astonishment, that I’ve actually learned something along the way. Learning is a small, but gratifying reward for the pain of growing. Already a in the midst of a hurricane of activity and blessed to have incredible friends all around, these holidays will fly by and I am certain they will have all the moments of sweetness I could hope for – the memories from holidays past will only serve to remind me how far along I’ve actually come.

“Inside all of us is a Wild Thing.”

— Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are)

Where The Wild Things Are was at once everything and nothing that I expected. I expected it to be beautiful, and it was very beautiful. I expected it to be dark, and it was terribly dark. What I didn’t expect was how it would make me feel.

Sitting in that darkened theater, entranced like everyone else around me by the artistry and grotesque beauty of the film, I felt almost uncomfortable with the myriad of emotions it conjured up in me. Flashbacks to the most awkward moments of my preteen youth danced rapidly through my head and my chest. I distinctly remembered how it felt to be filled with many confusing emotions, all so near to the surface and warring constantly with one another to be on top. That period of time I usually treasure as footloose and fancy-free was very often fraught with unpredictable fear and paranoia, both valid and completely irrational – and I think we adults often forget that.

Even more striking was how time seemed to be in a different dimension then – each day an adventure, each hour a surprise. Sometimes an hour flew by so fast that dusk fell before you could prepare for it, catching you and your playmates altogether unawares. Suddenly it was time to go in and you weren’t ready for it, so a game of Flashlight Tag was hastily proposed. Or just as often, Time slowed to a creeping crawl. After cramming what felt like a month’s worth of fun and activity into just one hour, you felt changed somehow at the end of the day, barely recognizing your own face in the mirror. I remember I spent ridiculous amounts of time in front of the mirror as a child, reconciling what I saw with what I felt changing inside.

As I sat there, mesmerized by the depth of character found in those amazing puppets’ facial expressions, all those memories and more flickered in and out of my consciousness. The absolute, all-consuming fear of what may be hiding in the dark shadows under my bed came rushing back in a stomach tightening flood.  The euphoria of being found when I was lost and frightened, the confusion when presented with adults misbehaving, the desperation to be heard, to be noticed, to be loved…it all bubbled up to the surface of of my heart, reminding me that maybe those feelings had never strayed that far away after all. Reminding me that perhaps I’d just gotten better at ignoring it, or maybe just better at giving the unknown a name and a face, compartmentalizing everything in an effort to better make sense of the world around me.

I teared up at odd, unexpected moments in this world of the Wild Things where there is no clear bad guy or good guy, in this childhood version of the psyche where the battle for good and evil plays out in the jungle of your overwhelming heart and mind. As it is in real life, the life of the Wild Things is bittersweet, usually more bitter than sweet because they have the annoying tendency to eat their kings and they have no mommies. Carol, the impulsive, raging, angry, friendliest monster, was the easiest to relate to. No one plays the wronged, temper-tantrum-thrower like James Gandolfini. Something about Gandolfini’s voice and way makes even Tony Soprano, the murdering mob boss, lovable.  Carol moved me to tears, especially when he felt compelled to show Max the wooden city he’d built. It was a vision of what Carol wanted life to be, his paradise where everyone lives together happily in one house, they have fun all the time and sleep together every night in one giant pile.

Carol: It’s going to be a place where only the things you want to happen, would happen.
Max: We could totally build a place like that!

Without changing a single important piece of the story, director Spike Jonze and writer Dave Eggers, managed to subtly address the most common pain children experience today, the pain of divorce. We all forget, due to the frequency of it’s occurrence,  how terrible a toll divorce takes on the innocent victims, the children. Wild Things doesn’t let you forget. Especially the most important question children have, “Do you still love me just as much?”

For those of us adults still possessed of an active imagination and jealously harboring the bits of the child still left inside, Where The Wild Things Are is a strange, dark and yet beautiful journey into all of our not-to-distant pasts. And for those of you shaking your heads, muttering about your extended age and life experience,  don’t forget that the world is ancient and we are each nothing more than seconds on it’s considerable time line. Let the wild rumpus start!

When the road gets dark
And you can no longer see
Just let my love throw a spark
And have a little faith in me

- John Hiatt

I’m thinking about starting a new blog or at the very least, heavily editing this one. It is time to embrace the turning over of a new leaf and just in time for the best of all the seasons, . . . Fall.

Each day, (unbeknownst to me) the heavy burden I’ve been lugging around for the last few years has been getting lighter – in difficult to notice and tiny amounts that finally added up. The unpredictable and frequent tears I cried in those still, quiet moments have blossomed into small, private grins and genuine laughs for absolutely no reason at all. I’m finding delight in the small and wonderful things and learning to take the big things one piece at a time. My most recent bout with rampant cynicism is dropping off  rapidly and what remains is just enough to keep me feisty and spicy. (Two things I love to be.)

I made some huge steps forward recently. Steps I was wearily beginning to think I would never take. For the first time in such a long time, I feel more grateful and silly than I do pensive and sad. More excited about what the future might bring, instead of dwelling on the scars that the past has left so deeply on my heart. I’m looking at my life with new hope, clearer eyes and even feeling proud of what I’ve accomplished these past few months.

More important than all of this, and for the very first time in my life, I’ve learned to have a little faith in myself. I’m more confident in my abilities because of each difficulty I’ve had to overcome.  Coming out of this last year not only intact, but better than I was, is a real revelation. One that I welcome with wide open arms.

I do not know what my future holds. Will I travel the world like I have dreamt of since I was just a little girl? Or am I destined to live in Texas forever? Will I get the job of my dreams one day or just one that pays the bills? I don’t know. But what I do know is that I have people in my life that love me. People that have shared my burdens when they didn’t have to, people that really care about me and I, for them. I also know that I treasure life and writing and nature and laughing. I know that I am thankful for each new day I am alive to greet and I can’t wait to see what the next few years bring to a still flawed, but wizened and gentler me.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you lived and lived well.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

While desperately pursuing a sweet spot in life, a carefree happiness that’s eluded me for some time, I’ve recently lost sight of any higher purpose. I, like a child, wanted instant gratification. Intentionally forgetting that enlightenment and wisdom most often come through great adversity and pain, I’ve just been trying to get the pain to stop. Doing so, I believe I may be inadvertently slowing the process to that eventual goal. When we set aside our problems to be looked at later and drown our sorrows in the protective presence of friends and beer, those problems don’t disappear. I know this, but I am not living this.

I don’t want to just get by in life, I want to experience it to the fullest, to the absolute hilt.

What I am doing now, how I make use of my time now, will never get me to the hilt.

“In the end, it’s what gets you through the day that counts.”

So many people repeat and/or subscribe to this theory, but dwelling on it this evening, I realized it couldn’t be more wrong. Making the most of your life means doing the exact opposite of that, for sure. It has everything to do with what you choose to do to get you through the day.

For the people who regularly end a long workday with a six-pack of beer and mind numbing television programs, they are making a choice. A life choice. That choice, poor or not, is to zone out, veg out and otherwise zombie-walk through the rest of their lives. Rather than face each day clear-headed and vulnerable to life’s inevitable disappointments, they prefer to immune themselves to trials and tribulations with numbing agents that narrow their fields of perception. There are nearly endless ways to zone out; video games, movies, talking mindlessly on the phone, bottles of wine, whatever. And I’m not saying that a few mind numbing nights are not in order…we all need to zone out once in awhile. However, the ease in which you can slip into that numbing process is dangerous. Suddenly, it’s every night and you wake up one day, wondering what the hell you’ve accomplished in your life. Well, the answer is in the moments you let slip away.

I made some serious promises to myself about a year ago. Promises concerning patience and kindness to others, pursuing wisdom in all things, learning from my mistakes, indulging my insatiable pursuit of knowledge and realizing important goals. I’ll admit it. They’ve been put on the back burner recently. No, not just on the back burner, if I’m being honest with myself. They’ve gone largely ignored as of late and the fault lies only and solely with me.

Coming to the realization a few years ago that I’d lived my life somewhat indulgently and even been reckless with other’s feelings and hearts, I decided then to be more cautious in all aspects of life. That is a difficult task for me, considering my naturally flighty and spontaneous nature. Well, I would say that in many aspects, I was successful. Today I can say with confidence that I am an honest, straight-forward and thoughtful person.

Unfortunately, I can not say that I am any closer to realizing my goals and I am no longer learning or moving forward. I’ve reached a wall in my evolution, and in order to scale that wall, I think I’m going to have to accept a certain amount of fresh pain and grunt work is a must. It’s time for me to cleanse, refresh and start over. Since I don’t have outrageous sums of money to hide away, contemplating in a lake cabin for a year, I’m going to have to suck it up and say no to the temptations around me. I must learn to focus, or I will never reach a single one of these goals.

I see a long and winding road yawning before me.

Deviating from my usual indoor routines, I stepped out into the sunshine this afternoon, fully intending on taking a little detour through the nearby woodsy area and sit languidly beside a stream, while reading my book.

The dogs had other plans for me.

As soon as I exited from my cave (my horrendously messy room) and stepped into the backyard, they eagerly rushed towards me. Bailey’s butt was shaking back and forth at warp speed and Diego, with his signature single-mindedness, was pushing his slobber covered, floppy red Frisbee on my leg. Diego dropped the slime covered thing on my bare foot, and looked up at me expectantly with watchful doggie grin. Meanwhile, the little Maltese mix my roommates and I are babysitting danced excitedly around, trying not to get squished.

I abstained from throwing the toy and stared back at Diego, smiling, waiting to see his next move. Bailey took this showdown as an opportunity to grab her ball and come back wriggling in sheer happiness. Diego looked down at the Frisbee in confusion, as if astonished that it hadn’t moved of it’s own accord by now, and nudged it with his long nose impatiently toward my foot, his eyes never leaving the red disc. Nudge, nudge. Nudge.

I giggled to myself and backed up, watching him. Ooh, a nudge and a bark this time! Jumping forward and batting me with both his front feet, Diego barked his wants at me. He ripped his eyes away from the Kong Frisbee for only a second to glance up at me anxiously and butt me with his head.

Unable to resist the elation and play of the pups, I grabbed both the ball and frisbee, at once deserting my plans for a nature walk and changing them to an afternoon in the backyard. I threw Bailey’s ball on one side of the yard and Diego’s Frisbee to the other. They both sprinted off, sublimely happy for that moment in time. Bailey’s ball bounced off the fence and she leapt her large body straight up off the ground, twisting to snatch the ball right out of the air. Diego, lithe and inexplicably fleet, beat the Frisbee and spun to catch it. All lean muscle and sinew, he resembles a cross between a Short-haired German Pointer and a Whippet. The boy can fly. They both returned to me and quickly dropped their toys at my feet, completely ignoring the tiny, still dancing Maltese mix, Toby.

Grabbing up the toys, I repeated my previous throws and spent the next 30 minutes trying not to accidentally toss the damn things into the neighbors’ yards.  Bailey, panting heavily, finally stopped at my feet and keeping her ball safely in her mouth, dropped unceremoniously  onto the cool, freshly cut grass. Diego, he of the unlimited energy, was also out of breath and content to temporarily accept my pushing away of the Frisbee. After a quick glance to ensure no piles of dog crap were underneath me, I took my cue from Bailey. Stretching out on the lawn, I rubbed her black fur idly with one hand and ran my fingers through the newly shorn grass with the other.

Sounds from the neighborhood swelled around me, intermingling with the heavy pants from the dogs. Shouts, from kids and parents alike,  broke the relative quiet of the late afternoon. They were accompanied by lawnmowers and  weed wackers, all blending together into a relaxing low hum. The sweet smells of cut grass and barbecue lingered in the strong wind, which countered the warm sunshine perfectly.

In that moment, if only for just that second, all the things that have been weighing me down so much lately, lifted and I was free. I distinctly remembered doing this very thing as a young kid. Lazing in the grass, listening to the sound of friends playing nearby and choosing to daydream my time away, participating in the world from a distance.  Firmly in the grips of nostalgia, I felt a flimsy ghost of the blanket of safety from my youth. The world was wide open before me then, nothing was impossible, and no dream too big. Books had opened my mind at a very young age to endless possibility and a promise of exciting adventure someday, thrilled through my bones.

Closing my eyes, I inhaled the clean air through my nose, calming my heart, and absentmindedly (yet again) ran through the journey from Then to Now for the hundredth time in my head. Countless decisions, unrestrained joy and searing pain, detours and surprises litter my path. My father’s deep voice reverberates off the walls in my mind. “Jennifer, if there is a hard way to do something, you’ll find it. You’re stubborn, like me. You need to learn from others mistakes! You don’t have time to make them all on your own.”

Yes, instead of taking the path less traveled by, I took the one you have to chop down with a machete and even occasionally, bulldoze. And that has made all the difference. Brambles and wicked looking trees, prowling lions, swamps, quicksand…you name it and I’ve most likely been there.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about a few things more often than others. One is forgiveness, and the other, is the uncertain road ahead. I yearn…no, I ache  to fulfill a few of those youthful dreams I still hold so dear and the difference is now I feel the newer, unchanging pressure of time running against me. I want to start having more of an answer to the question, “Who am I?” and it is going to require something specific from me…I’m just not sure yet what that is or what direction to head in.

Shaking off these cyclical musings, I jumped up, spilling little Toby onto the ground and dusting off the dirt. The pups jumped up with me and we started another game. My days are often this way, as of late.  Filled with these thoughts, I mean. Something’s trying to happen inside me and I’m not going to be happy until I get it all sorted out.

If you haven’t heard about Susan Boyle by now, you must be living in a cave and not able to read this. Whatever the case may be, you’re missing out.

On Britain’s Got Talent, a 47 year old woman with caterpillars for eyebrows and a quirky personality simultaneously admonished and won over the heart and minds of the world. Near 48, never dated and never-been-kissed (not by choice) this aptly described as “cheeky” and guileless woman stood bravely in front of a jeering audience and cynical judges, attempting to fulfill a lifelong dream. If you have any imagination at all, you’ll know what a lifelong dream means to someone near the age of 50.

I’ll admit, as I slowed the elliptical machine long enough to plug my iPod headphones into the nifty box that allowed me to hear one of the several TV’s in the place, I was expecting another William Hung incident. We’ve been conditioned by shows like American Idol to expect to laugh at the hilarity of truly terrible singers trying to make it as a singing sensation, marveling at their audacity to even try. As I geared up for the waves of cringing and pity sure to follow, I turned up the news at just the right part…and received the smack in the arse that I so richly deserved. I found myself hiding a sniffle from my fellow gym rats and wiping away a few stray tears. This was all nothing compared to the downright deluge when I watched it in it’s entirety at home.

To say that this video changed my outlook on life would be dramatic, yes, but not so far off the mark. I think this video is circulating so rapidly because it means just that to so many. In these turbulent times of economic instability and rampant cynicism, Susan Boyle is a bright shining star of hope and dreams realized.

We, society today, are like the skittish children of a really bad divorce. We’ve been lied to, used and manipulated so much that we’ve found solace in expecting the worst of everything. As a shield, I think we’ve childishly adopted costumes of apathy to disguise the calluses and fend of further disappointment. We’re all trying to find a happy pill these days, when one doesn’t truly exist. Life is hard, it is pain and yet, it is also beautiful, as our Susan reveals this night.

I don’t know if you all have noticed the attitude I’m referring to, but it seems to be a common ground these days; in our humor, children and normal discourse. No longer is the cool, nonchalant attitude being left in high school halls where it previously held court. Now, it’s being adopted nation, if not world, wide. I’m always running up against the “too cool” factor and it never fails to piss me off. I think my views on elitism are well documented by now. The cool policy seems to require we don’t be idealistic, overly emotional, or excitable. Instead, remain aloof, hands in pocket, and slam every single establishment we have with snark and sardonic wit.

How much more courage it would take to be vulnerable, to approach a moment with childlike excitement and glee. There is so much more to admire there, the humanity of it could bring you to your knees.

As with anything negative, it starts to wear away at you after awhile. It was one such night, when I felt weary with the weight of the world and it’s disappointments, that I watched Susan Boyle. This woman, having been through a lifetime of trials and disappointment, trots out on stage and faces her demons with a giggle and a hip swivel. In the face of Simon’s eye-rolling and a packed house of ridiculing laughter, Ms. Boyle opens her mouth and unleashes the full-bodied voice of an angel. As the song crescendos and her voice swells effortlessly out to accommodate, ruthless Simon Cowell actually sighs and smiles like a little girl in love, chin in hands.

I found my heart joining her voice, circling joyfully in wide arcs toward the vaulted ceiling and outwards, into the fervent shouts and applause surrounding her. Exalted and untouchable, if only for that moment, she wowed much more than an audience and three entertainment hardened judges that night. She wowed the world, replacing derision and exclusiveness with belief and love. The power of music to inspire and change has never failed to astonish  me. This is a shining example of that exact thing.

As an added note, I don’t know if she choose the song deliberately for it’s message or to show off her vocal range, but the lyrics are stunningly perfect for her situation. Anyone who has had to let loose some long coveted dream will identify with this excerpt from Les Miserables. I’ve included them below.

I Dreamed A Dream

from Les Miserables

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame

He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came

And still I dream he’ll come to me
That we will live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I’m living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

Rain, rain, go away,
Come again some other day,
We want to go outside and play,
Come again some other day.

Tonight could easily be a bad night for me.

Truly, any night lately could be a bad night for me. I am, however, doing very well at the distraction game for the moment. When some unpleasant memory comes up, I shake it off. I’ve been devouring distractions left and right.

Moving back to Texas wasn’t without its dangers. I knew the risk I was taking by being back in my old stomping grounds. I knew the memories that lay dormant here, just waiting for my presence to ignite into a dancing fire of whispered regrets and deserted dreams. I still feel my freedom was well worth the price.

Driving down familiar streets (which is kind of everywhere as I’ve  lived in nearly every suburb of the large City), faces from the past long buried are unexpectedly exhumed. I stare reluctantly at the nearly visible faces in my car window, long after the street/house/apartment complex has faded from view. Cursed with a temperamental memory, I seem to have no control over my ability to be rocketed back to the past at any given moment with just a mere turn of phrase or a specific fast food joint. Yet, I can barely recall my own childhood, drawing on a few distinct memories and relying on my best friend Nik’s nearly photographic memory to fill in the blanks.

Last week it was the street I spent all my preteen years on, a few days ago it was a Hannah Montana backpack on some random kid’s back, today it was unpacking and a TV program . Finding mementos from a past that should never have existed, I did everything I could to shove the memories down, back into a dark corner of my mind where they couldn’t drag me into No Man’s Land. Taking a trip down that Memory Lane can only bring on sadness and a deep seated regret I am dead tired of having to reconcile with myself. I took a deep breath, stopped unpacking and went to make myself some lunch while watching TV. Distraction.

I’m content that the path I’m on now is a better and more enlightened one, for all my hinted at tragedy I speak of here, and I know better than to indulge my dramatic nature right now. Things are too tenuous and I am not in a stable enough spot to delve into the darkness that I can sense shadowing my steps. In Florida, I was forced to slow down and face these things head on…I set my shoulders, resigned myself to being completely alone (not even close to an easy task for me) and faced the shadows head on.

I’ve had enough for awhile.

It is partly why I’ve been wasting my time, staying up late and sleeping in, while occupying my waking hours with non-stop and most often, non-productive activity. I’m avoiding the aforementioned thoughts and yet not making the best use of my distractions. Overall, I am disappointing myself and it must come to an end.

It’s all a matter of baby steps, chunking out each process to avoid being overwhelmed by the possibilities. I tend to look about 20 Life chess moves ahead and scare the shit out of myself. Therefore, I need to set up some very clear goals soon and start the path toward them. Most of my life, I’ve been paralyzed when it comes to decision making, mainly because of my fear that I will make the wrong one and the previous choice will be lost to me forever. That indecisiveness led to my often waiting until the last minute, when either a choice was made for me or I was forced to pick one. I love deadlines for this very reason. They’ve always pushed me where I hesitated to go. For some odd reason, my fears never seem to translate to my job. I’ll learn anything, take risks and suck it up when it comes to work. A good work ethic or just yet another oddity about me? …I really don’t know.

Thankfully, I’ve made quite a few large decisions lately when I felt I needed to and as I get older, I find myself relying more confidently on my abilities and believing more in myself. A lovely exchange for the more insecure yet still carefree days of youth, I think.

Meh. To sum all this blathering up, I’m holding off the melancholy for now because I enjoy being happy and being home. I’m aware of it’s presence; I’m just hoping to deal with it on more of my own terms in the near future.

Dawn, this one is for you.

Today I left my house and my problems behind to venture outside with my camera and see what I could see. It was a rare cool Florida day and I couldn’t wait to take advantage.

It was cold enough to surprise me back in; to change into my heavy Adidas jacket and some tennis shoes. I went outside, newly armed against and invigorated by the brisk wind I wasn’t expecting. I started out making my way around the large pond in the front yard. I brought up short by a gorgeous and wild heron intently watching the rippling water. I held my breath, not daring to bring up my camera, as she craned her neck and tilted her head, eying a fish in the murky water that I could never see. She broke her stillness abruptly, striking out with rapid precision. I nearly jumped but managed to regain control of myself in time to watch her come back with a tiny fish wriggling furiously in her beak. She waded backward in what should have been ungainly movements with those spindly legs of hers, but somehow maintained the grace and poise of a classically trained ballerina.

I moved my camera up then and her hair-trigger survival instincts reacted instantaneously. Huge white wings unfurled and pumped heavily through the air. She lifted straight up, clear of the water; and with her legs dripping gentle trails across the pond’s surface, flew away with her prize, alighting delicately in top of a nearby tall cypress tree. I smiled to myself and began my photo hunt. Passing two baby daisies gave me the idea to try out my macro setting that a friend told me about and I got to work. As I snapped away at a cactus growing out of a tree and some tiny red berries, I felt a calm settle over me.

The air carried just the barest whiff of a fall long past, and the animals and insects were in a shy mood. They would chirrup, snuffle and buzz every now and then, but most seemed to be huddling somewhere quietly for warmth and winter companionship. My grandparent’s dog, Missy, (the old, blind and stubborn monster) danced around by my side with a happy little grin on her face.

I moseyed around to the back few acres next and stopped by my Papa’s garden. It is over a half acre of the best vegetables around. Sweet corn, rutabagas, turnips, mustard greens, beets, tomatoes, cabbage and much more were planted in long rows of soft, slightly dry mounds of deep, earthy smelling dirt. I knelt down and ran my fingers over the tips of some beets poking out of this moist ground, letting it sift through my fingers, inhaling the rawness of it all.

I took a few pictures there, then just set the camera aside and sat down next to the garden. You can see the rest of the pics on Through My Jendow. Missy sat a few feet away, watching me out of the corner of her eye, while playing Ms. Big Bad Watchdog. I felt soothed by the whisper of the wind as it wound its way through the many trees around me, the monotone tiny voices of countless insects and the sound of faraway voices laughing.

It was a perfect time of day. Sunset was still more than a solid hour away, but the sun was starting to say its tentative goodbyes, the color of its rays less sharp now and more golden, its beaming face larger and warmer than before. I looked up at the baby blue sky and thought about the wispy, light clouds… I wished, not for the first time, to be a bird on wing for even just a second. To feel the freedom of  diving and swirling through the sky, temporarily unfettered by the laws of gravity. I thought lazily about life, love, and happiness. Filled with the contentment of perfect moment, I let my mind wander at will, drifting through and around topics with an easy mind.  Startled out of my lazy reverie by Missy’s loud, insistent barking, I looked over as she announced the slow arrival of a car up the long gravel road.

We don’t like visitors in these here parts.

Grunting, I lifted myself off the ground and dusted the dirt, bugs and grass off my behind. Before heading back inside though, I took one last, long look around me. Nothing beats going home…but I will sure miss the slower pace of this little nature heaven.

I had a pretty disturbing dream last night and, as my disturbing dreams often do; it had me thinking about the possible meaning or messages hidden amongst the bizarre symbols and situations. One thing that seems to be pretty prevalent in my more upsetting dreams is teeth. If bad things happen with teeth, I am guaranteed that my dream is trying to tell me something and I will wake up feeling concerned, upset, and/or flipping out.

For example, I remember during my very early 20’s (maybe even 19) a dream I had that made me bite the bullet and break up with my pseudo-boyfriend. At the time I was living a free-wheeling lifestyle. I worked hard and partied even harder. I typically worked the evening shift (three to midnight) at the bookstore. My older roommate, Kate, would wait impatiently for me to get home. The minute I was ready, we hopped in the car and took off for the downtown club scene, already playing loud, rhythmically pumping music in the car on the way. I wasn’t yet 21, but considering the older crowd I ran with, I was rarely carded. I got The Stamp that said I was 21 at one club, and usually was okay for bar/club hopping all night. I would get drunk pretty quickly (read: lightweight), since I was never comfortable in the club scene anyway; and eventually would be cajoled into dancing and other general stupidity out among the sweaty, anonymous press of bodies gyrating madly to the insistent thumps of typical club music.

After closing down the clubs, including sobering up at the one that stayed open till four but stopped serving alcohol at 2 am, we would make the drive back home to our little suburbian corner of the world. I was never driving, so I would usually stare blankly out of the window at the city whipping by, listening to wind-down music like Jack Johnson and trying desperately not to wonder what the hell I was doing with my life. When we arrived home, we would go to our separate rooms without so much as a “Good night” and crash into the deep, zombie slumber of girls who partied too damn much, until it was time for work again. One such night, I had a dream that I still remember in vivid detail.

In this dream, I was feeling my two front teeth with my tongue, a habit of mine when I am thinking, and I felt something odd. One wiggled. I pushed a little harder with my tongue, feeling around experimentally for more wiggles. Both my front teeth felt a little loose, so I reached up my hand to touch them. As I touched them, they shifted in my mouth and I could taste the copper of blood. Then they both popped out abruptly into the palm of my hand and blood began pouring out of my mouth, drowning the front of my shirt. I couldn’t stop the blood but I was more concerned with my freaking TEETH falling out.

I woke up in a dead panic.

I read up on it at work that day (working at Barnes and Noble was a reference heaven) and found that teeth in dreams were often symbols of guilt or secrets. I didn’t know how much I believed in dream symbols, but with my dreaming history, I was willing to explore the idea.

For awhile now, I’d been torturing myself about this relationship I had. I was dating a guy I didn’t even like, it was just convenient and I felt sorry for him. Horrible, I know. To make matters worse….he really liked me. I told him from the beginning I didn’t want anything serious, just someone to play video games and drink with, but I knew he wasn’t hearing it. He listened but did not hear it. Most guys don’t. He was the only guy I ever dated that was more brawns than brain, and I saw right through him. He even hid his insecurities with real swagger (cringe) but he had a sweet heart.

The dream upset me so much I avoided everyone and everything but work for a few days. I was a workaholic at that time in my life anyway, picking up any shift, working off the clock, sometimes staying for changeovers until 7 am and loving every minute of it.

Finally, after getting dozens of calls from my “friends”, wondering where the hell my wild ass was, I set up a meeting with my guy. I sat him down on the steps of his apartment building, also in my apartment complex, and said

“*Adam, I need to tell you something. You know I am not in love with you. I know you’ve said you don’t care about that….but I do. I can’t be in a relationship with someone I don’t love anymore. It’s making me feel horrible. I am so sorry.”

He looked at me like a puppy dog and accepted it with the same steadiness that he’d accepted all of my quirkiness in the half a year we’d dated.

“You know I don’t need you to love me back, Jen. I just think we have fun together and you know we can be whatever you want.”

To which I responded,

“Well, I’m going crazy over here, feeling guilty because I’m not ready for being anything other than friends. Of course we are friends but I just need to not be tied down right now. I’m too scattered for that.”

He was feeling emotional, I could tell, which would evoke a myriad of feelings in me, (some kind, some not so kind) so I started talking. Babbling, more like. Fast. Anything that could distract him. Rambling about work, partying too much, anime, video games, making plans for hanging out in the future….he cheered up a little and I beat a hasty retreat back home. My horrible tooth dreams went away.

He was one of the few people I didn’t burn my bridges – better to say explode my bridges with, so in the end doing the hard thing payed off. I didn’t always give my boyfriends the luxury of such an eloquent or kind good-bye. They didn’t always deserve it either.

A year later I was beginning a serious relationship with someone whom I would eventually get engaged to, and I was hiding a few secrets from him. I had dreams about my teeth twice. In one, I pushed with my tongue and they cracked in half, tumbling in slow motion out of my mouth. No pain, no blood, but absolutely haunting. In another, they fell out in my mouth and blood nearly choked me. I came clean and the dreams stopped.

So, my dream last night had teeth in it. You can imagine my discomfort.

But this time, in this dream, the teeth were not mine…

My 92 year old grandfather and I are up on impossibly tall ladders, leaning against each other on the roof, discussing the intricate detail of the unique pattern of this modern-style roof on some Dr. Seuss looking house. This would never happen, but okay. I start to fidget on my ladder, (I am ridiculously fidgety) making my grandfather very nervous. At one point, I held onto the roof and used my legs to pick up the ladder and move it to a more comfortable position. He ordered me to get off the ladder after that. I did. Then, out of nowhere he turns into an acrobat. He decides to get off his ladder by using his body weight to propel it forward and spin the LONG ladder in the air and as a final show, dismount with some spinning crap. He screwed up the landing though, and slammed into the pavement face first. I watched this entire performance in paralyzed horror and near awe.

I wasn’t sure he was hurt, so I slowly walked toward him, looking for any sign of movement. He raised his head and spit out two teeth…the sight of teeth stopped even my dream-self dead in my tracks. None of the Jen’s like teeth dreams. My grandfather doesn’t even have teeth, he is 92! but accuracy is not a dream requirement. He was obviously in a great deal of pain and I ran over to help him up and the dream went on from there.

The important part was the teeth. So. the teeth are back. Well, this is easy. I am keeping a secret from my family right now. A big one. Okay, why not my teeth then? Is it because I feel less guilty about keeping it, though I feel it is the wisest decision a t this time? Hmmmm. It seems I’ve yet again been attacked by my conscience.

Here is hoping I can escape tomorrow night Tooth Dream free.