Tag: mother

I Will Love You…

http://youtu.be/LqQou0GPfiA
I Will Love You
for Jodie Lynne

Forever and ever
past this lifetime
to the moon
and back
I will love you.
Your heart and
my heart began
and continue
to beat as one.
So always
my daughter…
I will love you.
I can’t enjoy the sunshine
or the taste of coffee
when you are locked away.
I can’t breathe
when you are not free.
I hope I have shown you
how much I love you
in these past months
of your sobriety…
How much it
meant because
we were together
laughing and playing
buying clothes,
drinking Starbucks
driving to Walmart
you in your
silly pajamas
me with my silly hair.
Normal things
mothers and
daughters do…
So precious
to us because
every second,
we knew…
Our time had
been borrowed.
I will love you
Forever and ever
past this lifetime
to the moon
and back
I will love you.
I will love you.

Jeanne Marie, 2014
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I Will Fly…

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Eating Dollar General

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Eating
Dollar General
food and my time
passes slow.
I put myself
in these mountains
yes, that’s true,
I know.
Just enough
food and coffee
to stay afloat.
Just enough staples
to give me tiny
glimmers of hope.
Used to love bologna
before this…
For my mama’s
arrival
I wish and I wish.
Isolated except for
my dog, so it’s
Maggie Mae
and me.
She is my angel
my saving grace.
That makes two
unless I count the
Dollar Store lady
and then…
we are three.
Eating
Dollar General
food and my time
passes slow.

By Jeanne Marie for Jodie Lynne

Mountainburg Mountain

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Sitting in the dark of Mountainburg…
waiting on life’s spark to ignite…
moon hidden amongst clouds…
in trees bare of their leaves.
I write one last winterous scene…
dry counties surround me…
three shades to the wind…
no rum, no whiskey, death of my frisky…
washed out this girlie, angel dusted pixy…
awww sweet Jesus…
gave her prayers final answer…
no rum my daughter, no whiskey.

by Jodie Lynne

Blessings, Laura Story

http://youtu.be/1CSVqHcdhXQ
Merry Christmas, Mom…I miss you every day.

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Christmas For Grace

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How could one woman touch so many lives?
Mom, we all remember you in different ways and for who you were to each of us. Mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, cousin, aunt and friend. I know your three daughters miss you the most because I am one of the three. Your middle daughter, Jeanne Marie, the baby for seven years until Susanne Louise, your last baby, was born. I should have resented her but; somehow, I never did. It was like getting my very own live baby doll and I cherished her. And Cherie Anne, seven years older than me, she cherished me and Susanne equally and now she tries to fill your shoes and she babies her little sisters, middle-aged little girls who want their mama, even though she misses you too.
I talked to my grand-daughter Rachel about you today and Mom, we were wondering, how your presence could have been so strong that we all feel lost without you?
Was it the way you taught us to be a lady in public, at least in front of you? Was it your always open door and open arms? Was it the way you were always there for each of us, ready to listen, never to judge? Was it your crepes, your pot roast, your home-made jams and pickles? What quality endeared you to us, made you irreplaceable? Why is it that not a day goes by that I don’t miss you; still, after nearly four years?
I have the questions, Mom, but I don’t have the answers. I would give anything for just one more hug, for one more of your smiles, to wake up in your bed as you held the world at bay. Did you know that you did that for me Mom? That I always left the world outside when I went home and walked in your door?
I didn’t have to be a wife, a mother or a grandmother, for just a while, all I needed to be was your daughter.
I want to smell Spam and fried potatoes burning in your cast iron skillet just once more, I want to watch your face light up with love when I walk in your door, just once more.
Every time I left you to fly back home, I walked backwards out your door, trying to take every smile with me, knowing it could be the last smile you gave me, but somehow I still wasn’t ready when you left this world.
Even now, I feel your arms around me when I cry Mom; the memories of your hugs are so strong.
I told Cherie that I hated Christmas because I miss you and she said you would be so mad that I hated Christmas. I know that’s true because you taught us to love Christmas and not for the gifts, God knows Dad kept us short on those, but for the traditions, the holiday cooking, the baking (especially your huge batches of Italian cookies) for the family you loved to gather around our table.
I know if you could visit me, you would, so I hope I’ll see you as I go through each day and I watch for signs that you are still near.
When I see a butterfly, I chase it, calling out, “Mom, is that you?” When a dragonfly allowed me to pick it up and hold it in my hand, before it flew away, Rachel and I both asked it, “Is that you Nana?”
I smell the wind for traces of Oil of Olay. I still pick up the phone to call you, only to set it back down, in tears. I still get excited when I see things that you love on sale. I pick them up for your Christmas stocking, only to set them back down, in tears.
All you ever wanted for your girls, your ‘beautiful daughters’ was for them to find happiness. So why do I cry every time I think of you?
Ok, Mom. I put up a small fiber optic tree and Cherie sent me the butterflies that cover it now. It’s your tree Mom.
Remember the year when I sent you the six foot fiber optic tree? You loved it so much that you sat for hours, just watching the colors change and glow. I’m going to celebrate Christmas this year and even though I do miss you so much, I’m gonna be a big girl.
Just one more thing, Mom. I want to thank you for giving us Cherie because she too is a woman who touches the lives of every person she meets and her influence, love and support are every bit as strong as yours, so although I miss you every day, I thank God and I thank you, for giving us Cherie.

Love,  Jeanne Marie

words

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i catch a glimpse of you

peeking out now and then

just when you are sober

before you’re off again.

my little girl peeks out from

the battered woman’s eyes

i brush your hair

off your pretty face

we hug and hug

and tell each other lies.

the only words that are true

among the words we say

i love you mom

i love you jodie lynne

thus we survive

despite the odds

to fight another day,

again.

Sometimes At Night…

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The scars of abuse, any abuse, are permanent. Like a tattoo, they may fade with time, but they will always be there, just under your skin.

SOMETIMES AT NIGHT…

Sometimes as I drift off to sleep, my mind wanders back in time and I’m a little child again. The last conscious thought I discern is my voice calling, “Mom? Mom?” She doesn’t answer now, just as she didn’t answer back then.

In reality, I’m fifty-five years old, but as I fall asleep I lose track of time and I feel eight or nine. Terrified. Alone. A jolt of fear runs through my veins and I struggle to pull back from the drifting darkness of sleep where I’m trapped, helpless and afraid.

Losing the battle, I fall off the edge of awareness, tumbling through sleep’s doorway. The faces I see are familiar, but I fight the memories. I can’t bear to see what my subconscious wants to show me and the little girl inside of me is so afraid. I run from the illusion, crying, sobbing my heart out.

It seems to last forever, but as I open my eyes, I see the fluorescent numbers on my alarm clock. It’s been less than an hour since I fell asleep. I sit up in my bed, shaking, still afraid. My husband lies sleeping beside me, but I don’t wake him. Many nights, I have screamed until my commotion has awakened me and he has slept on, unaware. I don’t know how. I’d awaken him if he could comfort me, but he can’t.

Going out to the living room, wrapped in his bathrobe, I get my Marlboros, and make a pot of coffee. Then, I sit in the dark; my eyes squeezed shut, trying to stop the tears from leaking down my face. The aching for my mother is so strong that I actually pick up the phone to call her. Hesitating, I don’t dial the number. Holding the receiver in my hand, reality comes back and I hang up the phone.

My mother can’t bear my pain because she carries enough of her own. I don’t hold it against her; but, I’m so alone. All I want is for my mother to help me to feel safe. I’m vulnerable as a small child and that child doesn’t feel safe. My mother’s hugs and reassurances didn’t make the fear stop when I was a little girl; maybe that’s why I long for her to console me now. “Okay Mom, let’s agree to do it over and we’ll make it come out right this time!”

I’ll call her tomorrow and barely touch upon my fears, my need last night to hear her voice. I’ll hear the discomfort behind her words and I’ll change the subject. I don’t want to hurt her and she still can’t save me. The answer beats in my heart and on a conscious level, I know that. I’ve been blessed with that knowledge in my recovery from alcoholism, which also helps me to understand my father’s alcoholic rages, my mother’s co-dependency. Still, sometimes at night, I get lost in my past, tangled up in my nightmares.

My dad was so scary, ranting and raving until dawn, screaming that he hated us and threatening to kill us all. I would hide under the covers holding my baby sister, planning how I’d protect her if he came into our room. I wanted to kill him before he could kill us. Sometimes at night, he’d come into our bedroom and just stand there beside our bed with a hunting rifle in his hands.

I was powerless, unable to even breathe, frozen with fear. He never pulled the trigger, but a part of my childhood innocence died each time that he stood there. As he’d leave the room, I’d wet the bed and begin to breathe again. No tears. Just fear and anger. I was so angry that he was my dad.

As he stood over our bed late one New Year’s Eve, I thought that he was Father Time or maybe Death. He robbed me of my childhood with his alcoholic madness. He stole years of precious time. I couldn’t even go to school, because I was afraid to leave him alone with my mother. I needed to be there to protect her. Of course, I can see now that I never could’ve protected her or my sister. However, I’d have tried.

Although I hated him, I still tried to earn his love because he was my dad. The only note he ever wrote me is saved, treasured, because he signed it, “love, Dad.” I remember that he showered me with attention when I was a very young child, but he’d pulled away by the time I was about five. I didn’t understand and it hurt. I always figured that I’d done something wrong. I didn’t know that it was because of his own fears and childhood abuse or that he loved me the best way he knew how to, by leaving me alone.

The men in my life have all been angry and it used to feel comfortable, familiar. I tried to earn their love too. If only I could be pretty enough, if I could just be a perfect wife. I’m growing past that now, but it isn’t easy. My roots go deep. I still want to be loved, sometimes at any cost.

At times, I believe I’m a grown woman, but too often I react like a lost child. Sometimes after a nightmare, I hide in a corner of my dark living room and try to ease the fear. I curl up into a ball, crying, and rocking and I say, “It’s over, it’s over, he’s gone. You’re safe now.” The fear is so real at night because I regress back to childhood as I sleep and I become absolutely defenseless.

Years of recovery programs and therapy have helped. I don’t accept abuse from anyone (when I recognize it) and I can function out in the real world. Today, I can hold a job and for years I couldn’t even do that because of my anxiety. I’m developing self-worth and gaining self-respect.

Writing down my thoughts and feelings during these difficult nights seems to help me. I’ve written some of my best poems at dawn. My husband tries to understand, but he really doesn’t. Maybe that’s because he’s not afraid. I wrote lyrics about that thought and he set them to music for me. The song starts like this:

She’s looking through a window

That time forgot to close,

She’s staring at some memories

Full of pain she never chose.

My poetry is like therapy because the words help me to understand and organize these haunting memories. Each time I write I sense the past letting go, I see the pain being processed and the old wounds being healed. Still, sometimes at night, I’m so disoriented, a lost, little girl, trapped in a woman’s body.

I’m recovering on a daily basis, from alcoholism, co-dependency, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, Adult Child of Alcoholic issues, depression and anxiety. I’ve spent a fortune on therapy and with all my “program” have managed to raise my children in a dysfunctional home, while I was sober. I started chain-smoking when I’d been sober ten and a half years. I also drank one night that year and then tried to kill myself in front of my children. There were many reasons that I was brought to my knees. It happened mainly because I wasn’t taking care of myself and I let an excruciatingly painful situation overwhelm me.

I was very close to my A. A. sponsor at the time and attending my home groups faithfully. Nevertheless, I could not see the hope or the love, all I could see was my pain and the pain my decisions had brought to my children. I lost sight of everything that I’d learned when I let my pain become the only emotion that was real.

My Higher Power saved my life that night and He set me back on my feet. He used that experience to teach me and to strengthen my foundation. He helped me to move on. I learned about co-dependency then, my need to be a caretaker, my urge to save and my obsession to maintain control, control I never owned.

I’ve changed in many ways, during my last thirty odd years of sobriety. Some people like it and some don’t. I like caring about me and letting my loved ones make their own choices. I cannot save the world and it feels good to let go when I’m able. I don’t have to try to save anyone but myself. The hardest piece of recovery for me to grasp has been finding the willingness to face reality and to deal with life as it happens. Also, I need to learn to accept that life is not always fair and that not all my mistakes will be forgiven on this earth.

I look back and wonder how I ever came so far and then I understand. My Higher Power has led me and every day He continues to love and to guide me. When I was at my lowest point and couldn’t even love myself, He loved me. When I screamed at life and scorned my sobriety, when I turned my back on him, He loved me. The nightmares are rare now and my Higher Power never lets me go; still, sometimes at night…

Our Prisoner Of War

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prisoner of war, can he ever forget what he

heard, what he saw?

turns on the TV, slams his bedroom door

still hears their shouts, damn their stupid war!

love has been beaten wrong side out by thoughtless acts,

lost to words that pound like fists,

scream and shout!

no hands were laid upon her, twas conflict that stripped her bare

naked soul withering, disintegrating, until she didn’t care.

bruises fade to yellow, begin to melt away

fresh sounds assault the soul, raising welts of colorful array.

she slips in to say goodnight, he pretends he doesn’t see

whispering to herself, a trembling hand shuts off his blank TV.

secrets confront his ears, unrelenting silence surrenders up to him her fears.

my angry son, when you grow up and are a man, will you take prisoners of war?

will you beat them with your voice, bruise them with your anger and never

lift a hand?

will you use their love to build a prison, design each brick to beat them down,

enslave their trusting hearts?

when she cries, will you turn your head, slap her face with words instead?

will your harshness sting and blind her eyes, cloak the disorder you disguise?

when she sobs herself to sleep, wondering if she’s insane,

will you kiss away her tears just to strike again?

prisoner of war, can you ever forget what you heard, what you saw?

when you leave this house can you wash clean, shed the stench of in between?

can you ever forget what you heard, what you saw, can you ever be released,

our prisoner of war?

by Jeanne Marie

My Daddy’s Legacy

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A frightened child
Puts the pillow over her ears,
Daddy screams so loud
He doesn’t hear her tears.
He says that his family should die
They drain his very life,
He calls her mom a whore
But she’s a “Stand By Your Man” wife.
Daddy lurks over the small girl’s bed
He’s so quiet she almost wishes
That she could hear him scream!
Is that really a gun he holds?
Dear God, she prays,
Let this be a dream!
He never pulled the trigger
But he killed her just the same,
All the years of fearful waiting
Have drove her half insane.
The sun rises and she can’t wake up
Daddy ranted and raved all night,
How can she go to school
And pretend that she’s all right?
She watches her mother
Who plays her part so well,
Unlike the girl who doesn’t understand
Why she was born into this hell.
The years have gone by
And now a woman grown,
Still shackled to that frightened child
When the night falls, she is alone.
He said that his family should die
The woman often wishes that they had
Because living with her fears,
Has proven twice as bad.
by Jeanne Marie, 1969

October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Why Not Everyday?

To Jeanne, from Mum 1987

My mother, Grace, wrote this poem for me after she read about fifty of my poems for the first time.

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The Angel’s Feather

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The Angel’s Feather
by Grace Christine Doucette 1926-2009

To Jeanne Marie. It was 1953 and two angels were sitting on a cloud over the small town of Tewksbury. They were sunning themselves, if angels can sun themselves, and these two angels were smiling and happy. As they looked down they saw a woman sitting on a doorstep. She was crying and so sad and so alone and it upset the angels.
One angel said, “What can we do to help this poor soul cheer up a little bit?”
The second angel said, “Well, this woman is about to give birth to a little girl. Maybe through this little girl we can bring some joy into the woman’s life.”
The first angel said, “That’s a great idea and we can do that!”
So, she reached up and plucked a feather from her wing and she placed it next to the little baby’s heart. She said, “Now, this baby will bring joy and love and laughter to that sad woman.”
Sure enough when the baby was born, she had a smile on her face and she instantly brought happiness to this lonely woman and day after day, they grew closer and closer together. One day as the woman was holding the baby and looking down at her, her heart was just bursting with love and she had to sing a song about this love. And she sang:

Whose baby are you?
Whose baby are you?
Your hair is brown
And your eyes are too,
So, whose baby are you?
You’re mine, yes you’re mine
Cause God gave you to me,
You’re mine, yes you’re mine,
Now my days are no longer gloomy.
Whose baby are you?
Whose baby are you?
You’re mine, yes you’re mine
Cause God gave you to me,
You’re mine, yes you’re mine
And you will always be.

And for the rest of her life, whenever the woman looked at that baby girl the angel’s feather would tickle them both and they would both burst into laughter and they brought joy to each other’s lives.
“This is a true story sweetheart, and I know you still have that angel’s feather near your heart cause every time you come near me, you fill my heart with joy and laughter and you have made my life complete. Love, Mom”

I was going for my first surgery in 2001 and I begged my mom to make me a tape to listen to when I was under the knife. I wanted her with me in spirit and I was so happy when I got the tape in the mail. My surgeon agreed to play the tape for me and when I came out of surgery, I was told that everyone in the operating room had been crying.
It’s funny how time runs away from us and our priorities turn upside down. When I came home from the hospital, I put the tape in a drawer because I knew it was special, it was my mom’s voice, but I didn’t listen to it again after my surgery, not until Mom passed away in 2009. It has taken me four years to copy the entire tape onto a CD (a one hour procedure) and to write out this story. Time. Why do we always assume there is more?
This story was mixed in with my favorite songs that she had sung for me when I was a little girl, the songs I had asked her to record for me so I would feel safe in surgery. What a precious gift. This story is the reason I named my book of poetry Gracie’s Glimmer. I am Gracie’s Glimmer and I believe she is still with me everyday.

My Friend, by Grace Christine (1926-2009)

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I have a friend who comes to sit with me

She brightens my day, as I sip my tea.

She never frowns at an unwashed dish

Knowing that I’ll clean them when I wish!

The dust on my floor never turns her head

And she just smiles at my unmade bed.

While she’s waiting for me to end my chat

She kisses my neck, she’s a true friend–my cat.

Jeanne Marie tagged a photo of you. Today 6:00 am (by Last Ditch Effort)

Jeanne Marie tagged a photo of you. Today 6:00 am (by Last Ditch Effort).

The Gift

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She picked up the book
and placed it back on the shelf
when she saw the price.
But…then she thought of her daughter
to send her this treasure, would be a delight.
She lovingly touched the glossy roses
she’d wanted this kind of book for ages.
She pictured her daughter’s garden, then
she paid the price and mailed the pages.
As she weeded her own, she softly smiled
imagining the distant flowers in full-bloom
and she thought of her daughter all the while.
Little did she see that the greatest gift
she’d sent was the bloom of her love
carried on the petals of a book
delivered by the sliver of a mid-summer’s moon.
To give her child what she herself desired
seemed to be the mother’s greatest pleasure.
God made this woman quite special
and then He doubled it twice over
beyond her daughter’s measure.
by Jeanne Marie

Tangles

Tangles.

When The Kids Grow Up

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I began writing at fourteen but when I started my family at nineteen, I think that the sterilizer vaporized my creativity. I figured that it had boiled away with the germs on the baby’s bottles. Occasionally, I’d have a poetic burst, but by the time I was twenty-six, I had three children screaming for my attention and my writing ceased.

I told everyone that I was a writer, but my kids kept me too busy to write. “When the kids grow up,” I’d say. When the kids finally went off to school, “prove it” anxiety set in. I thought about having another baby, but that seemed rather desperate. I had to face facts. It was time to write. I began slowly, but regained my confidence as the words poured from me. Poems began to accumulate and I’d read them to friends and family.

In 1988 I bought an electric typewriter and started to organize my work. I also took my first college class. I enrolled full time, but the schedule overwhelmed me. After one week, I’d dropped all the classes except for one, Country Song Writing.

Many of the students were my age, which was encouraging. I continued to write, even bought a computer, but I often let kids, grand-babies and housework come before my writing. Then in 1994, a drunk driver killed my son-in-law, Donnie. He kissed his wife and his tiny son good-bye that morning and less than ten minutes later, he was dead. His sudden death caused me to reevaluate my life and to focus on what mattered most. I found out that it wasn’t clean sheets or dustless floors, not even baking delicious desserts or cooking big meals. Again, I enrolled full-time in college. This time I stuck to the plan. My husband was supportive and he took over some of the household chores. Some, I just ignored.

I decided to treat college like the ocean. The only way to go in the icy cold waves is to close your eyes and to run into the surf as fast as you can. Once you make it past the undertow, the waves are breaking in front of you, not sneaking up from behind and the water feels warmer as your body temperature adjusts. The gentle swell rocks you as you swim and the blue-green horizon stretches out as far as you can see.

I enjoyed learning in spite of the tremendous workload. I usually stayed up past midnight doing homework for Comp. I, memorizing outdated laws for Criminal Justice, (don’t even ask me how I landed there) or cramming my head with strange definitions for Biological Psychology and then I’d get up at 5:00 a.m. to study for a test or to finish an essay.

I got past the undertow and I finished the semester on the Dean’s list. (My mom wanted a bumper sticker.) When younger classmates asked me how I was able to do so well, I’d smile and say, “Underneath this bleached blonde hair is a smart brunette.”

The changes in my priorities did upset my fifteen-year-old son (my youngest child) especially since I’d stopped cleaning his room and I’d begun to consider heating a frozen pizza cooking supper. One night, he told me that I was too old to go to college. I laughed at him. He asked why I couldn’t wait to go to college, at least until he was grown-up.

I said, “I’ve already wasted twenty years cleaning closets and vacuuming under the furniture. By the way, you need to do a load of laundry if you want clean jeans for school tomorrow.” As he shook his head and walked away, I smiled.

After five years of working as a sports journalist/photographer, I decided to leave that job and I reevaluated my writing goals.

I’m not afraid because I know I’ll find another niche where my words fit and I know that the answer for me is to just sit down and let the creativity I’ve been blessed with guide me. It also helps to know that the only way I can lose my status as a writer is if I stop writing.

P.S. My kids did grow up, faster than I ever dreamed possible and I now have fifteen grand-kids, ages 28 to 3. I have also been blessed with five great grand-babies. The grand-kids are growing up even faster than the kids.

The picture above is grand-baby #13, Jonas,  playing with me at the beach.

moonchild, an anthology of women’s verse and prose, 1976

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My first published piece was a poem in moonchild, an anthology of women’s verse and prose. It was published by Suha Publications in 1976. I gave my oldest daughter my only copy of the book because the poem was about her.
Recently, I was searching for another copy, never believing that I would find one, but I found several copies on Amazon.com. I bought two and I was as excited when they arrived last week as I was when my book arrived in 1976.
My first words in print. The experience taught me that I could be published. It validated me as a writer, handed me proof that I was a poet.
If you haven’t been published on paper yet, do it. Submit until you are published. It is not only possible but very likely and the experience will give you wings. You don’t have to be published to be a writer, of course, but it sure is fun!
I’d like to connect with any other women who had her work showcased in this anthology. Are you here on WordPress.com? Odds are against it, but so were the odds of my finding copies of this book anywhere. Maybe we are already following each other!
If you were published in this book and you see my post, contact me here or email me at womenwhothinktoomuch@yahoo.com.
Thanks, Jeanne Marie Pages 69-70.

The Ties That Bind

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I want to be a storybook mother
With model children who never cry.
I want to sew and read them stories
Then cook and clean until it’s done.
But I can only be myself
And let my babies be too
Beautiful sweet lovely brats
I couldn’t live without.
I start to cook but have to stop
To wipe a runny nose.
I take a bath and the baby falls in
While supper burns on the stove.
Out for a night I should be glad
But can anyone take my place?
Will they be safe till I get home?
They are in my heart wherever I go.

Jeanne Marie, 1979

African Violets And Me

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I grew up in New England and if we were lucky, the summer lasted for two months.
In my more abundant winter memories, I see an African Violet on each mother’s kitchen windowsill.
I don’t know the reason for the flower’s popularity; maybe the women were trying to hold onto the illusion of warm weather, but African Violets were not easy to grow. They had to be nurtured, babied, misted and watered.
These women all had their secret tricks with this plant and only best friends shared their intimate knowledge of the mysterious African Violet. I remember playing under the table and listening to the coffee klatches’ swap advice. I remember hearing many different tips when Mom and her best friend were alone.
The African Violet produced bright pink, white or purple blossoms most of the year and if your African Violet was plump, green, velvety and flowering, you earned the respect of all the housewives in the neighborhood.
It was in the fifties and I don’t remember a single mom who didn’t have an African Violet or a single mom who left every day to go to work.
My mother-in-law is 80 something years old and she still drives from Florida to Boston and back to Florida every year. Her kids tell her that she can’t do it, but I tell her that she can if she wants to, because she is a great driver and clearer of mind than I am. LOL
Last year when she went home, I was entrusted with her African Violet. I was shaking in my sandals.
What if I killed it? Plus, I didn’t even have a kitchen windowsill.
Unable to ignore the fact that the plant had outgrown its pot, I bravely repotted the root-bound African Violet, using special soil and splitting it into two pots. I watered, I misted, I talked to them and I loved them. I was rewarded with plump, green, velvety leaves and dozens of hot pink blossoms all winter.
They smiled at me gratefully every morning from their perch on my kitchen counter, happy in their new green pots.
I kept them close to each other so they wouldn’t be lonely; after all, they had grown up together.
Each morning I would greet them and I would say, “I can’t believe it!
I can grow the impossible plant, the mighty African Violet from my childhood.”
Then, Mom stopped for a visit as she was driving back home to Haines City. She stayed with us for about a week and she never mentioned the African Violets. I saw her glance at them now and then with admiration but she never said a word. I never mentioned them either because I was afraid that she might be upset that I had split and repotted the fragile babies.
When she was packed and getting ready to go out the door, I said,
“Mom, aren’t you going to take your African Violets?”
“Those are mine? Both of them?”
Although I had toyed with the idea of keeping the small one, I said, “Yes Mom, they’re both yours.”
Besides, how could I separate them now?
Her face lit up with pleasure.
Looking back, I think maybe she had already resigned herself to the fact that I had knocked off her African Violet.
She put down the stuff in her hands and walked over to my counter. With a big smile on her face, she lifted the two pots into her hands and carefully carried them out her car. There they were tucked in among the clothes that covered her backseat, wedged in-between her tee shirts and her shorts, for their own safety.
With a last smile, away they all went.
I missed the morning smiles the plant’s bright flowers had given me, but I had always known that they were not mine to keep.
On my last shopping trip to Lowe’s I was, as usual, drawn to the distressed plants on display.
I picked up a badly distressed African Violet.
I really didn’t want to buy it and I kept putting it down and then picking it back up.
What if it didn’t like me?
What if it curled up and finished dying?
What would that say about my competence as a housewife?
I mumbled to myself, “How could a little plant mean so much to my mom and my mother-in-law, plus all the other housewives I remember and is it even really from Africa?”
I found myself at the register holding the plant so…I bought it.
It’s been a month and I haven’t repotted it yet. I haven’t even opened the African Violet potting mix, the bag still sits on my porch.
Maybe I’ll do it today because my distressed plant is no longer distressed. Its leaves are plump, green and velvety. One tall, straight, hot pink bloom stands proud, the lone survivor from the huge clusters that came as soon as I watered, loved and fed the mystifying African Violet.
I know now that when Mom’s plant responded to my nurturing, it wasn’t a fluke. I can be trusted with an African Violet. I have grown up.

What Blogging On WordPress.com Has Taught Me

YEY!
I started blogging here because I am a writer with a newly published book, (Have to plug it! Women Who Think Too Much, available at this link  { available here  } but that’s not what I’ve learned on WordPress.com. I already knew that fact. It’s also not why I stay.
Let me begin at the start, but I don’t promise to continue in chronological order.
I used to blog on Google and I enjoyed it. Until I received a hate letter concerning one of my articles I had written about my mother, a letter from a beloved family member.
Delete, unsubscribe, run away, lock every window on the internet where my writing was residing, that’s what I did and I’m not proud of my reaction. No excuses, but it hurt and I was shocked and I was stunned. Ok, I need to take a deep breath. Whew.
That was over two years ago.
Since then I have held my writing close, sharing only with family I trusted and my writer’s group whom I totally trusted, my Pineapple Girls. My girls are invaluable, far beyond the one night a week when we meet and way past the exquisite meals we cook for each other. (The meals may be a minus since I’ve gained twenty pounds!) Another plus to belonging to a writer’s group? I have written more creative essays and poems since we started meeting about three years ago, than I have in the last twenty-years. I also finished a book.
I struggled and whined all the way through editing Women Who Think Too Much, but my muse insisted I finish before I could move on and my muse is a very powerful entity. She obviously expressed herself to my girls.
These writing friends held my hand, dragged me past the hardest spots with words of encouragement, dried my tears and made me laugh, edited, read and challenged me until my book was finished.
My editor, whom I met in the writer’s group, is my best friend and my surrogate sister.
She spent thousands of hours guiding me and editing my endlessly updated manuscripts. She even learned how to format a manuscript on Smashwords.com, for me.
For months, she lived and she breathed my book, never pushing changes on me, just suggesting. I rejected hours and hours of her changes and she was okay with that. She is a one in a million editor. Still, many of her suggestions worked, because she could detach from the emotions and focus on structure and grammar so much better than I could. In the end though, I think she was so deep into my book that we were equal on the emotional involvement.
(If you want to know any more about what I went through finishing a twenty-year old project read, “Hi Mom, This Is Me” on my blog.)
https://womenwhothinktoomuch.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/497/
Anyway, back to what I have learned while visiting your blogs here at WordPress.com.
Today I learned what the word Lepidopterologist (Noun) means. I am a butterfly lover and a collector of butterfly pictures but when I saw this word on Theresa’s blog, dba Third Hand Art, Butterfly In Clover, I just had to stop and look it up.
Lepidopterist: Butterfly collector, bug-hunter, bugologist, entomologist, a zoologist who studies insects, the branch of zoology dealing with butterflies and moths. WOW!
I have come upon other unfamiliar words here, but what I’ve learned is far beyond new words.
I’ve learned that writers, artists and creative people are as a whole, generous with their praise and liberal with their encouragement. Many writers are as crazy as I am, but they are proud of it and accept it as integral to who they are and they use it to their advantage in their intensely moving writing.
You make me think, you make me laugh and you make me cry. Thank you.
The stuff I have hidden for twenty-years in draws or in computer files marked “Personal, destroy if I’m dead.” can now come out of the dark and play with others on WordPress.com.
I want to thank each and every blogger I have visited; you have each touched my writer’s spirit in one way or another. Thank you for not hiding as I did. Thank you for sharing your joy, your success, your pain and your disasters.
Thank you for commenting on my stuff when you are no doubt as pressed for time as I am, thank you for noticing what I post, whether it’s noontime or midnight.
I have learned that while I’m sometimes different in my approach to writing, I am not unique. My writing is not outrageous, as most people in my family have told me. (Family members who have encouraged me, you know who you are.) Sometimes my writing is raw, but it is always honest and sometimes it’s funny. That’s me and that is okay. You taught me that.
There are so many incredible writers and creators on WordPress.com that my only regret is that I don’t have enough time to read every line you write, to absorb every picture you post.
I have learned that there is a place where I can belong, a niche made just for me, and it is here, with you. I came to try to build a platform and I stayed to share who I am, to meet you and to enjoy your work.
Thank you, Jeanne Marie
https://womenwhothinktoomuch.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/journal-excerpts/
PS We call ourselves girls because when we are together we are girls, laughing and playing.

Creating An Effective Resume

Creating An Effective Resume.

Hi Mom, This Is Me

Hi Mom, This Is Me.

Check and Mate

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As I care for my plants, l smile. I especially treasure the many plants that my grown son has sent me, plants that express his love for me in a flowering way, long distance. I even save the bows that the florist wraps around each gift.
Last Christmas, my son was visiting and he asked me what I wanted and I said a Poinsettia because I know that they are plentiful at Christmas time and inexpensive. As much as I love his gifts, I still feel a twinge when I receive from him because I have given to him since he was born. The fact that my son has matured and wants to give back to me thrills me beyond measure, but I knew that this year, like most of us, he was counting his pennies.
He went far beyond a Poinsettia. Check and mate. He carried in a huge pot of climbing ivy with a tiny poinsettia hiding in the middle. I instantly realized that he had outmaneuvered me. I put my arms around my handsome, six-foot son and I said, “ Thank you, I love it.”

Creating An Effective Resume

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The easiest way to teach you to elaborate on your skills and talents, is to show you my own resume as an example. After you read this, if you still need help, please email me and I’ll be glad to read over your resume. I’ll even add my own touches to help you enhance it.

Women Who Think Too Much Publications
Publisher, Editor: Jeanne Marie

OBJECTIVE
To obtain a challenging position within your company’s structure while earning above average pay, working part time hours and securing a position with potential for advancement. This will be a second job, so don’t expect too much of me and I hope your objective isn’t to harass me if I’m late for work. Problems that arise at home do have priority.

QUALIFICATIONS
Hands On–I can change dirty diapers, wash baby bottles, wipe the green snot off the face of a runaway child, wash hair that doesn’t want to be washed, nurture your plants and keep your vaporizer clean, full and running.
I’ve washed close to a trillion dishes, changed numerous bed linens, wallpapered and painted nine homes and three apartments, hung curtains with nothing but a butter knife and rearranged extremely heavy furniture. (You do offer health insurance, right? Good! My back has been killing me.)
I’ve over a million hours’ experience in laundry and ironing. I’ve cleaned rugs that have been vomited on by children, guests, dogs or worse, and I’ll vacuum under your desk.

STAMINA
I once spent an entire winter hanging over a vaporizer with a twenty-pound toddler in my hands.
I can go weeks without sleep and still perform my duties.
I’ve cleaned and taken care of three children while my body was down with the flu and my mind was up with the anxiety.
I’ve supervised the same hell raising, fist fighting and bored kids on many cold or rainy days and I have endured over a thousand torturous school vacations. We suffered no fatalities, self-inflicted or otherwise. (And that was before Prozac.)
I’ve moved at least fifty times in thirty-five years, packed, unpacked and carried most of the stuff into and out of the moving truck, then back into the truck and out and in and out…you get the idea, I’m sure. I’ve even been allowed to take one end of the refrigerator. Thankfully, not the end that fell on someone’s knees. Hey, I told him I needed to rest a minute!

NURTURING SKILLS
I can starve a cold and feed a fever with one hand, while blindfolded, hopping on one leg. I’ll bring home-baked goods to work, at least once a week and often I’ll bring a hot meal too. (No, I don’t do it so everyone will like me. Well, maybe I do, so what?)
I know every allergist and pediatrician within a fifty-mile radius and most of the veterinarians.
I can guess your temperature by putting my hand on your forehead and I can nurse you if you get chicken pox, strep throat, diarrhea, the flu, ear infections or a cold. Managing your asthma and seasonal allergies are optional and will cost extra.
I’ve turned filthy, squalid apartments into clean, cozy homes and I’m sure I can do the same for your dumpy office. A few plants, a lot of hard work, a little paint from Wal-Mart and you won’t recognize the place.

NEGOTIATING SKILLS
Superb, due to weekly meetings over a span of twelve years with principals and teachers who wanted to throw my youngest child (the one my own mother wouldn’t baby-sit) out of school. I’ve also learned how to take the blame for my husband and my children’s actions and in the workplace that can be a very helpful tool. If you screw up, I’ll be there, ready and waiting to take the blame.

COURAGE
I’ve had three C-sections, one emergency and two planned.
I work well under pressure and I have bravely gone where most women dare not go–under the beds and into the closets.
I gave my hand (and my brain) in marriage, not once, but twice. Case closed.

JOB HISTORY

FREE LANCE WRITER
My Favorite Awards:
National Dean’s List 1994-1995
Survived Motherhood Without Becoming A Vegetable Award, 1996 (Self Bestowed)

NURSES AIDE, NURSING HOMES
Same as infant care, but duties involved much larger bodies, huge diapers and very odorous bowel movements. Daily contact with lonely people who had raised their kids and sometimes their grandkids, relatives who now visited them once a year. Socializing with people who’d hold onto my hand and beg me to stay when my shift was over because, “You’re all I have.” And it was true.

DAYCARE PROVIDER, MY HOME
Took care of other women’s children for ten years. The working mamas chased a career and I chased after their kids so that I could earn money while staying home with my own little angels. Once, I had three toddlers calling me Mama and my kids were all in school. Daycare had become a safe habit, but that’s when I knew it was time to move on.

WAITRESS\BARTENDER\MANAGEMENT
Slinging hash, taking verbal abuse from customers, carrying huge trays of food over my head most often through narrow aisles, picking up dirty dishes, taking verbal abuse from bosses, serving drinks and always, always, working with a smile on my face. Very similar to mothering, except for the smile.

EDUCATION
Quit school at 15-years old. Earned my GED in 1981 at age 27.
Rogers State College 1994-1995
Twenty-One Credit Hours, achieved under duress. (Re: Article, “When The Kids Grow Up.)

INTERESTS & HOBBIES

INTERESTS
Interested in having a life, thank you! I’m also interested in hiring someone to clean my house. Do you know anyone?
Activities involve thinking too much, writing it down and publishing it. Cleaning too much and hating it.

HOBBIES
My hobbies include photography, planting flowers that should win awards, avoiding baby-sitting or raising any of my fourteen grandkids and fighting with my computer until dawn. (Computer always wins.)

COMPUTER SKILLS
Obviously.

SPECIAL TALENTS, MISCELLANEOUS, FRINGE BENEFITS EXPECTED

SPECIAL TALENTS
I know a resume should be short but as you can see, with all my qualifications and experience that would be impossible. I also type, about 10 words per minute. (I’m very poor on the spelling.) I’m an expert on the phone, unless it’s one of those damn new smart phones. I will run your errands, pay your bills, pick out and sign your Mother’s Day cards.
I also write a blog, short stories, poetry and I am working on two novels and five children’s books.
I can write excellent excuse notes while half asleep, without thinking.
BTW, if I’m up all night writing, I will call in sick the next day.

MISCELLANEOUS
I’m applying by email because I don’t have a power suit. However, I’ll have a personal shopper help me find one if the job requires it. (I seriously hope not.)
I won’t wear pantyhose or high heels, under any conditions!
I’d expect to be reimbursed for the power suit, of course, as a man has always paid for my clothes and I see no reason to change my routine at sixty-two years old. I really do need a second job, even though I don’t have any free time, so I hope you hire me.

FRINGE BENEFITS EXPECTED
At my present job, the hours are long, the rewards are few and I hope you can match the stress level.
As I look back over my forty-year career as a wife, mother, grammy, writer, baby-sitter, nurses’ aide, food server and bartender, I realize that I gave my all; plus energy that I didn’t even have, so I’m really burned out.
Therefore, I hope you have a position where I can sit down and keep my thinking to a minimum. (Did I forget to list my stint as an Avon Lady?) I do need a good health insurance plan, as I’ve used up all the benefits on the one my husband has provided, (particularly, the mental health benefits) and I’d like a “Smoker’s High Risk, Accidentally Started At Age 36, Can’t Quit, Dammit I’ve Tried, So You Pay Off No Matter What, Life Insurance Plan.”

PERSONAL DATA
There have been times when I’ve enjoyed my present job.
Nights when I held my newborns, rocked them until dawn, got a hug from a toddler before breakfast or a homemade card from a first grader.
Even better, handprints pressed forever onto construction paper.
Watching my two beautiful daughters each have their own first baby, (which made me very grateful for my three C-sections).
Watching my son, my baby, turn into a large, handsome teenager and then into a daddy.
Watching my grandchildren grow into amazing little people and then, on to young adults. Being presented with three great grandbabies. These have been the high points.
The little love notes my husband still leaves for me to find when I wake up, the way he does the dishes after supper so that I can write and the neurotic phone calls he makes from work each day to see what I’m doing. (Wow, does he flip out if I don’t turn on the cell phone when I go out!) And I even enjoy the way that he’s still jealous, even though I’m a  way past middle-aged woman, twenty pounds overweight and too codependent to ever leave.
I love walking on the beach and reading poetry as the sun sets.

STIPULATIONS
I will relocate if your company pays all the moving expenses and you can talk my husband into moving again. We’ll need extra men to help with the refrigerator as my husband still has nightmares about a refrigerator falling on his legs.
Please, feel free to call me between noon and one o’clock EST any Friday, except if it’s the thirteenth and there’s a full moon.
For all other times, email will suffice because if I’m not home, my computer will take your message. I just hope that it will allow me to access my email without having to be re-booted.

Looking forward to hearing from you, but not too soon,

Jeanne Marie