ego

My father is a chauvinist, always has been. Vertically challenged, with an intellectual case of short mans disease, he is dismissive to women and undermines their authority at every imagined slight. Graduating from high school, he told me that college wasn’t for me, that perhaps I was better suited for secretary school. At the age of 19, I joined the Navy, he told me I wouldn’t make it. I stopped speaking to him for a few years and there are days lately when I want to cut him out again due to his disrespect.

I am an over achiever. I am fiercely self sufficient. I am fearless and brave to the point of arrogant confidence. Anything that supposedly cannot be done, I will do and will silently throw it around in my aura of “up yours”. I do not boast, I no longer pound my chest in pride…these days Im content on watching people squirm in their need to size me up.

So, needless to say, the two are linked. I have strove for my fathers approval blindly my whole life and didn’t realize his chauvinism until the last five years or so. My over achieving and desire to prove him wrong has branded me, molded me. And now, as I routinely find myself chaffed by his disrespectful and dismissive comments, I realize finally, that I threaten him. A coward, a small man with insecure thought processes…I should pity him. Instead, this revelation makes me tilt my head waaaaaay back and laugh from the depths of my core. All the pain he inflicted on my sense of who I am, all the unjust judgment, all the personal affronts…they were just his way of posturing.

The number one enemy of compassion, is the ego.

My ego is stemmed from his chauvinism.
My ego is why his chauvinism hurts me.
My ego prevents me from forgiving either one of my parents.
My ego stands in my way like a fortress, it taints my progress.
My ego is silent and loud at the same time, it colors every action, every intent.

Conceptually, I understand how to rid myself of the obvious forms of attachment, but I grip onto my ego like a life preserver. Who would I be without the ego that has shaped and defined me?

green colored glasses

Its funny how spring plays tricks on the mind…everywhere I look there is green, creeping into every crevice, filling in the air between branches, gracefully carpeting every hill, every field…just a few weeks ago the stark barren contrast was a depressing ode to loss…now I can barely remember the feeling. I look out and expect to see a trace of it somewhere, but thankfully it has retreated. It’s a testament to the power of rejuvenation. A witness to the minds the ability to forget and discard the unpleasantness. Spring is bursting at the seams and with it, my hope, my gratitude, my spirits, all full and ripe. Yes, YES!! Indeed.

stale

the air I breathe is full of naked moments left behind in a fire,
charred, the journals of my once inspired mind fell to dust.
now more of a nuisance,
a nagging tug at my inability to create magic.
it falls around and lingers on every breath,
choking the whispers of my forgotten intuitive prose.
the neglect I feel from myself is glaring.
to offer myself upon the letters that produce words,
which build lines, that create pieces of me,
is no longer a part of the air I breathe.
the science of my charm sits un-soothed,
blistered and raw.
the urge ever present, but the flow never expressed.
defeat collects in the absence of encouragement,
it pools and assembles war against the pen
using insecure tactics and bindings that pinch your nerve to try anyway.
I yearn for the community that previously made me whole...
full of likeminded artists who filled the air I breathe
with vibrant colors and imaginative rhythm.
sated my lungs with purpose that bled to my fingers instinctually,
possessed with the need to release and engrave my emotion on the page.
but not today,
not in this fade that has become my insipid existence
starved for oxygen
greedy for a view outside myself
to rejuvenate this stale air I breathe.

April Showers

its another rainy, cold day and Inara and I are spending the afternoon snuggled up on the couch watching Spirited Away for the 112th time. Im fighting off sinking moods and melancholy mindsets with chocolate and then end up pushing myself to hard on the treadmill. Obsessing about the physical is the one thing that trumps my mental.

Thought it would be a good day to be inspired ...

Caged Bird
BY MAYA ANGELOU

A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.