Fascinating Rhythm

fascinating rhythm 
of the fickle missy lady
with all the wiles 
and random piles 
of an adolescent's room decor
pink and overstuffed
with self important puffery
and enough effulgence
to give indulgence
a Baroquish splendor plume
while she manufactures
attractions yet anew
with words she presses
along with dresses
on her giant loom
what does it spell
who does it mean
and in between you smell
the waft of cloudy notion
and the fog of certain doom
~Gary McGurk

The Church of Your Self is Steam

"I never loved another person the way I loved myself."
~Mae West

Watching people is one of the few things that can hold my attention for more than 36 seconds. Sometimes I forget that I am not invisible and they can see me too. Eye-contact is not part of my people watching, totally ruins the show.

Having watched my favorite story, "The Peep Show", for years now, I've begun to notice the reruns. It's the same storyline, over-and-over, the human struggle for self-esteem.

What worries people the most is how they are perceived by others, the benchmark for normal. What their friends think. What their co-workers think. What their neighbors think. This is the stuff that fills the bottom of our luggage.

Do you want to be normal or do you want to be happy? Imagine if you really knew your true essence, the steam that runs your soul. You would have so much time on your hands to think of other things. Is that a bad thing?

Organized religion has no bedside manner and is therefore of no help. All this "if you do this, that will happen...it you don't do this..." etc., scaring the crap out of me. That's just so much negativity and it wears a person down.

So, I'm considering starting my own church and it's called "The Church of Your Self is Steam". All of my sermon's will consist of me looking at you and saying "You are good, you are beautiful, and you are worthy of happiness just the way you are". If you attend long enough, you will start to believe me, and then you won't need to attend at all. Religion should be like good therapy.

Try to remember: Your self is steam, with no boundaries. Steam can not be molded, and that's what makes you who you genuinely are. If you allow other's to dictate your worth, your steam will turn to water. Once your essence turns to water, someones gonna freeze you into shaped ice. That'll make you a frozen dog at someone else's salvation, and nobody wants that.

So there you have it.

Girls Without Fathers

My father was a brilliant man.  He loved science, the law, history, chess, and jazz.  His untimely death, at the tender age of 36, left my sister's and our mother utterly and totally on our own. My mother, now well in to her seventies, never remarried.

So convinced our family is, that had he lived, he would surely have changed the world. To this day, we still hold his death on par with that of JFK and MLK.  To this day, I still believe it.  It's how his death touched me personally that I had never really thought about.

The last time I ever saw my father was during my ninth birthday party.  He had been suffering from lung cancer for the previous several years, and on this evening, he couldn't breath.  The ambulance was called, and off he went, and that was that, and the party went strangely on. It was a slumber party, and Tam Tam was there, and the only other thing I remember from that night is the hairbrush, comb, mirror, and little string of pearls she gave me for my birthday.

The last time my father ever saw me was from a fifth floor hospital window, as my sisters and I stood in the parking lot behind the building.  I remember looking up, waving as if I could see him, pretending I could see him, when really I couldn't.  Later, I had wondered what the point had been, since I couldn't see my father.  Then I realized the point wasn't so we could see him, it was so he could see us, his three little girls, for the last time.

When he died several weeks later, I became a girl without a father.  The implications of this didn't really hit me until the last several years, almost 30 years after the event.  At some point, I just assumed that everyone lost their father somehow, and that was the way it was.

When I was getting divorced, my sister-in-law, who was also getting divorced at the time, handed me a rather large wad of cash.  My utilities had all been turned off when my ex left, since I naively allowed him to put everything in his name.  I was being starved out waiting for an agreement that would let me refinance the house, putting groceries and gas on my credit card, along with thousands of dollars in lawyer fees.  Still, I have a ton of vanity and pride, and refused the money.

Then she said "Paula, you need to take this money.  You don't realize the difference it makes to have your father behind you, and the impact it has on the outcome, because you don't have one.  If you did, like I do, he would never allow you to be treated this way.  So take this money and don't worry about paying it back."

I've been thinking about it ever since, and that she was totally right.  So, maybe it's time to write about girls without fathers, and allow myself to understand what it truly meant to me.  So there you have it.