"When the winter wind blows cold upon my window, and the mood

I'm in is darker than the deep blue sea . . ."

Patty Larkin, "Winter Wind"

I just can't seem to write very easily these days, though I have tons of thoughts. My thoughts haunt me; they are the persistent headaches that pound their voice in cadence with my sadness.

I am in a funk! I am in a funk, and I do not know how to deliver myself free from this darkness. I am unmotivated, restless. I want to write -- books, poetry; learn languages, speak new tongues; love, fall in love; connect with all those from my past who I have lost along the way.

What is the source of my spinning? So complex . . .

The toughest time for me on the weekends are the moments before my baby Saskia awakes. I dread it because she wakes so early. However, the most happiest moment is when she is awake, alive and buoyant, bringing smiles and laughter.

I wouldn't trade my daughter for the world, but I still remember the world.

My mood is dark like the deep blue sea and I just want a little bit of light.

"And I found that all the world could love you save for one. And I don't know why it is, but that kiss will be the haunted one. You'll pine and weep and you'll lose good sleep and you'll think your life has come undone, until you learn to turn and spurn that bitter wind." -- Ferron, 'Cactus'

There is an intense amount of pressure placed on teens today, on teens always. They receive this pressure from parents, from teachers, from coaches, from self, and from those love objects. My heart really goes out to those students who come to me after a break-up, whether they are the initiators or recipients -- love is a painful thing. I particularly feel deeply for those who were the initiators, but now feel trapped by the threats of those who were the recipients. I'll illustrate this.

A girl came up to me after my show the other day and she was frustrated because her ex would not leave her alone. He kept calling her, telling her how much he missed her and how depressed he was without her in his life. During these conversations she would stay firm, telling him that she cares for him, but she cannot romantically be with him anymore. It was getting out of control for her. He then increased the intensity of his messages, telling this girl, that without her, he was unable to function and now felt suicidal. He started making suicidal threats, if she would not be with him. She still refused, but was now living in constant fear.

Oh, love's jungle! Unfortunately, this desperation is not just relegated to the teenage wasteland; it is equally dispersed in the grown-up fairyland. What do you do if you are confronted by a former lover in this manner? That's a toughie. Create some distance, without rudeness or coldness. Also, telling that former lover, in direct terms, that threatening suicide is not o.k. -- this will not get the job done. Be angry, but be gentle -- you are dealing with a heart.

For those of you who threaten ending your life, YOU ARE BETTER THAN THIS. You survived before you met your love object, and you can survive without him or her. Screw Romeo and Juliet (that play sickens me). See love as pathways of growth -- "the world owes us nothing; we owe each other the world." -- not as a destination. Within this life are many destinations, within your love there are many vessels. Love must flow free or it fails to be love. Possession is never love. We cannot possess each other for we are each the wind.

I leave you with the words of one of my favorites, Kahlil Gibran. This is what he says on love:

"When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth. But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love."

This is the post from my friend John Morello's blog. Pass it on!!

http://www.johnmorello.com/2005/08/find-or-loot.html

It happened on Friday, September 9. I was preparing to perform at Freehold Intermediate School. I was in the Cafetorium waiting for the elementary kids to clear out. I just sat observing all the wild, fun energy of K-5 graders, thinking about my own daughter, and her venture into this realm within a few years. It spread oodles of smiles upon my face. At one point, there were these two brothers walking in, holding hands. One looked to be in the second grade and the other one appeared to be in the fourth grade. The older one continued to hold his younger brother's hand until they could identify where the younger one needed to be. Once that was established, the older brother watched as the younger one scurried across the floor to meet a new friend, then he (the older brother) found his own seat.

I was struck by how beautiful that image was, the two brothers taking care of one another; the older one assuring that his younger brother was going to be safe. I pondered how quickly siblings can forget how to take care of one another; how in time those two boys may never be as close as they are now. It made me think of my brother Roy and how he used to take care of me. He was my protector, my hero growing up -- no one could harm me. He was my big brother, my Bunny, and I was his Wingy. He watched to see if I sat in the right seat. He allowed no harm to come to me. He got angry with me when he found out that I drank a beer when I was 11. He told me that he would beat me up if he ever heard that I drank again. He protected me against neighborhood kids who wanted to beat me up because I ran my mouth so much. He told them, "You gotta come through me first," and then they walked away. I remember one time how he took the brunt of a beating from our father who tore into us with his belt; he covered me with his body as my father's heavy hand whipped and whipped. I did the screaming, my brother took the welts that time. I remember crying when he ran away from home for a week during high school; I remember crying again when he left for the Navy, hoping that I would see him again. I recall feeling scared when we hadn't heard from him in months while he was in Guam. Then there was my senior year in college and I had broke the security codes of my college's phone system, and called my brother. I completely broke down when we spoke because I hadn't heard from him in such a long time. I lost it. I was inconsolable. I was going through so much -- graduating, the memories of what Dan had done to me, my future, my past, the whole package. I wanted to tell him that I just wanted to play baseball with our baseball cards again, smacking around pieces of balled-up foil as if we were the true heroes on those cards. I wanted to be so much younger again.

Then he was kicked out of the Navy.

He came home for a short time. He didn't tell me not to drink anymore, because he was drinking and smoking frequently, but he was still my brother, and he was still "cool". Then my first year in grad school, he started to do Crack-Cocaine, and Crack cured him of his alcohol addiction, and it took me years to realize that I had lost my Bunny, my big brother --

These days, I guess I'm the older brother, the rescuer, and I never got the manual to read when I was younger. So, I'm winging it. He lives in two extremes nowadays: an addict of the streets or as a religious fundamentalist zealot. It's tough sometimes for me to choose which one I prefer. I just want him to be out of his pain, to forgive himself, to forgive Dad, to move on. He left when he was 17 and never grew a day more in his relationship with our father. He's still a teenager and he turned 36 this summer. I didn't call him for his birthday this year. I wanted to call, but it's too much sometimes . . . just enough to put you in the space of a dark winter night with no warmth around, and I wasn't ready to make that trek right then.

I was preparing to perform at Freehold Intermediate School on Friday and I saw two brothers holding hands, taking care of each other, and the older one watched the younger brother walk to his seat, making sure he was going to be safe.

And I started to cry uncontrollably, and I had to cover my face and walk away.

Headline: Robertson Suggests the US Assassinate Chavez


You can't make this up! Pat Robertson, the founder of the Christian Coalition, influencer on thousands of Evangelical Christians, right-wing, conservative, God-fearing pundit -- has encouraged the US to assassinate Chavez, the Venezuelan President. Allow me to repeat: a presumed messenger of God and Christ is calling for the assassination of another individual. Since when has that become the Christian message. I do not speak these words as a secular individual criticizing what I do not understand. I speak from the perspective of a person who knows all too well the message of Christ, of one who spends time reflecting, meditating, and praying on those things that are spiritual. What is going on in the mainstream evangelical church? Many of these leaders, as well as their flock, scare me to no end. They are making moves politically that have become the antithesis of Biblical endorsements. They are influencing and pressurizing the political powers in hopes of creating a new world order -- and this, my friends, concerns me. I know the wielding power of this movement, the narcissism that is coursed like rabid blood in dying veins. And it's only going to get worse.


I pray for the love of God to invade all of us. I don't pray for war or violence or assassination or any of these political messages so desperately infiltrating our minds, our souls, our solar plexus'. We need to move away from this religiosity that is disguising itself as being from God; we need to find our spiritual selves and question everything -- authority, presumptions, and those insidious messages of "I know the TRUTH." It is messages like Robertson's that will set the atmosphere for discord, for disdain towards Americans, for more attacks. This atmosphere is becoming tenuous, and it is starting to reek of times that have passed.


In all fairness, I realize that Robertson has apologized for his comments, as did I when I was caught for burning down a park and shoplifting when I was younger. So we'll forgive him -- he is human. We'll just have to watch and listen very very CAREFULLY.

Quote of this Blog: "I play Wheelchair Rugby. What's the worst that can happen -- I'll break my neck? Again?" -- Mark Zupan, quadriplegic, rugby athlete.


To fight against the odds. To live in spite of death's taunts. I am blown away by all who can strive to live when peril is all around them.


Knew about a girl in a Michigan high school who had no arms or legs. She wasn't born that way, but when she was an infant and toddler, her parents thought that it was a good idea to throw her out of windows when they were upset. Eventually, she lost the ability to use her arms and legs, and they had to be amputated. If you could have met her, you would not know she suffered such abuse and pain. She gave back peace to the world which gave her pain.


I know of others so consumed by their pain -- or their imagined pain -- that they do nothing but cause disharmony to all those around them. Or they invest in causing additional woes within their own lives. I am so saddened by this inauthenticity. I have friends and loved ones involved deeply in drugs, in alcohol, in depression, in self-hatred, in anger, in the awkward loneliness, in disconnection; they are my friends and loved ones; I do not reject their presence, their lives; I surround myself with all shapes and sizes in hopes that my love will be a link to a higher love, a connection to a life unfulfilled.


The beauty of this life often shrouded in mystery or under some sandy lot or locked away in a remote canyon alludes all of us at times. The mountain blows its message, yet we fail to see the sun's voice, the wind's shadow. We fail to know love, not our creation of love, tattered and bruised with ego and jealousy and possession; love -- one on one, one soul touching another. To risk it all -- broken neck or not; to be fueled by this passion that does not quit because of hurdles, because of brokenness -- that is this life. That is this love.


"What you dream in the mornin', may you dream at night
May your love light be so bright it diminish the darkness
That comes without warning and in no particular way
And threatens to blow you away . . .
I wish I could tell you all the pain's in your head
That it all would be better if you'd just do what they said
But if the voice that is talkin' is never your own
There's no one to tell you that you've finally come home"

-- Ferron, Never your own

Quote of the day: "Since the American broadcasting system has more restrictions against sexuality, you can get away more with amplifying violence than you can with amplifying sexuality. It results in this weird sadistic element. Putting women in these sexual situations is a backdoor way of getting more flesh in." Jeffrey Sconce, associate professor at Northwestern University


I read this quote in Entertainment Weekly. It triggered a few thoughts that I would like to share with you. This quote, along with the larger article about violence toward women appears to be a theme that is being played out in much of my reading lately. I am currently reading this book called, "Because I Remember Terror, Father I Remember You" by Sue William Silverman. By far, this book has been one of the most unsettling books that I have read in a long time. It is the autobiography of a woman who survived sexual abuse. It is a tough book to stomach, not because of overly graphic details, but because of the nature of the material. And if the material were not enough, add Saskia, my daughter, into the equation. It's hard to comprehend how or why a father would invade, dismantle a life he partly created, yet it happens too frequently, and girls are the overwhelming target of this tragedy. Humph!


Why so much violence toward the female gender? Why does this hunger for power over girls and women exist in so many boys and men? The networks are increasingly having story lines where women are raped or tortured. Why? Is there an unspeakable sexiness about putting women "in their place," by any means necessary? Even in the most purest and noblest forms of our society -- RELIGION -- we are besieged by the overt sexism and patriarchy that exists in the texts. Look at Christianity, Judaism, and Islam -- look at their texts: the Bible, Torah, and Qur'an -- all subtly and overtly make harsh distinctions between men and women, with women on the losing end most of the time. If the holy books do not bring about true equality amongst gender, what's that to say for everyone and everything else?


I listen to bar talk from men about women. I have heard sermons preached about women submitting themselves to their husbands. I have seen female friends stay in abusive relationships because they justify their man's behavior. I know of a guy who spoke openly of his fantasy of tying a woman up . . . then putting her in the trunk of his car -- (and this is the fantasy that I can actually mention in my public blog; there are more disturbing ones than this one). I watched my parents embrace this gender atrocity. Growing up, I benefited by having a later curfew than my sister, strictly because I was a male.


I get tired of men, of me, being male. I hate the fear in a woman's eye when I walk past her during night time, if she is alone. I'm tired of the women who don't have the strength to leave when they are being abused -- because of commitment, or love, or religion. I understand fear. I know women who stay because they fear for their lives. I understand this. I am not tired of these women who stay for this reason, but I am sickened by the men who make these women feel this way; who threaten out of their own illness and weakness. I'm tired of men making women feel less than what they are. I'm tired of my own voicelessness, my own loud silence.


O, men! We are so pathetic, so pitiful. We believe we are greater because of physical ability. We believe we are greater because we are ordained to be the head. We are nothing but a pathetic lot.


I pray for women around this world. I pray that you will be able to stand against us; fight back, and like Sojourner Truth speak it with passion. "Sojourner Truth: ex-slave and fiery abolitionist, figure of imposing physique, riveting preacher and spellbinding singer who dazzled listeners with her wit and originality. Straight-talking and unsentimental, Truth became a national symbol for strong black women--indeed, for all strong women." She once addressed a man who was trying to put women in their place by saying: "That little man in black there! He says women can't have as much rights as men: 'Cause Christ wasn't a woman.' [Sojourner] stood with outstretched arms and eyes of fire. "Where did your Christ come from?"
"Where did your Christ come from?", she thundered again. "From God and a Woman! Man had nothing to do with him!"

To all my friends and family who are girls or women, I say -- Stand up to the fathers and brothers, the uncles and bosses, the boyfriends and husbands, the religions and governments who have tried to steal your souls, who have tried to make you less than what you are: a Princess, a Queen, a Brain, an equal, a Goddess.


much love.