I wouldn’t want any of these per se. But I love repetition.

Visually, I love things, usually industrial sized things in repetition.

Maybe a little country house one day, and the yellow, white or ice blue one in the corner with a vase of hand picked wildflowers.

Meantime; my everything drawer looks like this;

a) Momscongress is in two weeks. I have received an agenda, and the event looks jam packed with speakers, town halls, and opportunities for all these U.S. moms to come together, gather thoughts, consider and hopefully reflect. More on that as it gets closer. Right now I am just trying to gather a Washington, D.C. spring outfit together from what I’ve got, and what the Goodwill has if I don’t. I am less and less able to set foot in a clothing/department store and pay all sorts of money for things made my children is sub par working conditions, here and abroad. How many other folks out there are thrift store shoppers?

b) New article will be on the news stands soon; (how many people actually have a news stand where they live?) in Adoptive Families Magazine’s May/June issue. It is the featured piece in their Living With Diversity section. Here is the link to the t.o.c. I’m very pleased with it actually.

c) In the should I stay or should I go department, all I can say is this thought process is in itself exhausting and rewarding. I am not feeling possessed by the desire to move anymore. I am feeling full of information. I do believe that I have a book to get out into the world first. That planning a move would severely disrupt the momentum my writing/speaking/publishing has taken on. What am I willing to sacrifice for what?

d) While getting my hair cut at the salon I found myself aging years when I watched the bridal party next to me getting their “up-do’s” for the afternoon wedding. They were thirty somethings. They were excited. The were totally enamored of one another, or so it seemed. I felt a desperate longing for inclusion in their club. I wanted to be lanky, blond, fashionable, thirty, engaged, rich, surrounded by people who adored me, on the edge of some amazing life change, the promise of a life time relationship and commitment.  For all I know they could be unhappy in all sorts of ways, the groom may have just lost his job, the best friend may be battling cancer, the church might be flooded by five (no I am not wishing any of this on anyone, I’m just saying…) but I became heavy with my lacks while imagining their perceived haves. I remember feeling this way before I adopted whenever I saw mommies…

d) Otherness. So much talk of it. Othering on the census is where I first heard the term. Recently, I have come to see that all my life; as a tomboy, as a child of divorce, as a poor attempt at a punk rocker want to be, as so many things between then and now I have gravitated towards, felt so much comfort in my otherness. Adoption, and single parenting, and creating a mixed family in Maine fits the paradigm nicely.  When did the pull begin? What purpose does it serve? Are we all in the same boat, only some disguise it better than others? Out to dinner with my treasured Tia, she posed that very question. Does anyone really feel like they really belong? Her query has me going deeper into my own longings for such a thing. And, if not, then what can I do to land in the land of otherness with more surety that that is where I do belong?

e) Poetry collection. I am playing with the idea of self producing some of Mama C’s best and most requested poems in a little edition  I put together on my own up at Lu-Lu or something. This by way of seeing what the interest is, and so on. If you have self published a small poetry collection and would like to share your expertise, please do!  I am making one by hand for the school auction, at which Mama C first read Black Enough, four years ago! I am reading it again, along with Crazy Hair Day in a few weeks.