Ahoy! Prepare to Sail!

It's 2:42pm on December 30, 2010.

 Sunshine is filtering in through the slats in the blinds making me squint at my computer. I look outside our den above the lemon tree, into the bluest winter sky in search of clouds. Not a single, solitary little wisp of anything to blur the lines between this year and the next. I climb the imaginary mast above my house and see clear sailing towards new adventures on the horizon. Again, I'm squinting from the sun now spreading like golden vapor across my cheeks. Follow me it says, follow your dreams. A wave might crash over the railing, the pitch of the sea might sway my countenance from glee to one of serious determination, but I will continue my journey, through windy, ice-laden seas, towards my personal goals that wait on rocky coastlines, through narrow straits, crying and calling my name. 

It's 3:12pm now and the sun has dipped below the house next door. The high temperature is 58 degrees today with a low tonight of 35. Our lemon tree won't be very happy. I see it starting to dance in the breeze, I hear the chirping of the desert birds and I climb down from my imaginary station and realize I have but one day to prepare. 

3:25pm-The last entry into the ship's log before I board, before we depart:

 Hoping for calm, satin-like waters to carry us on into the harbor of our tomorrows.

365 New Gifts

Closet cleaning time everyone and I'm speaking figuratively about all the things we don't want to carry into the upcoming year. When we turn to our new 2011 calendar it will have three-hundred and sixty-five little boxes that we can fill with upcoming possibilities, fresh opportunities, exciting ways of tweaking the past into something different, something that can blossom into a new approach, basically a new you. I can probably pontificate about the obvious things we want to leave behind. The weight, the anger, parking tickets, the unemployment, the rejection slips, the old agent, the new agent, self-publishing scams, vanity press publishers, snow storms, mud slides, world hunger, etc.

Instead, I think I'll just remind everyone about those new little boxes on the calendar. Every single day will be a gift-box for  us to open. Every day will contain twenty-four incredible hours we can use to our advantage.
Those few bad boxes with illness, sad news or bad weather will teach us things to make us stronger, better writers and appreciative of the other little boxes. How will we fill our first thirty boxes? Will we write our stories, our blogs, our books? Will we spend time with loved ones? Will we take a new mode of transportation and forget about the body-scanning mania, or the snow-logged freeways and try a side street connection, a different way that may take longer, but might make the journey more interesting? Will this be the year we add "Volunteer" to our resume?
Can we create a new perspective, a new angle,
a new desire to change the world one little box at a time?

Good News

     There are plenty of sites out there on the World Wide Web full of real news, wars, pain, anger, depression, crime, hate, anger and death. There are news channels, newspaper websites, political bloggers, virtual porn and sites that want to sell you something. Almost everyone has an agenda, and I have to admit, that I have an agenda too. My agenda is to gain your trust, your friendship, so we can have a mutual love of reading, humor and the written word. 

As I write this, I'm thinking about all of you who visited this site this year, and I hope I brought a smile to your face or we were connected in some tiny way. Maybe something I wrote inspired you to write something too. Perhaps your book or books have become bestsellers while I'm still struggling with my first one.

Of course, someday I'll publish my book and my agenda will change because I'll be begging you to buy it. Right now, I'm still revising each page and I feel like getting an agent might be a great goal for me in 2011. Whether or not I publish it, and whether or not you buy it has absolutely nothing to do with being friends who want to share in good, positive news, happy news, funny stories, caring thoughts, poetry and inspiration.This is an Oasis of the Heart. Surroundings of  warmth and beauty that need to be shared with those who wish they could step outside from a busy, chaotic life, if only for the few minutes it takes to read my blog.  Don't forget, I'm out here in the desert where friends like you are few, the quest for knowledge is rare, and the thirst for memorable moments unquenchable.

 The Desert Rocks wants to wish all of you a very special Christmas and a New Year filled with every imaginable delight you could possibly dream up.

Apology in Paradise

My main character is a girl who escapes into her imagination whenever the situation gets too hard to handle.

Although she is a conglomeration of several different types of people I may have met in my life, this one characteristic, unfortunately is pulled strictly from experience. Whenever stressful, horrible things in life were overwhelming my wee bit of a brain...I ran to a parallel universe led by my colorful and comforting thoughts about the books, poems I had read, the movies I had seen or the stories I would tell. Quite often, these ventures into other places continued until I had written a poem that seemed to tie everything up into some kind of neat package. I could type out the poem, give it to someone to read, who would reassure me everything would be fine or they'd joke about calling someone for immediate intervention. It was done, I could move on and my stressful problem would manifest itself as a poem.

This is The Desert Rocks, and I'm sorry for my last, emotional  post, because I'm suppose to be happy, humorous, informative not solemn.  Inevitably, poetic angst might cause a few clouds to float over my Oasis of the Heart. I apologize and hope you will continue enjoying my blog.

By the way, we're having a December heat wave. I'm back to wearing flip-flops and sleeveless tops.
 I don't need to pretend--this is paradise.

In Memoriam

 A hollow pain

 Reverberates, almost echoes

 In my friend's heart.

 Clanging, churning in her hall of memories 

She'll replay her images in dreams,

In color,

Perhaps dripping with red

Like flower shop roses

Sitting on a wreath, 

Mingling with satin ribbon

Her sobs fueled by the scent. 

Alone.

Brown soil

Fresh above her child

Ripped from her life

Her twenty-two year old baby-

A tragedy

A statistic,

Interred forever into the loam.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night...

My mother, had placed a photo of the hospital where I was born on the first page of my baby album.
It was a big green leather album with gold engraving and black pages filled with black and white photographs.
The picture was taken and developed by my father who loved photography. The wind was swirling with snow and ice in front of the bright windows, where inside I had decided to show up and grace everyone with my presence. As I grew older,  I had so many questions about the blizzard, the deep snow that packed high along the side of the building, and the story book style my mother used to illustrate one of the biggest moments of our life. Yes, it was a dark and stormy night, but what about the rest of the story? Why, I may have wondered was that album just filled with silly pictures of me? All right, she started out okay...and then the story turned into something that made me turn to other books where the characters were much more interesting.
 A book needs more than just a good hook in the beginning. It needs to draw you in and then it needs to carry you along to other places and exciting events. Every book needs a plot full of conflict, suspense, rescues or romance. If my mother would have known the future she could have written a book about conflict, suspense, rescues and romance. My father's photos would have shown his daughter crossing oceans, sailing through hurricanes, or swinging on a vine in a jungle near Puerto Vallarta. His photos might have shown me thin and then a little heavier. His photos might have shown me ashamed and embarrassed, or injured and crying over a stupid man. Their book might have become a best seller and all I can say is thank God they never collaborated on a book about my life.
 That old dusty album sits somewhere on a relative's shelf. Trust me, it's not a page turner, but my parents sure knew how to hook you in.

Distractions

     With Christmas decorating, shopping, meal planning, children, work and blog hopping, not to mention sleeping, cleaning, exercise and relatives, I just don't know how everyone is still able to write. I get distracted by a moth fluttering on my window, or a flickering light bulb can throw my whole thought process out of whack. Cleaning can wait until the New Year, and since I'm in the middle of a revision on my book I get to distance myself from my gnawing, obnoxious characters who usually wake me in the middle of the night with some great bunch of whining nonsense they want me to incorporate into their life.
Exercise? Did I actually say that?
Decorating? Maybe a little.
Shopping...yes it's necessary and today I'll face the crowds at the malls like an oyster fisherman out on the banks wearing his rubber boots, trudging toward something that might get washed away...back into the sea...like a deal on cashmere sweaters.

Wait, that light bulb just flickered...ah...what was I saying?

Thanksgiving Remorse

Call your hounds
Sound the bell-
More than pounds
It feels like hell.

Anchored ballast,
Slogging ahead
My lover’s callous
And accepting in bed.

More than a meal
Shared  by kin,
Repugnantly I kneel-
Repenting  gluttonous sin.

Take it back,
Take the folds,
Take the tires and the sacs,
Take the blubber and the rolls.
Faster and faster, before I explode.

Oh, merciful God,
Lighten my load
Work my shaking flesh
Down to the bone.

My partner’s embrace
Went from one arm to two.
Encircling  a waist,
That silently grew.

Butter and chocolate,
Gravy and stew-
Icing, pastries, pumpkin pies-
Filled with calories,
Filled with lies.
Mysterious things
That cling to thighs.

I took my lumps,
This despair is true-
I refuse to be plump
I’ll start anew.

Ride my bike,
Walk and swim
Pray and hike-
Until I’m trim.

Begone useless fat.
The calendar turns
And with each day
Some will burn.

Off you undignified globs
That want to take over my life,
Listen to my sobs
My unrelenting strife.

Every year is the same,
The eggnog, the roast,
No one to blame,
But the holiday host.

Now Christmas is coming,
Too soon to be thin,
But I’ll be humming
“I want to be slim”.

So one more time before I go...
Facing the depths of holiday grease.
Listen loved ones for the close-
I really don’t want… to be obese.