by Stormy Peterson

I learned early on, I’m the kind of bitch people don’t worry about. . . probably because I was raised by one, or maybe because very little escapes my attention, and I rarely find myself playing the fool.
   I don’t coo, and giggle like a baby-doll come to life, I don’t have a tiny voice and a vacant look on my face that begs someone else to ‘write my story for me,’ and I definitely don’t play small to make other people more comfortable.
   I have a big, loud mouth, and a head full of ideas that I believe should be used for more than just adding to the collective cacophony of noise.
   When I was a young girl, I sometimes wondered what it would be like to be the classic damsel in distress that the quintessential, handsome gentleman would rush to save from whatever peril I found myself in. But I was different, and always had been. I didn’t cry when I was scared, I had a calm, clear head during emergencies, I didn’t shake at the flood of adrenaline coursing through my system, I didn’t shrink from blood (at most, my worst thoughts were of staining my clothes).
   I was not the woman from the black and white movie who needed to be slapped in order to ‘snap out of it,’ and I certainly never wilted into the nearest man’s hands in a dramatic back-of-hand-to-forehead-faint. No, that woman was never going to be me. And if she was, it would require the abandonment of everything it had already meant to be me, in my most natural state. Frankly, not only had I never quite learned how to be that fake, but it sounded like an awful lot of work for a payout that didn’t seem equivalent, or greater to the required price.
   Not interested in being short-changed, my days continued on as they had before, with me growing each day (more in feistiness than size, I’m sure) until I overheard the conversation between my parents after one of my dad’s friends was killed in a workplace accident, leaving behind his widow to now navigate life on her own, newly discovered, terms.
   “That poor woman,” my dad said, “I just don’t know what she’s going to do without him; she needs so much help, and doesn’t know how to take care of anything. It wouldn’t be as hard on you because I’m gone all the time, anyway. I don’t worry about you.”
   “Yeah, I know,” my mother quipped. “I have to do everything myself, so I just pretend like you’re dead, it makes it easier to get through all of the tasks on my own without being perpetually furious about it.”
   This was a wife who, for a time, slept with a pistol in a sliding compartment in her headboard in case anyone from the rabble of weirdos, and peeping Tom’s swarming our home decided to up the ante, and force entry in the late night hours. Our houseful of women left to fend for ourselves which comprised of two teenage daughters, a runt (me), a toy poodle, and a mother with no concept of backing down. She didn’t have the luxury of catching the vapors every time a man couldn’t magically solve our problems.
   And so it is, my sisters and I never learned to be women who would trade our souls for the illusion of a man’s safety, and all of the counterfeit comforts included. I’ve seen her, though. I know who she is, and I’m not judging her, I’m wondering which part(s) of herself she had to kill to get here. This is the place where she washes her husband’s patronizing insults down with another gulp of boxed-wine bought in bulk (which is incredibly economical, and an obvious choice I finally understand considering how much fluid it must take to drown oneself every day) that has become her home; her cage. Her prison.
   Ever the perfect hostess, she (again) offers me another glass, secretly hoping I’ll get drunk enough not to notice, or remember, her humiliation. It’s not just that of her husband’s actions, but how she betrayed — and continues to betray — herself, for what we’ve been told we all really want.
   I don’t accept, and we sit awkwardly in her shame.
   She is painfully aware of how aware I am of it all, and part of me aches for her.  Do we both know the money, the property, the expensive gifts, jewelry, cars, new family, and upgraded husband are meaningless when you’re dead inside?
   Does she ever visit her own grave? Did she leave any markers behind to find it again?
   We can pretend that heartbreak and shattered dreams are avoidable, but they truly are commonplace happenings that are not exclusive to one type of person, and yet each one of us has the power to decide whether we will be defined, destroyed, or just slightly detoured by them. Cloaking ourselves in the bubble-wrap of artificial-stability does nothing but suffocate. 

“Don’t be delicate, be vast and brilliant.”
                                                -Shinedown 

©2018 Stormy Peterson

Stormy Peterson is a fine artist cultivated in the foothills of the Olympic Peninsula, believer of Bigfoot with a background in apparel and textiles merchandising, and design.  Come hang out with The Longshoreman’s Daughter herself, at  http://stormaculus.blogspot.com/

“A man without words is a man without thoughts.”
                                                                              -John Steinbeck

No matter how deep or superficial, words always send a message.

Whether spoken or written, language is used to express a certain emotion, event or situation. Many times they will cause joy, or pain, or spell indifference. We react to words.

Sometimes you have a lot to say, other times there are words you can’t seem to let out; the ones that get stuck in your throat, or are washed away by tears. Where do they go?

Lately I’ve flipped through old notebooks and journals of the past to find scraps of information, half-finished sentences and paragraphs of words intended for someone else. Often they appear as incoherent thought, or accurate accounts of a moment. True, and purposeful, but never released. Now just a remembrance, or a reminder.

The further back I’ve gone, the harder it is to remember who the words were written for, when, or why I bothered scribbling them down.

Words express our worth. Language is used to soothe the soul or sort out details. This is why, mainly, we keep a journal as a map of where we’ve been. These are the skid marks on the road we travel.

Communication the root of all language, but it goes deeper. So much of the time we are trying to keep in touch with our self. There is liberation in letting words out. When you are no longer held hostage by thought, or limited by perspective, you can find calm or comfort.

During the month of March, I am exploring words I have passed over or let sit on the rough pages. There are so many things I’ve got to say, but perhaps these phrases, passages, or poems, have to be said before I can move further.

I’m also opening up this site and have invited other writers to contribute to the theme. These are writers I have come to know over the past couple of years, writers I am associated with in one form or another, and writers I respect. Each writer I have invited has written something that has previously caught my eye, or captured my emotions in one way or another. Though their words I have witnessed madness and frustration, but also solace, and melancholic self-reflection.

Each writer has their own tone of expression. As submissions arrive I have enjoyed reading words for someone else, written by someone else.

Last week, after receiving the rough draft of a story, I was further reminded how we all keep things inside. The words were raw, the topic was close, and the piece so authentic. Despite the cathartic nature of going through the process, the writer could not take the work where it was intended to go, and will submit another piece.

I totally understand. I have a letter, a couple of essays, and two poems I struggle with off and on. I know what should happen, am often encouraged with the progress, and still I cannot take them where I want to.

Reading over this one piece in particular, I see too many sentences deleted, or altered. I’m not quite sure when the revisions happened, but they are real. Corrections. Still, through the eraser’s smudge, you can still see the meaning, the feelings, and the intention.

Not everything comes out like you want. Not everything will be received as expected.
You slowly learn, and maybe that is what holds you back from saying what still needs to be said.

Oftentimes words need to wait for another day.

We exist
suspended between delay and
that future we are told
is ahead of us. Little advances humanity.
We rush too much, as if it is demanded.
Each of us controls our pace,
or attempts to.

We are here,
bounded by missed connections
and unfortunate
misunderstandings. Nostalgia is not often
favorable. Blind curiosity. We fail to recognize
where we are.
We seek faith.

We do have
the communal capacity, but resist
assistance or the
temptation. Recycling our sins, striving to
keep up with the morally reprehensible,
we try to find
our own Jesus.

© 2018 j.g. lewis

    So much more than flesh and tissue,
the human heart, of intricate design, responsible naturally
for each second time allows. A complicated array of vessels
and ventricles of immodest proportion,
its importance need not be reinforced. A vital organ.
A muscle; strong, steady. Purposeful. With the lungs
it functions, beneath ribs woven
to shield us from life’s catastrophes. If we should say
the heart is more important than the brain, we would
then again, have to think of how it functions,
or when it faults.
   Humans are complicated, from the start.
   Do we lead with our head, or follow the heart?
Secure in its biological habitat.    Protected.    And we,
as we grow, endeavor to understand emotions, and feelings,
and complications, as blood rushes through our veins,
as we learn to live, or love, in pain.
      Heartbeat.      Heart break.      Heart ache.
Trusting less in the function, less of the body,
we build walls, a facade, to hide behind.
Having lost before, or even since then,
we protect our self.
    So much more than function or folly,
a human’s heart; the complicated array of flesh and veins,
of sordid pasts and rumpled pain. Strength we can find,
a purpose of which to remind.
If the heart is more important than the brain,
we shall learn to try, and will love again.
©2018 j.g. lewis

You can criticize, analyze, even monetize your earnest efforts, but why you do it is not as important as simply doing it.

It is not about the medium, or the method; it’s not even about the finished product or the process. When it comes down to it, the purpose of creating is to create. That’s it. That’s all. That is everything.

Each of us has an innate need for satisfaction and accomplishment. Nothing is better for the psyche or elevates spirits more than participating in something worthwhile. Unfortunately, we can often end up unchallenged in a chosen profession, or underappreciated in a dead-end job. In times like this you look for something to stay motivated.

This is when you get creative.

I’m not going to define creativity. I will say it is not all about art. In business you can demonstrate creativity by crafting an effective proposal. Creativity is also labelled as efficiency when someone arrives at a new solution to the same old problem. Come budget time, politicians will always find creative ways of presenting deeds or deficits (we might even use creative accounting in our own tax returns).

There are many ways to look at creativity, but what counts is how you use your imagination to broaden the mind and, ultimately, your life.

Creating something, especially the act of creating, takes you to a place more intense than what we generally allow. Our bodies and brains work differently. We use the right side of our grey matter when we attempt something artistic, or musical, or literal. The left side is more for finance, and routine; the meat and potatoes, bring-home-the-bacon, feed-the-mortgage type of stuff. These are mundane tasks often completed thanklessly and worthlessly.

It seems logical, but it is not. It is nearly impossible to figure out.

There are so many factions of creativity: culinary skills, visual or performing arts, prose, watercolours, pottery or sculpture, and music. It could be cross stitch or crochet, anything that gets your mind clicking and blood boiling. It is everything that stokes that feral imagination.

Creativity cuts to the core of your being, right down the marrow of the moment when nothing else matters and everything counts.

Find something you are passionate about, then do it. Better yet, do something you don’t think you can do, and surprise yourself.

Get creative.

Photo: Bonsai sculpture by Lenore Amy