Family Tradition or Ritual (Writer'sWorkshopAssignment)

I'm a blank

In my family secrecy was tradition.  Judgement was tradition.  Bush, Reagan and John Wayne loving Republicans was tradition.  WWII was THE Great War and I was a dumb kid.

Tradition.

My mother once gave me, I think I was six or seven, detailed instructions on how, should I ever run into my aunt, uncle or cousins, I was to pretend not to see them.

But what if they see me?

They won't.

But......

I lived in fear of running into my own extended family.

Until my uncle became my school bus driver.

"Hello Pumpkin". He said as I boarded the bus.

I half slunk, half scooted to the back of the bus.

Old Me/New Me (A Writer's Workshop Exercise)

I used to be dead inside.  Now I cry ... A lot  ....   I don't know why I cry so much.  It is certainly more than simply losing a boyfriend.  More than losing my parents. 

I cry both with positive and negative stimuli.  I lie down in my couch, positioned to wail and last only seconds.  I sit in a room of 400 people at a workshop I joined to affirm all of my dreams - my very existence and during a writing exercise, I blink back tears, fearful if they get a good toehold, they will never end.

I cry and wonder why it is such a bad thing.  Why it is such a shameful thing.  Why I feel the need to hide it.

I think of my parents and realize.

I don't think I ever really saw either of them cry.

Just another gift they never gave me.  

Something Happened

On the way to being yours
I kept taking my own measure
And deciding I was leaving you
Short, I would try to grow

Something happened
On the way to being yours

While trying to love you as well
As you deserved, I built a woman
I thought could love you best
But now she's mine

I love her
Thank you

She became me

Sometimes II

Simply noticing that my own handwriting
is as neat as "the teacher's on the chalkboard"

the stupid archaic benchmark of a 40 year old child

is just enough

to make me smile

and for a moment

After hours of bracing her
7 year old legs
Against the incoming wave
Later in the car, she realized
"I still feel"

"The sensation"

She could see nothing wrong
With a world where you
Could love something hard
Enough and long enough
That you could carry a bit of it

Back home with you
To borrow

For awhile

Life is

That old Vaudeville routine

Almost exactly

..........

"Niagara Falls!"

Slowly, I turned