Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Joy in Music

I received a text at 5:06pm Tuesday ...."are you going to the Red Heart Alarm show tonight?"....

One hour later I was headed across town with my friend of many years to go see one of my favorite groups with no idea of who was playing on the bill with them. Red Heart Alarm ~ my favorite of many years, this is the group I am going out to show my support for. I try to attend as many shows as I can to support people I know putting their music and art out there and this group gets me out of the house on a night that I would normally already be settled in for a cozy night under purple blankets.

Even when I try I can't stay still. My body sways to their music and I know most of the words so when no one is listening or just cant hear me, I sing along. Before I know it I'm usually stomping my feet and grinning. If there is no dance floor and I can't "make" one, I sit and smack my thigh in appreciation and watch as I hear individual parts and peer around wood beams as I hear the drummer Donovan bring the house to cheers. When my friends are with me as was the case last night, we dance side by side grinning at each other.

Songs are a myriad of words woven together with tones that set our minds at ease...
get our hearts pumping...
spread smiles across our faces...
uncage our true selves so that we can feel..

Joy in Music

If you haven't been uplifted, forced to think on a memory from long ago, dance until your feet hurt...well maybe your just listening to the wrong music.


Enjoy Red Heart Alarm here...

http://www.reverbnation.com/redheartalarm

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Red-Heart-Alarm/116962068349302


Gotta love her now or die alone...

Sounds so absolute and a bit sad while also so true. A perfect line within a song sung by a group of young men so full of positive energy you cant help but smile while you dance along with their fantastic stage prancing and stomping.

Rhythm! O my goodness do they have it! I am in awe of how a group can perform on such a small stage let alone capture the attention of everyone because they have commandeered every inch within reach of their soles and have even taken flight from wooden crates.

Violins, harmonica, upright bass, guitar and drums! Can you play more than one drum at once, one being held by another and sing AND dance AND smile?? :)

Catch a listen here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZU3nFPZ5oM


Or here....this is the show I attended with a friend and I ummm...well I danced so much my hair was sweaty. Yep, I just admitted that. Had great fun! Thank you to Magic Giant for coming to Seattle to spread the music cheer!

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=816635945075549&set=vb.570663683006111&type=2&theater

When's the last time you truly FELT music?

Peace,
Tera


Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Not Quite Pond Scum

You know the ones
the pond scum
They rest on top the murky waters
and invite all types of creatures
to hide beneath its green slimy veneer

They are not even pond scum
they are lower on the food chain
than slime and such
they are vapors
they feed off others
and create noxious gas

they are pond scum vapors
the ones that lurk
and smirk
while acting as if they are not
just pond scum vapors

I knew such a slime gathering
with a human name
that let his wife waste away
barely living
her frail body in decay
while he be happy with fat

he would bang her bones on this and that
and call it nothing
as if

just give him a whack
I dare say he needed that

but instead we turned his life
upside down with taxi
in middle of night to rumble away

with babe and wife in midst of play
finally able to smile at ease once the plane
took off and caught swift breeze
pond scum
he was not
just vapors

he thought
she idly waste way for him
little did he think
neighbor would do him in
because vapors rise and rise
she would assist
to knock him back
with just a short list

pack the diapers
pack your coat
get your wheelchair
and the bobby boat
get the pills that make you feel better

phone your mother

pond scum she is not
vapors will rise and rot
you will be jolly with folly
and able and stable
and right with just
smile and thrust

your fist to air
while you laugh back
because neighbor is friend
and spouse be foe and fool

ride swift be safe
my friend
and joyful tool

Saturday, October 18, 2014

Rules of Behavior

Whose rules do you follow
whose lead do you take
whose music makes you wonder
and how far do you haste

As rules do push
and bellow at us so
whose rules do you follow
and where do they have you go

To confinements or ridicule
to work or play
to ship shore and seaman

Whose rules do you follow and
whose do you abhor
whose hand does bring you to pleasure
whose fellow makes you cringe with ease

whose mighty winged gallows
swing fairly and tease
whose model do you peruse
and whose shift do you shy away from

To glorious unknowns
and hallowed halls of none
whose hammer builds and does not destroy
whose tools pick and pry

To perform masterful duties in the blink of a pretty eye
to crumble and incinerate
to fully love and passionately hate

whose rules

Friday, September 26, 2014

Banger Sista

The Banger Sisters.
Which one are you
Viv
Vinnnie
Suzette...
I adore you
The banger sisters
which one are you
did you don your pink shaded glasses and drive off into the blue
The banger sisters
which one are you
Viv
Vinnie
get your beige and throw it on
out the window
onto the lawn
The banger sisters
Which one are you
Suzette
cat call to you
slinky sista on dance floor
laying music to my tunes
Sweet.
The banger sisters
drawing to a close
mixing minx looking sideways glances
dance floor moves and pose
The banger sisters
which one are you
Viv
Vinnie
Suzette
slinky
miss pinky
shaded glasses
in throws

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Walking with My Sweetness

Monday, March 22, 2010

Walking with My Sweetness

You are deep seeded
not only in my heart
but in my head
In my very being

Every step, every smile
reflects and projects you

You are my beginning
and my sweet ending
the opening and close
of all my days

Permanence is what I seek
even if it be to forever
walk by your side
or simply to say
I have been blessed to know you

You do bring sweetness
to my every waking moment
I humbly admit
I realize, even
in the still of the night

Which, if I be honest
are often spent restless
without you

While I know I can walk
for days outwardly appearing
alone, I am never truly alone
for I am walking with you,
my sweetness
by my side
 
Signed,
Tera

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Divorce Sucks the Life Out

I always knew this and never wanted divorce. I thought I didn't, until I was in a marriage that was not fulfilling and left me feeling trapped. A lot of people would say just stay. I couldn't bring myself to and I will tell you why.

I will tell you why divorce sucks the life out of you.

First, it starts when you realize the person you trusted enough to marry has left you for...

alcohol.
greed.
money.
bigger and better things.
a job.
someone else.
themselves.

Or just simply left you. Often, your left mentally alone far before you are physically alone. You prepare space for yourself if you are in self preservation or discovery mode. You take note of everything. You make lists. You rationalize. You make excuses.

Often, you find yourself making excuses to yourself and then to people around you. You might find yourself apologizing. After many cycles of self preservation, check lists and excuses you smack yourself in the head. Why didn't you see this coming?

Why didn't you know before you married this person that you should NOT have?

Because we believe. We want to believe. We want to trust that someone would love us so much that they would do it in the right ways at the right times and rightly so. Because we deserve to be loved.

You realize that your not important. The kids are not important. Time is not important. Your left fending for yourself and you put the kids into self preservation mode. You shield them and protect them.

I can tell you that you can do nothing to shield a child from divorce. The ugly truth will rear its head, it may take a decade. You will do your best, tell yourself that they will understand and that you are partially doing it because having a child grow up in a house where the two in charge do not agree or love each other is horrible.

The child will harbor some resentment, may prefer the other parent even thou you are certain they are the devil incarnate.  They are not really and you make excuses for them. Even years after not being together, you do not share the stories of how they left you. You instead, take the blame.

Remember how they left you? Of course you do, you relive it daily. Every doubt, every sideways glance, every failure reminds you of how they left you.

After you have been abandoned you find it easy to rationalize your self preservation mode over and over and over again. It is a cycle that must stop. Its not a fun ride, not a cycle that when you ride it your mind clears and the wind rushes past you as you pedal faster and faster.

Divorce sucks the life out of you. It kills ties, cuts family ties and drops them flat to the ground. You are no longer looked at as respected or valued by others. You are no longer invited to get togethers. Your mutual friends fall away and disappear.

People will judge you and after the first divorce, they pass over it because it is so clear that divorce was inevitable. How do you convince someone to stay married to you when they have already moved on and impregnated another while still being married to you? Left alone. Abandoned. Ties cut.

The second time, you keep many things hush hush and it takes many years for even a tidbit to come out. Some people are understanding. Some start to make jokes about you being the next Elizabeth Taylor. Or maybe this was after your third marriage. You can not remember.

The second marriage you thought would work out. He seemed like a stable, respectable person with a good solid skill that was his job. Little things started to happen, things started taking priority that had nothing to do with you or the family. In fact, it is during this time that you learn the term "functioning alcoholic". Because he was respectable you tried to please him. You are respectable too. Except the jeans you liked to wear that he asked you to get rid of because they had holes in the knees.

In order to salvage your style and your favorite pair of jeans you mended them. They were fantastic. You used your sewing machine to zig zag thread back and forth until they held together and even threw on a few patches. He was not impressed. He instead asked you to get rid of them completely.

You feel lost in this period, it is me. You, I don't feel myself. He doesn't regard anything you have to say as if you simply have no value. You, I put up with a variety of things for over eight years. It was not so bad. You, I rationalize and make lists.

At around six years, he asks you again over and over and over to move to another state with him. Your married and married people stick together so you come to an agreement. That agreement is never kept. He, like many other times fails to come thru. You again are unimportant. Abandoned. Disregarded.

Slowly, life just takes over. Except one night when you are at work and life froze. Time stood still. Until your anger grew so fierce that you could keep quiet no more. He was at a friends house drinking. Down a street, about six houses away. Your at work. Your daughter whom is less than five years old is home alone. Awake. Playing alone? Doing what? No one is inside the house with her.

I feel for her. I am afraid for her and disgusted that someone would choose to leave her home alone to go drink. This disgust gets pushed back a bit as life seems to take over, things take their course and a couple of years later...

I am living in a bedroom alone in a home nearly 2500 square feet in a gated community. My daughter lives on the same floor in her own room. My spouse is in a room downstairs. He is not surprised at this. His only surprise is that I am not already gone. Divorce sucks the life out of you.

Its not the divorce though. In all reality, its people. People who don't appreciate what they have until its gone suck the life out of you. Because some of  us won't stay with someone who puts our kids in danger, disregards our feelings, craves money and bigger houses more than they crave us.

I walked away after nearly a decade, drove away actually. He helped me pack the Uhaul. The relationship ended just months shy of a decade. I slowly found someone that would love me. Briefly. Then I found someone who twisted my thoughts. Then found someone whom I thought would be respectful.

And it starts all over again.

Eight years this time. He is still nasty in a condescending way nearly four years later.  He texts her, me to say happy divorce day. He comments on the cars parked out front even though they have not been a couple for many years. He texts her asking for directions to a local bar. He texts her to ask how the marriage thing is going. He texts her to wish her a Happy valentines day. He texts her to remind her that he is busy and cant visit with their son. He texts her his schedule for classes that interrupt his visitation. He texts her months in advance about when he wont be available for visitations because he has plans. He texts her about needing to not have a visitation time or day because he has a ski class or a meeting or a dinner.

He abandoned her long ago and she went into self preservation mode. She knows she can not protect the child. She learned this long ago. She will keep quiet, she will not badmouth or ridicule like he does.  She knows he does because her son tells her without her asking.

Three years.....

I dated for three years. Somewhere in the midst of all that, I  had fallen in love. The ridiculing, the divorce, the moving...the sucking of life. But she learned not to trust love. She learned that love is a passing thing that many see as unimportant. Love is supposed to be protected. Like she protected herself and her kids when she saw bullshit coming her way. You should not have to protect yourself from love or its ramifications.

I always told myself that if someone loved me they would:

respect me
cherish me
listen to me
enjoy me
encourage me
and do they same for the children

when respect is lost, love is lost. When a person disregards your feelings, love is lost. Love can be rebuilt before its too late. But when a person has abandoned you, disregard you and even ridiculed you in front of others you often don't recover.

The marriage does not recover. The family does not recover. Divorce sucks the life out of people. Divorce sucks the life out of families. Before you go down the road to divorce, before you get to that bend in the road where you can not make a U turn, stop. Listen.

What is your partner trying to tell you?
What have you been asking of your partner?
Are they working with you or against you?
Did they abandon you at the U turn?
Or did they turn around quick, pick you up and hold you close? Did they with earnest listen to what you needed and expected from the marriage?

Three years.....three years of dating...

I met a few that were of note. Men.

I met one that within seconds of meeting him face to face I fell. Not in that old cycle. But fell in love. I would not tell him. Ever. There was no point and it didn't last long because  I ...

Well, for many reasons. There was a girl one night that I am sure he desired way more than he ever desired me. In fact, I often wonder how he tolerated me. I had such a passion for him that I nearly begged him to be with me. Not in the physical sense but in my words when I tried to reason with him when he was trying to break up with me. I tried to point out how I was worth being with. I was...so desperate to be with him. So stupid. You can not force anyone to want to be with you. They only abandon you quicker.

I also met at least one that needs to be in looney bin. I reached my lowest low and had to keep my own head up. I was stalked for over eight months...I lost track actually. Its a sickening feeling.

I remember thinking it was like after I had my miscarriage. I didn't feel fit to walk in daylight. I didn't want anyone to touch me. I didn't want anyone to look at me. I didn't want to date or care about anyone. I felt repulsed by the very thought. I was done with every man walking within earshot.

Time passed. I went online, back to a site to try and find someone with a common interest. A friend even. I would hide my profile, unhide it, change it and after a while I met someone that I hit it off with. In a nice respectable and fun way. We shared a love of music. We both wrote. We both hated divorce. He loved me I thought in all the right ways.

There was one night, we were in our respectable homes, me in my apartment and he a few miles away or more in his own. We were texting each other. He wanted to share something with me...

I never felt such grief before. In the six to eight months that followed I rationalized, made excuses and tried. I tried my best to convince myself that his admission didn't matter. He was still married. In his defense, he told me they had been separated for a long time and were living separate. I knew this to be fact. However,  I could never trust him again. So I abandoned him. More than once, we got  back together and I left him again. There was a final time. It wasn't easy but I had too , I wasn't going to have the life sucked out of me again.

I took a summer to herself to heal. I decided to not date again. Instead, I went back to enjoying things by myself.  I didn't need anybody. However, there was this man that was enjoying things that she did.....