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Every once in awhile you stumble upon a piece of art that speaks to you in a hushed voice, asking you to tune out the white-noise of life and to just LISTEN.  Pino’s “Maternal Instincts” has done that for me.  And appropriately so.  I’m always amazed at life’s magical way of syncing with my Soul Song.

This morning was one of those rare and priceless Mommy-Daughter moments that will remain embedded in my heart and mind for all time.  We somehow got on the subject of dreams coming true and Cali asked, “What do YOU think about sometimes when you dream?”

I told her I thought about ways to be a better Mommy…a better wife.  A more soulful artist…a more revealing writer.  Then she hit me with:

“How do you know you’re an artist?”

Aha!  Big Life Teaching Moment!  So I immediately stopped what I was doing and sat on the floor with her.  The conversation went a little something like this:

ME:  I know I’m an artist because it’s what I HAVE to do.  If I don’t, then there’s a big yucky gunky pile of junk around my heart and I get sick.  I know because it’s the one thing I do that makes me feel complete (besides being your Mommy).  I don’t have to work at it.  I create because it’s my authentic self.  What do YOU do that makes you happy inside?  That gives you a warm oozy feeling in your belly?

CALI:  My music…and dancing.  That’s what I do when I’m happy.

ME:  Then you’re a singer and a dancer.  Right now, it’s what you have to do, right?

CALI:  Yeah, but I don’t wanna go to dance class anymore and be scared on the big stage.

(She’s referring to her Spring recital.)

ME:  You don’t have to be on a stage in front of people to be a singer and dancer, Cal-Belle.

CALI:  No?

ME:  No.  You just do it.  Who cares if anyone sees or hears it.  But don’t you dare stop if someone stops to watch or listen, okay?  Don’t ever be embarrassed to do what you love.

CALI:  What’s that smell.  Did you toot?  Nahhh…I think it was Tess.  Tess tooted!

Life lesson complete.  But the more I think about that conversation, the more I think the lesson was just as much for me as it was for her.  Maybe even more.

“You don’t really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around – and why his parents will always wave back.”  ~William D. Tammeus

We got our King Cake yesterday….I’ve already secretly embedded the creepy plastic baby and we’ll be having our party in the next day or so.

So what in the world is a King Cake Party, you ask?  What’s with the creepy plastic babies?  Let me see if I can break it down for you:

Day of the Epiphany falls on January 6th.  Christians mark this as the day Jesus was visited by the Three Kings.  You cannot, will not, shall NOT make or partake of the King Cake prior to this date.  I’m not sure what’ll happen if you do…I’ve never been bold enough to try it.  Maybe you’ll get flogged with Mardis Gras beads. Who knows.  At any rate, from January 6th until Ash Wednesday, you can party all night long with your King Cake parties.  While cakes and parties are the grandest thing ever, there’s actually alot of sacred symbolism behind the cake itself.

Traditionally, the cake is an oval or circle – this representing the unity of all faiths.  It’s then slathered in white icing and decorated in traditional Mardis Gras colors:  Purple for justice, green for faith and gold for power.  The plastic baby which is baked inside of the cake represents Jesus.

The person who receives the slice of cake with the plastic baby inside is considered lucky.  Lucky AND responsible for bringing the cake to the next party….which could be that night, the next day…whenever.  And these parties just keep go-eeng and go-eeng until Lent rolls around and everyone has to swear off sugar and starch.

A very cool tradition indeed.  One I intend on keeping up with.  If you’re interested in more Mardi Gras/King Cake faqs, Mayor Nagin will do what he can to answer your questions here.

Now go forth and plan your party!

I decided to feature Lisa’s work today as one of my top 5 inspirational sources.  I stumbled across her work about a year ago and fell in love with her work.  Now I regularly visit her website and Etsy shop to see what she’s up to.

If you get a few minutes, go check out her website and Etsy shop.  Even better, support her business with YOUR business!  Here’s a small sampling of her work.  It’ll bring out the girly kid in ya!

“You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip
by; but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by.”

~James M. Barrie

So yesterday was my first pdoc pow-wow of the new year.  The subject of STRESS was discussed at length.  I’ve had a bellevue couple of months which I initially attributed to the holidays.  After yesterday’s meeting of the minds, it was determined that I done went and over-stimulated myself.  That’s right.  Went and worked myself up into a lather.  Specifically between the months of May and October.  The Folk School, the writing, the submitting of manuscripts, the emotional high of mind-blowing opportunities showing up on my doorstep every hour on the hour.  All of that combined with Matt’s surgery and my warped desire to have  Martha Stewart Christmas Happy Times resulted in a most undesirable forehead-vein protrusion and a mood most foul .

I stopped making New Year’s resolutions a long time ago.  I think they’re a farce.  But this year….okay, I’m not gonna call them resolutions.  We’re not agreeing to anything via a vote or anything here.  I just saying….this year I’m making a concerted effort to relax more and commit myself less.  OH yeah.  Slacker you say?  Eh?  Please.

We’ve become a jacked up society that views rest ‘n relaxation as a luxury…when in all actuality, it’s a God-given necessity.  Even the big man in the clouds had the good sense to rest instead of putting in some overtime so he could give Jesus that new robe he’d been asking for.  No.  He put the foot down and rested.

Growing up, my parents had the STUPIDEST MOST DUMB RULE ON THE PLANET OF EARTH AND SPACE.  (That’s what I called “The Rule” when I was 7 years old.)  The Rule was this:  No screwing off on Sundays and there was a mandatory nap approximately 45 minutes after the usual pot roast/carrots ‘n taters lunch.  We didn’t have a choice in the matter.  Get in the bed and I want to see those eyes closed, sister!

Nowadays if I lay down in the middle of the day to rest, I immediately begin to flog myself with the guilt-stick.  Naturally,  my ADD makes it a tad difficult to stay still.  And as odd as it sounds, I can’t really relax unless I’m working on something.  Painting, gluing….working with my hands.  So vowing to stop all of that would be like a big fat yummy stress samich.  Instead, I’m going to bring the bar down a hair.   I’ve been told I set the bar so high that God and the angels in heaven would need a compass and pygmy guide to find it.  So I guess I’ll bring it down to cloud-level.

The bottom line is this:  When I’m stressed, ain’t nobody happy.  So I plan to find time for more useless activities…and to ease up on the guilt-trippin’.  So while I was hanging out in the waiting room yesterday, I kicked things off by downloading a game onto my LG Neon:   “Brain Exercise”  by Namco.

Apparently my brain age is 60.  I’d like a do-over because my elderly fingers ain’t swift with the the new texting keyboard.  I saw this little 10 year old brat across the room smirking…looking me in the face while she texted away…her thumbs looking freakishly Hobbit-esque.  I fought back the urge to inform her that if an Atari were to magically appear, a butt-whoopin’ of monstrous dimensions would go down, followed by me doing the Rocky dance while dumping water all over my head.  Hey.  It was the pdoc waiting room.  Things like this don’t even warrant a look from the desk-lady.

So to all my chronically stressed homies out there who have minimized the Excel spreadsheet in order to read my Blog…and are feeling really crappy about their choice….I applaud you!

Slack on, people!  Slack on!

It’s been mad-crazy ’round here and I’m good ‘n ready to get things back to normal.  I gots ideas peeps…ideas!  Here are some random Christmas pics.  Baked stuff, handmade stuff….Cali got her first bike this year, so there’s a couple pics of that.  I’m hoping to get a few articles written in the next week or so.  Stay tuned.

Our Christmas parade was Saturday night and apparently it was the coldest parade in its 19 year history.  Low 40’s….felt like 50 below.  The girls danced like stars and braved the cold like olympic champions.   Now I’m trying to haul hiney to get Cali’s Christmas dress done in time for her to sing on Friday.  Oh!  Did I mention the husband is having surgery in a couple of weeks?  No?  Well…..yoga breathing…..in your nose, out your mouth.

What?!  Two days in a row??  Surely I do not jest.

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I was 13 years old when I looked into the face of Sharbat Gula, the 13 year old Afghan girl that had been photographed by National Geographic photographer, Steve McCurry, while at the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in 1984. She made an indelible mark in American history, becoming the visible face of Afghanistan. As a 13 year old girl, I always wondered what it must’ve been like for her…also 13. I lived in a country where I could freely run my mouth, scream at my parents and slam doors. The typical difficult American teenager. Gula lived in a country that publicly executed, stoned and beheaded young girls and women for things like wearing fingernail polish.

In 2002, when National Geographic tracked down Gula’s location and later published her photos, side by side….I remember being overcome with emotion. At 13, Gula’s eyes showed a wisdom far beyond her years. And behind that wisdom, stubborn tenacity. Her jaw firmly set, her head covered but only slightly…perhaps her way of rebelling. Seventeen years later, those same eyes held a look of defeat. A look of resignation. That maybe life wasn’t everything it was cracked up to be….a big rip-off. The tenacity of her youth a naive notion. Her once firm jaw had become slack and her firmly set lips now turned downward. Her head completely covered in submission. Without saying a word, Gula’s eyes tell a story of unspoken pain, terror and trauma. Yet under all of this, there remains a look of ferocity.

Sharbat is a married mother of three daughters. In 2002, she told McCurry that her dream was to provide an education for her daughters. She knew it was “too late” for her oldest daughter…13 year old Robina….but there was still time for her youngest, 3 year old Zahida and 1 year old Alia.

Now here we sit…7 years later…our President sits behind closed doors today discussing Afghanistan and four options that involve putting more American lives on the line. Do one of those options give a defining meaning to each ordered mission? One that can be communicated to everyone? From where I sit, sending more troops to Afghanistan is like dragging a garden hose to a 5-alarm fire that’s been burning for six days straight.

The Afghani men are all about getting some free stuff from the Americans. Guns, uniforms, candy, ink pens…..but the second you start talking about the rights of women, they laugh in your face, spit in the sand and saunter off. It’s not like they’re being subtle about it either. It’s not something they do when noone is looking. It’s a way of life. I recently read an article that lightly stated, “It’s better to be a dog in America than a woman in Afghanistan.” Ha Ha….but not really.

As a woman, I’d like to think that some of my tax money is over there helping another woman out…..not pulling the burqa tighter over her face. Not throwing little girls out of school to make room for more boys. We’re assured by the higher-ups that progress is being made. “Lookie! We put one in Parliament!” I’ve said it myself….it’s THEIR culture….if they want to live that way then we should let them. When orders were given to invade….to set up a government and help rebuild their country….were human rights specified?

Afghan men are allowed to marry as many women as they can afford….and as young as they desire. Seeing as how we’re giving them $65 million bucks every month…I’d say we’re funding a top-shelf brothel. While unemployed Americans desperately search for work so they can feed their families, we’re pumping billions into the Afghan’s economy by giving the majority of the reconstruction jobs to the locals. So let me get this straight. We’ve given the men more jobs…with more money….more guns…more power. Sure, it’ll help their economy. They’ll throw some haphazard form of government together. We’ll try to clear our guilty consciences by giving them even MORE money and jobs to compensate for wrecking their country. But is that helping their cause or exasperating the underlying issue….that being one of Human Rights?

Somewhere in the middle of all this money, power and testosterone….there stands a woman, completely buried beneath suffocating blue fabric. A tortured mind, wondering, “Have they not seen us? Certainly they’re not blind. Every day we make sure to walk past them many times so they’re sure to see us. They’re here to help us, yes? The Americans? Surely they wouldn’t leave us here….like this. Surely they see us beaten and pushed to our knees in the streets while they give handfuls of candy to our children. We cannot scream or we’ll be killed. If I can just let them see my eyes….to speak to them with my eyes….maybe then they could see and help us. Help our children.”

Maybe Sharbat was trying to tell her story when she realized she’d been noticed. When she realized a man had made eye contact with her and respected her human worth. Steve McCurry’s photograph was the one and only photograph ever taken of Sharbat Gula. McCurry was able to capture her on film a second time, but only after permission had been granted by Sharbat’s husband.

When we hear the word “Apartheid”, we immediately think of South Africa and their violent racial war. But the true definition of Apartheid is this:

“The condition of being separated from others; segregation.”

So from where I’m sitting…it looks an awful lot like Gender Apartheid going on over there in Afghanistan. And what are we doing to stop it?! If anything, we dig our heel a little deeper into the head of an Afghan woman when we assume she likes it this way. That she is somehow comfortable within the confines of her burqa, never wanting things to change.

What goes through the mind of a female soldier when she sees a blur of blue shuffle past her on the street? Does she see a woman? Or does she see a burqa. Chances are, she sees the burqa. Not because she’s blind….but because of what is being hidden. I can see why the Afghan men wouldn’t want the world to see their women. We’ve already seen one……and she single-handedly became embedded in American culture. A stark reminder of what is forcefully hidden by a country with no intention of changing their ways.

I hope that when an Afghan man leaves the room, the women rip off their burqas and start mocking him….shooting invisible guns in the air, flalalalalalala-ing at the top of their lungs…..playfully pushing each other around, imitating, “Get over here woman and bear my water and child….quick…before I kick you in the teeth!”

If anyone can hear me…someone with rank….do me a favor. SEE the women of Afghanistan. Take them into consideration when you’re padding the pockets of the man who will beat and torture her every night. Think of her when you build schools with two separate wings…one for boys, one for girls. Think about the subliminal message that sends. Candy coating their condition with words like “It’s their culture it’s always been this way” only demeans them further.

So I end this Veteran’s Day a bit heated under the collar. Heated because by the end of this year, we will have flushed $200 billion down Afghanistan’s woman-beating toilet. $200 billion that is desperately needed right here in our own back yard. If our money is doing nothing but empower abusive Afghan men, then I say put our military men and women on a one-way flight and bring the money back home. I’ll bet all those people standing in line at the unemployment office would appreciate it. So would the family that’s been forced out of their home because of a dismal economy that is seemingly sinking further.

Chances are, more of our men and women will be ordered to Afghanistan. From a not-at-all neutral third party, I’ll sum up my perception. We’re depriving and neglecting our own children to feed, support and empower the kids who throw rocks at our kids every day at recess. I say give them a “Neener Neener” and put them on the Naughty Bench and start paying attention to who is sitting in our lap.

Oh, snap!