random thoughts

lately there have been all these random thoughts and snippets of ideas floating in my head
i don't know where they come from but i do know that i have to write them down somewhere or they will take over and i'll get bogged down in them so here they are- no rhyme no reason no order-just random thoughts


there's a hole in my heart
i don't know how it got there or when
and i don't know how to fix it
i keep looking for the perfect patch
but stuff keeps leaking out no matter what i do

they told me to forget about him

turn and walk away

that boy -they said- is not good enough

for you

tell that to my heart

convince my soul that we don't belong together

and why should i listen to "them" anyway?

who are you to decide what is best for me?

who's idea was it to be the bravest?

i know it wasn't me

because i know i am NOT brave

it's all a mask

it's all pretend

it's what i do to get me through my day

yet everyone looks to me and says

you- go do it- you're the bravest

i am not!

i am terrified

i don't like these two words

they are so cold

so final

so...i don't know

....and they all lived Happily Ever After

how can they live Happily Ever After when it's followed by

THE END

there isn't anymore

too many words? or not enough?

i've been pretty quiet lately. i spend a lot of time by myself in the studio. just me and my thoughts. so i think. some people say i think too much- like that's a bad thing. so here i am alone with my thoughts and too many words in my head. that happens sometimes...there are so many words inside my head that i can't get them to come together and make any sense to anyone other than myself. it's frustrating at times because i KNOW that i need to say something i just can't get it to come together. when that happens i sit and create...

that's a good thing because i know i need to create in order to keep my depression in check.

it's a bad thing when i am quiet because i can find the quiet to be very seductive and i can slip into that pit i call depression.

life is just a balancing act and i am doing my best to walk the line

back before email and text messaging and fax machines i was a prolific letter writer. long distance phone calls were expensive. so i wrote letters. i have a packet of letters from my brother when he was in law school half away across the country that i cherish to this day. i carried around the letter he wrote to me when i graduated from high school for years and would take it out and read it when i needed the boost. i even kept the letters and notes written to me by a very dear friend until one day in a fit of cleaning house i threw those away. i regret that to this day. i have the letters my mother sent me when i went away to college.

a couple of months ago i was in Chicago and came across a packet of letters for sale in a thrift store written in the 40's. letters written between a young man and a young lady. reading them made me cry. they told the story of these two people who fell in love and created a life together...i regret not buying them

so i have too many words in my head. maybe i do because i don't write letters anymore. maybe the words need to be put down on paper and sent in the mail. maybe there really aren't enough words...written words

the sky is red and i can't throw a ball



Vicka Sunflowers



"artists can color the sky red because they know it's blue.  those of us who aren't artists must color things the way they really are or people might think we're stupid."  ~Jules Feiffer (cartoonist, novelist and playwright)

i spent my school years being different. so many times i was told how creative i was and then in the next breath was told to pick three colors and conform.  i wasn't a sports kid and i wasn't a cheerleader type. i was different. i read books- a lot of books. i carried one with me at all times and would often get in trouble for reading when i supposed to be paying attention.

i remember one moment with crystal clarity even though it happened 30 years ago. i was usually way ahead of my classmates in art so i would work on other projects while they were still messing around with the assigned piece. i was interested in fibers and weaving so i set out to teach myself to weave using a large hoop as my loom. one day as i was working on it in class a 'cheerleader' came up to me and looked down her pert freckled nose at me and asked me what i was doing- i told her i was weaving- she responded with a snort 'oh isn't that what they do at new hope village?' and walked away. i stopped doing extra projects in school and did them at home. in secret. where no one could make fun of me. it wasn't until years later that i realized she was one of those people who painted the sky blue because that's what color  it is "supposed" to be.

...i loved history, theatre,art and writing.  i wrote poetry and short stories, created costumes, drew a lot of pictures and attended numerous live performances by professionals and amateurs. i was as comfortable listening to "top 10" as well as NPR's "all things considered"...and spent 12 years hearing teachers tell me i was very smart BUT was NOT working to my full potential *

....................now my youngest child is in high school and last spring his favorite teacher told me the administration was phasing out creative writing because it is not practically applicable to today's graduates. what?!?

                         creative writing...

who are these people? what rock do they live under?

my son is a lot like me- except he is really into sports in a way i don't get. but sports aside he loves to write. he has a poem that was published in an anthology of poetry written by middle school kids across the country. not every poem submitted was published. his poem was about music and what it meant to him. i encourage his creativity and his writing. he plays soccer but he's not the best or the fastest and he gets discouraged because he really enjoys soccer.

my son is spending his high school years being different. it means that for him being home on the weekends happens quite a lot. he isn't interested in going out and partying so he often doesn't get called when his buddies are making plans. he's very involved in speech and drama. he's a natural born leader and he writes. a lot.

so it blew me away when this teacher told me about phasing out creative writing. if creative writing and proper writing skills are not taught in high school then when?

when my daughter was in 4th grade she wanted me to read a paragraph she had written for school. i read it and it was written well enough to hand in but for the misspellings. i started to point these out to her and she grabbed her paper back and said 'my teacher said spelling doesn't count' 

spelling doesn't count? when does it begin to count? what's the magical age you reach when all of a sudden spelling counts?

so if we don't make our kids spell correctly and we don't teach them creative writing skills where will our books come from in the future? if we don't nurture talents that encourage creativity and individualism then we are failing our children.

my son is taking creative writing his last 4 semesters of high school. he told me he doesn't care if it's the same information each semester, he is taking it to prove a point and he will argue with his advisor if she tells him he can't.  he wants to be a writer. how can he be a writer if he isn't being challenged to reach his full potential? *perhaps there is a connection here?

i am encouraging him to color his sky red ... and spelling does indeed count.