"My Whole Life Was About To Change - I just did not know it yet !"
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Karma Free Writing will be offering 27 Days of Karma Free Writing Prompts starting on the 1st day of Spring. These writing prompts are designed to stimulate the creative process for writing your personal story - and beyond.
27 Day Karma Free Writing Prompts - Honorarium
The 1st 14 days are free. To go the whole 27 days there is a $27 honorarium.
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March
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- DAY #12. THEME: "REVISIT"
- Day #11 - Theme: "For me? You shouldn't have!"
- Day #10. Theme: "Turning Points"
- Day #9 - Theme: "Body Parts Know"
- Day #8. Theme: "I am HEALED!!"
- Day #7 - Theme: "Fun or Fear"
- Day #6. "Buying a pair of shoes."
- Day #5. "That Part Of My Live Is Over Now."
- Day #4. "That which is no longer."
- Day #3. "My Whole Life Was About To Change - I jus...
- Day #2. "Should of, would of, could of ... IF ONLY"
- "Prompt #1 - Things my parents taught me"
- KFWB - 27 Day Writing prompts - Intro
- Tomorrow We Start !!
- Almost there !! Two More Days !!!
- 5 More Days until the 27 Day Karma Free Writing Pr...
- One Week - Saturday March 20th 2010 - The 1st Day ...
- 27 Day "Karma Free" Writing Program set to start M...
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About Me
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ReplyDeleteI was adrift in the chaos of my twenties, following along…barely. It was the dreary, doldrums. It was the gray, dead-end of Fall, I had registered for more classes at university. I was doing what they told me, fulfilling requirements to "get out." The process was high school, into college, into the world. No one knew why, but it was what throngs of other white, middle class, and undereducated parents were doing with their children. It was a conveyor belt. I was a disgruntled cog or widget, wobbling down the line, escaping every once in awhile to find relief. I’d find it by accident in burned out garages, watching teens from high schools who were angrier than myself, moshing to hardcore bands...beer, sneers, knuckles...other bars and parties, people, women... distractions. None of it was enough.
ReplyDeleteUnsure if I was on academic probation or double probation at the time, either way, my attitude -even after being threatened with expulsion, didn’t seem to waiver, I was going to show these pointy-headed instructors who was smarter by not showing up or by not doing the work. What did any of it have to do with the state of the world right now? And what good was any of this insipid information going to give me? How was I to benefit the world as a human if I could compare and contrast Robert Blake’s The Tyger and anything by Wordsworth? "What did “intimate,” mean? Think he means imitate." Alas, I was young, spoiled and entitled, eyelids still sealed shut, ears clogged with bread boxes the size of bread boxes and angry about all of it.
Miraculously I made it to one of my 5 or 6 classes that semester, the one being, Eastern Civilization. It was a random class out of a handful that I could have picked. The teacher was as Wally Cox as he could be...small, bespectacled, wound tight, tweed blazer, button down brain, bow tie...the whole bit. And he could go on and on and on about the dynasties and the empires in a time before time existed. For the first several classes I simply fell asleep. He droned on in a dreaded nonstop, monotone, lecture voice, the kind of tone and endless spoken sentence structure that I could not fight. It was like a section of classical music, once it began, it never repeated to hook you back around, it basically never stopped. The man was a sitar. But one day, for reasons that are unknown to me even now, I began to listen.
For once in my life I was able to focus and listen to this man I normally ripped apart in my mind. I took notes furiously til I had to shake my hand from cramping. I learned to take notes with both hands, sometimes scribbling simultaneously in two notebooks. I ended up filling 2-3 notebooks per class. He often spoke faster than I could keep up, sometimes I would raise my hand and ask him to repeat ends of sentences. My mind raced to understand everything he described. In other classes I would take notes and mark key things one would figure obvious on a test. This was different, this wasn’t about the test, this was for me, and all of it was fascinating. I was able to set my ego aside, which I later found out was trying to destroy me, and I could just listen to all of this information about a time and place and a people and culture that I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d learn anything about.
The access this single class granted me was fifteen thousand fold; it allowed me to open and listen, it took me out of myself, it gave me the opportunity to see that I could learn about mundane topics and anything at all really, it piqued my curiosity to listen for and learn more, it reminded me that I didn’t know anything at all really, it gave me the mind it would take to throw myself into events perceived as difficult, or tasks that I would normally be so very afraid to tackle, it showed me that if I try to detach fear that I can learn, listen, walk and speak with a little more lightness through this life.
Peter wanted land with plenty of trees & grass, dogs and kids. I was fine with the grass & trees, and even the dogs. It's the kids I wasn't sure about, but that would work itself out in time, I reasoned. Someday I'd be ready to procreate.
ReplyDeleteThere I was, in my sweet little apron amidst seven acres of persimmons, with my Martha Stewart cookbook open on the kitchen counter. What had become of my life?
I had no idea how this would shake me up , turn me into a spinning milkshake chocolate and vanilla . Take my world into question and leave all that I believed to matter. He surfed , he biked he was a jungle boy who melted my stubborn hard candy heart.
ReplyDeleteActress/Artist-love this and want to hear more.
ReplyDeleteYes, yes - we want to hear more.
ReplyDeleteMy mother agreed to take me on a play date at my new friend’s house. We drove in our beat up Toyota and finally found it. The gate was huge, and there was a buzzer. My mom pushed the buzzer and someone answered in Bahasa, I think. It wasn’t English. We waited a long time. It felt like an eternity. At age 8 it felt like an hour, but it was probably only 10-15 minutes. My mother got a little impatient too. Finally, the gates opened wide. We were shocked. The driveway was so long. Like a hundred yards at least. No wonder the attendants took so long. Mom and I piled back in the car and drove, halfway there we stopped, but it was the gardeners’’ house and maid quarters. When we got to the end, my friend came out and greeted me with her mother. Everything was fine. She showed me around and it was a beautiful place to play in. She had a huge swimming pool that the dogs weren’t supposed to jump into. When the adults weren’t around we chased them around and let them paddle behind us. The fish had their own fountain with waterfalls. The grass was very green and we could run forever. I don’t remember our first actual meeting. I remember being in line in gymnastics class. Every play date was filled with adventure. Her grandmother had a stuffed tiger. It was real and huge and scary. She smelled great and looked fancy. She was kind to us. We could play really late. Her brother was cool. He was in high school. We could play with him after school. He had a ball court built just like in school. I loved to play with him. One day my friend was upset. She was afraid, She told me not to tell. Her brother was never coming home again. He had been in a car accident, except the adults knew it wasn’t an accident. I wasn’t allowed to ask too much. I was so sad for her. I wanted him to be OK, and it to be a bad dream or a bad joke. But the adults were very serious and never talked about it again. My mother explained it to me, and I listened to the words, but I didn’t really understand why he had to go. Many years later, she came to college in Boston and then I moved to New York. We grew apart. She had changed and pretended to have forgotten almost. But this year, she found me on Facebook and mentioned it would have been his Birthday. I cried the tears that couldn’t come out more than 25 years ago. Becoming an adult doesn’t make it any easier. We think we understand better, but the heart knows.
ReplyDeleteIt was time for an ultra sound. I'd had a baby. A boy. His name was Austin. I moved to Austin after he was born. I always laughed that I was glad I hadn't named him Detroit.
ReplyDeleteI never thought I wanted a baby. Then, I had Austin. I fell in love. I didn't know that people could be in love that way. No one said, "I love you" at my house growing up. No one seemed to really know what love was. It was something "out there" something on Bonanza or Little House on the Prairie.
It's so complicated to explain how or why I had this baby boy, but I did, and I fell in love. Head over heals, madly, passionately, deeply in love.
Then, when he was about two I was pregnant again. I was thrilled. I was going to have another sweet baby. My husband was going to be an astronaut. I was going to get my Ph.D. and life was about as perfect as it could get.
We went for the ultrasound. I'm not certain why we needed an ultrasound. I was still young. But, I did have great insurance, so things such as this were covered.
Her foot was swollen. "Her" foot was swollen. A little girl. We were going to have a baby girl. A sweet baby boy. A sweet baby girl. My husband was going to be an astronaut and I was going to get my Ph.D. and everything was pretty damned perfect.
But her foot was swollen. Things that float don't swell.
One thing led to another. Tests with big needles and enormous vials. Words too long to learn to spell. Strange looking geneticists who found a new diagnosis exciting.
Stretched nerve endings and constant pain. Intractable pain. Pain that could only be cured through amputations.
We were Ken and Barbie with a beautiful baby boy. We didn't know what to do.
I asked mothers who had raised families. Each one...7 in all...said, "stop it now Janet."
We were past a certain magic number when doctors and people of religion say it is ok to end a pregnancy.
No one in Austin would do it.
I traveled to Dallas.
The first day, I had a huge needle stuck in my belly. It then stuck into her heart. It gave her too much potassium. She died.
They then put sticks of dehydrated seaweed inside of me along with gauze soaked in some sort of saline.
Three times I returned to have the gauze and expanded seaweed rods removed and replaced with more dehydrated ones.
My big belly was heavy but it no longer moved.
I needed valium to sleep.
The next day I returned to the hospital. They began an i.v. that caused me to go into labor. After an hour she was born. Tiny with a horrible monstrous deformity.
But she was my little girl. I bought a beautiful gown for her. I dressed her. I held her for some time, and then gave her away.
She returned to me in a white box. Ashes of the the time gone by.
She could not have lived as she was. I took on her pain. I did the only thing I could as a good mother to her.
But, I was no longer Barbie. I did not get my Ph.D. and he did not become an astronaut. He's not my husband.
Janet....this is brave gut wrenching stuff..thank you
ReplyDeleteWowww Janet thank you
ReplyDeleteand thank you all of you
just wanna know more of each of your stories
« Listen carefully, and please just listen for now.
ReplyDeleteI understand that you wanna follow your dream, I do. If I were you, I will probably do the same and I would for sure not appreciate that another person makes any comments on that dream. It's Ok, just go.
You wanna play with the Big Boys, so go... Go my love, go to New Zealand, go and play with Peter Jackson, it's fine.
There just something that I wanna remind you, my name is not Penelope. I have no affinities with Tapestry at all and waiting is not my best quality.»
oh my god, Janet. I'm in tears. that was beautifully expressed and the end reveal artfully written.
ReplyDeleteI became inertia, and begot a daughter with the same name. The strange thing is that inertia is never the same. It changes each time, you think can turn on a dime, but the glue is still there, no matter the year. You want to traipse through the terrain and refrain from being a person who rains. And yet isn’t the lightning and the thunder inside part of what makes us so alive? Maybe we are just a huge storm, embracing chaos, betraying form, and tossing all in our way towards enormous bliss. Let us kiss and tell. Let us fell trees with our mighty breeze.
ReplyDelete"I became inertia" WHAT A GREAT OPENING PHRASE!!!!!!!! That is one heck of a turn of words! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteJanet,
ReplyDeleteSo beautiful. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks all for sharing so much.. This workshop brings me to tears each and every time... Who knew?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMy whole life was about to change……
ReplyDeleteOur conversation went unusually long that day. He had so much to say and was sad. Actually saying… “I’m so depressed I need you to come home today” we were only 100 miles apart, a short distance by car but to him I was a world away. Too self absorbed during the call I ignored his pleas “please come home I need you” I was young, just 19. We had been high school sweethearts and even dated a short time in Jr. high too. He wasn’t my first. I had had many before him.
I was the “BAD GIRL” with a “GOOD BOY”. He came from a “good family’, was sweet kind and loving. Captian of the football team, his teammates called him “Sarge” short for Sergeant. And, of course he was the quarterback too. I hung out in the smoking area got high everyday sometime before, during and after school. And, He loved me. Was never afraid to admit it. When the bitchy cheerleaders were checking him out, he would reach over, hold my hand and kiss my cheek gently. It was his way of saying this is the girl I choose go away and leave us alone.
I lived with his family my last year in High School. They were kind to me. I was not so kind.
The day of that unusually long conversation his last words just stuck in my head for the rest of the day. “Remember what ever happens, I love you more then anything in the world”. I decide to call him and invite him to come visit me for the weekend and the phone just rang and rang and rang. I tried several more times that day and had a bad feeling. I woke up the next morning at 6am and called again. His uncle answered… And I knew. He was gone. Things changed fast and forever…
Joanna, I like: When I pick up a pen,I believe for the first time ever I have something to say.
ReplyDeleteJanet, powerful and so heartbreaking. "I took on her pain. I did the only thing I could as a good mother to her." pulled me in.
The day my father passed away, I was not ready for this day.
ReplyDeleteI had just been locked out of my Mother's home by her and my stepfather one month earlier. They had found a few pot seeds on the kitchen table while I was camping at a lake for the 4th of July, 2000. I contacted my father's side of the family, broke a window into my bedroom and gathered my belongings to pack up and drive from Abilene Tx, to the Gulf of Mexico side of Houston Tx.
My father and I were finally together. He was recovering from a back injury he had from a work release program, from never paying child support. My grandparents took him in while he recovered from the back surgery.
I thought, wow I will finally get to know my Dad. We would go to the beach and talk about life. He was always a little high strung and talkative. I was talkative too, so this was fun for me.
I was able to see his huge heart for others, for his family and his giving nature. He'd bar-b-que for the family and for the neighbors. He would spend a lot of time next door playing cards with the couple who was his age group next door.
I had taken a scholorship to a local college into the theatre department and he was excited to see me act, as it was a passion of mine.
The morning of the day he passed, the neighbor came over while I was home alone. He informed me that my Dad was shooting cocaine in his arm everyday while he sat in the shower or bathtub.
I was shocked. I never had my Dad as a child because of his drug use. He had promised me that he would never go back to that. That he was sooo sorry for not being around. Well, come to find out the addiction was more than he was willing to admit.
My father returned in the afternoon, an hr or so before I was to go to summer rehearsal for the fall production @ school.
I could not look him in the eyes. I was cold and shut down to him. He saw me look at his track mark on his arm.
In his attempt to make me happy and entertain me, he said " Hey let's smoke a bowl in the garage!" Oh, and I loved weed at the time very much so this was Ok with me.
In the garage I still was rude and cold to him. I did not have to courage to face it directly so all I did was make him feel bad.
I did refer to his drug use by saying, " Isnt it time for SHOWER Dad?!?!?!"
I tried to smooth my statement over by saying I needed to shower before rehearsal.
His last words to me were, " Yeah, actually. I do need to shower. I'll race you. I bet I'm out before you are!" We went to different bathrooms and it was the last time I saw my father alive.
He sure was out before I was. In a totally different way that what I was expecting.
Turns out a full blown cocaine addict is more depressed and suicidal that I ever could imagine.
He shot everything he had at one time, sucked on the bag it came in and blew his heart up.
I did not expect to have to bury my father of what I feel was a suicide overdose.
My grandparents hold to the notion it was an accident. I was there with him alone when it all happened and I know what happened.
I thought my whole life was about to go in the direction of learning about my father and his mind, his heart and his soul.
And, then what I feel is due to my choice of lacking compassion for a loved one has left me to continue fending for myself and learning life on my own.
I miss him very much, yet it's pretty much all I've ever known of my father anyway. Missing him.