Moonstruck4's Blog

Altar

moonstruck4 — Tue, 31 May 2011 12:22:14 +0000

Experimenting with new camera. The angel was the thing I kept from my neighbor Gennaro’s stuff, rooms full of which were being picked through after his passing last month. Its like he’s there on my window sill, Gennaro, so frail and wise, wondering if the soul survives after death. I gave him my James Hillman book to read, the one on aging. He loved it. The little Buddha. I don’t remember where I got it. It’s plastic. The painting on stone. My only birthday gift last year, from my dear friends B and T, painted by a dear friend of theirs recently released from prison. Unconditional love from my friends. My shiny newish tea kettle. Tea so different from coffee, peace instead of frantic activity. Roses that I planted two years ago. Violet from Cayanne’s baby shower. Altar.

five a.m. and why I took no photos at the mall

moonstruck4 — Tue, 31 May 2011 10:15:51 +0000

Click to view slideshow.Sleeping is not something I do well anymore. The plus side of this is that I can hear the birds early in the morning. There are alot of birds where I live. Last night I found out my favorite aunt has had a reoccurence of a cancer that was in remission for fifteen years. She had known about it since February. She didn’t want to tell me. Said she didn’t want to “add to my worries” as if that would be a burden. Not a burden, I wanted to tell her, but didn’t. Its what families do, worry about each other. And I have precious little of that kind of experience. Family that is. But that’s not what I wanted to write about. I wanted to write about why I didn’t take photos on Saturday. I went to the mall, something I almost never do. I wanted to see some drawings done by a young client, drawings which, according to her mother, showed her blossoming sense of self. I walked the entire mall but I didn’t find them. Instead I found myself seeing humanity. Going to the mall is one of the few amusements left that doesn’t cost anything. I had my new camera. I very much wanted to take photos but was too full of shock and pity. This was a war zone. Not like Afghanistan or Iraq. Just an ordinary mall, an ordinary day. As I passed the make up counters at Belks there was the woman, three maybe four times the width of the seat she was perched on, getting a makeover. walked around in front of her, knowing or rather hoping her face was pretty despite her enormous girth. Like the movie “Shallow Hall” and Gwenyth Paltrows inner beauty. What I saw was an ugly woman. Not grotesque. Just ugly. Admiring her courage or perhaps her capacity for hope, I walked on. This experience was preceded by another, similar one. I was in one of the open spaces, watching a mother and child, the child riding one of those big plastic cars that move a little. Three teenagers walk up, you know the kind. They so want to be cool. Upper bodies muscled. Handsome. Hispanic perhaps. Then I looked at their legs. One of the boys, his legs were short, twisted in an impossible angle. He had trouble walking. Not rickets. Not cerebral palsy. Something, I couldn’t tell what. Again, moved by his courage. Courage to go to the mall and act as if he was just like everyone else. A normal, obnoxious and self-centered teenager infatuated with his coolness. Yet I knew that was impossible. Humanity. All around me. Everywhere I looked it broke my heart. I went back to the safety of my apartment and the fantasy safely packaged on the tv screen. I took no photos. Addendum: Yesterday, I went to the supermarket. Sav-Mor, the one where people go who don’t want to pay full price. A woman was in front of me at the cashier. An old woman, her back bent, buying groceries. She wrote a check. You know how long that takes. We waited. Then, as I left, I saw her walking across the parking lot. Her groceries were piled on her red metal walker. Like the one my mother used to use when she could still stand. The woman was was pushing her groceries home. No car. The groceries were piled high. Courage. People have the most extraordinary courage. I am humbled and helpless at the same time.

TV life

moonstruck4 — Mon, 23 May 2011 01:48:28 +0000

Sometimes I forget just how much tv has been part of my life. For example Beauty and the Beast, you know that tv show in the eighties. I was just finishing up my MSW when it was on. I had been commuting to Chapel Hill a few days a week. Dove was only 9. It was one of the hardest years in so many ways for me. Then there was Beauty and the Beast. Simple. Love. Idealistic and pure. All that my world was not. And I loved it. I craved it. Now, have been marathoning watching. And crying. Seems like it touches me in places I had long forgotten. Important to honor all of those places. It takes so much effort not to feel.

Moonlighting re-viewing

moonstruck4 — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 14:56:23 +0000

I am old enough to remember the days when you actually had to be in front of the TV at the specific time the show was on to see it. There was Tuesday night and it was Moonlighting. It was 1988. I was recovering from divorce and other tragedies while commuting back and forth over four hours to attend graduate school in social work and there it was. My salvation on Tuesday nights. And now thanks to Netflix I can revisit the past with commentaries. Its wonderful. All I can say is forget the economy, tidal waves and Glen Beck and watch Dave and Maddie. Highlights not to be missed of course the Black and White episode with introduction by Orson Wells. Mulberry Street dance number. The claymation phone episode in which Maddie transforms to witch and David to frog. No digital stuff. Just pure unadulterated spontaneous genius and, if the commentary is to be believed, a level of intimacy born of trials and tribulations that could only be compared to – a marriage? IMHO there is nothing like this on TV today except, and this is notably not a comedy, Dexter, the season premiere of which I await with baited breath.

Its been forever

moonstruck4 — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 14:47:23 +0000

Seems like its been forever since I wrote here. Sorry y’all. Probably have been too depressed to write. Mom has been moved to Memory Care wing. I haven’t been to see her in over a month. My brother says she’s carrying around a doll now. I noticed many of the older women carry around dolls. I myself have a doll named Henry. I bought him more than ten years ago. Amazingly although born the summer of 2009 he has not changed a bit. Is that reassuring? Still stuck in dolldom. Hope when I get as old as my mother they remember to give me Henry. I don’t want another doll. I have doll loyalty. There is a new non doll baby in my life however. About Henry’s size, but a girl. My stepdaughter’s baby girl. I see her every other day or so and the changes, unlike Henry’s, are amazing and so fast

August 14, 2010

. Yesterday her eyes glinted with delight. Her lower lip stuck out also. A perfect pout. And only seven weeks young.

Walk a Mile in Her Shoes Videos | Walk a Mile Asheville

moonstruck4 — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:07:11 +0000

I’m Man Enough to Walk a Mile in Her shoes! Are You? Videos | Walk a Mile Asheville. You can get more info at http://walkamileasheville.org/category/videos/

The tax man

moonstruck4 — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:55:40 +0000

Continuing my undercover work at tax office. The song TAXMAN keeps running through my brain. I saw Paul McCartney’s special “LOVE” made me smile so much. My one consolation is that I cannot conceive of doing anything less like me. In fact I once wrote a poem which ended “The numbers demolish me”. Hey Jude…

When I Came Home

moonstruck4 — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 21:36:41 +0000

Was not feeling too good today. Looking at my finances does affect me physically. But do have computer and found this on Hulu.com, made me cry and want to do something, at least will email link to congress people. Do something after you watch it. http://whenicamehome.com

About the New Moon phenomenon

moonstruck4 — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 14:13:10 +0000

Having pushed past a very loooong line of mostly women waiting to see the second Twilight movie, and after getting a few good laughs from George Clooney’s The Men Who Stare At Goats, I got curious. I just read the New Moon screenplay. I had an AHA moment. Romeo and Juliet obviously. But what else? The dangerous man who is dangerous to everyone but – the heroine! And if he occasionally causes the heroine unbearable physical or emotional pain, of course he does not mean to but has to. Either it is his nature (in this case not mere testosterone but an altogether different genetic makeup). Or in itself it is proof of his love (he leaves you to protect you). And they come in droves. Which is wonderful news for the investors but bad news for the teenage females. Because the next time the love of their life causes them nearly unbearable pain and tells her it is for her own good she will believe it, hell, she will even see it as further proof of love and devotion. This might seem like a trivial point. But the next time someone looks at a news story of a battered woman and asks “why didn’t she leave?” just say “Twilight” and you will have said it all.

Comfort women fight for human rights

moonstruck4 — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:46:48 +0000

http://www.nanum.org/eng/index.html