He turned the bus onto its roof and let out high-pitched screams while his t-rex jabbed at the wheels. I could not stop giggling.

We watched the movie every day for 2 weeks straight. One particular day, I overheard some lines that I just cannot get out of my head:

If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, expands to new territories, and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, ah, well, there it is. - Dr. Ian Malcom

(During a preview tour of the park, scientists tell the guests that they breed only female dinosaurs in order to control the population. However, while they are running around the grounds of the park attempting to stay alive, they stumble upon nests full of dinosaur eggs. Despite the scientists’ very calculated precautions, the dinosaurs’ genes mutated in order to facilitate reproduction. Life found a way.)

It is the same way with our music.

It is the same way with our painting.

It is the same way with our writing.

It is the same way with our dreaming, our desiring, our truth-telling.

No matter how hard we may try to suppress our beings, they always find a way to break free.

Because our uniqueness cannot be contained.

Our souls cannot be contained.

Our essence cannot be contained.

So if there are people in your life who want to squelch your wild spirit (maybe that person is you), realize this:

You cannot be contained. You will always find a way.

I never slept in the car. Maybe I was scared of getting in a car crash. Maybe I enjoyed the changing scenery. Maybe I just wanted to keep my father company. Whatever the reason, I was often caught gazing out of the window, silent, nose pressed against the glass.

"What are you thinking about, Lee?"

"Nothing," I usually answered--which was always a lie. I was always thinking about something--memorizing license plate numbers or counting trees. Listening to the rhythmic hum of the tires rolling on the pavement. Mentally acting out romantic melodramas.

Yet I always said "nothing."

Maybe I was embarrassed, afraid to be called a fool. Maybe I didn't think anyone really cared about my thoughts, worried that they carried no value. Maybe I thought I would be misunderstood, left feeling even more alone than I already did.

What if I had shared those thoughts?

What if I actually believed that those thoughts held value and weren't foolish at all?

Maybe I would have realized that there was no reason to be embarrassed.

Maybe I wouldn't have felt so alone.

Maybe I could have spent more of my life basking in the sun instead of cowering in the shadows.

* * * 

So you (yes, I'm talking to you),

No more holding back.

No more keeping silent. 

I want to hear you.

I want to see you glow.

So I focused on real life instead.

I wiped condensation from the windows. I swept cobwebs from the corners. I tickled more bellies, drank more tea, ate more chocolate.

Then today, I was texting with a friend. She said something about starting and stopping and it reminded me of how that relates to the life of a writer (or any artist). The creative journey is treacherous terrain. We start, stop for rest, then start again. Thanks to this realization, and my dear friend, I broke the block. Here's a bit of what I scratched into my notebook:

This is The Writer's Life:

starting and stopping

starting again

click-clacking on keys

rustling paper

crumbling words in a trash can

chewing up pens.

This is The Writer's Life:

open books with highlighted passages

dog-eared pages

and broken spines

dreams of writers long gone.

This is The Writer's Life:

staring out of windows

staring into faces

observing and reflecting

offending and affecting

exposing and protecting.

This is The Writer's Life:

starting

stopping

but always starting again.

via flickr

Forgive as much as you can, forget a little, and create a lot. - Woman Who Run With the Wolves

cold hands in

warm pockets

body

leaning forward

lips parted to

greet yours-electric shock

It was our first night out together in a long time. Married couples call these “date nights” and after having two children, they are a true luxury. We sat at a table with tenother people. I wore vintage crystal earrings and velvet peep-toe pumps. I felt quite regal. I was quiet; calm yet nervous because I felt so out of place.

My husband sat to my left, away from the table, swirling his wine. He tipped the glass toward me, “Mother, would you like some?” I smiled and politely declined.

 But within I felt a stirring. It was a mixture of hot anger and wet sadness.

“Mother.”

* * *

When I became a wife, I assumed wifely duties. When I became a mother, I took on the role of “mother.” I stayed home. I took to the kids to the library. I did all the cooking and cleaning. I paid all of the bills, drove all over town to do the grocery shopping and drop off the dry-cleaning. I did it all. And I did it with an (artificial) smile.

I didn’t exactly hate it; I am a Cancer—I like to take care of people. I got some kind of satisfaction from trying to be a perfect wife and mother. But it wasn’t me. There’s so much more to what I do and who I am.

I am Alisha.

Alisha.

“What's in a name?” Shakespeare said.  “That which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet.”

 Well, Billy, you were wrong.

There is power in my name.

I need to be called “Alisha” because it encompasses all of me. It holds my essence, my uniqueness. It says that I am a mother and a wife. A writer and a dreamer. A soul-searcher and a believer.

It says that I am me.

I am Alisha.

Who are you?

I want to tell you stories.

Good stories.

The kind of stories that make you laugh when I laugh and cry when I cry.

The kind of stories where you feel the pain in your gut just like I did when that punk-head rat-tailed kid punched me in the stomach during class.

I want you to mourn the loss of love like I did;cry wet tears on dry sheets, smear your mascara and then pretend that everything is okay.

I want to tell you stories that makes you giggle at my naiveté just as I giggle now when I look back at year 14. (They say hindsight is 20-20. It can also be pretty damn hilarious.)

I want to tell you stories that make you scream in pain as I did when I gave birth to three children and subsequently to my self.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: I want to write on your bones. I want you to feel as though these stories are etched into your being so that you carry them with you as I carry them with me.

Because when I share my stories I find that they are stories already woven into the tapestry of someone else's life. Another part of the human quilt.

All I can hope is that the stories I share encourage you to share your own. To heal. To move forward. To go and live.

Bluebeard is an immensely wealthy aristocrat, feared and shunned because of his "frightfully ugly" blue beard. He has been married several times, but no one knows what became of his wives. He is therefore avoided by the local girls. When Bluebeard visits one of his neighbours and asks to marry one of her two daughters, the girls are terrified, and each tries to pass him on to the other. Eventually he persuades the younger daughter to visit him, and after hosting a wonderful banquet, he convinces her to marry him. After the ceremony she goes to live with him in his château.

Very shortly after, Bluebeard announces that he must leave the country for a while; he gives all the keys of the château to his new wife, telling her they open the doors to rooms which contain his treasures. He tells her to use the keys freely, and enjoy herself whilst he is away. However, he also gives her the key to one small room beneath the castle, stressing to her that she must not enter this room under any circumstances. She vows she will never enter the room. He then goes away and leaves the house in her hands. Immediately she is overcome with the desire to see what the forbidden room holds, and despite warnings from her visiting sister, Anne, the girl abandons her guests during a house party, and takes the key to the room.

The wife immediately discovers the room's horrible secret: its floor is awash with blood, and the murdered bodies of her husband's former wives hang from hooks on the walls. Horrified, she drops the key into the pool of blood. She flees the room, but the blood staining the key will not wash off. She reveals her murderous husband's secret to her sister Anne, and both plan to flee the castle the next day. But Bluebeard returns home unexpectedly the next morning, and, noticing the blood on the key, immediately knows his wife has broken her vow. In a blind rage he threatens to behead her on the spot, but she implores him to give her a quarter of an hour to say her prayers. He consents, so she locks herself in the highest tower with Anne. While Bluebeard, sword in hand, tries to break down the door, the sisters wait for their two brothers to arrive. At the last moment, as Bluebeard is about to deliver the fatal blow, the brothers break into the castle, and as he attempts to flee, they kill him. He leaves no heirs but his wife, who inherits all his great fortune. She uses part of it for a dowry to marry off her sister, another part for her brothers' captains commissions, and the rest to marry a worthy gentleman who makes her forget her horrible encounter with Bluebeard.

on a cold morning

air breathes clean

like honey on the spoon

that then dissolved into darjeeling.

I soaked him in

like the desert does the rain.

I knelt at the altar of his

lust-

for it was not love-

and worshipped him anyway.