Graduation Day...

* I struggled with the idea of posting this. As usual I second guess myself wondering if I am sharing too much and leaving myself naked. Thanks Ezzy for saying the following... You have your followers because of your authenticity and talent. Don't compromise.  

I drive weekly to this small and hidden waterhole near my house. All summer Baby M has reluctantly gone to the beach not taken any steps into the water she sits by the shore and plays in the sand. She has been cautious even by the pool area. She is cautious in just about everything. I have settled and grown comfortable to watch her play in the sand for hours. Something about a kid being safe gives you such peace like when they are newborns and you know they are not going to go anywhere and peacefully they just sleep like angels. All that changes when a child gathers independence, a will and strength. All that changes when a child begins the process of decision making. 

 I am sure she has an internal clock that is marking the summer's end. I am sure she can tell the sun is beginning to set a bit earlier and that the sun rays are leaning in a different direction. Punxsutawney Phil did not have any lessons but yet we have paid attention to the predictions since 1887. I am certain at the age of three she knew. Summer is almost over...

I did not bring her bathing suit it was not the plan to swim but she is the perfect country girl and she adapted and did not resist the powers of a salt water marsh lined with sea grass.  Her older sister took cue and follow suit. Because that is what older sisters do...

My Graduation...

Truth is I have had 3 emotional breakdowns since Monday including one late Sunday night as I was watching The Life of Pi.

Like Richard Parker my son has left the house. Not that I am not thrilled with his departure at the age of 21. What broke me in half was the way he so unceremoniously left me. Not even a head turn to wish me farewell...

He was the only child I planned. He was planned since I had been married for two years and my then husband a military man, a young military man, was embarking on a tour to Desert Storm going off to war and I could not bear that I, his wife, had not given him a  child regardless if I was only 18. Like the most enthusiastic martyr I forsake any plans for a career or financial stability in the future. I forsaken my independence and the possibility of a nest egg in the name of love.

It was tough for my Richard Parker and I. I was so young and completely stupid and when he was three years of age I became a single mother. I can do this. I am strong enough. I have survived before.

Bounce or Fly? Crawl.

My marriage was not a walk in the park and neither was the second husband I also left behind in that god forsaken town.  A church every ten steps from your front door. An incomplete college education, a middle school level in the English language and a knack for photography was not going to cut it in the tiny southern town of Hinesville, GA. Back then there were three stop lights, one titty bar and one Wal-Mart that was all that brought life to the town. My kid and I were living in our private version of southern town hell. One tiny brown kid. One angry brown girl. One Southern town. Two husbands later I crawled and made my way to Savannah, GA.

With my knees skinned and bloody I had already caused enough damage. I had bounced from one end of the world to another. By the time I found an anchor and by the time my roots grew... His trunk was leaning the other way. Looking for a different source of sunlight. It breaks my heart to even think that I might be the reason why the kid is so quick to leave me without a proper goodbye. It breaks my heart to know he is not attached to me and that was a lesson I wrote for him early on. I also have the feeling that his inability to be attached to me might be a part of his DNA... Inheritance from his Father. Otherwise I would have never had a need of crawling and no trunks would have been bend looking for sunlight. For whatever reason... He is now gone without a proper goodbye.

So I manically dance between being the parent of a toddler, a teen and a adult and graduate once again to another level into a more difficult road in motherhood. One I am trying to understand. To follow the words I am trying absorb...

On Children

by Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Hysteria...

Each time I feel compressed and stressed I find a place to go. I could stay in bed but my mind says go. You might not know that I am a trained Yogi and I could have told my head to stay but my body said go. I went on a hike while my stomach was empty on a hot July. A tribe of five embarked on this 4 mile hike. A walk which would separate the fit and the strongest. The unwilling and the weak. I knew it would be an adventure. My kids ages are : 21, 13 and 3. 

Instead of learning about them I learned about myself.

I am in chaos and self-doubts. I feel too strongly and I am changing rapidly. I am sad and I am happy. I am in a hurry and I am relaxed.
I used to be full like the Supermoon. I no longer move along with the cycles of the moon.  
My uterus must be wandering and this is what they used to call... Hysteria.

Doe

In nine days, I turn forty one. Noticed I decided to spell it out... no shortcuts. I've begun to feel this urgency within every pore of my being. Every cell that makes up this body of mine feels the need to create and go places I have never been. Some might say I have began to feel mortality. You are right. But I began to feel it three winters ago. This? This is a quiet sense of knowing that I can't turn back time. I now feel as if all my previous experiences have integrated within. Swinging my body and dancing along the spiraling cycles of the earth. Stillness. A calm and very steady power. 

I will be heading to the mountains where I have decided to shout into all four directions. Hopefully the mountains will echo sounds that will heal my soul. Because truth is I have received the opportunity to become free of society’s untruths about woman and aging. I knew my rebellious spirit would help along the way. I now will walk more attuned with nature and with myself and have begun a new gestation period. I have lost the sense of outer connection and now it has been contained within. My inner fire burns brighter than ever and I am ready to create and transform.

Instagram freak...

I have a friend to celebrate this weekend and more adventures until then...

 Stay Sweet.

La Vie Boheme...

Riding with that feeling of making everything out of nothing I continue marching through this thing called life. I had not a penny in my pocket but felt like Madonna when I put my sunglasses on. So I rode to watch the sunset because it is free. Each day a symphony an orchestra playing a new tune.

 It is music if you watch closely and if you have company what else could we possibly need.

Killing time for free.

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness. ~Henry David Thoreau 


One more just in case you read too fast and did not get it...
This is free...

About Magic...

My days have been filled with light and so much sunshine and in every turn I make I see something I wish to capture. Right now, I am so in love with my camera and my medium that the most simple of things become art. 

On an ordinary morning we visit a bakery and it becomes this place filled with wonder. We arrive and the smell of bread baking and sweet chocolate lingers in the air and I tell you if you let yourself magic is all around us...

Because Chandeliers with marshmallow garlands are not ordinary neither is the way my daughter tears tiny bites of the brownie proclaiming it could possibly be the best brownie she ever had.

Nothing is ordinary if we turn it into an extraordinary adventure.

We leave the bakery inspired since we have paid attention to all the signs and we take a stroll through the park. This is when you say I might be gushing or exaggerating but yes... Magic is everywhere and my daughter and I pretended these were knights fighting and battling for our honor...

And now with a full tummy and redeemed by knights just like that my day is magic.

Wishing nothing but pure magic.
Happy Midweek.

The Big Year...

 I want my children to be calm, present and centered. Then, teach them my inner voice says. I decide she is almost three years of age and if I would engage her in the process of knowing when to be quiet she will learn easily. I incorporated the art of bird watching as a past time thinking this will also teach her patience.

We grab the most important of tools for bird watching which would include:  A view master from the Discovery store that doubles as binoculars, my camera, two Popsicles and the IPhone in case we needed to search for an unknown specie. We both are so still and oh so quiet as the Popsicle begins to melt. We quickly spot a pair of cardinals. Which excites her, she pucks her lips and opens her eyes wide as if her silence and stillness had paid off big time. 

I reaffirm with a... you see your stillness paid off. I begin to snap when she notices how angry the birds seemed. Which I respond with a... They are just embarrassed. They usually eat alone. Content with the Popsicle and my explanation she reassured me she doesn't ever wish to eat alone. She pinky promises that she will always eat with me. 

This is where I found myself calm, present and centered.

Wishing each one of you a great weekend and someone to break bread with or better yet...
Someone to share a Popsicle with. 





PS... Big Year List will begin with...

1 female and 1 male Cardinal
1  Mocking Bird.

The Summer of Love...

Summer of 1999. That was supposed to be my summer. First time alone for two months without a care in the world. It had been years since I was alone for so long. I became a mom at a young age. The kid begged to go away with his dad for 2 months that summer... I obliged.  Quickly the summer became everything. The space and time where I could be whatever I wanted to be.

But it became my summer of love...

 We met and it was never meant to happen. That night I had a date with another boy.  A boy that held much promise since he was kind and good looking. As I was to walk out the door to meet the "date" he (now husband) placed a toe ring on my bare feet right after we met. Not used to wearing a toe ring all I could do during my "date" was stare at my feet and think about the boy I had just left behind. The ring felt as if it held some type of magnetic force and my toes kept tingling. Right there on my second toe I had been chained.

Needless to say my "date" with the Latin boy lasted 60 minutes they were timed by my watch and a few beats from Fatboy Slim. I ran back almost breathless to find him where I had just left him. Right there I proclaimed with a  big smile I am back. That was fast- he replied. Still catching my breath all I could do was smile. A week after that fateful meeting we became a family. We ignored the whispers, the talks and fourteen years later here we are...

On May 9th my husband and I celebrated our 14th anniversary. He walked me to a Savannah bridge where the Parisian custom of locking a lock and throwing away the key lives. We couldn't make it to Paris but somewhere in time in another dimension we did. In that moment Savannah became foreign to me. No longer chained we are now locked.

Mother's Day.

I have three kids but the one in the middle stole my heart on Mother's Day. Maybe because of her age . Maybe because she loves me. She gave me the best Mother's Day a kid could have given. Breakfast in bed. hugs and kisses and a stage performance.

On Instagram LtoR 1.The Show Oklahoma! 2. Breakfast 3. Oklahoma! 4.Baby M. and Me. 5. Sunflower 6.Thespian.

Hoping your weekend was sweet... Happy new week friends.

Confessions...

My body is craving colors.
Not pastels.
Bright colors.
Bright blues and greens.

Blue like Frida Kahlo's house and the greens you find on a peacock feather.
Intense bright colors that burn deep.




As a woman the balancing act is endless and I am honest when I tell you that I envy the time male photographers seem to have. I've watched many female photographers trying to balance home and whatever event they can book to make ends meet. Male photographers seem to have it easier when it comes to developing and harnessing the craft and the process of mastering fine art photography. Their time always seem to be vast and easy to schedule. Diane Arbus did not have the same challenges as Ansel Adams. She a mother and wife was made to feel inadequate and guilty more times than not for choosing to follow her passion. Her guilt was unbearable while she was trying to figure out who she was as an artist and trying to fulfill her wifely duties.





Hubby has been gone for a few days now... a business trip. I expect him shortly this evening. My time has been limited. I can tell you that to make this post I had to make a few bribes and promises.





I can tell you that I look at my camera and I have an intense need for travel and self discovery.





I can also tell you that some will judge me because of such confessions.
But my body is craving colors. Not pastels. Bright colors. Intense bright colors that burn deep.




Instagram Freak... @adrianairis




Happy midweek peeps.

About being a sheep...

Sunday Poetry...

I went to the doctor and he said to me it is time.
Time for what I wondered.
To remove everything that makes you a woman he said.
Then I thought of the time when I was bamboozled to tie the tubes that carry
my precious eggs.

Because it was the murmurs of friends and family.
It was the age factor they said.
How I have expired like the milk in your fridge.
It was the bills that continued to run through the front door of this small house.

I allowed the fools to climb up the walls sneaking in through my bedroom window.
I grabbed a needle and tattooed the word guilty on my forehead.
I wanted everyone to see it.

Within my insides I was changed.

Now a sheep I know I let them break my heart and my body.
For their sake.

Now a sheep I tell you...
You are not taking anything else away.


FAQ's

1. While Tubal ligation and hysterectomy can at times be selective procedures. Now I know I was forced to make some rushed decisions. Always follow your heart and medical advice for life threatening conditions.

2. About 80's leggings. Many of you came to defend the 80's leggings and I too am guilty.

3. Who' the rock star on the last post? Lead singer to the band Cusses a local Savannah,GA Rock band.

Instagram Freak....

Hope you are enjoying your weekend. Will be back tomorrow with a sponsored post.
Stay sweet peeps and enjoy Super Bowl Sunday.

Blonde Ambition...

For some reason the age becomes cloudy almost ghost like in my head and for some reason I don't remember my kid brother being there, being part of my story , but better yet I can't remember my older brother either. Which means this is MY story.

I must have been seven or maybe eight but I could definitely have been only five since I was always told I was precocious. I was told I was the type of girl that could understand lots without much explanation.

 It could have been because my mother by profession a beautician she had her salon in the back of our house and one of the windows of my bedroom would coincidentally be a part of such salon. I knew a lot about men and the neighborhood and the ladies that would clutch hard unto their pearls. That window taught me more than all my years in college would ever teach me.

Early on I learned that although women are often described as fickle more fickle were the men and the opposite gender would always be a mystery. I also learned that promises were really hard to keep. I learned about good hair and the extremes that some women would go through to be who they think they should be.

Growing up in the 70's my mother had dark red hair enviable by the most expensive of Bordeaux. Deep and lovely was that color to the point I thought my mother was a natural born red head. I remember her one afternoon wearing an Indian caftan in peacock blue that had silver threads running through and the sun was setting in our Caribbean island and her hair appeared to have been on fire. She looked at me that afternoon as she raised one of her perfectly penciled eyebrow and said to me " Love I will be right back."

One of the few color photos of the red hair I have... top right that would be me as a baby.

I saw her flowing gown disappeared to the back of the house as she walked into her beauty salon and the door closed shut.

Two hours later she reappeared and she was now a blonde.

The shock what happened? Who was she?

Two days later I was told to wear my yellow dress the one that I would wear when we had somewhere important to be. I dab some perfume as she was teasing her now blonde mane. She chose a bright red lipstick and a black blouse with gold accessories. We drove for what seemed like a few minutes and we arrived to a large building close to the beach that housed many of the yuppies on the island. Near a beach and equipped with gyms and large mirrors. A gated community of apartment buildings for the creme de la creme.

She stood stoically on the balcony of the apartment smoking her Benson and Hedges and drinking her Licor 43 with milk and cinnamon. She shoos me away and I begin to run up and down the halls of the fancy building. During one of my runs I spot a blonde dress in black with gold accessories her nails showed me quickly it was not my mother as she waved her cigarette in the air and laughed the loudest.

My mother had the hands of a woman that scrubbed and washed for a living.

Suddenly I see those perfectly manicured hands caress the face of my father as she exhales her cigarette smoke she leans in and kisses my father. It is then the moment I realized why my beautiful mother is now a blonde.


I ran back to her and she was standing still with cocktail in hand. I ran back to profess my love for her. It is then when I decided I would never be a blonde.

Dark Hair Power ;)

One None Blonde

Hope your weekend thus far is glorious... Stay Sweet.