Embracing Change

Wow, I didn't realize it had been so long since I blogged. Life takes over sometimes. Lot's of change happening right now. I am leaving my current job with IBM after 8 years in a couple of days to take a new position as a Senior Copywriter with a cool digital marketing agency called Digitas. I am excited, as it is the kind of job I always wanted. I am still kind of in shock that I got it, so thanks again universe and various decision makers, I really appreciate the opportunity.

Also, the kids are changing schools and then Lily starts kindergarden in August. It is so crazy to me that she is getting so big. I hope Mirabel does well in the new daycare. Logistically, its just better for everyone and so we change.

Next thing I want to do is clear a space in the garage so I can get an Acetylene torch for soldering jewelry. I think its time. I think I am going to take the summer off from classes while I am getting my head around my new job which starts June 1st! Its going to be wierd going to an office again and being around people, as I have been working at home solo pretty much, talking to people "virtually" for 8 years almost with IBM! But maybe it is just time for me to get back out in the world.

And really the IBM job has been great especially through 2 pregnancies and 2 infant stages and I have learned so much there, and now its like everything I have learned has lead me to this awesome new job that let's me get back to what I really love which is writing, so I am excited! Plus its a huge boost to my career, the new gig, so I am looking forward to the new challenge. We shall see what happens!

Slumping is fun!

Here are a couple of pre-slumped pictures of some of my glass in my kiln. Fun!

Above is another picture , some stuff that is going into my friend's tea shop soon! More info to come. I have to do some domestics and run to the grocery store now.

For my grandmother

Its interesting to me when people come into my mind, people that have passed away from this world. Memory is an interesting thing. Lately I have been thinking a lot about my Grandmother, my Mom's Mom, who passed a long time ago when I was 13. I loved her dearly, and still do, and she often "comes" into my mind especially when I am in need of strength, because to me she was one of the strongest women I have ever known.

I often think of her and how hard but also comforting it must have been for her to go back to the synagogue after so many years of not going after my Grandfather died. She left the Jewish faith when she married my Grandfather, because he was catholic by faith, though a stout athiest in his beliefs, more of a scientist really. My grandfather was an anthropologist and he traveled around studying Eskimos and also groups of village folks in Pakistan, so my Grandmother often traveled with him in the field. Her family pretty much disowned her when she hooked up with my grandfather because of the religious differences.

Love is sometimes as strange and wondrous thing I guess and when the two met in NY, they fell in love and all the religious rules just didn't matter.

I think my Grandmother was hit harder then my Grandfather because like I said he was a man who only believed in facts and figures, she was a more stronger spiritual person and I think she always kept a relationship with some kind of higher power I am pretty sure, especially after her eldest got sick with polio back in the 50s, not sure how else she could have gotten through that. But she made the choice to leave the synagogue to be with him, and I don't know that she regretted it, we never really talked about it. All I know is that she has been on my mind lately, and I know that after my Grandfather passed, 7 years before her, she went back to the synagogue and I have this strange vision of her in my head sitting and sewing a tapestry or a curtain, in the synagogue, because when she went back, she did a lot of volunteer work there, and I think it was part of her spiritual healing maybe. All of this is of course my patchy memory and thoughts of her of which I am not even sure the source.
When she died though I was only 13, that's when I started looking for something I think. I was studying all these different faiths, especially the more eastern philosophies, like Hinduism and also Buddhism. I think I was trying to make sense of it all, I probably still am.Its interesting that in my searching I also became very lost, trying to fill some void with the "wrong" things. Yet I have to say, was it all "bad" or "wrong" if it lead me to the place I am today with my beautiful family?

I have yet to make a decision about religion, and I don't really feel I need to have one definitively. I know I believe in something greater than myself, and that there sometimes seems to be some order in the chaos of life. But other than that, I leave it alone. I am not a fan or organized religion, maybe because I know how badly it hurt my Grandmother to be exiled, or to exile herself, from her religion, just because she married the "wrong" religion. And to me that is probably not some greater God's rule, but more a human rule, but that's just my two cents. I will get off my soap box now.

I miss her though still, and I wish she could have known my children, but for all I know she does know my children, you know? What do I know of the afterlife if there is one? Not much, as I am still here, gratefully. That is all.

I love the beach

I hope one day I can just live at the beach I mean its hard to say exactly, if I am just relaxed because I am not working, or would I feel as relaxed anywhere? I don't know, I am pretty sure it is the ocean that seems to center and calm me down, and I just don't feel so stressed out and out of sorts like I sometimes do at home. There's something to be said for island life, I think its right up my alley. St Simon's is particularly cool, because of the arts community here, there are a ton of galleries, arts festivals, artists probably also. I just feel good here, its a cool town. The beach we often go to in North Carolina, on the Atlantic also, but its not as cultural of a little town, I don't know, St Simon's is a place I could see myself living, and the kids I think would love it also. Of course I miss my kiln, but if I had that here, I would be set, of course not sure how we would live exactly, it might be a good place for my working studio? Ha..we shall see. Ok, children need me.Gotta dash!

Where’s Abby Hoffman When You Need Him?

I was talking with someone close to me recently who requested that he remain anonymous, about how right now would be the perfect time for a revolution in the United States. Maybe I think that way because there seems to be one going on inside of me. But really I think it’s much bigger than that. I think that this country needs an over haul in so many ways. Well, corporate America especially because frankly it seems an evil place.

I never realized that so much before I got laid off in 2001. The lay off itself was really just the last straw, it wasn’t even the worst of it. I am not sure if I would have survived it much longer anyway, having the creativity sucked right out of me. .I did that for two and a half years, and it only got worse and worse. It got to the point where I didn’t even care about any of the words that I wrote because I knew they were merely going to get slashed and burned like so much forest. When I started working on the Internet, it was just the beginning of the hot phase. It was like a roller coaster ride, I thought I was doing pretty good, I hopped from job to job like some kind of crazed trainhopper, making more money every time.

That’s the thing about corporate America, the things that happen, the squashing of creativity, the lay-offs, the parking passes, none of it is given or taken away for personal reasons. It’s all about money. Money, money, money. As a writer working on the edge of a corporate job as an underpaid contractor, I struggle. I understand the need and craving for money, but what blows my mind is the lying and crazy schemed these big corporations create in order to make gobs and gobs of money. More money than anyone could possibly spend surely in a lifetime. So, at any rate, this is why I feel like we need a revolution because things are going to hell in a hand basket, and since it appears that everything is based on the stock market and the stock market is about as stable as my uncle’s boat and I might add here that the motor has fallen off of my uncle’s boat several times. Everyone freaks out when the stock market crashes and everyone gets scared and stops spending money, it leaves a vacuum. When there is a vacuum there is an imbalance of power, and that, my friends is the perfect time for a revolution.

I don’t know much about history because of the way it was taught in school bored me to tears. The only thing that was interesting to me was the part about revolutions. There have been so many in Russia, though that seems to have slowed down for now. The ones in France involved a lot of beheadings. I am not really talking about that kind of revolution, I am talking about the old fashioned kind from the sixties that were also before my time. Once in my life have I have been exposed to people at least claiming to start a revolution. It was a rough time in my life when I lived on the street for a time in California. At one point, I drifted up to Santa Cruz with some other people, where we set up a tent in a place called Davenport and I lived there at the campground for 6 weeks. During the day my friends and I would hang out on the mall in Santa Cruz. There were these weird people with shaved heads who stood out on the mall all day also, handing out flyers about revolution and how there was one starting underground, who was going to work its way up to the government. I wonder what ever happened to those people? Maybe they are on Facebook, who knows.

Uncomfortably numb

Lately, there has just been way too much coming at me, I feel like I am just dodging bullets every day, and so when I become overwhelmed, its like I shut down, which I think is what's happened. Trying to turn stuff around, but sometimes it seems like trying to turn around a gigantic ship, like the Titanic, which is headed for a course of disaster, and can't turn the big thing fast enough, you know? Maybe its a wasted effort. Of course before when I thought, well I will just let things go, let the chips fall where they may and just try to keep my side of the street clean, and that was kind of refreshing, like how much control do I really have over anything? Other than my own actions and how I choose to be in the world? People are going to do what they are going to do, and its frustrating, especially when other people's decisions directly effect my life and well being. But, like I said, I don't have any control really about what other people do or don't do, or how they act, only my own. So there you go, I know I am being vague, I don't feel like getting into the details right here. I feel like planting flowers. Sometimes just digging my hands into dirt helps me reground myself, which is probably sorely needed at some point. Ok, that's all I got right now..

I heart my kiln

I love my kiln, it sounds wierd to love a big, object like that, but I really do. Sometimes when I think about running away, I get this picture in my head of myself walking up the street pulling my big kiln with a rope..ha. Yes, that's right its the bizarro world I see in my head. Crazytown USA, my husband calls it.

But really, my glass is like my baby that I tend to and nurture and hope it turns out ok. Just like my own children, whom I love both with a fierceness I cannot really put into words, but let's just say I would jump in front of a train for them if I had to, I really would.

The other day ,my eldest, Lily, said Mirabel, her sister, loved me more than she did. This made my heart hurt for her for a second, because I think she was saying she felt I loved Mirabel more than her, because you know, we make such a big deal when she stands or whatever, or takes steps..but I told her, I love you both the same. But I can recall needing to know the same thing from my Mom at times growing up, and she would tell me the same thing, that she loved us all the same. And then she would tell a story about her Mother, my Bunna, who died when I was 13.

She would say that Bunna would tell her something about love whenever she asked her about it and it went something like this. Love is like a cup, and when some pours out, it just refills automatically, so the cup is always full and there is plenty of love for everyone. Or actually that isn't what she said at all, but I can't remember the story exactly. Lily heard the proverb once too,and she thought my Mom told her something about a hair cut..ha.so who knows.