That Day in April....

Nine years ago today Fatih and I got married in a modest ceremony just a few miles from our front door.  It was a ceremony we carefully crafted to represent us and to celebrate our mixed faiths and cultures.  Our readings varied from love poems by Paublo Neruda and Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet to Emily Bronte and a familiar piece of scripture from 1 Corinthians 13:45.78.  The favors we gave our guests came from Turkey, silver evil eye charms and a glossy bag filled with Turkish delights. Our music was a highly varied soundtrack, with milestones of the ceremony marked by our favorite songs.  We danced to Van Morrison's Crazy Love, cut our cake to Mozella's "Can't Stop" and danced for hours to Turkish pop songs and all the modern top forty rock we could muster. Looking back I know it was truly our day, a day we designed to be about us and for us to share with our friends and family.  I think we got it 100% right. People still talk about that day, about my Dad's amazing speech, my sister's hilarious gangster-style toast or the surprise belly dancer we hired to kick off the party. 

Today we are both a littler grayer. Fatih is a lot thinner and we are parents to an amazing 7 year old who makes life so much more wonderful than either one of us imagined it could be.  That day in April, when I thought life couldn't be more perfect, I was totally wrong. Marriages are full of perfect moments...just not in one continuous stream.  Marriage isn't about everything always being perfect, always being "just right".  It can be hard, so hard sometimes and there will always be rough patches that wear you down. As the years pass, as the memories of that brilliant day fade and those vows and promises seem to grow fainter, sometimes you even question.  In the most difficult times, you may even have doubts.  Then, you have one of those unassuming, simply perfect moments in life and you are astounded by how complete and infinite your love is and you are so grateful for the life you have built together. And you think, in all the world this is my person, this is my best friend, this is my family and I would do anything, go anywhere, be anything for him.

Marriage is work, even the best ones. Its about having faith and hope and a little perspective too.  Love is recognizing the absolute perfection in imperfection and the grace in loving someone with everything you are.

Fatih, I still love you like crazy, everyday with everything I am. Happy Anniversary!

International Women's Day - #BeBoldForChange

 "Blogging Circle of Friends "
DAY 1574: March 8, 2017
Prompt: March 8 is International Women's Day. The theme this year is "Be Bold For Change" https://www.internationalwomensday.com/. Write a story, poem, or something about women or a woman being expressing this theme. Or write your opinion about this theme.


I'm waking up to the fact that today, March 8th, is International Women's Day. I am struck by one, pervasive thought almost immediately. Has this been an annual thing and if so, how have I missed it before? Then, admittedly, I think...what kind of woman does that make me?

In the course of being having a busy full time career, raising a daughter, trying to be a writer, volunteering on the PTO board and running a household, it appears I totally missed the boat on a day meant to observe and champion my fellow women, countless numbers who struggle everyday to fill the same roles I do. At a time when so many feel that womanhood and some of our most important and basic freedoms are under attack, I totally miss "our day"? What does that say about me? As a women?

Admittedly, I have never had the heart of an activist. Sure, I've signed petitions, shared articles of many things of singular importance and written pieces that were strong minded and defiant. I've supported causes and rallied behind those individuals and institutions that I felt represented necessary change. But, I've never been in a walk-out, or walked a protest line or marched. When a dear friend of mine told me she was going to the Women's march in DC, I was thrilled for her but never once remotely considered doing that myself. Does this make me less of of feminist? Am I failing my daughter in some way by not exposing her to a life of active resistance to injustices? I'm raising her to be strong, fight for herself and never let anyone tell her she can't do something and telling myself, at least by some measure, that its the same thing. Is it?I ask myself these questions a lot, but especially this morning.

I work in a very non-traditional field for women. I often joke that is it the industry that social progress forgot. That isn't true but people would be surprised by the things I hear and the battles I still see being fought among my female peers and colleagues for, not just equal pay and opportunity, but for authority, power and credibility. I grew up in this industry though and I feel like I've developed that thicker skin both from being the minority but also from being young and college educated. In my space populated by technology-loathing, "dinosaurs" who see little value in academics, I have often rallied for modernization and vision as much as I have for equality. I use that term "dinosaurs" with endearment, for they are as much a part of my upbringing and my personal landscape as the smell of jet fuel and the whine of a high powered turbine running up on the ramp. I embrace them as part of whom I am and the world I live and work in every day. Over the year I've learned to try not to get sidetracked by the little lumps so I can win the bigger victories. My female colleges number among those I find most supportive, hardworking and loyal. They are easily my "go to" people because in addition to just being straight-up, bad-ass good at their jobs, they get the big picture. They are essential cogs in our machine, even if at times, that machine grinds and moans and occasionally goes on the fritz.

But, back to Women's Day 2017...I clicked the link. I had to get educated. I did not want to start slinging the hash tag #BeBoldForChange about without knowing the values behind it. The website was clearly organized, as one would expect and there near the bottom, was a box marked "VALUES". I clicked it and found a list of words like Equality, Trepidation, Justice...to name a few. I thought about the list and found that three of the words resonated with me a bit more than the others.

Equality. As a woman I want the same opportunities to achieve power and success as my male colleagues. I want the opportunity to make the same money for the same jobs as they do. If Equality is about potential and empowerment, I'm in 100%. However, I don't want total equality. I feel that men and women are different animals entirely, possessing inherent strengths and abilities bestowed on us at birth. Women can be mothers, they can nurture. They can reason with often greater empathy and depth then many men can. They can endure and persist. They can explore countless nuances in their relationships. Women are amazing for all the things that make us different from men. We are not equal because we are not the same and that, that is not a bad thing. It may not be the most popular view among my peers but it is what I believe.

Collaboration. Women need other women. I have seen countless examples of women knocking other women down. There is too much descent among our ranks. We need to all do a better job of seeing what unifies us rather than what divides us as women. One of the unfortunate side-effects of that powerful march on DC was the clearly discernible reality that not all women's groups are created equal, not all women felt welcomed and unified. The weakness of that movement was its failure to be all-inclusive in the end with many factions and groups feeling they had been "left out" or "marginalized". If we are raging against a society that seeks to marginalize and hold us back, why do we fall into the trap of doing that to one another? There is a great quote that sums this up for me..."Strong Women, May be Be Know them, May we Be Them, May we Raise them". Women are still women regardless of whether they are working or stay-at-home moms, Muslims or Christians, Republicans, Activists or pacifists, gay or straight, etc. We need to be women working with women for change first and foremost.

Hope In this world today, in this nation so divided, fear often seems to be the prevailing emotion many are feeling. We are fearful even in our activism and our passion. The concept of the collected "we", as Americans, as women, as human beings feels precarious and forced at times as we watch people taking sides, slinging political rhetoric like weapons, condoning prejudice and inciting violence. I look at my daughter, a child of mixed faiths and mixed cultures and all girl...and I think, what will the world become for her? Will it be kind? Will it continue to be tolerant? Will it provide her opportunities to stand up? Will she find support and camaraderie? Is there hope for her? I would like to believe the answer to all those questions, and more, is yes. Yes, there is hope. There is hope because there are stories of great women to share and inspire, there are great victories won every day for all women. There is hope because we continue to observe, protest, march, speak up and write. We champion the stories of great Americans, regardless of gender, working hard and supporting their communities. There is hope because Democracy is about more than political jargon and party lines. There is hope because we see countless examples every day that give us faith in humanity and that will always trump everything else.

The Raging Within

"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
DAY 863 July 19, 2016
Let's try an example in perspectives. I've provided two and you take it from there with which ever one works for you.
1. A young woman not ready to die 2. An old man who is ready to die

The rain came down in heavy, swollen droplets. The weight of the water pressed the tall tomato plants in their wire cages down toward the ground. She found herself thinking about those tomato plants. They had grown remarkably lush, spreading well outside the confines of their towers. Their branches had extended out over the patio, heavy with the swell of ripened red fruit. She wondered if they would be permanently damaged by the storm or if they would rebound with the sun. They has seemed so strong before and now they appeared to be losing the battle with nature, in much the same way she felt she was.

There had been lots of tumultuous weather in her life, storm fronts she had withstood and rebounded from time and time again. She had started to feel stubbornly indestructible. Until yesterday. Until the call from the doctor had interrupted her marathon cleaning session and reordered her whole world. Tomorrow she would sit across from him, he would disclose the results and they would talk about time. She would learn how much she had left and she would be certain it would never seem like enough. She wasn't ready to die. She wasn't ready to bend her limbs to the earth and surrender all her beautiful ripeness to the dirt. 
  
"Blogging Circle of Friends "
DAY 1343 July 19, 2016
Pick something that happened on this day and talk about it in your blog. I've included a link to give you some ideas.
http://www.onthisday.com/events/july/19

1848 The first women's rights convention, called by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia C. Mott, was held in Seneca Falls, New York.

On this day in history, the first women's rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. I find this day and event significant as this country is witnessing the first ever female democratic nominee for the Office of the Presidency. As I write this I am astounded at how long it has taken us to get here. The fight for equality has raged on now for over 168 years. Whether or not Hillary is elected, women everywhere should recognize that she represents some measure of victory in the ongoing battle for equal rights. It has taken an excruciating long time for society to accept the concept of a woman as Commander in Chief when you consider that the credential committee of the World's Anti-Slavery Convention held in 1840 in London once ruled that women were "constitutionally unfit for public and business meetings".*

*Reference: http://womenshistory.about.com/od/suffrage1848/a/seneca_falls.htm

Remembering Rainbows

Prompt: "We may run, walk, stumble, drive or fly but let us never lose sight of the reason for the journey or miss a chance to see a rainbow on the way." Gloria Gaither What is your take on this?

Sometimes this life's journey feels like one long, perpetually running stumble. The past year has been filled with proverbial potholes of finding judgment instead of understanding and disdain instead of loyalty. There have been moments when I have had to remind myself that each experience, be it disappointing or uplifting, is part of a bigger journey to understanding this world and one's place in it. I have come to a better clarity than I had before, even if that clarity brings a sadness and sense of loss in its wake. I feel I have a better understanding of what I mean to people in my family, my friendships, my workplace...and for me that has helped shape who I am. That has true value, even if it feels hard earned at times. Life is messy but it is also beautiful and fleeting, not unlike a rainbow. I've realized that there is more joy in life than most of us expect and that its usually the quiet moments that affect the biggest changes or make the deepest impressions on our hearts.


When I was little my grandmother used to ask me to sing her Kermit's "Rainbow Connection"...and I remember doing it quite often. I never seemed to recall all the verses but she typically joined in somewhere along the way. The song always makes me think of her, and those sweet moments I shared with her during my childhood. It is a sound about dreaming, about believing there is more to the world than the very literal and tactile elements of daily life. My grandmother is very much a dreamer, a believer in the power of all things artistic and ethereal. It is, I think, one of her greatest gifts. She has been a powerful influence in my journey.  An avid painter and a poet, my grandmother has taught me to appreciate the beauty in life and the value of all of life's lessons - even the difficult ones. She has taught me to take the time to appreciate the colors, the textures and the patterns all around me and use them to create my own art, to enhance my own craft. As I write this, I realize I would do well to remind myself of her lessons, of her contribution to my life.  I need to focus more on the positive, on the good and less on things that may have wounded me and left me feeling more estranged from her in the last year. There were times in my life that my grandmother's rainbows brought color and light when there could have been only darkness for a girl who felt invisible and lost. I really should do a better job of remembering that truth.

Atwood's Handmaidens and Independent Moves

In this past week I've feel as if I've been battling a post-vacation hangover trying to reinsert myself into the chaos and demands of a stress-inducing job. I find myself checking email during dinner, waking up in the middle of night running worst case scenarios and generally worrying about the bottom line in a particularly slow cycle of sales. There doesn't seem to be much time or opportunity to write anything, let along work on my submissions. I keep telling myself I just need to get out in front of my work and I can score some breathing room to work on some things but so far that seems like little more than a lofty aspiration. One thing that hasn't escaped my attention is how drastically my daughter has changed in this past year. I was so blessed to have had a full, uninterrupted week to spend with her on vacation. I found myself just watching her at times, transfixed by how much she's matured this summer. First off, she's shed every once of baby fat, revealing that she will most likely and thankfully take after her father. I can see the familiar lines of his lithe build in her physique and also touch of athleticism I wished I had possessed at her age. The Florida sun turned her skin its loveliest shade of caramel which has brought out the jade colored flecks in her eyes. She seems for the first time, to be wholly unlike either one of us, but rather uniquely herself. She is developing her own sense of humor and her own sense of style. She had a variety of laughs at her disposal...a quiet giggle, a playful snicker and a full-on belly laugh that makes my heart joyful when I hear it. She often walks aside of us now but just as often slips her hands into one of ours and readily returns our hugs and kisses. She is still sweet, occasionally saucy and simply amazing to behold. And now for the prompts...prompts keep me focused, they keep me "in the ink" so to speak...

"Blogging Circle of Friends "
Day 1324, June 30, 2016
PROMPT: throughout history, stories have influenced a change in society (for example Jules verne's " from the Earth to the Moon,inspiring the moon landing, or 20000 leagues under the sea inspired the creation of electric submarines, or George Orwell's "1984" inspiring the NSA spy scandals, Using a specific literary work, explain how a novel might influence
change in society.

I think either read this prompt a little differently, or have a slightly jaded take on it because the novel that came immediately to mind was Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaids Tale". I read the book over a decade ago but the story stayed with me. For those who are unfamiliar, the novel of speculative fiction, tells the story of a future where women had been striped up their most basic rights. Following a terrorist attack and subsequent takeover, society has been rigidly restructured into a caste system whereby women are divided and devalued based on their fertility. It is a vivid depiction of the worse scenario for women in a society ruled by controlled by men and their archaic and brutal philosophical ideals. The reason this particular novel comes to mind is that we live in a time when the debate of abortion repeatedly surfaces in nearly every political race or round table discussion. The women's right to chose is repeated challenged, with constantly changing laws shifting the power balance in one direction or the other. It seems unstable and precarious sometimes...this sense of control over our lives and our bodies. We all know about places in the world where women do not enjoy the same freedoms, the same rights. We all know of places where women are not free, are not safe. We all know of places where women are enslaved by political and religious idealogy. There are places where the parallels between the fictitious Gilead and modern day society can be clearly drawn and that should be frightening to every global citizen. It certainly frightens me. The right over my own body is God-given and sacred and the thought that any government could lay claim to that right, could move to supercede my own authority over self, is simply not acceptable to me.


"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
Day 844 June 30, 2016
Prompt: What is the most independent thing you have ever done?

I feel that I have been pretty independent my whole life. I've made some mistakes but I've always tried to push myself too. I elected to go to college out of state and after that first summer break, I made the permanent move out. My parents were already in the middle of divorce and after several brief months bouncing between "his" and "her" houses, it was very clear to me that I was better off on my own. I think though perhaps the most independent thing I have ever done was to buy my ex-husband out of of the house in the divorce. It was my first home and it was terrifying. It was a project to renovate, both emotionally and physically. The house had seen its far share of discontent and there were lots of bad memories there. I was determine to look past that and start over. With very limited knowledge, I patched all the fist-sized holes and battered doors. I threw away all the garage-sale furniture that was a scarred as I felt and replaced it with the bright and the new. I repainted, repaired and replaced with abandon. Eventually, I felt like I had reclaimed the space as one I felt safe and secure in. It wouldn't truly become a home for me again until I remarried and gave birth to my daughter. Today it is the first place I really feel happy and complete. My husband and our daughter have really been what have made this house a home. I'm grateful though, that I took that leap for myself. It was such an instrumental part of becoming the person, the mother and the wife I am today.

Exiled

There was a time, not so long ago, that I knew more of life. There were days when I sparkled in the sweet spring sunshine of April. There were long afternoons when I wore the juice of fresh-picked strawberries and toiled in richly scented potting soil. I spent hours nestled in woolen mittens as snow blanketed the ground and Christmas lights twinkled in neighborhood yards. These sensations, all so vivid and wonderful to recall, fail to light the world inside this dark place to which I have been banished.

One memory, above all others, brings me back to joy and leaves me with a bittersweet modicum of hope in my exile. It is a feeling. The feeling of being slipped, virgin and new, on her delicate finger by the shaking hands of a youth whose eyes were pooled with pride. It's the sensation of being wrapped in warm flesh as they walked hand in hand in the days when their love was bright and brimming with hope. I twinkled in the twilight of their humble home as they planned their lives together. I remember happy voices that talked of all the life to come; of splashing dogs and Indian summers, of frozen lakes and gardens filled with flowers and of children laughing in hallways. They talked often of those children. They pondered how they might look, what their names would be and how they would raise them. Their love was bound by faith in dreams and they loved and dreamed with an astonishing fierceness.

After a few years though, those hushed and secret conversations stopped. They rarely held hands. I longed for the embrace that was so frequent in the earlier years, the years that were full of promise. There were gardens and frozen lakes but the laughing children chasing running dogs, did not appear. The house expanded and filled with all the material trappings of success but it became less of a home and more of a space into which both retreated. I no longer felt the thrum of her heart, the life beat of her love. It was as if I had become dulled by the pallor that seemed to hang over her. She spent silent moments looking down at me, twisting me slowly around her thinning finger. She was lost to me, lost in a world of empty hallways. The children she could never bare became phantoms that haunted her.

That fateful night the argument had started slowly, like a licking flame. It grew and grew until the words became brutal weapons that inflicted mortal wounds. She lashed out in anger and disappointment. He shot back at her with blame and resentment. In the end there was a slamming door and then a hollow, aching silence. She wept for hours into her hands, bathing me in her anguished tears. As the morning sun crept through the curtains, she opened eyes that were red-rimmed and clouded. She stood before her dresser looking down at me for a long time before she slipped me off her finger and dropped me into this cold pine box.

I've been here with my memories for a long time, longer than you would think that love could survive. I still believe that it is there, lying dormant, waiting for a kind word of forgiveness or a sudden tender touch that will resurrect it. Despite the years alone, I have not given myself over to tarnish. My metal has not faded or lost its resilience. I live with the persistent hope that one day she will lift the lid of my prison and find me once again, shining with the promise of a million happily ever afters.

 Stretching the muscle this morning a bit....not sure where it goes...

Isabella Ranking sat alone on a cold stone bench contemplating the ruin of her life. She thought there was a slight chance she was being overly dramatic about things. Still, sitting alone in the almost rain by the ragged edge of the coast watching the somber gray waves, it certainly felt like her life was over.

Behind her back, the impressive façade of Graystone Mansion rose up into the colorless sky. Five Stories of old New England elegance perched high on the prettiest stretch of coastline, Graystone had made the transformation from a once-upon family residence to the administration building of an accredited state university. She had loved that building once. Today, Isabella could barely bring herself to look at it. She felt it’s presence bearing down on her shoulders and knew she would no longer find any beauty it its dark windows and sharp angles of unforgiving stone.

Isabella felt the wave of nausea hit her and turned her face into the wind to fight the sour fit in her stomach. She breathed deeply of the salt air. Her newly minted sense of super smell also picked up the cloying scent of decay from the seaweed clumps rotting between the rocks exposed at the low tide mark. She coughed, and spit. The taste of rot suddenly metallic in her mouth. Not for the first time, she found her hands folded protectively over her middle, covering a phantom bump that was not visible. How had she managed to end up here? With all her ambition and drive? She had been the first of her family tribe to go to college, the shining example to her younger siblings. Isabella imagined the look of anguish on her father’s face when she told him she was dropping out, when she told him about the baby. She felt as if she was going to vomit and the urge drove her to her feet and into motion.

She began walking the brick path that wound along the coast and through campus. Forcing herself to keep moving while she wiped at the silent tears coursing down her cheeks. Fortunately the campus was almost deserted on this eve of the trimester break and she could pass unseen among the few students who raced about making preparations to leave. She was stalling, not ready to go home and face what was coming. She had briefly considered putting it off, she could go another few months without her pregnancy becoming too obvious. Isabella had quickly abandoned that plan. Her mother would take one look at her and know everything. It had always been that way. Her mother had an uncanny ability to ferret out everything little thing her children had ever tried to keep hidden, especially her oldest daughter.

Isabella had reached the door of her little red Subaru. Heavy-hearted, she pulled it open and sank down behind the wheel. She looked out over the sound before her. White caps roiled in the choppy seas now, mirroring, it seemed, the tempest raging inside her. She took one last, long look and turned the key feeling the car shudder to life underneath her.

The building was hard to miss, looming high above the colorful landscape of the theme park. Even if you managed to overlook the nearly electric pink paint or the cleverly constructed façade, you would be hard pressed to ignore the screaming. Even thirteen terrific stories above the ground, the screams emanating from the Tower of Terror seemed somehow amplified in the gloomy afternoon rain.

“Jen, that doesn’t look like too much fun.” I said.

My friend tugged on my arm. “No, it’s great! You’ll love it.” she assured me.

We reached the gate. The screaming was more muffled here. From this new vantage point, I could make out the large holes in the side of the edifice. Through these holes, I caught glimpses of horrified faces as they hurtled straight down, thirteen stories in a dark freefall.

“Jen…” I started, but she cut me off.

“It goes so fast. You will LOVE it,” she insisted.

Before I could protest, the line surged forward. Excited riders weaved around partitions and were deposited in front of what appeared to be a massive elevator doors. I stared for a long time at the “last chance” exit ramp on my right. A few steps in that direction and I’d be back on the outside, safe…

Jen must have anticipated my plan. She grabbed me by my shoulders. “Melissa, remember why you are here? You are celebrating the start of your new life. This trip is about new experiences, facing fears and doing things you’ve never done before and you made me promise not to let you back out.”

Jen was right. After three long years, my divorce had been final just a week. This trip not just a vacation, it was a rebirth. I just hadn’t expected freedom to come in the form of abject terror.

“Its not going to be as horrible as you imagine.” Jen assured me. The door opened and we were ushered inside.

My hands shook as I belted myself in. I turned to Jen and threatened to kill her if it all went badly. She laughed. Doors opened and we lurched forward. We traveled along a hallway, passing the hotel scenery while the ride’s story line was narrated over our heads. The voice stopped and the carriage began to shake. The lights when out.

Until that moment, “pitch black” was an expression I had used but its meaning had never been pressed upon me with such clarity. There was nothing in front of my eyes except an expanse of black so deep and thick, it was as if I had been blindfolded with velvet. There was a sensation of being suspended and then we plummeted. The carriage came briefly to rest in front of one of those gaping holes. I caught a glimpse of a blue sky and a few passing birds, before we plunged again. I could feel the unforgiving displacement of my internal organs as we dropped. This time our descent was interrupted for mere seconds before becoming a harrowing ascent, at the rate of several floors per second.

I think I must have been raving in terror though the speed at which we were now being dropped, stopped, shot upward and dropped again, made it difficult to catch my breath. We moved fast but I was conscious of everything. My body, and worse, my mind, knew every fraction of gravity we cheated, faked and fumbled. Every movement in our jagged and horrific progression registered in painful, conscious vibrations across my heart, my stomach, and knotted intestines. Each time we came to rest, my chest fluttered with hope that the horror trek was finally over, until we jerked into movement again. The relief faded as quickly as the light.

Then it was over. How long had it lasted? My throat felt raw and my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. My legs began to convulse. Jen waited while I composed myself and rose unstably.

“That was the worst thing I’ve ever done.” I croaked.

“Seriously? You hated it?” I marveled at the surprise in her voice. I started to respond but we were already on the move, herded out through the exit gates and through the gift shop.

“We should get you a tee-shirt.” Jen exclaimed.

How could I wear something on my chest that said, “I survived the Tower of Terror”, when I obviously had not? I was convinced that I had left some small, virtually insignificant organ back there on the carriage that had been shaken, shocked and forced lose.

We filtered past a bank of screens, each displaying a digital picture taken at a specific point in the ride. I found our section of the carriage and we broke into wild peals of laughter. In the shot, I am not scared straight into my seat with my eyes screwed tight in fear. Instead, I am pivoted toward Jen, facing her with my eyes open, shouting at her. I didn’t look terrified, I looked pissed off. The camera flash had illuminated my features. My cheeks were flushed and my eyes so bright, they seemed to spark in the darkness that surrounded me. I was entirely animated. I looked, I realized, with a sudden rush of gratitude, free and alive.

Suddenly, I knew two things with certainty; I would NEVER go on that ride again for any reason known to God or man. And most importantly, I would never treasure something more than those few minutes when I had surrendered all my troubles and completely gave into the fear and the freedom of freefall. Everything I had sought to free myself from, had fallen away. For the first time in a long time, my heart had ached from sheer rush of adrenaline rather than the pain of heartbreak.

“Ready for the Aerosmith’s Rock and Roller Coaster now?” Jen asked, a little warily.

The stream of curse words I had planned to hurl at her died on my tongue.

 “I’m gonna need a few minutes.” I said instead.

The summer before I started college, I had the amazing opportunity to travel to Australia and New Zealand as part of a People to People youth science exchange program. The trip consisted of roughly eighty science students spending three weeks overseas participating in a variety of biological and cultural activities from bird tagging and sea lion research on the remote Kangaroo Island to visiting a Maori village for a ceremonial feast. The itinerary would take us many places and expose us to many rich and wonderful experiences. The highlight for me, and really the entire reason for my signing on, was a true once in a lifetime chance to dive on the great barrier reef off the Queensland coast of Australia.

The night before the dive, I remember I could not fall asleep. My body felt charged with an almost electrical excitement. From as early as I could remember, I had been enchanted with the underwater world. My bookshelves teemed with books on marine biology, thick volumes with colorful images of fish and aquatic wildlife. I was particularly intrigued by the great barrier reef, home to thousands of species, a living laboratory where I could see first-hand the creatures from my books. I had gotten my scuba license at fifteen, the youngest member of my dive class. I took my certification dive in the frigid, dark waters of Long Island Sound, a far cry from the clear, tropical waters that were my inspiration.

The morning of the dive, I sat with about a dozen of my traveling companions on the metal bench of a bobbing pontoon boat as the dive master gave us our instructions and advisories. There were a few nervous snickers when he described a shark drill that involved us forming a circle around him. It was hard to pay close attention, distracted by the combination of turquoise water all around us and the dive master's hot pink speedo. Before I knew it, he was inviting us to chose our dive buddies and suit up. My partner was a girl named Nicole. She was a loud and outgoing girl from somewhere in Oklahoma. She had spent the entire time making lewd comments to me about the pink speedo and I doubted she had heard a word of the dive master's speech. We helped each other into our neoprene suits and fins, double checked our hoses and air supplies. The one word of advice I had taken to heart was to stay with our buddies at all times. I was determined not to lose Nicole down there in all that blue.

I stood, waiting for my turn to step off the boat. The tank and vest felt awkward and heavy, it was steaming hot in the bright sun. I shuffled forward until at last my fins were in line with the edge. The surface of the water looked a little rough and I had my first and only twinge of fear. After only a moment's hesitation, I took a wide step off the pontoon. The moment I hit the water, I felt myself drawn back to the surface by my buoyancy. I let some air out of my dive vest and felt myself sink back down, the ocean surface disappearing in my bubbles. My heart was pounding so hard it hurt. Nicole had entered the water before me, I began to look around frantically for her, breathing in what felt like harsh gasps, sucking down my air supply. All of a sudden, Nicole was beside me, her black hair flowing around her head, her eyes wide inside her dive mask. She made the "ok" sign, and waited for me to return it. I did. She turned and began to swim off, I followed trailing just behind her fins. It took me a few more minutes to regulate my breathing and begin to take in my surroundings.

Until that moment, my diving experience had been all based in cold waters off New England. I had often had to battle tough currents and limited visibility. The world I found myself in could not have been more different. The sea here was clear. I could see all the way to the sandy floor, it had to be over thirty feet down. The sand looked soft and white, punctuated here and there by large, free standing corals covered with pink, purple and blue anemones, some as big around as truck tires. As we moved on, the reef became more dense and populated. Schools of reef fish darted past. There were large Parrot fish and deep blue Surgeon fish, bright yellow Butterfly fish with their long, tapered snouts. Bright purple sea fans swayed in the current and there were places were colonies of spiny black sea urchins covered the sea floor like a black carpet. Nicole stopped short and pointed to coral outcropping where a large parrot fish was gnawing away. You could hear the grinding noise as he worked at it with his file-like teeth, turning the water around him murky with dust and debris.

The more I looked around me, the more I saw. It was as if the pages I poured over suddenly all came to life in an amazing parade of color and movement. Nicole was trying to talk to me, her excited jumbles making no sense as I pointed to a sea turtle coasting by about six yards from us. I swam slowly, watching the life thriving below me silently naming each species I saw and trying to memorize a few I'd never seen before. There were thousands of nudibranchs and marine worms in every possible color combination imaginable, with large crabs and rays dotting the sea's floor. I got lost among them, hovering just a few meters above them. I swam into pockets of fish. I extended my hand, feeling the vibrations as they shot past my fingers. Suddenly, just below me, closer than I had anticipated, a large ray extracted itself from the sea bed and launched up inches from me. It startled me into a kind of consciousness and I realized I had wandered away from Nicole. With a bolt of panic, I began searching the waters around me and saw a speck of black in the blue beyond that I prayed was my partner. I took off after her in powerful strokes, trying not to think about the dangers of being left behind. Nicole was moving quickly, probably thinking that she had lost me. I reached out and grasp the end of one her her flipper, giving it a big tug. She swirled around, and was momentarily masked by a cloud of bubbles. I gave her the okay sign, and she returned it. Her eyes were smiling, she looked as relieved as I felt. We turned together to make our way back to the pontoon and came face to face with a giant grouper.

Nicole squealed into her regulator. This fish was enormous. It was just hanging there, barely moving, twirling its fins in lazy circles, watching us with great round eyes. The mouth gaped, thick-lipped and dark. It's body was greenish brown mottled with white spots. Looking back, I'm certain it appeared larger than it really was, given the fact that the ocean seems to magnify most things. It had looked to be at least the size of my bedroom's double dresser and the sheer size of it was alarming even if I knew groupers to be largely docile. I could see the dark shadow of the boat on the surface and was suddenly eager to be back on it. After a few more moments of reflection, the grouper seemed to become uninterested and shot off rather suddenly into the depths. Nicole and I finished our ascent.

After shedding my tank and vest, and dropping back down on the benches, a strange euphoria set in. I was filled with the knowledge that I had just done something few people have the opportunity to do. Filled with a powerful gratitude, I turned my face to the sun, smiling and feeling as if I was glowing. The happy chatter all around me died off and for a brief second, it was just me and the sound of the waves lapping against the pontoon.

Leap of Faith or Let it Go...

Family. For the past two months the concept of family has preoccupied my thoughts and permeated my dreams.  I’ve had a dichotomy playing out in my heart as to whether or not to try to have another child, which at my ripe age, is likely more fantasy than reality. I’ve been agonizing over my daughter’s future and whether or not being an only child would be beneficial or just lonely later on. I’ve also been struggling pulling away from my family, to self-isolate, in an effort to preserve feelings – mine as well as theirs. I used to feel like an integral part of the system, one of the cogs in the machine that kept us all together. Now, I feel villainized.  But, is family so important that you let it fundamentally affect you? To influence the decisions of your life? To alter plans?  The complexity of my feelings these days are making me question everything about my life and about the people who have occupied the prominent places in my life like the features of the most familiar landscape. 

I try very hard to be authentic. I write as I breathe. I don’t use other people’s words or witty meme’s to express my own feelings and thoughts. I don’t enjoy gray areas of understanding and I reject the almost humanly desire to be passive aggressive whenever possible. Writing is how I process, how I reason and rationalize.  Writing is how I reflect and how I keep myself anchored.  I make mistakes. I am as flawed as the next person, weakened by my fears but also strengthen by battles hard fought. I am not always the person I want to believe I am. I am constantly learning about my vulnerabilities to being hurt and my capacity to forgive. Still, it is easy to take on someone else’s assessment of you and wear it for a while, like a cloak of shame or a robe of penance. I’ve had to tell myself, so often in the past weeks, that I am only responsible for my own feelings and perceptions.  The beliefs and experiences of my life are the only things I can every honestly take ownership of. That’s it. 

Contrary to what some may believe, I hate drama. Who wouldn’t want to live in a rose-colored world where everything is wonderful and everyone is the best version of themselves?  Who would want to intentionally seek out conflict, generate ill-will and discontent? There is enough of that filling television screens and Facebook statuses every day.  Life, however is messy. It is not vapid. It is not phony or idealized. It is colorful and chaotic. It is fluid. To truly live this life you sometimes have to get dirty. You have to step up, speak out. You sometimes have to engage the visceral truths and acknowledge the unpleasant. You have to seek answers to questions you hadn’t wanted to ask. You have to face the things that built you as well as the things that threaten to tear you down. You have to aspire, to dream, to fail, to disappoint, seek redemption and say, “fuck you” to your fiercest critics.  You also have to lose yourself from time to time, I think, so you can find another version of yourself…. a better, more Teflon-coated, “fuck-all” unapologetically real, version of yourself. Some days you just have to hope the people who love you the most will still love you the best no matter what and if not, you have to learn to let go.  Some days you have to consider walking away or take leap…

Chasing Success and Getting Lost Among the Momeraths

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Day 753 March 30, 2016 

Prompt: Why are we conditioned into the strawberry and cream, Mother Goose world, Alice in Wonderland fable, only to be broken on the wheel as we grow older and become aware of ourselves as individuals with a dull responsibility in life? Sylvia Plath.  What is your take on this?

The brilliance of Plath’s tormented insight has been revealed to me more and more I as age.  The way in which she viewed the world around her and her place in it, was remarkably developed and venerable for someone so young. She tragically bore the “dull responsibility” in life for as long as she could and I think of her struggle often these days. Writing, I hope, brought her some respite from those dark hours.  I know that it does that for me sometimes.  I think I agree that we, young girls in particular, are conditioned with fairytales and fables. I think they are far less a staple of growing up than they used to be.  I believe the collective conscious of today crafts warrior princesses who do the rescuing, brave girls who engineer and invent and young minds who solve problems and tote the motto, #smartisthenewcool.  I like to think mothers today raise girls who have a confidence and a vision for themselves and like me, look for the real life lessons in those old Mother Goose stories. Also, I’m not sure I see myself as an individual with a “dull responsibility in life”.  There are days of drudgery of course, but those days don’t carry the script of my existence.  Have I been broken on the wheel? Absolutely. Several times over at certain points in my life…but for each “down” there has always been a resounding “up”.  Becoming an individual is the beauty of the journey, with all its vivid pain and joy. The times when I have been broken, have allowed me to grow into something more. I love Alice and I wish sometimes the world was more “Wonderland” but one can only get lost among the mome raths for so long before having to grow up.  I know that and I make sure my daughter does too. I might not be able to spare her the wheel but I can do my best to prepare her for it.

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DAY 1232: March 30, 2016 

Prompt: What does success mean to you?

Success is something I think a lot about. My type A personality tells me that the more power and authority I have in my career, the more successful I will be.  I am driven, at times, beyond my own real ambitions I think. If I were to consider the question of what success legitimately means to me, I think my actual opinion would be far less lofty and almighty.  I would like to have recognition for my accomplishments in a very male dominated industry.  I would like my contributions to the company to be acknowledged among my peers in that industry. I would like to be seen as someone who “knows their stuff” and who’s opinion and insight matters.  Do I need to be CEO?  Some days it is easy to get lost in that fantasy but truth be told, I don’t want to sacrifice all that I would need to in order to be a good CEO. Having the finances to make home improvements, send my daughter to piano lessons and summer science camps and to take that annual vacation…that’s a more attainable way to define my success. I think just being able to live life as full as one can, with as much contentment as possible and without the stress of surviving from paycheck to paycheck, I think that makes us successful.