public musings of a mama

ss - Hi, my name is...

I wear many different hats.  I'm a mama, a wife, a sister, daughter, friend, and confidant.  I am the crypt keeper with a soul as deep as the World Bank vault that will hold your secrets for an eternity.  Yet, with all of these predefined roles I play, I find it hard to locate my core and claim with certainty exactly who I am.  I believe I am nice and sympathetic to my family and friends.  Bella is always the one who has the right words to comfort, according to the people I care about.

(me, 1983, 3rd grade)

Growing up, I had a memory book that recorded all of the milestones over my academic career.  Another trip to Mom's house gave me access to this book and I started looking through it last night.  Each year, there was a space given to write about what I wanted to be when I grew up.  I had very vivid and decisive dreams for myself when I was young.  I wanted to be a nurse, a teacher, a singer, etc.  Later on, as I grew older, I went back to these books and crossed out whatever I had previously written and in that place I wrote that I wanted to be "a regular housewife".  Mom was not happy that I had let my dreams go and settled (according to her) for the mundane.  But to me, being a housewife was far from mundane.  Watching what my mom did everyday was exciting to me.  She had the free time to take care of the house and always be there when my siblings and I came home from school.  She shuttled us to sports, to the mall, and to play dates.  She had her girlfriends over once a week to watch Dynasty.  She threw elegant dinner parties.  Back in the day, she was the bomb and my biggest role model.  That's when I started thinking that I would love to live my life like her.  It wasn't boring in the least, there was always something going on and mom was the one that kept the machine that was our household running.  I admired her and if it was at all possible, I wanted to live like her.

Fast forward to today.  I didn't finish college because of financial difficulties, and I slipped into the same roll Mom once held.  The difference between she and I is that I know I have options.  After reading an article on the best jobs to have that offer awesome  insurance and 401K packages to part time workers, I know I have the opportunity to go back to work and contribute to our household financially, with the bonus perks I didn't know existed for part-timer's.  I can pick up my college career and start going  back to school.  That is my ultimate dream, but it's something I have to hold back on for the time being.  I have to, right now, believe in the possibilities that can come to fruition one day.

For now, I am content with where I am.  I have the support of Z loves to give me ideas with regard to which direction to go in, but at the same time, loves to have me relax and enjoy the little bit of free time that I have now that Angie's in school.  I know I can travel, I know I can work - and I plan on doing both sometime in the future.  For now.. my name is Bella (real name Elizabeth), a sensitive and compassionate soul who is enjoys watching day to day life unfold and who is patiently waiting for the right opportunity to come up and tempt me.

Read more stories at Sunday Scribblings.

ss - goodbye diary

Dear Diary -

My keeper of secrets, you have been super good to me.  You listen without judgment, and patiently wait for me to finish ranting, secret telling, laughing and crying.  What other friend would do that?  I mean, never would I dare tell a soul about the cute lifeguard at the lake that I've been crushing on all summer.  He is such a hottie.   Or that time last July that I was swimming in the ocean and I spotted another lifeguard swimming near me, and all I could fantasize about was being swept up in a riptide waiting for rescue.  He was another yummy one.  I have a thing for lifeguards, don't I diary?
How about the time I had to pass my Louis Vuitton bag off as a fake to mom because I was embarrassed to tell her how much it really cost?  We know how mom gets when she hears about me spending money on crazy things like designer bags.
Or... or.. back in the day when Z and I had just begun dating, you kept all of my weekend visits to him a secret.  Being to scared to tell my parents about him at first, I did a lot of sneaking around and you never told.  But in the end, it wasn't so bad, was it?  Mom and Dad really liked him and welcomed him into the family almost immediately.  Little favors, huh?
You've been a good friend diary.  I'm sorry I haven't spent more time with you in the last few years but it's because all of the things I was trying to figure out in my 20's have somehow come together for me in my 30's.  I have a new friend that I think you would love.  Her name is Journal and that's where I keep a log of my thoughts, my stories, and my poems.  She's not a secret keeper like you were, but she's a good friend all the same.  I'll put you away somewhere safe and visit you often.  You have been wonderful. xo.

Read more stories at Sunday Scribblings.

ss - eccentricity

I'm not an eccentric person but I'm not what some people would call ordinary.  I do have and sometimes display my own share of peculiar habits but for the most part I walk a very normal path.  Well, who's to say what's normal, right?  But then I think of people who are what's called eccentric, and the one person who really stands out in my mind is... my mother.  I don't write about her often because the bridges that connect us are falling apart badly.  Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of love for the lady.  We just cannot get along no matter how much effort we put into our relationship.  Back to her eccentricities, I remember as a child that she would serve pizza for breakfast because it was made of bread, cheese, and tomatoes, and that was o.k. by her.  My brother was obsessed with Ninjas when he was little so she wrapped him in a black Pashmina-like scarf and let him wear her black stockings to complete the look.  He might kill me for sharing that fact.  As a younger woman, my mom had beautiful and long thick, brown hair.  One day she decided to cut and perm her locks and from then on, it's was a never ending road of hair experiments gone wrong.  Once she had her hair stripped of it's color and she actually liked wearing her hair bleached, white, and burned looking.  I have the pictures to prove it.  She talks to people she doesn't know, she has a really bad problem with dollar stores, and she will have you believe that she once had tea with Mick Jagger.  She also believes that she lived a past life as a Spanish sailor and that she drowned at sea which would, of course, explain her fear of drains at the bottom of swimming pools.  Yep, that's my mom.  She's had out of body experiences and she's a tad psychic.  She might even be able to read someone's handwriting.  She hates cleaning up after her pets and gets mad if one of her kids won't do it.  All of these habits and quirks are more of a curse than a blessing on my siblings and I but we know that we have to accept her as she is.  People are people and there is no changing who they are.  I have learned to accept these odd behaviors and to love her despite them.

Read more stories about eccentricity here.

ss - spicy

The last job I had was as a customer service coordinator at a high end, organic hair product company.  I was supposed to share an office with two other girls, but there was a high turnover during my three years there.  Girls kept getting pregnant, all around me.  One day, my supervisor came in with a pretty young Indian girl from Trinidad.  She would be a temporary replacement until one of the regular ladies would come back from maternity leave.  Lucky for me, we ended up working together until I went away, big bellied and ready to pop.

Trinidad girl was always a bit mysterious.  She hardly ever talked about her home life, but when she did, I knew things weren't going well between her and her husband.  She longed for her island home all the time.  She came here in search of a better life, but was now conflicted and contemplating a move back to her colorful little country.  The only consolation she had during a long day at the office was her native music and her familiar spicy food.

I always liked reggae music, but Trinidad girl introduced me to Calypso and Soca.  During our lunch hour, she would close the door to our office, switch on the company voice mail, and dance to the non-stop beat of her music.  Lunch hour was always an adventure with her.

Curried Chicken and Roti became a once a week (or sometimes more) delicacy for us.  Having a husband from a European country that appreciates spicy food, I was loving these new dishes.  Whatever food Trinidad girl fed me, she always offered a teeny bottle of the hottest of hot, hot, hot sauces with it to intensify the flavor.  These Trinidadians took their spice to all kinds of high levels.  And it wasn't just her, I worked in this office building with women from all different Caribbean islands.  It was like a spicy, beat driven heaven highlighted with a Caribbean accent.  I'm really surprised I didn't go into labor at work with all of the spicy food I was consuming.

When I think about Trinidad girl, I remember a girl who was very in touch with her island roots.  She kept her traditions alive through food and music.  What I remember the most is her spice, and her joy for life.  I wonder if she ever made it back home.

Read more about spicy here.

ss - second chances

Cause and effect.  For every action, there is a reaction.  These laws of the universe ebb and flow throughout our lives, daily.  Would it matter if I had said 'no' instead of 'yes' to that question he asked me years ago.  It sure would.  The course and path of the journey that is my life would have been so different.  That's why it's hard for me to believe in the concept of If I Could Do It All Over Again. 

I will admit though, that I believe in second chances.  I view it in a futuristic way, like, a high school student having a second chance to take the SAT's for college.  Or maybe, rethinking a situation that might have happened in my life, and in return giving a person a second chance to having access to my heart and my friendship.  I think everyday is a second chance for me, to do better than I did yesterday.  I can't have yesterday back, the marks I left there shifted the path for me to walk on tomorrow.  Yesterday only gave me the experience I need for today.  Each day I have a clean slate and a second chance to do whatever it is I want - only better than I did it before.

Read more about Second Chances here.

ss - the ocean

It has to be the most gorgeous Sunday of 2007 so far here in New Jersey.  The sky is a baby aqua/blue color with not a cloud in sight.  The lush greenery that surrounds my house is coming back to life.  I know spring is here when I can no longer see the park and baseball field that sit on the other side of my block behind my house.

There are great advantages to living in NJ suburbs.  I'm a 25 minute car ride away from New York City, the greatest city in the world.  I'm also about an hour drive away from the ocean.  The NJ coast is nice.  It's not spectacular, nor is it anything to write home about.  The reason I love spending time at the beach is purely for the peace it brings me.  I don't like background noise, but when I lay on the sand, listening to the waves crest and crash while the seagulls squeal overhead, that is heavenly.  That could put me to sleep.  Sitting there, running my hands and feet through the sand, looking out at ripple after dark blue ripple of water that touches every corner of the earth, connects the dots of my soul and I feel complete.  It gets me in touch with me and with my higher power.  It's there, at the ocean, where ideas swirl, dreams and goals are created, and no minutes pass without my heart beating happy little beats.

It's funny because I was going to go down to the ocean today with my daughter for a little fun in the sand and maybe a photo session.  But even though it's a beautiful day, it is a breezy day.  That means it's colder and windier on the beach.  Well, it's not like the sunny days are going anywhere, right?  I'll get my day in the sand very soon I'm sure.

Read more scribbles here.

ss - wings

Wings are falling from the sky, I don't know the reason why.

Could it be angels who once flew high, that come down low and start to cry?

And now the ground is no longer dry, the rain pours down and I sigh.

*This is a poem written by my daughter Angie (with a little help from mom), on a rainy Sunday morning.  When she was younger and asked me why the rain falls, I told her it was because the angels in heaven were crying.

See more scribbles here.

ss - secret identity

There is a girl that lives within me who has eyes so beautiful, they sting the very core of your heart.  Her long chestnut hair falls down her back when she tilts her head in that sexy way she's seen in films.  Conversation and flirtation are natural to her, she never stumbles over her words.  Her skin glows from her confidence, and from embracing the sun from all the traveling she does.  She doesn't walk, she glides into rooms.  She captures a look from everyone she walks by.  She doesn't follow trends, she starts them.  Her graceful moves will mesmerize you on the dance floor.  She's got "it".  She didn't work to perfect it, this is just her, naturally.

Sometimes I feel like I'm a shell, covering up this very sexy version of me that I know is hiding deep down somewhere.  I have layers that cover her up for this reason or that.  What she represents is my inner confidence, the side of me I know is there but I cannot show.  She is my secret identity, the one nobody sees, the one I keep hidden tightly under wraps.  She is real, and one day, I hope she will emerge.

Everyone has a secret identity.. go take a look.

ss - inspiration

I get my inspiration from drawing, using colored pencils and oil based crayons.  The movie Jerry McGuire and the song "Feelin' so Good" always inspire, or at least make me feel happy.  Natalie Portman as Novalee in Where the Heart Is, or just Natalie Portman as herself.  Colors like the blue sky after the rain or the deep redness of ripe, ripe strawberries.  A good joke, a good book.  History, feminism, the '50's, '60's, and '70's, all give me some extra inspiration.  Thinking of Paris in the spring and Montenegro in the summer, fall harvests and winter holidays.  Looking at my daughter's face.  Democracy.  Art.  Commies.. they always provide such great writing material.  Books, oh books.  Cookbooks and art books, Shakespeare and Jong.  Music.  News.  HGTV.  Dancing, hugging, and long lingering kisses.  Beautiful women and beautiful men.  Myself, 10 years ago.  Flamenco dancing.  Mary J. Blige. 

There is so much to draw inspiration from, the trick of it is, how to manifest that which inspires you.  Read more stories about inspiration here.

ss - Dreams & Journey's

Dreams intrigue me.  When I wake up in the mornings, I try and analyze why these particular visions played out in my mind.  If I dream of a person or a place, it's usually because I had thoughts of them recently or had a memory of someone, someplace.  Those dreams can be on the psychedelic side but nice all the same.  I love the dream where I can fly.  Do you know the one, where you crouch down and jump up and all of a sudden, you're flying in the air like a bird.  You look below you and you see the familiar streets and houses and parks and rivers.  Then you land, and you wish you could experience that again, but you can't.  The dreams that frighten me the most aren't your garden variety fright fest dreams.  No, mine are the ones where I'll get a visit from somebody I know directly or indirectly - and I haven't thought about this person at all, in a long time.  They usually carry a message for me, a very hard to decipher message that I won't figure out until a couple of months later when something happens (good or bad) and then I remember that dream.  It's those dreams I could do without, but I truly believe that if a message needs to get through.. it will find a way to.  I love dreaming about my Grannie who passed or my good friend who went away far too young.  I feel like those are special little visits and I cherish those dreams.  I have drunk dreams too, when I drink a lot of wine and my head spins 'round and 'round.  I get weird flashes of faces and places then I wake up with a pounder of a migraine.   

I think about dreams a lot.  How they play out and what do they mean.  I have access to a dream decoder but I don't use it that frequently because I like to put my own little spin and label to my dreams.  I used to ask my mom all the time what it meant when I dreamed about this or that.  I was always so curious.  I don't know exactly when kids start dreaming, but now, my daughter wakes up and immediately tells me what she dreamed about and asks me what it could mean.  For now, I make up little fairy tale stories and give her words of magic and hope.  My wish for her is that she always is curious like I was and that she dreams vivid and big things, while sleeping and while she's awake.

Read more about Dreams, Journey's, Hopes & Wishes here.