tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3780740983235744162024-03-07T04:31:24.819+00:00What can't be looked forCraverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.comBlogger189125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-41309417466594595682013-09-30T01:25:00.001+00:002013-10-03T23:40:11.283+00:00Been there, done that.<h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><i>For my friends and readers, don't panic, while this post is a little dark, I am not talking to or about myself here. This is a combination of to someone and a writing assignment. all is well here. xox</i></span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Poetry </span></span><span style="line-height: 18px;">doesn't</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"> make anything better. Pain is pain, even when it’s depicted in pretty turns of phrase. I read it because it brought joy to ones I have loved at one time or another. Some of it I understood, some I just tried to, and some I just hated. I always felt guilty about it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">I always felt guilty about it, but it </span></span><span style="line-height: 18px;">didn't</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"> change the fact that I hated it. Not with poetry or with anything else. My brother used to say that worry was the greatest sin – it has no power to change anything, it’s only accomplishment is your prolonged suffering. As trite as it is the only thing that changes anything is time. The bitch of that is, when pain is involved, time crawls like a turtle through peanut butter.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;">Like a turtle through peanut butter and you know if you make it out, and into the capable hands of your rescuers, you’ll be forever changed. It’s a lie to believe that change is always a good one. Not all change is caterpillar to butterfly, and much of it comes with a feeling akin to chewing broken glass.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;">Chewing broken glass, or just on the pieces of disappointment that follow a failure, a loss, a broken heart, won’t wipe you out, but I know you won’t be able to convince yourself of that at 2:30 in the morning when you’re busy choking on the blood of those past mistakes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;">Those past mistakes, they only matter to you. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;">Second chances and second guesses never served anyone. Don’t torture yourself reliving a handful of good moments plucked from a decade of pain.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Plucked from a decade of pain, the voice in your head works hard to cut you to ribbons. Quiet it, with the truth – nothing else will do. You </span></span><span style="line-height: 18px;">didn't</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"> earn this and it’s not your job to hold it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">It’s not your job to hold it anymore than it’s my job to fix it. It doesn't matter how I phrase it, pain </span></span><span style="line-height: 18px;">isn't</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"> pretty even in a sonnet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-45338058167480730292012-10-27T14:40:00.003+00:002012-10-27T14:40:37.612+00:00WHEN<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">You know you’ve had enough when a sick full of dirty
dishwater caused by an upside down sink plug wedged in the drain reduces you to
tears. When people say life is all about the little things I don’t think this
is what they mean. Bailing water so you can see the object of your frustration,
everything that isn’t what you want, what you expected, or at all what you
hoped climbs on your shoulders and laughs in your ear. Searching for something,
anything to grab the stubborn plug in the drain, the laughter gets louder, where
are the pliers , not with the screwdrivers and hammers, not with the batteries
and assorted chargers, not in the toolbox – oh no, why would they be there .
Last resort you find something and laugh at yourself for thinking it will
actually work and not just make you feel even worse. Astonished when it grips,
holds, and pulls the drain out, you don’t know whether to laugh or cry harder
as you watch the last of the water circle into the drain. Your savior – still dripping
in your right hand? A pair of large dog nail trimmers.</span></div>
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Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-22057283067976174562012-05-27T11:36:00.005+00:002012-05-27T11:48:20.738+00:00Stripper funerals, indecisive vowels and feral cowsMy <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">pre</span>-teen aged niece posted something on <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">facebook</span> about missing someone so much she wanted to write “I miss you” on a rock and throw it at their face., so they would know<br />how much it hurts. It made me laugh, and then it made me think of you. There’s<br />nothing to be done now, I’m damn good at closing a door and putting a dresser<br />behind it. I know it was unfair, me leaving the way I did. I know I owed you<br />more, you deserved more. More proof, if anyone needed it, that I don’t always make<br />the best decisions at 4 am. There <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">wasn</span>’t even a bottle of Jack Daniels in the<br />room, at least not an open one.<br />What I managed to do was talk myself out of this situation, this (potential) relationship by isolating the faults in myself that convinced me that whatever a good person (in this case,<br />you) might bring to my life, my inadequacy is going to screw the pooch, as they<br />say. So I start bailing, back pedaling, just plain running away. It seems I’m<br />hung up on wasted time. I don’t’ have to look too far back into my past to see where that originated. I’m sort of stunned by the urgency of it within me though.<br />If I’m honest with myself (and why else would I be writing at this hour if not to be<br />honest) this one really sucks. It’s just not that often I find people, any<br />people, but especially men that I connect with on multiple levels. I’m ashamed<br />to say, it was just too much for me. After all the crap I gave you about<br />refusing to look at the end before we even got started, I exited, stage left,<br />because I could see the heartbreak that was in store for me. I woke up that<br />morning, not because you called, but full of a sense of dread, full of just how<br />bad it was going to be when your calls <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">weren</span>’t what woke me.<br /><br />I tortured myself for a couple of hours, thinking and writing, trying to tell myself that<br />the ride would be worth the fall, that I’d take the 10 minutes, 10 weeks,<br />whatever, of happy, but I <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">couldn</span>’t get my head there, my heart was already at<br /><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">humpty</span>-<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">dumpty</span> post fall. And I had no faith in the king’s men.<br /><br />Not too long ago, I wrote myself a little love letter, and it was all full of hope and<br />happy things. Where that bitch went, I don’t know, but she seems to have packed<br />and left for the coast. She better come back sunburned <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error">thorugh</span>, because there<br />sure <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error">isn</span>’t any sunshine here.Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-81264285742098614982012-05-06T14:33:00.006+00:002012-05-06T14:41:48.684+00:00Polka dot engine block*Once, seeing me hurt, a guy I knew dragged me out to the parking lot, tucked me into his red, 2-seater, death trap and took off, flyingup Hayfield Road. Driving with one hand well above the posted limits, digging a roach out of the car’s ashtray with the other hand, Fred assured me that laying he cause of my pain on a staircase and jumping on his knees would solve everything.<br />All he needed was name.<br /><br />I don’t know that I’ve inspired such ferocity in anyone since – and I don’t really know why I did in him, really, as we weren’t that close. Touched even in my current state of hurt (and fear) – I still was able to recognize that his wasn’t exactly a healthy, much less normal response. I only remember bits of the rest of the car ride, and believe I spent it trying to calm him down and prevent life-long orthopedic injury to the person who hurt me that day.<br /><br />Fred returned me in one piece, and while I never gave him that name, it is his threat that returns to my head when people I love are wounded in the same way. Fred was abandoned by his parents, left on the streets when he was in grade school, in and out of foster care, eventually returning to<br />live out most of his adolescence on the streets of Baltimore. Abused his entire life in virtually every possible fashion, Fred believed in violence. Not as a solution, he was too smart for that, but that it gave temporary relief to the mounting pressure in both head and heart, there was no denying. He told me that day, that he believed he had nothing left. All the feeling had been beaten, starved, belittled, or neglected right out of him. All he had left to offer, Fred said, was defense of those who could still feel. He wanted to save in others what had been stolen from him. There was no dissuading him of his belief that he had nothing left, I tried for all the years I knew him and there was never a flicker of hope in him. This was maybe the saddest thing I have ever seen.<br />He disappeared from my life almost as quickly as he appeared.<br /><br />This morning I got to thinking about Fred. I wonder if it was easier to never have any expectations, except possibly to expect the worst of people, than it is to have expectations dashed, to be disappointed in those who do the dashing? Would that be easier to live with? I realize I’ll<br />never know the answer, unless I find another Fred in the world, because at least for me, hope may take the occasional day trip, but it does indeed always return.<br /><br />I think of Fred more often than seems necessary, and often wish I knew where he was, or if he’s even still alive. Some part of me knows that if he never found hope for himself that is likely the very thing that killed him.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">*Fred worked as an auto mechanic, once when he had my brother's car, he painted polka dots all over his engine block. It's the only memory I have of Fred doing something not out of anger.</span>Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-21160902924756737502012-04-07T00:32:00.001+00:002012-04-07T00:33:57.289+00:00A little love letterMy very first boyfriend once drove to my house late at night, threw rocks at my bedroom window and failing to wake me wrote the lyrics to “Just Like Heaven” by the Cure on a worn piece of paper torn from a spiral notebook and left it under my windshield wiper. At the time, I remember thinking this was the most romantic thing in the world. <br /><br />A few months ago, I got talked into playing foosball with a bunch of half-drunk friends. The next morning stretched across my bed nursing a hangover and scratching my dog’s head, I had the realization that I was happy. That moment, the one Daisy told me would come last spring, over cold beers and more than a few tears from both of us, had arrived.<br /><br />Today, I’m thinking about the fact that the people I am closest to are those that I never would have met if I hadn’t done something completely unexpected. These are the friends I can count on to tell me to pack my duffel bag and get on the greyhound bus, go lift some heavy shit, or show up at my doorstep on a random Tuesday night because she didn’t like the way I sounded. I wouldn’t give these people back to the universe for anything. I surely don’t know how I would have gotten here from there without these people.<br /><br />I have a long history of being too hard on myself. It isn’t something I like it is just something I fail at controlling more often than I care to admit. It is no coincidence that the song lyric “every day I fight a war against the mirror, can’t stand the person looking back at me” speaks to me. Loudly. It is not all about physical appearance it is much deeper than that. I occasionally think this will go away, but reality says that at 42, I’m not likely to give it up.It’s as much a part of me as my freckles. I’d like very much to be as kind to myself as these people are to me. I’d like to be able, like Daisy does to hear myself saying or thinking something harsh and have my ‘kinder half’ jump up and cry “FOUL!” I’d like to have that same half remind me that in the past, I didn’t always sound as happy as I insisted I was, or even just remind me that in spite of my irrational fears I am still loved, and lovable. <br /><br />Those handwritten Cure lyrics smeared from morning dew were the closest thing I have ever gotten to a love letter. I remember that for months after that first relationship ended I could not listen to that song. I know those now, 20-some odd years later, I still think of him when I hear it. Gratefully, I no longer have the accompanying gut-wrenching, heartbroken feeling, but instead I have gratitude for the gift of feeling loved at such a young age. The gift is in knowing that even then, with little to no direction, nothing I could call my own, and a diehard belief that platinum blond hair was the best look for me, he found me worthy of loving.<br />There’s no doubt I grew into a better version of that girl. There’s no doubt that 20-some odd years later, I am still worthy, even on those days I’m at war with the person in the mirror. There’s also no doubt that I hate the part of me that needs external reassurance of these things.<br /><br />When I started dating it was incredibly forced, and probably, I had no business being there. I’d forgotten what it felt like to be on a date; to sit across the dinner table from someone who could get through a meal without looking at their cell phone once. It turns out, there are people in this world who find me infinitely more interesting, than their phone. That, in fact, when it rings, or buzzes or whistles, they actually only touch it to turn it OFF.<br /><br />Last year when things were at their worst - I thought I had done the best I could do. I didn’t believe there was any more in me or for me. Turns out I was wrong about that. There is more, in me and for me.Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-79939916539380272962011-10-11T09:50:00.001+00:002011-10-11T09:51:59.380+00:00A Beautiful LifeThis morning, I woke up a full two hours before my alarm was due to go off. At first I thought I had left the ‘auto’ setting on the coffee pot, and then I thought it was the rain, or the dog that’s ears seem to be bothering him, even though I can’t see any reason why. After all that, I decided that just like 90% of the mornings since the first part of the year, I was just awake. Usually, when this happens, I find my thoughts racing to the extent that I am reminded of that amusement park ride, the one where you line up against the wall and the room spins and spins, and eventually the floor drops out. Although that kind of force seems to have left, I still have moments where it does seem the floor has yet to make a full comeback. <br />I don’t know that I’ve ever been a ‘everything happens for a reason’ person, with enough emotional distance I’m usually able to see the sunnier side of the darkest things. This is no exception, I’m in the right place, although I couldn’t have predicted it, I learned another lesson about who belongs in my life and who didn’t deserve to exist in it, even its gutters. It’s almost funny that it’s her betrayal that has cut more deeply. The girl I shared much with over the last few years; training victories and dilemmas, parental relationship difficulties, boyfriend/husband stories, and just the financial obligation to get back and forth to the trainer we both felt so good about, is now waking up every morning with the last man I ever thought I’d love. <br />Sometimes, my gender deserves its very worst reputation.<br />I don’t think this is what keeps me awake at night anymore; I think it’s just the rest. Everything from jobs, to dog training to the slightly crazy guy I’ve been dating for a couple of months. It’s good to be here. It’s good to see that the parts of me I have always been able to count on, are still intact. It’s better to see that I had more friends that surprised me with their love and loyalty and only one that let me down. In any equation, I call that a win. <br />My friend Mandy often quotes “Two tears in a bucket….” And I’m blessedly, finally, there. Some things belong in the rear view, even if you have to back over it a few times before you go.Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-74468105599750632542011-07-28T10:16:00.009+00:002011-07-28T10:28:41.042+00:00Mindlessness MattersThis time of year, everything slows down, including, sadly, my dog training. Between the heat, lack of rain, and the fire ants overrunning my tracking fields, my priorities change, there is no beating the summer in late July/August in North Carolina. So Mojo and I do short spurts of obedience with the reward being a floatie toy tossed into the pond, lather, rinse, repeat. <br /><br />My goal becomes keeping him fit, happy, and keeping both of us sane. <br />This entire year, I’ve been struggling with insomnia. Headed into the 8th month of the year, with little improvement, despite over the counter remedies, prescription remedies ‘have a glass f wine before you go to bed’, work out before you go to bed, turn off the TV ½ hour before you go to bed, etc., and still no change, I’m resigned to getting comfortable being uncomfortably tired most of the time. <br /><br />This morning, up far too early (again) I did something I’ve been doing a few times a week for the last 4 years. I got up, and went out to sit on the deck stairs with my first cup of coffee, and play a game of 2-ball fetch with Mojo. Not too long ago I read a discussion thread about how useless this game is. The speakers described the game as “mindless” and the human participant as no better than “a ball machine”. I remember feeling a little bad about doing it when I read the discussion. It’s one of the things I do all summer for sure, but honestly all the time for him. As I watched Mojo light up with joy when I came out the back door with two balls this morning, I decided (again and finally) that I really don’t care what those people think of this game. Dog training pros they might be, and many more may agree., but I know that 2 dozen tosses of a ball before 5 am on a day predicted to hit 100 degrees is Mojo’s equivalent to me sitting down and watching Survivor. It IS mindless. So what of it? I ask a lot of him. I ask him to track well, be quick and correct in obedience, be strong and convincing, and <strong>very </strong>under control in bite work. I ask him not to bite the neighbors, or my old dog, and overall, Mojo complies. Not always joyfully (okay, rarely joyfully), but he complies. <br /><br />When I started running I used to go between 4 and 5 am. I started running in July of 2005, I told myself it was because of the heat, really, I just wanted the cover of darkness. Running is hard, and if I needed to stop and suck wind, I wanted as few witnesses as possible. Somewhere along the way I got over that. Maybe just as the running got harder, and I had to focus on it more, I stopped realizing anyone else existed during those “I’m sucking wind” moments. Entirely possible, running hurts.<br /><br />Whatever the truth, when I watch Mojo racing across the lawn in the pre-dawn hours during our ‘mindless game’ what comes to mind is what his breeder told me when I pushed her about the fact that I hadn’t signed a contract. She said she wasn’t worried about it because she knew I would take care of him. That, in the end is what matters. Of course he needs a job, and mental stimulation, and he has that. But he also needs a bowl of popcorn and a sofa to cheer on idiots left in a jungle with a bag of rice 2 months. <br /><br />This all may seem simplistic, and maybe it is. I’m not really sure what else someone who hasn’t slept more than 5 hours at a time for the last 8 months is capable of. I just know that the events of the last 8 months of made me re-evaluate a whole host of things in my life., not just dog training bits, some much more personal and hard to hear. <br /><br />I’m not dumb enough to think I have it all figured out, I've made that mistake too often, but I do know that Mojo is out back, laying in his baby pool, drinking some of the same water, happy. That, coupled with leaning into being okay with the decisions I am making these days, get me a whole lot closer to happy as well.Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-22348133726100232022011-05-30T00:07:00.003+00:002011-05-30T00:12:11.271+00:00You all knew it was comingA month or so ago, I thought I was going to a dog training seminar for the holiday weekend, so I requested three days off. When things didn’t work out the way I had planned, I didn’t rescind my leave request. I decided, to take my Body Pump instructors advice when heading into a difficult set, and use the time off to “get my mind right”. <br /><br />For the changes just behind me, and for those just ahead, I needed very much to have my mind right. <br /><br />I finished getting the upstairs ready, new mattress in, old one to the dump, books and bookcase packed up and stored. The last box of his shit packed up and carried downstairs. <br /><br />I went to the gym, got a pedicure, went shopping, to the pool, and got a facial. I have been unable to sleep more than 4 hours a night since he told me he was leaving in January. With prescription medication, I could get 5 hours. This weekend, I took a nap. <br /><br />It’s not over; I’m not completely over what he did, to me, to us. <br />I am just not sorry anymore. <br />He chose this. He chose to lie, and cheat and quit. <br />He listened to my crying, and apologizing and never once owned up to his mistakes. In the end he chose to keep making the same mistakes that have ruined every other major relationship in his life. And, I just can’t care or <em>take care </em>of him for one minute longer. <br /><br />The box weighed 43lbs. I carried down the stairs, put in the bed of the truck, and carried it into the pack and ship up the street; I wouldn’t let them help me. I needed to do this last thing. I tracked those 43 lbs as they traveled northward. When the notice arrived that it was left on his front porch I deleted the email. <br /><br />My new tenant moves in next weekend.<br />I have a goal date for Mojo’s next title. <br />I start a new work schedule and in a new department, on Tuesday.<br />I have a first date. <br /><br />I don’t know where any of these things might lead. I’m not entirely sure I care where some of them lead, but I care that they are steps forward, every good run I’ve ever had started with just a few steps forward. <br /><br />If that's not getting my mind right, I don't know what is.Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-44328193880118434392011-03-22T23:04:00.001+00:002011-03-22T23:06:30.374+00:00Montana Sage“Burn it when he’s gone”, she said as she passed the light green bundle of leaves and twigs to her, “it will clear the negativity” pausing only to bring the bundle to her nose just briefly, then almost to herself alone, “We picked this in Montana, it’s Montana Sage”. <br />This is the kind of thing that had anyone else told her she would have smiled,rolled her eyes and never done it. This friend was different, though, this was the friend she never should have made, the friend she no longer would know what do without knowing she existed in the world. <br />The sage sat in her truck for days. She picked it up at stoplights and smelled it, thinking about Montana and remembering that night with her friend. She didn’t want to bring it inside the house, didn’t want to explain it to anyone, or think about all it represented every time she passed it on the desk or kitchen table. <br />When she was ready, or thought she was, she carried it inside the house, not brave enough to carry it upstairs, she sat on the living room floor in her quiet, quiet house, with just the dogs as witnesses and lit the little bundle of sage. <br />She cried, the dogs watched, the sage burned.<br />At some point she lit the other end, for the friend that gave it to her, and the weight of the loss, this seemed right.Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-16854741766240411332011-02-27T11:35:00.002+00:002011-02-27T11:38:35.140+00:00thoughts from rubber and the roadNorthbound this morning I thought of you, brother. You driving southbound, in the Comet, noting to yourself that speed kills. You went south to support a friend in need; I went north, the one in need.<br />My first trip in the new truck, the dog you never met curled in his crate, tail over his nose, I imagined. Five short days from yet another birthday you aren’t here for, I feel the same thing I always feel when your absence rears its head. Alone. There is just no end to that, it seems. It wasn’t a speedy death I worried about this morning or really any death at all. It was everything else. <br />The road didn’t take me past your house, and I was glad, even though my heart still wishes I could hear you give directions one more time to “E M, like Auntie EM “ Street. I wondered if I ever would understand you and Grace, if you ever got over the hurt, and how on earth you did. I wondered what advice you would give me now, and cursed the circumstances that lead me to wish your counsel was available today. No one else has the words - that was always your job. <br />Sometimes, there’s peace in miles rolling under wheels, sometimes in the music I hear, or in something only found alone in a car with your thoughts, popcorn crumbs and static interrupting songs you haven’t heard in years, but like enough slow down and hope the song ends before the signal fades. I am trying to hold onto the moments of peace I found in those moments today. Recently I’ve been told my talent is in words, and my failing is in human contact. It seems my desire to write for a living falls right in line with my personal failings. I think this is a good thing to find out, but it cuts deeply. <br />I don’t know what I expected, ever. I only know when I don’t have it. It’s like that job interview question, “where do you want to be in five years” although I never say it, the only answer that ever rings in my head is “happy”. It’s maybe why I’m not such a great employee. <br />Changing everything doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. I did that once, 6 years ago, thought it made things better, today I’m not sure, and I’m not sure it will help things if I do it again but I’m going to. Last time I left the people that cared most for me behind, this time, I’m going to them. The people and places that I may never tell anything to, but their presence and their concern may just be enough. Enough to keep me from feeling like someone left a door to a cold winter open in my chest. Wind raging and stinging so cold it brings tears to my eyes. Drafts so cold as to leave me feeling like a solitary tree on an open plain, bent from its force, and unprotected. <br />I don’t choose to fight this one alone, unprotected is not where I want to be. Maybe I should have made friends with pain when I had the chance, when it was what kept me company night after night, day after day, but I didn’t and I won’t this time either. <br />On the road, I remember roll call in your class, the comment that made everyone giggle when a student wasn’t there, “absence really the strangest sort of presence”. <br />It’s the truest thing I know today.Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-60667409892198441552011-02-05T14:33:00.001+00:002011-02-05T14:35:10.455+00:00A crisis of faithDuring a conversation, this phrase ran through my head. Unfortunately it ran through my head because the words that were being said about me made me think that the speaker, through no fault of their own had been having a crisis of faith, in me. <br /><br />The idea that I had so deeply let someone this important down, and for so long, was nothing short of devastating. Feeling gut shot, I stumbled through the next 5 days a husk of nauseated, shaky, sobbing grief. How I had let this happen, a slow progression of all the things I hate about the complacency that comes over time in close relationships. I spoke and they heard things I could never mean, think or do; and they spoke and I just didn’t hear, again and again. <br /><br />A traditional crisis of faith is defined by me in non secular terms as a crisis demanding an uncompromising decision – one that sufficiently reconciles the cause of doubt with the belief or the discarding of the belief altogether. Although faith is generally used in reference to a higher power; and I am *not* comparing myself to a deity, I do believe faith is something we all feel, in the people and often, world around us, religious or not. In some ways, faith is beyond definition, those of any religious persuasion have faith their chosen God exists, cares for them and is all powerful. Intellectual disparities matter not at all. <br /><br />So what do you do when you find yourself as the source of so much pain in a loved one there seems no way back to forgiveness and love? When all that has gone before, has seemingly been discarded, or at least written over in black magic marker, by the harm you inflicted? I am feeling sorry enough for myself, and don’t want sympathy. I have never ‘hung in there’ before, when the hurt comes, I leave. How does a classically faithless girl find redemption in the heart of a loved one? Where do you even start?Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-57640115843384874352010-09-08T01:50:00.002+00:002010-09-08T01:53:34.383+00:00I HAVE TWO DOGS THAT HATE EACH OTHER, AND NOW I HAVE ONE WITH 3 LEGS*They say the more things change, the more they stay the same. I disagree. <br />Things ‘round here are changing and nothing is staying the same. <br /><br />I don’t really think I’m complaining, but aside from the physical location of my home, I barely recognize my life. My Dad had often marveled at the number of job changes I’ve had. For him (and maybe his generation) he went from 25 years in the military to 25 years at a private corporation. The idea of his daughter changing jobs, and even careers, especially at my “advanced” age was not easy for him. I think he thought I was chasing butterflies and in a way, maybe I have been. I’ve admittedly sort of followed a path career wise, and not cut a path. Somewhere along the way, I decided that when the thing in front of you seemed right, no matter how different, how out of character, how risky, how ‘not like me’ I gave it a shot. This is said to sound as though I was full of confidence and positive feelings, because I rarely if ever was. Somewhere in my genetic make-up was a healthy dose of ‘make the best of it’. So I did, or at least I tried to. Along the way I found some things I liked, some I definitely did not, and a few I utterly disliked. Also, I discovered some things I was really good at, and some things I really wasn’t good at. Lucky for me, I also discovered just a couple of things I genuinely loved. <br /><br />Veterinary medicine was my first grown-up love, anesthesia was the first thing I was really damn good at, dog training and horse back riding swept me off my feet, regulatory writing helped me find a lost love of creative writing, (also, it showed me that I’m really bad at telling people what they want to hear and not just what I think.) <br /><br />Talking to a friend this afternoon, I had the realization that if all the mistakes I’ve made in my life got me where I am today - I am not so sure I can even call them mistakes. In particular, if all the bad relationships I’ve had got me to the one where I’m finally with the guy that when I call him on a random Tuesday afternoon and tell him I’m bringing home a three-legged foster dog that needs some rehab and some love responds with “I can’t wait to meet him” and not a list (even if it is legitimate) of why I shouldn’t do it. I think I’ll just be grateful for those missteps. <br /><br />I don’t know that I fully recognize my life from the outside, but from the inside, it feels better, and more like home than anything in years past. Things, they are not easy these days, money is tight, loved ones are on borrowed time, cars are getting old, debt isn’t shrinking, and the lottery is looking more and more like a viable retirement plan, but, I sent marshmallow shooters to friends a few weeks ago, and bought 2 for the house. From now on, all arguments will be solved via marshmallow war. <br /><br />Take that lousy economy, stuck up doctors, crappy long war, “mosque” protests, still high unemployment rate, and mounting school debt. <br /><br />I'm packing marshmellows and I know how to use them.<br /><br />*love you Daisy.Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-11887810143565826322010-08-28T23:55:00.002+00:002010-08-29T00:11:55.644+00:00Pear ShapedA long absence, indeed.<br />Thirteen months ago, I, along with so many others in today's world got laid off. I did some contract work, received unemployment, and went back to school. For the record, I'm still in school, graduation date is yet to be determined, but it's coming along nicely.<br /><br />A month ago, I started a new job, and it's a job, and I'm grateful for it. It's not perfect, but what ever is?<br /><br />Now, on the other side of it, I can admit how comnpletely I fell apart after losing my job. Nothing prepared me for the level of failure I felt. I tried to stay positive, and quickly threw myself into school and the bit of contract work I got, but the uncertainity really set my on my arse. No matter who was looking at me, I only saw my own perception of myself, a failure, a disappointment, in their eyes. It cut so deep I stopped looking. I stopped everything. I buried myself deep in papers and grades and dog training and looked only into the chocolate brown eyes of my dogs, who love me... anyway.<br /><br />I am not proud of the things I did and didn't do during a lot of the last year. I neglected the ones dearest to my heart. I didn't do wantonly, but I did do it. Although I've said I'm sorry, many times over, it never seems enough when you know you've hurt the ones you love the most. <br /><br />Maybe because I'm getting old(er) this stuff, this starting over stuff, is just plain hard. I know I'll find my way, I don't have much 'quit' in me. I just hope I can find some of those old friends along the way, and that they'll find it in their hearts to forgive me.Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-12275529003771540702009-12-29T13:56:00.001+00:002009-12-29T13:58:47.475+00:00What do you do with a drunken sailor?I knew I would write this morning, because I dreamt of Mark last night. It was like a visual reminder, if you want to write, do it every day, something he told me and we all found out he definitely did when we cleaned out his house. Mark was riding around in the back of an old Nissan Sentra, one with bumper stickers plastered all of over the back of it. This car exists in my real-time life. It belongs to one of the women at the farm that drives me crazy. Mark was there, arm draped over the back of the seat, leather jacket, white shirt, singing in a Bob Dylan twang to my friend Staci. Staci, was laughing loudly, and glancing alternately at Mark in the rear view mirror and to her right at me in the passenger seat. <br /> <br /> Our destination was some sort of cookout. Mark headed for the barbecue and didn’t come back for the rest of the dream. Staci and I sat at a long picnic table, laughing about something and were joined by a couple, a couple that clearly couldn’t find any other place to sit, judging by how uncomfortable they seemed sitting with us. It only got worse, when Mandy arrived, plate in hand, her well behaved food sitting in its sections ever so careful to not touch. Soon enough, the couple disappeared too. I cannot blame anyone in my dreams or my real world that feels the desire to evaporate when I am with these two women. It’s a little bit like watching twins that have their own language. There is a divider, while not meant to be entirely exclusionary, it does create a space between the us, and the not us. <br /><br /> There was no major revelation in this dream. I had no great insight, or million dollar idea. The world’s greatest novel was not born in this dream last night. I do think it had a message for me. You see, yesterday, was one of those damn days, the ones where I feel that everything I touch turns to complete crap. Where even looking back, what’s in the rear view mirror looks like ruin, both the places and the people. Right about 4 pm I hated absolutely everything about the last 20 or so years. I couldn’t find a nugget of goodness in myself or my ‘doings.’ Fortunately, I know that these days come and they go. I still find them hard to deal with and in truth, spend most of them crying and feeling inept and without value. I think, the dream was reminding me of those who love (d) me the most, those that do see the good in me, even at my worst. I think I needed that reminder, because it is now, during winter, that I can be dragged into believing there is no good, no hope, left in the world. <br /><br /> There is in fact, a poem that ends with this line “nothing now can ever come to any good” it is a poem about losing someone, and the first time I heard it I felt as though it had been etched into my sunburned skin with a shard of broken glass. It is an amazing thing, the power words strung together just so can have. I only need to think of the poem, the images it creates in my head, some memories, some conjured by the words, and I am standing outside a funeral home in Fairfax Virginia on the coldest day of my life while a man named Archer sits inside at long shiny wooden dining table talking to my mother and sisters about “the remains.” I left before I punched him, but not before I reminded him that the remains had a goddamn name. <br /><br /> I felt better this morning, just a little. I suppose it could have been the dream, or just the bright sunshine through the blinds and the cold dog nose pressed to my forearm. In that, there is hope to share.Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-5564687112773762862009-12-27T13:56:00.002+00:002009-12-27T14:01:09.307+00:00Meet me in Banner Elk next October.Fat black sharpie in hand, I crossed off yesterday’s date on my calendar this morning, mentally ticking off the days until the new year. Just four to go. I thought briefly about the past year, about the big things that have happened, and wondered even more briefly what 2010 would hold. Usually, I just feel hopeful at the end of a year, this year, there’s a good bit more fear mixed in. A month or so ago, I met with a real estate agent, got a rough, non-official appraisal on my house, just in case I need to put it on the market this spring. I told myself then, as I do each time I tell this fact to someone, I’d rather sell my house than lose it. It’s true, but it makes me unspeakably sad. I don’t know that I had envisioned the step that came after this little Cape Cod house, but I feel confident it was never, ever, leave it before I lose it. Deciding it was too early for such dark thoughts; I poured another cup of coffee and headed for the couch. <br /><br /> The early darkness of winter makes me nuts and truth be told, a little sad. I don’t know that I’m one of those people that are truly affected by the lack of sunlight, but my spirits sure are. Yesterday morning, sick of just about everything, I shoved myself out the door to the gym, determined to chase the winter doldrums away. I took a new class, one whose ad has one of those perfectly sculpted females on it, and the slogan “Pressure makes diamonds.” This, to a different person, would have been a clue. In early November, I got a horrible cold, worst one I’ve had in years, knocked me back for a good 3 weeks. On Thanksgiving Day when I went to run the turkey trot, I hadn’t run a step in roughly 2.5 weeks. I had no grand hopes; and that turned out to be a very good thing. I ended that run a full 5 minutes slower than the year previous, but with a really cool shirt (purple, with a turkey on it!) and a flier for North Carolina’s newest marathon. I wore the shirt on Thanksgiving Day. I put the flier on my desk and looked at it nearly every day. A week or so ago, I pulled it out and mapped out a training schedule for the half-marathon. I am not mentally ready for school, work (I hope) and full marathon training; the half will have to do. The week starting tomorrow is week 1. <br /><br /> Twelve weeks from now, I hope to have been successful in consistently training for 13.1 miles. I hope 2010 looks better than it did early this morning. If I have put my house on the market I hope it’s because I cashed in a winning lottery ticket, and am moving to Belize, or perhaps, just because I got a job offer somewhere else and am moving by choice, not out of necessity and fear. <br /><br /> Someone told me a few weeks ago that those wooly bear caterpillars are predictors of winter weather, if they have a lot of brown and very little black it means that we are in for a hard winter. Curious about this I went looking for more information and discovered that right here in North Carolina (Banner Elk to be exact) there is actually a Wooly Worm Festival in which the highlight is a Wooly Worm race which ends with the Mayor pronouncing the winner (no doubt he has to pronounce it loudly to wake the spectators) and examining the caterpillar and declaring the winter weather forecast. However bizarre this information, there is some scientific research that backs this up. The one I was examining that day a few weeks ago was nearly all brown. Even without a mayor to pronounce it, it appears this winter is going to be long one. I suppose you can’t argue with a wooly bear caterpillar. So, I won’t. I will hope, just a little more this year than in years past, for a correspondingly brighter spring.Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-78365401587415080452009-12-23T13:46:00.002+00:002009-12-23T13:54:13.688+00:00Baby, it's cold outside.I am struck by the parallels between writing and running. Every question a hopeful runner asks themselves,, is the same a hopeful writer asks. <br /> “How do I get better/stronger/faster?”<br /> “How often should I do it?”<br /> “What do I need?”<br /> “When am I a ‘real’ runner/writer?”<br /><br />When doubt is winning the war, these turn into declarative statements, <br /> “I’ll never be better/stronger/faster.<br /> “I don’t have enough time to work on it.”<br /> “I don’t have what I need.”<br /> “I’ll never be a real runner/writer.”<br /><br />This may not be news to anyone. For me it is a reminder. A reminder that running was and still is hard, and that I am capable of hard things.<br /><br />In running, you just lace up your shoes and get to stepping. I know this because I did it. Less than 24 hours after I quit smoking, I started running. <br /><br />Now, approaching 5 years later, it is those earliest runs I repeat in my head when I need encouragement. I still see myself, in those blue addidas running pants with the 3 white stripes down the side heading down into the weird part of my old neighborhood, the part where all the houses were dark brown wood duplexes, and there were no street lights. At 4 am, it was dark down there. That part, despite being all downhill, was often the hardest part, to this day, the first 3 to 5 minutes of nearly every run, still feels like a really bad idea. <br /><br />The next long stretch of road was all flat, full of weird 4 way stops, and the house that was in the news, an elderly lady died there that summer, and no one knew for a very long time. Well, no one except her 47 cats. The entire house had to be demolished. For months, it was just a large dirt spot in between houses. A dirt spot that, I swear, still smelled like cat urine. It was here I got my rhythm, where I got my first inklings of what I thought a ‘real runner’ felt like. I have found little else in the world like the power of moving through t he world powered only by my own feet and brain, and maybe a little Rob Zombie. I remember running along this road, wondering if people would look out their windows as they started their coffee pot, see me, and think 'look at that crazy runner’. I hoped so.<br /><br />The third stretch of these runs was my nemesis. The hill at E. Maple. Initially, I couldn’t run up even one quarter of it. That changed over time, with practice. <br /><br />The last stretch, quite literally the home stretch, past the elementary school and the Getty-mart, down the street that ran right to my little condo and the visitors parking lot where I would cool down and stretch. Still alone, still in the dark. <br /><br />Many more runs came after these first ones, many races too. Yet, it is these practice runs my mind returns to when I struggle with running, and now with writing. <br /><br />I would quite staunchly defend myself to anyone who declared me not a ‘real runner’ because I can’t run a 7 or even 8 minute mile. I run, therefore I am a runner. The clock does not define me. It may define them, or maybe not them, but something in their world that is important to them. I can, now, let go of that. I have met those people, at races, on the trails, even in shoe stores, they can’t be bothered with so called recreational runners, they have splits to make consistent, or better, to make negative. They have qualifying times to meet; and other very important runner-things to do. I am wasting my time in their eyes. It’s good that I am not looking at myself through their eyes. I see them as dedicated, competent, passionate, and in love with the thing that running has become for them, and not so much the act of running itself. I could be wrong about this. <br /><br />When I sit down to write, it becomes a lesson in truth-telling. Will I say what I really feel about something – or will I be cowed by the possibility of discovery, and what those that discover it will say, think, feel about me because of the words on the page.<br /><br />My brother once wrote a poem, a poem that he said was a lesbian, and that poem fucked many other woman poems. He said it, just like that. He wrote it, it was published, and he gave, sold and distributed that book to friends, family, even our parents(!), students, and strangers. He had no fear of saying exactly what he meant, of being exactly who he was. <br /><br />I think my question about writing isn’t when will I be a real writer, but when will I brave enough to expose the real me. When will I whip out my promiscuous poems (lesbian or otherwise) with pride and not fear?<br /><br />The truth is I don’t know. So in the meantime, I will follow the path that made me a real runner. <br /><br />I’ll practice.Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-3016625290410813842009-12-22T12:35:00.002+00:002009-12-22T12:39:27.732+00:00Deify Plums!I drink coffee at all times of the day – but that first cup, that morning coffee, is always the best cup. When I lived alone, I used to start the pot brewing, clean up the kitchen from whatever detritus was left from the previous night, and take that first cup out on the back deck with my young dog and his favorite toy. <br />Since he was very young, a simple game of fetch has been a winner for this dog. So, I would drink my coffee with one hand and throw the toy with the other. My coffee comes in a cup; his comes, most often, in the form of red rubber Kong toy. When the cup was empty the game was done for the morning. I had things to do, a shower to take, a job to get ready for. <br /><br />Since I lost my job in July, that game of fetch can come randomly, at any time of the day. When I have freelance work, it’s sometimes what I do to clear my head when I’ve been agonizing over something I’m supposed to analyze and interpret in nice, objective, scientific text. This randomness has driven this poor dog of mine nearly over the edge. Now, if you so much as twitch in the direction of the back door, he’s through the dog door like a rocket, whining, craning his neck toward the kitchen sink, desperate to see you, toy in hand, following him out the back door. You can practically hear his little hear pounding in anticipation. It’s hard to let him down.<br /><br />This morning, I woke up a full hour and then some earlier than I have been since July. I started the coffee pot, cleaned up the kitchen, found my boots and the red rubber Kong. He had not forgotten. We played fetch in the cold and dark, on the hard ground, bright stars overhead. I watched my breath rise above me and his plume out around him as he ran to the far corner of the yard, chasing his toy. Frost made the ground shine in the fluorescent light, and crunch under his feet and mine. We played till my fingers got numb. He was ready for more; I was only ready for more coffee.Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-38118877814099990222009-10-09T12:04:00.003+00:002009-10-09T12:44:17.818+00:00A nudgeI've been duly nudged by a friend and reader, that I've been gone too long. <br /><br />Things aren't all bad, but they certainly aren't what I expected either. I am working a bit, as an independent contractor/freelance writer. It has a strong appeal for me, because it allows me to work from home, whatever hours I need to work. So when I have down time, I go to the gym, ride horses, or train my dog. I also cook and clean more. Interestingly enough, I chose this time in my life, (you know the time where I don't have a steady job), to start taking classes, classes working towards my Master's degree. So, working like this also allows me to do homework, or other class assignments. Sweet, right? Well, kind of. The downside is from one week to the next, I don't know if I'm going to have work. It's nerve-wracking at best, and ulcer-inducing at worst. I'm trying to stay positive, and convince myself that the next job/temporary or not, is on the horizon, and adopt that whole "everything happens for a reason" attitude. <br />Sometimes it even works, at least for a couple of hours. <br /><br />My health insurance coverage ended this month, and there's nothing like not being truly employed coupled with not having health insurance to make you suddenly become more interested in the unending health care debate. Honestly I can't voice an opinion because I just haven't sat down and down my due diligence on the proposed bills, but I can tell you, that I think at least once a week, "what would happen to me if I fell off this horse/had a car accident/tripped going down the stairs and broke [fill in the blank], OR (heaven forbid) found a lump in my breast/had a seizure/got swine flu and needed medical care". Maybe because I've always had it and now suddenly don't, it weighs more heavily than for those that just never had it, but geeezy pete, this is not a happy place.<br /><br />Things at home have shifted a good bit as well. My long-term boyfriend and I took that big "let's live together" step. So he and his 2 dogs (one of whom I love, the other not so much) have moved in. Unfortunately (but expectedly) my young dog has come into his own "maleness" in the last 3 months or so, and has decided he will no longer accept being pushed around by my old dog or the boyfriend's older female. Our house resembles Poland these days, a place divided by the ruling factions. Heh. Yeah. There's a two closed doors between warring dogs at all times policy. There was a bit of bloodshed and a LOT of hurt feelings (mostly on the part of the boyfriend) while we sorted this all out, but so far, it's working just fine. I find myself deciding to move from room to room in order to spend "equal" time with the dogs, which sometimes feels ridiculous but that certainly hasn't stopped me from doing things in the past, so I see no reason to start worrying about it now.<br /><br />All in all, things could be way worse, and most of the time I'm grateful for what I have that's going right. Sometimes, that doesn't seem like a lot, and sometimes, it seems like Everything. So, if you catch me on the right day, Everything is just fine.Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-43920487877348042682009-09-06T22:20:00.005+00:002009-09-06T22:25:12.532+00:00HiatusThe last two days, I’ve had the same dream. <br />I’m standing on the corner of two streets in the neighborhood I grew up in. The park is just behind me on the right, the scene of the first joint I smoked; just a road beyond that is the house I grew up in. The house where my first memories were born, where some the biggest influences in my life first entered. To my left, maybe a block away is the house of the girl who was my best friend in grade school. To my right is the road that would take me to my first experiences with teen love and lust. For me, mostly the latter, for my friends, both in equal measure. Love, for me, was many years away.<br />I can’t figure out which way to go in the dream. I end up sitting on the curb with my head between my knees. I’m not crying. I am simply too overwhelmed to feel just one emotion. So I just sit there. <br />I’d have to be dead to not see the parallel in this dream to my own life right now. I feel like I am working really hard at just being okay, and it feel s so much like treading water I can’t figure out why I’m not wet. I can’t quite get to okay though. I am restless and exhausted, never quite sated in any arena, from the work I do to the meals I eat. I’ve had a headache nearly every day for the last 12 days or more. Sometimes they go away for awhile, but mostly they just retreat until I actually need to sit down and analyze data for the contract work I’m doing here and there. It forces me to write, then do something else, then go back and recheck, reword, reanalyze. <br />The permanent job I thought I had fell through, and while I’m grateful and lucky to have the contract work I do, the temporary nature of it is harder for me to deal with than I ever imagined. I worry all the time and the rest of the time I’m just plain sick to my stomach scared. I will be taking a couple of classes this fall, I’m considering my next degree, because what better time to reevaluate your life than when the one you were expecting to have is suddenly gone? I haven’t any idea how to pay for that anymore than I know how I’m going to pay anything else without regular work, but there I am, signing up for classes and buying rubber mulch for my empty flower beds like it’s any other fall. <br />I can be cheery and optimistic for the length of a phone call or email, or on a bad day just long enough to throw out a random facebook status update or to conduct a text message conversation. The rest of the time I’m wearing old sweats and thinking about the fetal position and it’s very difficult to type in the fetal position. <br />So yeah, now you know.Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-78214292985135374462009-08-10T00:47:00.004+00:002009-08-10T01:10:35.855+00:00For Joe, all the words I have.Twice in the last five years I've had the responsibility of relaying the news that someone we love has died. Once, to my mother, who's response was, "I'm coming" followed by a dial tone, and just recently to a friend when we lost a mutual friend. I found her disbelief rocked me almost more than the news itself. Her words, "I don't believe it, I'm calling him right now" and a beat or two later, more softly,"but I don't want him to be dead" sat in my head and my in heart, for at least a week. I wrote them down in my orange composition notebook in all caps and I looked at it everyday. I thought about how there just aren't any truer words to be spoken when that kind of news is delivered. Her grief, her anger, put me in touch with my own. I was traveling, somewhere in Delaware I think, when I got the word myself, I kept it together, more easily than I'd like to admit. But later that night confronted with her disbelief, her grief, I pulled to the side of the Interstate 476and sobbed. <br /><br />During the week, his memorial was held, and our group of runner friends, they honored our friend by showing up at his service in their finest, accessorized with running shoes and leopard print scarves, honoring our beloved runner/caveman. Those that couldn't attend the service interrupted their normal schedules and ran at the appointed hour. I joined them in this, doing my speed work on the hotel treadmill and not caring much that the guy on the bowflex in the corner looked distressed and a little scared when I broke into tears during my last interval. I was remembering a few years back, when he broke 4 hours at the Philadelphia Marathon, and me, unable to attend, tracked him online all morning, screaming loudly enough to frighten the dog, as I watched his splits bringing him closer to his goal, 26.2 in under four hours. He did it. <br />And I cried alone in my living room, reveling in his success. <br /><br />The man had a huge heart, a kind word, an open mind, and a smile for everyone he met. He never met a burrito he didn't like, and his perseverance made me a better runner. Proving time and time again, that the only limitations there truly are, are those we put on ourselves, everything else, EVERYTHING else, is negotiable, and in our own hands.<br /><br />Dammit, Stace, I don't want him to be dead either.Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-37932690683823905742009-07-24T14:16:00.003+00:002009-07-24T14:48:41.081+00:00Ch-ch-changes!I got on the treadmill at the hotel the other day and set the time for 45 minutes. My pace wasn't easy, but it wasn't really hard either. I threw a hand towel over the display and turned on the ridiculously over-size flat screen television at the front of the gym. I flipped channels idly, finding nothing compelling enough to hold my attention for more than a few minutes. <br /><br />Feeling strong, I picked up the pace, and was rewarded with a feeling I don't get often enough. The one that says I could run forever. That feeling came along with the completely emotional one of "and I wish I could just stay on this treadmill forever". Okay, to those of you who don't run, that sounds crazy, but no, I wasn't losing my grip on the last threads of sanity, it was just that running makes everything simple and uncomplicated. One foot in front of the other, breathe, when it gets hard, slow down, when you feel good, speed up, thirsty, drink. Simple.<br /><br />Life lately, has gotten complicated.<br /><br />A week earlier, after working very late on a Tuesday night, I was invited to a mandatory teleconference mid-afternoon on Wednesday. I called into find out I was one of 300 people at company ABC, who were being "released" thank you for all your years of service, come in tomorrow and drop off your company belongings, and have a nice day. I took that job 3 years ago, unsure I would like it, and was as surprised as those around me to find that I enjoyed it more than I expected, and along the way made some amazing friends. The kind of friends that remember good anniversaries and sad ones, and throw puppy showers when you bring your new 8 week old four-footed friend home. <br /><br />Oh, I know, I shouldn't have been so surprised. I'm just one more of thousands of good people finding themselves adding websites like career builder to their Internet favorites folder, talking to recruiters, and hoping that a friend of a friend of a friend really will deliver your resume to the 'right hands' and the 'right hands' will dial the phone and ask you to come in for an interview. I was though, surprised, I mean. Stunned even. I can remember now staring at the contents of the open refrigerator and thinking that I should wait to eat until I was really hungry, because soon, I was going to run out of food. So. Melodramatic. Just where does that stuff come from? Company ABC gave me a severance package, although not huge, it's something, and I certainly realize the gift that 2 months is. Yet, that day, on the treadmill, I still wanted to run forever, just deal with the cadence of my footsteps, and not the rest of what I was thinking and feeling since losing my job. Logically, I know I did nothing wrong, emotionally, it feels somewhat humiliating. <br /><br />Plainly, it just sucks.<br /><br />I've done all the right things, filed for unemployment, and of course, I'm actively looking, talking and seeking work. I have my first interview today, and I'm not feeling too bad about it, a little unsteady, but I suppose given the way of the world these days, unsteady is probably the new black.<br /><br />So, I'll wear my new black to my interview today and see where it takes me.Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-86886361584988474982009-04-20T22:44:00.005+00:002009-04-21T18:39:01.428+00:00Catching up<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifWP5Dw64LfUkx5Qo5IG2G2T-Atwp74YjhVJ7Ug9emrFhQVqNjgtdpEQ-4tRdddt0ogKqI3v0KIwRu2mz2dHj5FDjNUfHb5TYsWQpDLyQe_-jvnpmVC04BRdGHgph586fjAop3IVhytA/s1600-h/Cemetery.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifWP5Dw64LfUkx5Qo5IG2G2T-Atwp74YjhVJ7Ug9emrFhQVqNjgtdpEQ-4tRdddt0ogKqI3v0KIwRu2mz2dHj5FDjNUfHb5TYsWQpDLyQe_-jvnpmVC04BRdGHgph586fjAop3IVhytA/s320/Cemetery.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327215963023352082" /></a><br />So, I look up and nearly a month has gone by, that, was not intentional. Life has been, if nothing else, interesting in the last month., and that is something to be grateful for I suppose, at least I have not died of boredom.<br /><br />Spring has arrived in North Carolina, and despite several interruptions of rain, rain and cold, cold and rain, and rain, I've already had to cut my grass and just today spent some time wandering around the backyard noting all the new baby grass sprouting in the areas I put down seed earlier in the year. <br /><br />I went to church on Easter Sunday with a friend. You'll know it was a good friend when I tell you I not only went, but went to a <strong>sunrise </strong>service in a <strong>cemetery</strong>. I've always thought religion was macabre, and this fit right in to that notion. I want to tell you it was a beautiful cemetery, but that seems wrong. Just how beautiful can a place full of dead people be? The grounds were pretty, the trees were overwhelmingly beautiful, and the service included an all brass band that performed multiple times and was more impressive each time, but it was, a cemetery. While I have no desire to be planted when I pass on, as the idea of becoming human mulch does not work for me personally, I am a staunch believer in 'to each his own' and I am as respectful of burial places as I know how to be. So I was more than a little surprised as I watched the people joining the service around me as they trod over graves, and bumped into/rested on crypts. To say I was disappointed when I noticed the minister gave his sermon from atop someones stone grave marker would be an understatement. <br /><br />The service itself, seemed a little dark given that at least in my mind, in my limited prior religious experience, Easter Sunday should be a celebration. I walked away feeling like the minister felt we should all be wringing our hands and weeping while kneeling on a bed of nails waiting for Christ's return. No joy in mudville would be permitted. <br /><br />The going meant something deeply personal to my friend so I am glad to have done it, regardless of my own (unchanged) feelings for organized religion. My friend and I followed the service with grilled corn on the cob, sweet potatoes and burgers. We read a little on my deck and watched the dogs play and dig and run in the very welcome sunshine.<br /><br />I had my first interview with the Weight Watchers folks, and although it might still come together, it's going to be a way off., they just don't have the need for more people right now. I can wait. Somethings are worth the waiting.<br /><br />Last week I returned to Philadelphia for dog training. It was a welcome change of pace to the previous busy few weeks at work. Sleeping in, even in a hotel, and not having to be anywhere until 10, feels like some sort of decadence, especially when I realize the place I have to be at 10 is an open field, with my dog and a trainer, a trainer I love and respect more each hour I spend with him. I leave Philadelphia feeling completely not-crazy for trying to finance these trips or at least I feel comfortable enough with the level of crazy it might be to shrug it off when I tell people and they get <strong>the</strong> look. The one that suggests they are thinking there might be something seriously wrong with me. <br /><br />I ran another 10k - my best race in some time. It wasn't a record breaker and the Olympic committee isn't knocking down my door, but it was a success by my yard stick. A (relatively) fast, extremely consistent, happy, feel-good 6.2 miles followed by a trip to the local bakery that sponsored the race for a free loaf of bread and a bag of jambalaya soup mix. In my world, that's a damn good way to start any day. <br /><br />I got my final receipt for the beach house rental in the mail the other day - just about 7 weeks to go. I bought a polka-dot bathing suit and a multi-colored-striped beach umbrella. I told the dogs we were going. The thought of 7 wake-ups with good friends, good coffee and dog-beach walking is more than enough to get me through the next 7 weeks - no matter what they hold. You're invited to stop by, look for the umbrella, planted somewhere off Sand Road, I'll have a pitcher of mimosas in the cooler and be sitting with the red head with the wicked sense of humor and irrational fear of chickens. <br /><br />It's guaranteed to be a good time.Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-56576708693205837292009-03-24T01:08:00.003+00:002009-03-24T01:28:16.914+00:00Just a post about a runI am, still, after four years of running, completely suprised at how the simple act of moving through the world on my own two feet at a pace of my own choosing can make me makes me so strong, so powerful.<br /><br />I worked from home today, and just before lunch, laced up my running shoes and headed out the door. Spring has reared her head here, so things are greening and blooming and it was cool and breezy, and bright and clear. Perfect running weather. I dragged out my garmin forerunner for this run, because I at least wanted to know how far I went, regardless of the pace. Technically, Mondays are supposed to be recovery runs for me (which would imply I did something on Sunday to recover from) but I didn't run this weekend, I rode both horses on Sunday, and while my core and abductors are very sore, running doesn't ease riding soreness. So off I went. <br /><br />I made up the run as I went along. Since I was running along the main road in front of my neighborhood, I left the IPOD at home. I got some running advice from a guy picking up his mail "pick your knees up a little higher", was told to be careful by a guy on a bike, and my personal favorite, was yelled "what are you training for?" by a guy at a stop sign, I smiled waved, and yelled back "the rest of my life". Yeah, I know, totally corny. I couldn't help myself.<br /><br />Some runs are just like that.Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-4443897938493324552009-03-16T21:43:00.003+00:002009-03-16T21:50:21.649+00:00I love these dumb things, and it won't stop raining..1.Your rock star name (first pet, current car) - <strong>Sparky Commander!</strong><br /><br />2.Your gangsta name (favorite ice cream flavor, favorite type of shoe) - <br /><strong>Cookie Dough Boots </strong>(not really that "gangsta" if you ask me)<br /><br />3.Your Native American name (favorite color, favorite animal) - <strong>Red Wolf</strong> ( like it!)<br /><br />4.Your soap opera name (middle name, city where you were born) - <strong>Lynn Johnstown</strong><br />(ha!)<br /><br />5.Your Star Wars name (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 of your first name) <strong>CRAJE </strong>(stupid!)<br /><br />6.Superhero name (2nd favorite color, favorite drink) - <br /><strong>Green Mojito</strong> (awesome!)<br /> <br />7.NASCAR name (the first names of your grandfathers) - <br /><strong>Richard Wayne</strong><br />(Scary realistic)<br /><br />8.Dancer name (the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy) <strong>Princess Peppermint Patty</strong> (hells yeah!)<br /><br />9.TV weather anchor name (your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter) <br /><strong>Ruble Raleigh</strong> (hahahaha!)<br /><br />10.Spy name (your favorite season/holiday, flower) - <strong>Spring Daisy </strong><br /><br />11.Cartoon name:(favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now) - <br /><strong>Strawberry Yoga Pants</strong> (squeee!)<br /><br />12.Hippie name (what you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree) - Cereal Maple<br /><strong>Mcmuffin Oak </strong>(um, whatever)<br /><br />13.Movie (or porn) star name (first pet, first street where you lived) - <br /><strong>Sparky Bing! </strong>(see my email address for how much I love this name).<br /><br /><br />Carry on with your regular scheduled blog surfing, it has been raining in Raleigh for 5607 days and I can't take it anymore, I need sunshine and flowers and warm weather and green grass and a ride on a horse, or I AM GOING TO START KICKING THINGS.<br /><br /><br />(It always seems that every one else who does this meme gets better answers than I do.)Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378074098323574416.post-34752178217687088112009-03-13T17:30:00.005+00:002009-03-13T18:23:06.760+00:00The words that hurt youI realize it is a direct resultof the angry, often-violent home I grew up in, that I learned so well, so very young that words were weapons and best hurled by those that claim to love you for maximum sting. I also remember hearing my mom cry for hours after the words were vapor and Dad was gone. <br /><br />In high school I took a class called "Human Behavior", I took it because it was open to both juniors and seniors and my dearest friend at the time was a junior and it gave us an excuse to spend another hour together. It was a great class that I did get a lot out of, which is something I can't say about the vast majority of my high school career. <br /><br />One of the discussions I remembered today while driving around in the rain, we were talking about how in a court of law, a judge can instruct a jury to "disregard previously heard testimony" and were asked if we thought that was really possible. <br /><br />All around the classroom, we all agreed that No, it wasn't possible, a bell can't be unrung. <br /><br />All my life I've been a lover of words, of what they can conjure up in one's imagination, the good, the evil, and everything in between. <br /><br />To this day I can tell you the best compliments I ever received. How the simple words "I'm proud of you" said at an airport one cold November morning choked me up and left me speechless for hours. I can recite the written words of a poem dedicated to me that make me feel more cherished and more loved in 4 simple stanzas than every single utterance of love I have ever heard all stacked up. <br /><br />These are the words I cling to when I need to remember how much I am/was loved. They are sometimes, the only things that work. They have a value I can't name. They are quite simply everything I want to be worthy of. <br /><br />Unforunately, I can also recite to you the worst things ever said to me. I remember the day my dad told me my bleach blonde hair made me look "cheaper than dime store candy" (him being right didn't make it hurt less). I remember the Valentine's Day, my boyfriend at the time, Rob, told me he was dumping me for his previous girlfriend because "after all she has the better body", I remember the boyfriend that told me the woman he cheated on me with was no more than "a hole and a hearbeat" (while not speaking of me the fact that I meant so little to be betrayed for "a hole and a heartbeat" was just as painful) and then, most recently, I had someone wish me "a long and lonely life" -- the power of that little phrase has been nothing short of gut wrenching and heart-breaking. That one echoes, loudly and deep in me. It left a big hole going in, but the injury inside is immeasurable.<br /><br />It is these words that pile on when I am low and hurt and feeling unworthy of any sort of happiness. Most of these words and others like them, were uttered a decade or more ago, and I can honestly say that for me, I'd rather take a punch. I can say that because I've taken a few, also by people that claimed to love me and somehow these words hurt me more*. <br /><br />I still love words, and wish I could use them better in every situation -- I just don't love <strong>those </strong>words; admire/detest their power over me, yes, but love them, no. These words make me feel like that last one -- is all I deserve. <br /><br />I know I will get past this, I have done it before, I will do it again. I will wake up one day soon and know this is just a really bad day, and of course I deserve better/more than that and it was just an incredibly hurtful string of words. <br /><br />In the meantime, I am trying to remember Dr. Err's advice -- Two tears in a bucket, Fuck it.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />*In NO way is this meant to downplay domestic violence/spousal abuse situations. I speak only for myself in *this* situation and am not in any way making light of violent relationships.Craverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13162735846773014967noreply@blogger.com11