Someone once asked me: A poem

Someone once asked me "Which do you prefer--the sun or the moon?"

I said the moon.


The question was asked by someone whom I had convinced myself I liked ever so much
And he supposedly liked me ever so much.
But, as these things go, my head eventually cleared and I realized
that I was more enamored with
"the idea of."
I don't see him anymore and I honestly cannot remember most of what we talked about

I do remember the question about the moon.

It was supposed to be an original get-to-know-you kind of question I'm sure

Nothing particularly special

And yet, it struck me.

I thought about it for a moment. Which did I prefer? I pictured both..

The sun. The moon. The moon. The sun.

The sun is bright and seems cheerful enough. I conjured up sparkling images of beaches and waves and paradise islands
And suddenly I felt warm--uncomfortably so.
It is also, I think, loud and relentless and impossible to ignore


The funny thing is, you can't really look at it--I mean the sun.

It is beautiful in an awe-inspiring sort of way but
no one can ever get close to it.

because it would consume them

Perhaps that is why many people have believed the sun to be a god.

I was thinking about the moon last night.

The sky was blue-black and clear and the moon was enormous. It startled me a bit.

A man on the radio was describing his trip to a sacred lake beside a sacred mountain in Tibet.

His voice was rather monotonous and it would have been unbearable if it hadn't been tinged with a hint of an unusual sense of humor.
He said something about the moon in Tibet and I looked up at the moon where I live and I thought about it.


Sometimes the moon seems cold, like a great orb of blinding white ice.

then I imagine winter in Narnia

And other times it is calm and gentle or even sleepy.

As if the moon has actually closed it's eyes and gone to sleep

Suspended in space, completely oblivious to everything but it's

moon dreams.
The idea makes me giggle.


On the nights the moon is red, looming ominously in the sky
I catch my breath and wonder what will happen next.
I stare, then look away, then stare again, fascinated
When the moon is red I think everyone who sees it must feel the weight of the red moon.


Of course, there are nights when it is invisible
and that alone makes you long for it to return.
it's absence
seems strange


I don't really believe in faeries or fauns or any other mythical beings, but

every now and then

I wish that such creatures existed so that I might, sometime, happen upon them dancing and leaping in the moonlight

Like a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream.

I did not give all of these reasons when I was asked.

At the time I simply said

Because the moon is more

Mysterious.

Going Green--an update already?

I wrote about the Korst's year-long Green Garbage Project yesterday. Later that evening, I stopped at an art supply store to buy a new sketch book and drawing pencils/charcoal. The first set of pencils I picked up was quite nice and I almost bought it, then I hesitated when I realized that the plastic it was packaged in had no recycling number. The other set came in a metal tin wrapped in a small piece of cardboard and thin, plastic wrap-- both of which are recyclable. And it was cheaper. "But the first set has so much more! More pencils, more charcoal, more more more!!" I walked around the store clutching it to my chest like a little Gollum. "My precious... My precious!" Okay, I didn't actually say that, but I'm sure the store people were wondering what was wrong with me as I wandered the aisles talking to myself, looking over my shoulders for the go-green police and repeatedly returning to where all of the pencils were hanging, torn between quantity and eco-friendly. Finally, I decided to stop pacing like a crazy woman and look at sketch books for a while. Guess what I found? The perfect book made in the USA of 100% recycled paper with a Sustainable Forestry Initiative label (meaning they don't just recklessly chop down trees). I was elated but I managed to contain myself and not dance down the aisle--I do occasionally dance down aisles. How could I buy such great paper and at the same time purchase plastic waste? Besides, another force was at play here. The North American "more is better" complex. I'm usually on guard against it but I was unwittingly allowing it to influence me. "Well," I reasoned, suddenly seeing things clearly, "The metal tin is convenient and portable, whereas if I bought the other set I would need to find a container to store them in. And how many pencils and charcoal sticks do I really need right now anyway? Not to mention it's cheaper." I happily purchased the smaller set and the fabulous sketch book and went on my merry way to figure drawing class. Anyway, I need to get organized so that I can do this whole green thing properly.

Oscar the Grouch would not like this :)

Yesterday I read an article about Amy and Adam Korst, a couple who reduced their waste so much that after one year, they only had one small box of trash. Trash-Free-for-a-Year.  I was astounded. I hate trash--hate it--and yet I make so much! As a part-time secretary I've thrown away tons of paper and each sheet I watch flutter down into the pit that is the garbage can makes me sad. Over the past couple of years I have managed to rescue some and it sits in stacks in boxes and desk drawers. My youngest brother and sisters recently acquired of those machines that uses shredded bits of old paper to make new sheets plus they're always making paper airplane's and stuff so I will most likely gift them with all of my surplus. But then there's all of the fast food wrappers and junk mail and grocery bags and paper towels...I try to buy things in reusable containers and choose cloth rags over paper towels and I never buy disposable plates or utensils but obviously that's not enough. I live in a house with two of my sisters and we all throw away much more than I'm comfortable with. And when I think of all the food we've wasted I feel even worse. All four years in college I belonged to a student organization that focused on poverty and homelessness and we ran a local soup kitchen. At first, the school would give us untouched pans of cafeteria food for the kitchen but after they signed a contract with an outside company (yuck) giving us leftovers became a legal issue. So the school paid the outside company (yuck) to prepare a main course, while we the organization were responsible for sides and drinks. And guess where all of the untouched extra cafeteria food went. That's right--straight into the garbage. It was depressing. Several days ago, before I read about the Korsts, I was standing in my kitchen making a sandwich and thinking, gosh, imagine how much money we would save if I made bread instead of buying it? And look at all of the plastic packaging this cheese comes in! Then there's the produce--I love fresh fruits and vegetable but I usually buy frozen because it keeps longer. You know, I could freeze them myself or make preserves or learn how to can (which should be called "jarring" instead of "canning" because you don't really put the food in a can. Anyway). I am responsible for managing the household finances--and although I'm far from an expert, I can say that we have yet to be without water or electricity and we are still on good terms with the landlord--so the idea of saving money and reducing waste is quite appealing. The Korsts reused, recycled, composted... Check out their blog for more tips and tricks. http://greengarbageproject.adammathiasdesign.com/ I could, perhaps grow my own vegetables etc. but I won't make any promises about that! The idea of strolling through a carefully tended garden patch, picking tomatoes and pumpkins and peas is very romantic but hardly realistic.  Besides, shopping at the farmer's market would benefit both me and the farmers :) All this talk of canning fruits, baking bread. "It's because she was homeschooled," you might think, dismissively, "and homeschooled girls are like that." Or, perhaps you think I am an earth-loving, tree-embracing, hippie kid. Ok, so my mother was a vegetarian for years and years, which of course means that all of her children were also vegetarians (and to this day, I don't eat very much meat), and yes we did shop at thrift stores or on clearance racks for most of our clothing, books and toys (actually, we still do. I bought a lovely dress last week at a "real" store, on sale for $20, and felt like I was spending a fortune), and yes we recycled diligently when I was a child. Going to college and falling in with the community service, anti-poverty, fair-trade crowd certainly sealed the deal. I'm alright with that :) The Korsts took some pretty extreme measures and I'm not sure I can do everything they did, partly because some of the suggestions could be a bit costly and partly because I anticipate either feeling lazy or being too exhausted at times to be waste cautious. All in all though, this could be very cool...

I did chop down that cherry tree...

Somebody stole my tax refund check and cashed it. This awful somebody rummaged through my mailbox, took the check, signed my name in atrocious cursive that looks nothing like my own and CASHED MY CHECK!! I have been waiting for my tax refund check to arrive for months--3 months actually--and I finally called the IRS a week ago. They said, "That check was sent out to you on April 30...Are you sure you don't have it?" April 30? No I don't have it! I don't have it anywhere. I have been checking the mail every day, including Sundays, hoping for this check to arrive. This happened last year too, except last year they discovered that it really was never sent. Well, the nice IRS lady assured me that they would start a search. On Saturday, I received a letter from the IRS and as I read the first page I could hardly believe my eyes. It said, "Your check was cashed. Enclosed is a copy of the signed check." Are you kidding me? I fumbled through the pages to the very last one and there it was--a copy of the refund check made out to me dated April 30 and it was signed by someone who is most definitely not me and obviously does not know me well enough to have ever seen my signature. It is not a good feeling to see your name signed by a stranger. How could they have cashed it without ID? I have all of my photo IDs, debit cards, etc. in my possession. I called my mother, who was ironically in the middle of playing Monopoly with my three youngest siblings--a game I am not particularly fond of because I am not ruthless or business savvy enough to ever win--and she said that it must have been cashed at some shady hole-in-the-wall. She must be right. "This always happens to me!" I wailed. Then I stopped and thought and felt a little guilty. You see, I can honestly say that I have never stolen any one's check, or sneakily forged a signature to get money or told a lie that put an innocent man in jail or anything like that. I mean that is obviously deceitful and I would not consider myself a deceitful person at all. Or should I? The majority of the time, I am an honest person, but I'm ashamed to say, I tell little white lies and half truths and whole lies sometimes. Don't I occasionally pass the blame when things go wrong even though I know I had a hand in it? Am I really any better than whoever lied and stole my money? I wish I could say yes. I wish, but I know better. I have a well-developed guilt complex and I can remember just about every lie I've ever told, going back to when I was a child. Well, you might say, that can't be very many lies then, and besides everyone tells lies now and then. The thing is, it doesn't take a million lies to make you a liar. One lie is enough. We teach children to be truthful, but we grown-ups seem to be okay with fudging the truth a bit. Or fudging the truth a lot. It's too bad really that we don't have Pinocchio's condition. If our noses grew every time we lied, most of us would have unbelievably long noses and they would always be getting caught in doors and bumping into things. That's what lies do anyway, isn't it, trip us up. Of course, the truth is so very uncomfortable sometimes. I read "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom some years ago. She was a Dutch Christian and during WWII, she and her family helped to rescue hundreds of Jewish people. At one point in the book, Ms. ten Boom describes an afternoon when she was having tea at her sister's house. Her sister had several young children and they had all been taught to always tell the truth. German soldiers suddenly burst in and demanded to know if they were hiding any Jews. Corrie ten Boom and her sister said nothing, but to their horror, one of the children spoke up and calmly answered "Yes". Ms. ten Boom recounts her irritation, thinking this was the exact wrong moment to tell the truth. "Yes?" the soldier replied, probably delighted to get such an easy answer. "Where are they hiding?" The child said "Under the table." I'm sure the two women felt sick. I felt sick. There was, in fact, a trap door beneath the table leading to a secret room where a group of Jews was hiding. If I were her mother, I would want to pinch that girl to make her stop, but if you know anything about children, you know that would have made things worse. While the women held their breath, the soldier lifted up the table cloth and peered underneath. "There's no one there." he said, and assuming the little girl was simply playing a game, the soldiers left. Amazing. So as I stood there sadly in my house, the ugly signature staring back at me, I had a revelation. "Maybe," I said, "maybe God is trying to show me something about myself. I may not do what this person did, but I have my own issues to work on. It's easy to make comparisons and overlook my faults. Perhaps this is a wake-up call." Am I upset with whoever stole my check. Um yeah! But there's something to be learned. I need frequent evaluations to keep me in line. Besides, if I'd gotten the money when it was first sent, I might have spent it too soon. Now I have to prove that I didn't sign the check etc. etc. and hopefully it will work out smoothly this time...

a not so hidden shame...

Today the Atlanta Journal Constitution published an update on the investigation of Georgia's inadequate mental health system. www.ajc.com/news/georgia-mental-health-talks . I recently read an article by Alan Judd on ajc.com about how psychiatric patients must wait for days sometimes in the ER before being admitted to state or mental hospitals. http://www.ajc.com/news/desperate-psychiatric-patients. Admissions are delayed due to the fact that psychiatric units in GA are scarce and also the state hospitals are hesitant to admit patients with acute psychotic conditions. Many of the patients end up being discharged after a very short time and without treatment. Judd wrote a series of articles in 2007 titled  "A Hidden Shame". These articles brought to light the questionable state of mental health care in GA and sparked a federal investigation. Gov. Purdue attempted to address the issue by organizing The Mental Health Commission which came up with 7 goals. http://www.gmhcn.org/. That was early 2008. In 2009 the federal govenment sued the state, making the claim that the "inadequate mental health system violated patient's rights." Lack of funding, overcrowded psychiatric units, (and in my opinion, major disorganization) have contributed to the current conditions and, as Judd made very clear, mistreatment and hundreds of patient deaths. 

MAIL + FOOD = HAPPY

A lovely photo of Ginger Beer

My great-aunt  sent me a cookbook. http://www.totallybarbados.com/barbados/About_Barbados
It arrived in the mail this week. I have been anxiously awaiting my tax return, so I opened my mailbox hoping to see a nice little check but instead, I pulled out something or other to add to my junk mail collection and a ta-da! a package. I love getting mail--real mail you know--and surprise packages are the best. My brothers and sisters and I used to compete over who would get the mail first. The mailman came at about the same time every day, so if you timed it right, you could get down to the mailbox before anyone else then nonchalantly stroll back up the driveway, flipping through the bills and letters that were not addressed to you, knowing that disgruntled siblings were staring at you through the windows. HA HA!  In Connecticut (I always want to say "connekt-ee-cut) where we used to live when I was very young, the mailboxes are attached to the house, just beside the door. The mailmen (and mail ladies) park their trucks at the corner and walk from house to house--rain, shine or snowstorm--carrying huge bags of letters and postcards. I thought--and still think--they must be terribly strong to walk about all day with those heavy bags. At college my friends and I would send each other cards and notes via campus mail. Except many of the notes I sent were pranks. I sent a letter to one friend from the (nonexistent) Dean of Academic Commitment, Mr T.R. Jameson I believe. I typed it up on official school letterhead and placed it in an official school envelope so it looked very authentic. I even practised signing the letter so that the signature wouldn't look like a girl's. It basically said that if our friend didn't start coming to class regularly, he would be kicked out of school. Isn't that awful? My roommate and I giggled gleefully and dropped it into the mail. We didn't know what happened until weeks had gone by. Turns out this poor guy was extremely upset and not realizing that it was a prank, he went to all of the school administrators to argue his case only to be told that Mr. Jameson did not exist. Of course, when my partner in crime and I found out we felt terrible about the whole thing so we promptly typed up a new letter on official letterhead From: The Office of Academic Commitment, Re: An apology for the recent misunderstanding and any distress it may have caused, and signed by Mr. Jameson's secretary. My big brother told me that I could have gotten in a lot of trouble for forging signatures, but I don't suppose you can forge the signatures of people who don't exist...Ah, well that was the last prank letter I've ever sent. Lesson learned. When I pulled the surprise package out of the mail 2 days ago, I couldn't guess what it might be so I hurried back inside, not bothering to shut the door, with Charlie the dog romping around and getting underfoot. A book titled "Caribbean Cookbook" and several typed sheets with additional Barbadian recipes (read my other post, Kiss Me I'm Irish). I was thrilled and I danced around the living room for a while. "How cool is that!?" I asked Charlie. I recently bought a Greek cookbook (I went to a Greek Festival recently and the food was ridiculously delicious. The guys were cute too) and a book of recipes that only require 3, 4 or 5 ingredients.

To do: 1. Make a list 2. Buy ingredients 3. Find an apron
4. Cook something. I'm curious to see how it will all turn out!
I may post some recipes once I have the chance to experiment with a few.

This is a picture of spanakopita--it's very good!

Mistah Kurtz-he dead

 I first read T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" when I was a young teen and for years it was one of my favorite poems (not my very favorite though--that honor goes to "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley, (read ozymandias) quite a dashing and tragically glamorous character himself). read eliot's poem if you want to. Hollow Men still is one of my favorites actually. I'm not really sure why. It's rather depressing.Whenever I read it, I imagine reciting it aloud, dramatically, with my voice rising and falling at all the right places. People would be listening, thinking "That's an odd sort of poem for a little girl to be reciting on such a beautiful day." At the word "bang" I would shout it out and startle everyone and while they were still composing themselves, I would quietly say the last words. So calmly and quietly that everyone would have to lean forward to hear. Of course, I'd be standing in a garden, on a small sort of stage, perhaps in a gazebo. The garden would be very well-manicured with roses and the shrubbery trimmed into fantastic shapes, a stately palace in the background. And everyone would be wearing white and drinking tea :) I was introduced to Eliot's poetry in my British Literature class. He was born in America but moved to England and eventually became a British citizen. I can't imagine what it would be like to become a citizen of another country. I've spent my whole life as a citizen of the U.S. Not that I have no desire to go anywhere else. In fact, my plan is to travel to as many places as possible. I've met  people who think it's crazy to leave the country. "You could die," they told me. "I could die here too" I said. "Uh-uh," they replied, "I'd rather die in the U.S.A, thank you!" What difference does that make? People die in a myriad of unexpected ways every day. And if you must die, why not die doing something worthwhile? I mean, I'm not in a particular hurry to fall into the grave or anything and like most girls I pray that God would postpone my death until I've fallen in love, married and had children (we'll see how that goes). En route to the Bahamas on a mission trip, we had to board a tiny plane  that would take us over the ocean between Florida and Nassau. The plane only had about 40 seats and there were quite a few empty. Once we all sat down and buckled in, the pilot announced that some of us needed to move to a different seat to balance out the plane. I was absolutely delighted. My friends were not so happy. Because the plane was so small and we were flying so low, we hit a lot of turbulence and rocked and shook and bounced about. It was brilliant. I imagined the plane plummeting into the ocean. Obviously I would have the presence of mind to quickly secure my life jacket and help those around me, and once we were out in the open water I would keep everyone calm while we waited to be rescued, which could take days. Never mind the fact that I can't swim :) When my sister and I were preparing to teach ESL overseas a couple of years ago, we both agreed that the adventure of it all and the chance to make friends and experience another culture far outweighed the risks.  "But why would you want to leave?"people ask.  Because, people, there's more to life than my neighborhood, my city, my school. There's more to life than driving back and forth between work and home. More than cable and fast food and Wal-Mart and clubbing. I don't want to just see the world on television or read about far-away lands. I want to go and meet the people and talk to them and eat their food and wander through the markets and listen to their music and play with their children and explore. My mother says that I'll end up living in a hut somewhere, which would be fine with me for a while at least.  I don't suppose I will ever want to be an actual citizen anywhere except for the U.S. but I am a restless soul. Perhaps I want to have my cake and eat it too (The saying never made any sense to me until I looked it up :) Nerd alert!  http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/eatcake.html ). A friend of mine once said that I am impossible to impress. I denied it because, in general, I am quite easily impressed. The simplest magic trick leaves me awestruck and anyone who knows how to change a tire is my hero. He explained a bit further. "You," he said "are always looking for the next thing. You do something and think, 'that was good' and you're already wondering what's next." I thought about that for a while and I suppose he's right in a sense. It's not that I'm impossible to impress. It's just that there's always something more to do, places to go, people to see. Too long doing the same old thing drives me crazy. Let me clarify--I'm not fickle or reckless. I just cannot stand mundane. The idea of an ordinary 9-5, apple pie, same ol'--same ol' existence scares me (you know when someone asks how you're doing and you answer "O, same ol'-same ol'" hm, maybe that's a Yankee thing). I mean, it truly frightens me. What I really really want to do is become a nurse--and eventually a nurse practitioner--and with a medical team periodically travel to remote or impoverished areas overseas. There I would work with the people to set up clinics and teach them how to incorporate basic modern medical care into their local health practices so that the clinic will continue to benefit the people long after the team is gone. Last semester, one of my nursing instructors told the class about transcultural nursing. A transcultural nurse learns all about medical practices in a wide variety of cultures and is trained to put that knowledge to use so that diverse patients will receive the best care. How cool is that? That's what I wanted to do long before I found out that there was an official title. I've seen many people live in their carefully constructed safe little worlds and maybe that's okay. But I believe that man was created for much more than okay. Everyone needs some extraordinary mixed in with the ordinary, and just like medicine, there are people who need a larger dose than others. I started off with Eliot's post-WWI poem and somehow end up with the thirst for adventure. Well, then.