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.

Blackie...

Something you need to know about me. I cuss like a sailor even though I don't on my blog. This post has a few obscene words . This post is my story.  My first attempt to deal with some wounds. This is a true story... If you have never read the blog please read the About Page and the following post.  To my regular readers, friends and family... I did ask permission to write this. She (Mom) gave me artistic freedom to write regardless of how painful it could be to read.  I thank my lucky stars and I admire and love her for allowing me to move forward regardless of ego or emotions. This is not an apology for my words or the story about to be told but a bit of background information. 

Unapologetically Yours, Blackie. 

I want to talk about her.

"Oh... her" my mother said as if  I was talking about somebody deceased.

We all change over time.  Evolve. Grow up.

But to have a persona of yourself die.

To know that if I was face to face with that girl would she even acknowledge me as her future.

It was the last day of school before the Christmas break. Friday. December the 18th 1987. Plans had been made for everyone to meet at the rainforest after school to celebrate. These plans had not been shared with my parents.  A "no" was not going to stop me that night. All I could do was ask for forgiveness since I wasn't asking for permission. I needed nothing from them but time.

My father, a converted Jehovah Witness and closeted alcoholic, would never allow me to go anywhere. He was a singer songwriter during the late nineteen fifty's in Miami Beach right after the Cuban revolution and he reassured me he had seen it all. Since he had seen it all, there was no need for me or anyone to travel and see anything other than our familiar surroundings. My father wasn't protective. He was a tyrant, a dictator, a sadomasochist and alcohol enhanced it. Nine months prior to this day he had dragged me by my hair down the street. By down, the street I mean two blocks down the street.  And by dragging me by my hair, I literally mean dragging me by my hair. My feet had no choice but to keep up with the fast pace of my father's footsteps. That was just the prelude, the Intro, as his musician self would have referred to it. I had no doubt what my father would do to me "the night of the rainforest" as I now refer to it.

Money came via a visit to the pawn shop. A gold necklace. Figaro. The pawnbroker must have been pretty happy with his thirty dollar score. To me it was my ticket to freedom.

Thirty bucks in 1987 could buy you:

1 Megadeth T Shirt

A Half pack of Marlboro Red

1 Bottle of Lambrusco

1 joint (pre-rolled)

2 bus rides

1 Slice of Chorizo Pizza

1 gulpie size Coca Cola

A few dollars to contribute for gasoline.

In attendance was my much older boyfriend. I had just turned fifteen a few months prior. He had been eighteen for awhile. He was also the driver of a brand new MR2 which made him look cool.  His hair stretched down to his waist and he wore a leather jacket that matched the attitude. He was a bad boy and I knew it. He was bad and I wasn't. I, the girl that had never gone out on a date, the classically trained ballet dancer wanted  her freedom.

The rain forest was everything after closing hours. It provides you with everything to make fairy tales come alive. From mythical creatures with wings and red eyes to goat blood sucking monsters and the many waterfalls and tropical birds. El Yunque is one of the oldest in the western hemisphere and the only tropical rainforest in the USFSS (United States Forest Service System) Home to seventy kinds of birds, eleven kinds of bats, eight kinds of lizards and thirteen kinds of  Coqui, to over two-hundred and twenty five species of trees and plants, twenty six of which are found nowhere else. The rainforest like  a great a recipe has all the ingredients to make something really mystical.

We climbed the watchtower after hours through the lower level windows. Once we were up in our tower we could see the mountains and the whole island among the clouds. Three thousand and three hundred feet over sea level. By my side stood the god of rock and cock. An untamed force as wild as a hurricane and just as destructive. Who could stop us. We were gods for a moment. Drunk on wine and high on cannabis we felt like gods. I looked out over the forest as if it was my kingdom. The trees bowed gently towards me paying their homage. The Ceiba trees said you are queen. I was their protector and my forest would survive the industrial machine driven by American interest.

We danced while we stood high on the turret.  Jokes were exchanged as well as anarchists and socialist political arguments were thrown to the mix. I felt smart and strong until it was our time to go back. As I was walking down the spiral staircase of my turret my mortality became apparent. There were ninety-eight steps to reach the bottom. Every step brought us closer to the beginning of our end.

As the last to leave we fell prey to the forest spirits.  The mud was so thick and unyielding it held to the tires of the MR2 like it had been left there for years. And maybe it was. It rains every fifteen minutes at the top of the mountain or about two-hundred and forty inches of rain a year. Time held no sway to us on that night. The forest would not let me go. In a desperate attempt I sacrificed my Megadeth tee shirt in hopes it would be enough to get the tire out. As anyone knows from back-country living the only way to get a vehicle out of the mud is to put something under the tires to give them traction.

A stop sign would be what did the trick only after taking a gash out of his head as he yanked it off the pole. My god of rock turned into the lord of murder with blood dripping from his head and covering his whole face like new skin.

We were freed. But I was about to be taken hostage by something far worse than unyielding mud. My father, god of rum and not giving a shit for what you have to say, was about to show me his wrath.

Like a knight, I was ready for the battle. As I arrived home every single one of the lights were turned on.  It was lit up like a boxing rink.  My father beat me like a man. Like a man, I stood up to fight him after I had been knocked down. Like a man, I squared off to him and said I am no longer afraid of you. Like a man, he told me to get out of my house.

Before you ask... And as if cued and told to exit stage left my mother was not around or at least I can't remember her being in that one room. I do remember her helping me pack my bags while she shook her head in a disapproving way at me. I was late. I had broken curfew. I was defiant. I deserved it. Her eyes reminded me of the women I had seen in photographs walking in a straight line in Auschwitz. Empty. Defeated.

But now the blood was on his hands. This is the little monster he would create. Adriana had walked out the doors and in her place stepped a different woman one that could handle the streets of Carolina. A girl that was ruthless. Calculating. Smart enough to lead. A five foot four menace to society. Her street-name was Blackie and this is the beginning of her tale.       

I've told my husband stories about her and about her existence. Amusing anecdotes to pass the time. It never became real to him until he met some of my comrades from the past. I love the word comrades over friends. Friends are the ones that you tell jokes with and send flowers if they are sick. A comrade will step in front of a bullet for you with no thought to their own lives because they would be dying for something bigger than themselves. We were rebels and we thought we had a cause. We were rebels about to cause a revolution.

"Oh, you had to schedule an appointment to see her."
" You could assume she was always watching it all."

"If  Blackie gave an order we did it."
"No one got too close to her."

"How the hell did we ever survive that."

These were some of the things that my husband would hear until one night he turned to me and said point blank... "Who the fuck were you?"

It is a fair question but one which might need more time to be answered.
To be continued...

 

About Sacred Spaces...

There's a spot in my house, in my living room, where the sofa sits by a window to the front of the house and I have spent countless hours there.
Nursing babies, writing, eating, talking, drinking.
This is the recount of what I've seen this weekend and it will come to you from right here...
My favorite place in the world.

Friday I did what I had set out to do.
I found art, adult conversation, a crowded bathroom and plenty of eccentricity.

Heavy Metal Fashion Show. Pieces made out of metal. Reminded me of my old project.

Between downpours of rain and one day of sun I reconnected with my almost teen searching through things that are old but new to us.

We daydream...








I go there with her and she shares her future plans and the things that make her uneasy.
I don't judge... I listen. It is not only easier but the right thing to do.






Don't let them dull your sparkle I reaffirm...





Savannah you are so beautiful and I wish I could write poems, songs even sonnets about you.




Hope you enjoyed your weekend.




Happy Monday.

Dog Days...

We are getting spoiled by days that go past nine in the evening. I sit to write Monday's post on Tuesday morning because I put to good use all the sunlight available. All this sunlight makes everything look beautiful. Like clockwork everyday at around 4pm the clouds turn a purplish grey and they look like cotton candy and they are thick and ready to display a light show along with some cooling rain. To me it's mother nature telling me to stop and look out my window. Then like marching orders right before sunset we know it is the best time to go out and enjoy the summer. Summer nights are what I miss most on the winter days.





So I took Ms.M and her girls to run around the city we saw the galleries, they ate some candy and even toasted probably in the name of Justin Biber but the highlight was the running through the cooling fountains.










I honestly love my City of Savannah.




All these hours and all these minutes of sunlight gives me the freedom of daydream. Some of these dreams become so real I can taste them. All these dreams reside behind the power of summertime. A little mad from the heat, drowsy, delirious and at times unreasonable but it provides me with hope.



 What are you doing with those extra hours of sunlight...



Later peeps and please... Stay Sweet!

About July...

July is juicy ripe and ready to be picked and this is how I describe this particular Summer month. Its a month where the colors to me shine at its brightest red, white and blue is what I see like a kaleidoscope. During the day it smells like coconut oil, lemon and at night basil, honeysuckles and moon-flowers.

 

Long hot sleepy afternoons and late dinners outdoors underneath the stars. July is sweet and sticky like a Georgia peach and any vegetable taste better from the grill and the meat is juicy and delicious and these are the days I wish would never end.

 

One of the reasons I love my summer season there is nothing like a thunderstorm when you really need it. Storms that force you to sit on your porch with some sweet tea nothing to do but watch.

 

We are getting ready for the 4th of July Baby M turns 2 on that day which also coincides with the birth of this blog and website. So our space is turning two years old as well. I feel blessed and grateful for the support you have shown me and my family. The encouragement during all those times when the going got tough. Along the lines I have learned to be more mindful and less wasteful much more present and aware. My eyes have also grown and developed a bit within the photographic realm which is a medium that I am constantly falling in love with.

I hope your weekend was filled with nothing but sunshine and that you are embracing the summer season as much as we are. You can now follow us on Instagram love this media since it lets me share more photos our name there is adrianairisladulcevida.

 



Voting Continues for Top 25 Photography blogs on Circle of Moms. No registration just one click.



Happy Monday its a new week and I am ready.



Stay Sweet Peeps!

About Twelve and Mojitos...

Today when I was done programming the universal remote control without the code for the DVD player I felt victorious and filled with satisfaction. I am the one that fiddles with all the technology around here which it ain't much but his face every time I am done with some mundane "technological" task is priceless. He gives me props as if I've changed the transmission to a '59 Chevy. One of the many reasons why I keep coming back for more.



Yesterday was the "official" birthday. She is officially 12 being we celebrated this past weekend with our trip we treated her for dinner and some sweets from the Chocolate Bar which is the only bar she can party.





I know it was her birthday but for the sake of research and for you my readers I have a new cocktail recipe.
Limoncello Basil Mojito they are as good as the Basil Lemonade Martinis. They scream summer and you must try it.



A few images I wanted to share from the Dream Collection...





The weekend is coming fast and we have a full one. From an 80's party to outdoor grilling with friends which is the excuse to show off my bar-tending skills.



**************
News...

• New sponsor Educational Games For Kids please visit them they are one of the few web sites with ESL games. 
• We will hold a giveaway for 4 tickets to see the Sesame Street and Elmo show at the Savannah Civic Center soon.  

Enjoy the long weekend and please stay sweet...

Two girls and a mouse...

In less than 48 hours I was able to reconnect and get to know her all over again.  I opened up like a tangerine and she held my hand for hours and I had not held her hand in such way since she was two. We ran, laughed and screamed and I found salvation. She was able to move mountains with her smile and spirit. My girl turns 12. She who turns it all to light.





There is just no one like her... No one. And I am realizing its the little things the times in between. When we both sing out of key... When we dance in the streets...When we can just laugh together sitting in one spot without a care in the world.  I take all those moments and stack them up... Up high like a block tower.

We are huge Ms.Piggy fans...

bottom right 1 of only 2 pictures of the 2 of us together. This one with Pocahontas. Find the next one...

We shed a few tears at the end of the night when fireworks lit the skies and all I could see were the colors of the rainbow reflected in her eyes...I wished her a Happy Birthday and she said it felt like they were all for her to which of course I said they were. Happy Birthday my love and please forever and ever stay sweet!

Downtown Disney.

"If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember this whole thing was started with a dream and a mouse". ~ Walt Disney



Later Peeps...