You're not alone. Every time I try to make a positive change it feels like I get hit with extra opposition. Like something is preventing me from being the person I want to be. I thought that meant I couldn't change. I was flawed somehow. Broken. Everyone else could have what they want... be who they want... but not me. It was my failing. But I've been reading an amazing book called "You Are A Badass" by Jen Sincero. And it has helped me realign some of my thoughts. And I wanted to share. 
*Pardon my loud cats... and the static. I recorded from my living room couch and it was interesting to say the least! Enjoy and be well!

So many of the more recent poems I've written have to do with the sun moon or stars. They have always served as reminders to me of what is possible as a small person in a big world. Reminded me every time I look up of the vastness of the unknown. Made me feel less alone in the day and night. So they show up in my writing a lot. My life has been crazy in ways I don't even know how to share. Except in writing. You can hear when I'm overwhelmed or anxious, you can hear my anger or passion or pain, feel my longing, and see my truest self. I can't hide when I'm writing. So here I am. 

Hi! I know it's been a bit and I've missed you. This episode is honest and reflective and full of rambling poetic thought tied together with a lot of feeling. It's also chaos. My dog is old. And blind. And diabetic. And breathes like she's just run a marathon. You can hear it very clearly in parts of this. But my room is a safe place for her that she prefers over everywhere else. So I hope you'll just embrace the sound of her breathing as proof of life. As I do and keep listening. I'm not a professional. As a single working mom most of my money goes to bills and food not recording equipment. I record on my phone from my bed. Start to finish and don't edit anything. I carve out time when  I'm alone which isn't often and choose those solitary moments to share my life with you. It's about as real as you can get. And I won't apologize or perfect it. It's chaos just like me and there's a beauty in that. Enjoy. Or don't. I keep talking and writing either way. It's who I am. ❤

I shortened one of my episodes to act as a sample of the things I talk about on this podcast, the things I write and share, the emotion that explodes out of my experiences. Just an honest glimpse of real life. 

I might sound crazy as fuck in this episode. I have endless streams of poetry coming out of me in rambling sentences. And I can't seem to stop it. It's like I'm vomiting up everything that got stuck in my creative space when I went through the trauma of my husband's cancer battle and death. It's the crazy tailspin I was in. It's anger and self empowerment. It's a whole fucking journey in five minutes. You can take it with me and then follow me into my weird dreams. This episode is random. But my whole life is chaos and each random place we land on is like it's own planet.  So buckle up I guess. 

Life has been crazy for a while now. I haven't had much time to read to present any new literature to you. But in this episode I talk about my more recent struggles as a widow... things I don't know how to do... dreams I've had about my husband... all things that shook me up. Yesterday I wrote a poem. It's love and anger and a descent into chaos. You get to walk with me through love and sickness and death and grief and every way all of those things together make me feel. It's a small dose of insanity wrapped in a poetic like structure dipped in a pool of my tears. You're welcome. Enjoy. 

This episode features a poem by Sylvia Plath called "Morning Song" and also one of my own poems entitled "The Song of Stars". I wrote it for my daughter a month or so ago when she was struggling to sleep one night. This episode is about the challenge single parenting presents. The struggles we face and the battles we fight. I'll always be honest with you about the chaos that is me. It's the way I'll always try to connect with you. Show you through my words and experiences that you are not alone in this messy thing called life. Enjoy.

In this section scrooge encounters the second of the three spirits as foretold to him by Jacob Marley. The spirit comes in the shape of a giant. The spirit of Christmas Present. The spirit takes scrooge to his employee Bob's house on Christmas Day where they watch the celebration from an invisible vantage point. They travel all across the country to different houses and celebrations. They end the night at Scrooge's nephews house. Throughout the course of their travels Scrooge is reminded of the joy and gratitude the season can bring to family and friends alike and regrets his condemnation of the poor to poor houses and work houses without a thought to their person, family or well being. 

Stave two. Scrooge encounters the first of the three spirits as foretold to him by his deceased partner Jacob Marley during his ghostly visitation in Stave 1. The first is the Spirit of Christmas Past. The Spirit takes Scrooge to visit the familiar Christmases of his past all but forgotten by his latter greedy hum bug self. Revisiting old places and seeing old friends and family sparks their remembrance and softens his heart, melting his icy disposition enough that he sheds tears and questions his actions upon the previous day toward his nephew, his clerk and the boy caroling at his counting house door. 

I decided that for the rest of December I am going to read to you from "A Christmas Carol". I am reading the story to you in its entirety and in my best British accent because of course Charles Dickens was English and so wrote the story with a British inner voice. Is it a flawless performance? No.  But it sure is fun and that is the best part of literature... igniting the imagination and allowing yourself to step into another world just for the enjoyment of it...