A balloon without a string

That's what I'm feeling like. I have things to do, ways to keep my mind occupied, but I feel kind of floaty in a part of myself. Like something or someone is missing from my life and I can't figure out what. Bumpbumpbumpsloooooooooooowshteept, just floating along, away from me and I don't know what it is.

Another Fyrebranded Kozy Preview

This is my stained glass Kozy, appliqued silk on a black Kozy body. I got the inspiration from a Georgia O'Keefe painting. I can't find the exact one, but it started out kind of like the one to the left.

My skills being limited, and my medium being a bit less blendy (is that a word?) I just used the idea instead of the wonderful pastels. The brown frame is actually more goldish and the blue is a peacock blue. I'm rather prouder of how this turned out and I know I should charge more for the amount of work I had to put into it (I've been doing bits off and on since the butterfly garden Kozy), but I don't want people to think I am ripping them off.

One of a million stories

Five years and I still cry remembering it. I told myself not to think about it, but how can you not? I think about how much I hurt and can't even imagine what it's like for those that were directly affected. The only thing that comforted me that day was just as I was falling to sleep, I had this vision of thousands of spots of life being welcomed into heaven.

I was at home, eating cereal and talking on the phone. I was thinking about how DS was 14mos that day. I was sad DH was at work. He had just gotten back from his yearly AT for the Army Reserves. He'd flown into Dulles on the 9th, had the 10th off and the 11th had to go back to work. He was a Federal police officer at the time, working HQ at a gov't building.

I wandered into the living room, where the news was on. It had just happened and the sound was down. I told my friend, "Hey some kind of plane just hit a building." Neither of us knew what was going on, and we watched in horror as what seemed to be an accident became a certain act of terrorism. We watched the second plane fly into the WTC. Fear set in. What made it burrow into my heart was when the Washington correspondent in the Pentegon reported a boom and shaking.

Suddenly, they could be anywhere. My husband was in the DC area. As a cop, he'd be one of the last to leave the building. I hung up on my friend and frantically called my husband. He told me they were busy working on dealing with the situation. His parting words were, "If anything happens, know I love you."

Frantically I tried to find someone to reach out to, so I wasn't alone. I called my SIL in WA, they were still asleep and hadn't heard the news. We cried and were scared together. I had to answer call waiting, MIL then FIL, people calling to see if we were ok. I had no info, I watched the news hoping for no news about the building my husband was in. Suddenly the phones went dead. No calls could get in or out. The TV was my only link.

I finally went to my friend's house and we waited out the day together. Her cell was kind of working (our town had no cell tower). I tried to call my husband again, got one person then the connection cut. I remember sitting on her green lawn on that beuatiful morning and crying. I can't remember anything else TBH. It's like I blocked it out.

It's just one of millions of stories of that day, but it still amazes me how the shadows of those feelings can come back so strong. My husband didn't want to go to work today. I can't even imagine what he relives when he thinks of that day. Sadly, we don't talk about it much. We didn't even on that day. I vaguely remember him coming home and just hugging, and he handed me an angel statue. Maybe it was the next day? It was all a blur.

I had a dream last night...

Actually, it has been a recurring dream. I'm lying down, all I can see is what's in my line of site. I can only move my head, my body doesn't seem to do what I want it too. I can't get up, I can't walk. For some reason, even words don't work for me. All I can do is cry, my lungs bursting, throat hurting and tears streaming across my face as I turn my head frantically from side to side, looking for help.

I can hear someone there, but can't see them. I know it's someone I love. I need that person but nobody is coming to me. My cries are coming in gulps as I try to swallow the air. Nothingnobodynothingnobody. I am alone and helpless. Swallowed by fear, swallowing fear and expelling it in great bursts of sobs, I have no concept of time. Five minutes, ten minutes, a lifetime. All I know is I am alone and helpless and can't understand why. Where are the people that love me? That should be caring for me?

If I was a quadriplegic, whoever was responsible for me would be reprimanded for neglect. After all, I can't get up to go to the bathroom, to eat, to seek out the most basic of needs- human comfort.

But I'm not handicapped, or even an elderly person in a nursing home. I'm a baby. This wasn't my dream. It's a reality for millions of babies left to cry it out every night. Doctors, caregivers, parents, grandparents- they use the euphamism "cry it out" to describe training a baby to sleep "properly". But what is the "it" the wee ones are supposed to be crying out? Their hearts? Hope? Faith in their loved ones?

For what? So we can have some skewed version of 'correct sleep' with an infant, instead of recognizing their needs might be different that our wants. Might supercede our wants. We slap the label "independence" on it and go about in our proud way. Yes, we as a country need nobody, and it starts with our infants. Look at how they can sleep on their own. Never mind what we've done to their bodies and minds to get them there.

Too bad it's all a lie. Nobody is independent. We all need somebody. It's interdependence we should be striving for. Why aren't we teaching to ask for help with grace? To offer help with compassion? Instead, we are teaching our children from the youngest age that to cry for help will bring none, and that will sap away at their compassion when they get to a place that they are able to give help. I sure hope it's not when one of their parents is bedridden and crying for a little love from their grown child- grown too busy for them.

By inches and ounces

Two revelations today. The first was that if I had stuck to Weight Watchers I'd be my ideal weight by now. Or at least at a plateau near my ideal weight.

At the steady-ish 2lbs a week I was losing, I could be within spitting distance of a body I can live with in 6mos and a body I can be proud of in a year. Isn't that much better than hating myself for squeezing into clothes, because the fear of buying up would be permission to gain even more weight. So back to counting points it will be. You be sure to remind me of this!

Today, C and I had an argument about the TV. At one point C smacked me. My first reaction was to hit him back. And third, fourth and sixth reaction. I managed to hold it in, but felt bad for the way I responded otherwise, including yelling.

I know that how I treat him directly reflects how he treats us. Never is it more clear that my childhood causes these urges, and I don't want to breed that into him. If you've read my AP page, you know I don't believe in spanking. But putting it into practice when you know hitting is hard. So I have slipped and spanked and hit C. I beat myself up everytime.

My realization today was that when I do resist that urge, instead of overlooking that and berating myself for the yelling, I should first be proud for resisting the urge. Look at the positive- what I have changed. Then look at what I should change. I'm hoping that change will happen faster when I give myself the positive reinforcement. I have to learn to treat myself nicely, not just the kids.

Up to Interpretation?

Read this marker and tell me if you see anything wrong with it.

On a recent visit to Harper's Ferry, my husband and I paused to read what we thought would be a heartfelt tribute to some historical moment or person. We found this to be hysterical instead. What also amused us is that when we laughed, we were looked at like we were crazy or insensitive. I suppose if your interest wandered and you only read the first part, it would seem insensitive to laugh.

But what struck us was the second part. The part that was the dedication. As we read it, the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Sons of the Confederate Veterans were basically thanking the 'negroes' (aka- slaves and freedmen) for resisting the temptation of joining in the fight for their freedom. That this 'nonaction' showed them in such a light that they should be proud. No, they did not run off and grab at freedom with their greedy hands. Nope, instead they kept themselves aside until freedom was inevitable. They knew their station in life. They waited until the people who had a right to tell them how to live their lives were forced to acknowledge they were free. Yes, all in all, they showed all the marks of being 'good darkies' (here I substitute a word used by many of the "Old South" for the N-word, which might be more fitting historically.)

It struck us as totally ridiculous and tasteless that such a monument would be erected- or at the very least, still standing. To suggest that only by not joining the fight for freedom, one could avoid a "stain" on the record of the "best of both races" is ridicuous in a sublime way. And offensive, in my opinion. It suggests that those that did fight, run, grab at freedom with both hands...that these are the ones who did not have character, who were the stains. That living in oppression was out of faithfulness rather than of fear. I suppose at one time, in a different era, this would have been the prevailing thought. But I find the fact that this historical marker is still standing makes it a remnant of history itself. And not a stainless one at that.