miss christina's world: October 2011

Monday, October 24, 2011

Sea LEGS, Eli's kiss, sharks and the key to never giving up.

a few years ago, i packed up my VW BUG, left a job in fashion, a life in boston and drove. i left in the middle of the night, shortly after my 28th birthday. My father Henry, the man the mark the mission, got up in the middle of the night and decided he would be the man to take me through the night past NYC to VA beach. HE did. My VW lost the front end somewhere in Maryland so we simply DUCKtaped it and then someplace in the Bronx the bug let us know, if we shut it off it wouldn't keep going. BUT i had my map, and I sure as anything was going south. I was thinking maybe I'd end up in Savie, GA and have a little white house with a porch and I would write about all the things i saw and all the things i imagined and then even sometimes i would play around with the idea of Hilton head, and getting my speed-boat, moonshine and Great Gatsby mantra really rolling. Maybe starting and under the table poker night, that would lead to the import export of moonshine... i would ride speed boats, smoke Cubans and wear fancy fedoras and pin-stripes.

somewhere in-between the white southern dress, the ice tea, the southern charm, the broken bug, the excitement of something different and speedboats, i was off on a new adventure.

some other time, i will talk to you about VA beach. the training and truth i received there. not today.

when i got to Florida. a few romances and a few nights under the stars driving a golf cart from party to party on a secluded beach. i could never run for politics due to this little stint, but you know, it works out. politics are over rated.

the time came. when i went out with the big boys. on the boat. fishing for the marlin. this was some redneck, hill-billie-past the gators out into the deep fishing. this was not typical. i was on a little boat. no one was baiting my hook and there sure as anything was no, put on your sunblock and drink water going on here. i mean, i think i may of drank whiskey and dipped before noon just to prove, that a female yank could go out with the BIG boys and hold her own.

i was SO SICK after twenty minutes. i went into the small bathroom and everything was upside down. the whole universe was spinning. i kept puking and swallowing it back. this was NOT the first time i was on the ocean, BUT on a boat this small. they kept yelling, you're getting your sea legs. between the puke i would yell " i sure am" the side of the boat only came up to my mid thigh-stomach region and i am only 5'2. it's my personality that gives me the height. i was used to the deep sea fishing off the east coast, on the HUGE boats. not this.

i cast my line. into the deep. it was marlin hunting time and i was with the BIG BOYS.

they kept calling 'em something, but i knew marlin.

the thing i caught on my first drop was stronger than me. he whipped me across the boat into the rail so hard that i threw up when it hit my stomach/ribs. i swallowed most back and let some just go, it was a pain i had never known before, and i had known pain. i knew the bruises would be much. i was being pulled fast and having it being broken on my own body to stop me. try that a few times and you may not think you are so tough.

i caught 8 marlin in under two hours. the sea was so bad because a tropical storm was moving towards us. it was the hardest water they had ever fished on and i was the lucky cast.

every marlin, destroyed me. things ripped and pulled. i got yanked across that boat so many times, that the BOYS starting to cheer every time i hit the rail. When i got off that boat, i couldn't hear from the impact and the ocean's power right before a storm, i couldn't walk and i couldn't breathe. i felt like i went 12 rounds and then got beat thru the middle body region.

the next morning, i had the day to learn to surf. it was going to be the only time i could. i was so bruised and beaten from the fishing, that i went to bed almost immediately. i woke up very early to surf, was in the six am hour. i met my teacher and he looked at my bruises and said "are you bleeding anywhere, the sharks are out."

oddly enough, i was so tired, i just said 'don't think so'

it didn't even register that the sharks are out. i will tell you when that registered, when i was paddling out and that quiet hit me for the first time that i was just a body on a board in a BIG OCEAN. that i was just a small person, in the vast blue. that paddling out was harder than that catching marlin' and that the thought of dropping in and standing is ridiculous right now. then he of course handed me a rag... i was like, what will this do? he said "if a shark attacks he is attacking because he thinks you are a seal and once he bites you HE will leave, because you won't be fatty enough. so he will just maul you. you can wrap yourself if you get hammied" then he said the sharks don't really look like sharks out here. my mind had already melted, so you can imagine i embraced the conversation and i paddled right next to my teacher. i wanted to be near someone if this was really what he was saying. at that moment i decided this paddling out and waiting on the board was not really my style and that i would GET UP faster than anyone in the history of surf lessons. stuff was too raw. there was a storm, sharks looked different and i was wrecked from the fishing with the big boys.

who wouldn't? at this point, i better listen to this person, seems like he knew alot more than i did. i was out where the GULF meets the OCEAN right on the cuff of a storm before 7 am on an obscure week day because it was my season to learn to surf...

I fell over 30 times. I got knocked down every single wave i tried to paddle over for 3 hours. it was not until the 4th hour, i begin to get the paddling down... by the 6th hour i was dropping in and on the 7th hour i stood for the first time.

when we came in after i stood. i walked across the sand. Eli ran to me. i was so tired i couldn't stand, so i squatted into the sand and his kiss was so glorious at that moment. it was that moment where i worked so hard and i had got it.

I think the character of a man, is really shown when their pot is boiled over. When then are hard pressed on every side. Who they show you, when the sharks are there. When they are getting hit so hard by life, they are puking and holding it down. When they have to continually fall down and keep getting up, not because they have too, because they want too. Because Courage is with them.

It's not how the man falls, it is how he gets back up. They key to not giving up is not in the fall, it's in the rise after the fall.

had i not gotten back on the surf board, had i not gotten my sea legs, when the storms of life hit, like that storm, and the sharks THAT are always swimming while we are paddling, i never would of learned the BEST cast and how to ground my legs and how to drop in and ride a wild wave in the midst of it all.

Friday, October 21, 2011

a constant rant...

grief. i hate you but i am forced to embrace you.
i get really quiet. and i realize the shortness of this life.
the sky is so blue and
my heart is SO broken.
how the heck do you stay healthy during these times?
i read every book i can get my paws on.
i work out everyday.
i pray.
i do yoga.
i am madly in love with my girfriends.
my cup is full, most of the time.
but sometimes i throw it to the ground and you know what i don't care.

maybe if i had made other choices, followed my "wild" adventures, had babies, got married and could somehow disconnect to my mom, then... i wouldn't be who i am today.
someone needs to write a book on losing a mom. i mean there is no instruction manual for this one.

maybe i loved her too much. maybe that's what people think. i don't really care, i'd rather love too much then love to little. loving to little is mundane.

i didn't know the person that built me would suffer until death.

i want to be one of those people who stuffs there emotions sometimes. i have emeresed myself in hot yoga and then in B.E.S.T. holistic medicine, grief groups, support systems...etc. and i think it's all well and good that i am "strong" and "healthy" but you know what, i want my mom to not suffer and that overwhelms me.
all joking aside i have old yella' flashes every morning. put'em down. make it stop. give her peace.

she has not said one thing about her suffering which melts my mind.

how precious it is to see such dignity.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Puppies in Windows and Deep forgiveness.

i am having a hard time dressing myself today, but hot damn my heart is exploding with a new hope. my pants fell down a couple times. i didNOT realize all this cycling would shred it like it has. i woke up this morning, and wowza... crack the shutters, snow patrol was and is the only descriptor on how i woke up. forgiveness will do this.
i woke up and felt, a solid 20 pounds lighter on the inside. i sprung out of bed with a sleepy face, made the coffee and negoitated with eli, on the hour it was and how he should arise and face the glory of the morning. i tried to convince him to take a jog, but it was before 7 am and i think he thought i had a nerve for attempting this. i stopped. i thought about all the places my heart went this week. i was somewhere between a vampire, audrey hepburn and a lost little puppy in the window on a snowy Christmas morning, homeless.
i have truly forgiven myself, my mom, the tobacco industry, not so much, but that may never pass.
if you have been following my blog you would know i slammed the daughter wall like a hot mess. in my morning time, today i read this and i will share it with you.
"Forgiveness means letting go of the past."

heck yeah, it does and it feels like a puppy in the window coming home for Christmas.

there is a running joke that i have with my mom. it's that she says this to me "daughters blame their moms for everything, it is always the mother's fault." i ALWAYS say "right, who else is their to blame?" and she belly laughs everytime. it's true.

oh, how good forgiveness is, how beautiful an action... how sweet is a forgiving heart.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Why Wakefield heard my rendie of Adele, someone like you this morn

For the last two days, i have felt like my communication style is that of a fountain that won't flow right. you know the sad ones your try to throw your penny in and you almost can't make a wish because it is so pathetic? like the wish won't count because it's not a real fountain. almost like a lost puppy. every single time i have tried to communicate what is going on...on the inside for the last couple days i have looked alot like that sad little fountain. on sunday, i was quiet after a hot yoga pratice and every fight i ever had with my mom crossed my memory. every mean word, every dirty look, every slammed door, every fight on christmas, every heart ache, every... every single time one of us hung up on one another. every time i got hurt. everytime i hurt her. so this has clearly made me a little wild for the last two days. of course all the questions start. did i break her heart? why did she hurt me?was i a bad daughter? why was i not mature enough to always love her? why did i have to have my teenage years? i wish i could of taken back every single thing that i said, that may of hurt her. why did she hurt me? why did we fight? why? why AM i watching her suffer and all i can do is cry because i might of sucked as a daughter?
i know i didn't. i know we loved each other too much. i know we were just walking thru broken places to get to whole places. i know we were just human. i know all of this, but my heart hurts. i am over here taking off the metaphorical armor and trying to put it back on, and i am trying to protect my mom and protect my heart and make it thru this with a level of decency and grace. i got so mad and humbled by accountability yesterday, because every single mean thing i ever said to my mom flooded my memory. LOOK, i am not focusing on the negative, i am just being honest. EVERY mean thing she said seemed so small, when i looked in the mirror at my own words. regardless i called kim and cried as per usual. called my sister and told her and she of course made an epic comment about letting these walls come down. then of course there was that call i made, there is always that moment. like when sam wise carries frodo to mordor...the part of the journey that was a touch sloppy but what he said was this 'don't protect your mom because she is sick' and at the moment i knew i had a hard conversation ahead of me with my mom.

i got all the answers. what blew me AWAY was the sincere response of my mom. she doesn't even realize how special she is to me. i would give her my LUNGS if it would heal her. i would carry her on my back for the rest of my life, if i could sustain her. i really would.

i was coming down with a cold, my throat was sore. i have been tea' drinkin' for two days. after the conversation, i went to bed. i woke up this morning. my throat felt amazing. like honey covered it. like i spent the day at the beach and just had my first glass of water, after taking a nap on the beach, good.

i got in the shower, and i sang Adele's Someone like you to my MOM. (not a GUY) I knew I had over come. I knew i needed to raise my voice.

i kid you not, i googled, throat chakra healing today. one of my yogi teachers told me to google it on sunday, i never know what these little epic creatures are up too but when they say things to me, i listen. i found the throat chakra snipped above.