Cryptic messages

I can't divulge all of the information yet, but I hopefully will be able too soon enough. But let me say this...

Following your heart is never easy... but I hope to the gods and fates and others that control the universe inside my head that this works out like we hope.

It would be nice, for a change.

A new addition!

This is Nyoko- my new baby Bearded Dragon- we're not sure if he's actually a he or a she... but for now, we're pretending the name fits!

Sorry for the awful photos- I took them with my phone. 

I still can't find my camera cord after the move.

Another Quickie, this time from Mena

"No Way Out"

"<- Death" read the sign

Arkansas, the Natural State

A few pictures from this weekend- and a couple "older" favorites

Day of the Dead eye-patch flowers (Glitch Con 2011)

Headbands made-to-order from the Mini Millinery (Glitch Con 2011)

Detail of the dark green headband (Glitch Con 2011)

Detail of the beautiful blue headband (Glitch Con 2011)

Detail of the black headbank (Glitch Con 2011)

A butterfly

Heretical Soapbox

I may be ostracized for this, but it must be said.

Today is a day of mourning and remembrance for the United States of America. We are nostalgic, we shed a single tear for those who lost their lives or become a close knit community of humans for a day or two and then life continues.  We are sad because someone dared attack us. Someone picked on us! We are offended. How dare they. US! U.S. However it spells out in your head as you read it.

Did you know though, that children in other countries fear for their very lives as they go outside to play after school? A toy left in the play yard may not be quite as innocent as it may seem. They wonder if getting on the bus to go to their cousin's or see their friend may be the one targeted today.

Why don't we remember them? Why do we think that because someone dared hurt our people that we are any more important, that our lives are worth anymore than theirs?

It's because we are America. We are the world power.

But guess what.

We are also human. We also suffer. In fact, it wouldn't hurt us to be forced to face a day or two like those around the world do. It may help with the realization that our ethnocentrism has turned us into a large, loudmouthed, theoretical "I dare you" to those who don't like us.

Oh wait. You were aware that there are people out there that don't like us, right?

It's been 10 years.

Yeah, it was tragic. Yeah, it was horrifying.

But wake up. Get over it. Shit happens to all of us- all over the place. It's part of life. And we are not immune just because we are "the shit."

Even Rome fell.

From my perspective

This weekend I am at Glitch Con in NW Arkansas. It's my very first Con and I am here with two of my good friends who are both selling their wares. Feeling a little bit un-artistic since my name tag claims I am an artist but I sit at the table, camera in hand, and watch people as they walk by. Meh, so I don't sell here... but I keep telling myself it doesn't make me creative. I mean, look at me, I am adorable. :) That in and of itself takes talent after 8 total hours of sleep in two days, and both of those preceded with alcohol. I'm all about insomnia but this just currently blows.

That said, it's almost 8am. I have been up since 6:45am, wondering if I should get up or not, then trying to figure out the weird shower (we're in a handicap room b/c the trunk that holds the stuff being sold is old and heavy and doesn't have handles), and arguing with bangs that did NOT want to be straight and hair that refused to curl. I'm telling you- even my hair is protesting this time of morning. But I am loving it.

No one in a hotel is generally at breakfast this early unless it's the travelers on their way to their destinations, or the older adults. Walking from our room to the breakfast area was quiet- time to myself. Quiet, reflective, I-can-eat-my-tiny-breakfast-slowly-and-do-what-I-want-without-noise time. I was never a "me-time" person before. I have only just recently realized that I like me. I'm a pretty cool person. I like the mornings to myself. Maybe that's why I woke up so early.

Another amusing reflection is that I am sitting in this breakfast area with 4 other people, not including myself. Three gentleman and another woman. I am by far the youngest. I am also here for the Con. Normally, those people end up looking "different" ... it's fun to dress up. It's fun to be allowed to be totally yourself without judgment. I do not have problems immersing myself into that. The creativity, the atmosphere, the electricity (the people who think that because Anime is Japanese they can dress like sluts.....) But here I am sitting in the breakfast nook area with my Mac, in what I am wearing today- blue jeans, a green linen tunic with a black tank underneath it and my little boots not feeling like I don't fit in here- that I may or may not be judged by those eating around me. I feel chameleon-ish.

And I love my bagel. My head is not feeling like it's going to fall off my shoulders anymore. Amazing what food can do for a body. Tired or not.

Is this making any sense? It may or may not.  

I promise I'll be posting pictures in the next day or so. Since it's Saturday, I expect more people to be at the Con, more photo opportunities and more to write about.

I am also falling in a love with a culture I fit into that I was not aware I fit into before. I'm telling you- there's so much more to the Whit than I realized even just a few months ago. Maybe turning 30 fixed my brain so I am more introspective?

~me

The difficulty of defining yourself

I have been asked time and time again to describe myself to various people. My answer is generally an "I don't know!" or a "None of your damn business" depending on the one posing the question. So, of course, when I was pointed to this from a friend whose writing talent I admire, I had to see what would happen.

Enjoy.

I am from Spanish moss hanging from ancient Live Oak trees, from old school Mac computers and the small corner store.

 

I am from the once-upon-a-movie set, rooms filled with ghosts, and a bit of good ol' Southern charm thrown in with thick, Confederate Jasmine scented summer nights.  

 

I am from the cat tails, azaela bushes, and the sound of rain dancing across the lake, the elephant ears, gardenias and old orange groves.

 

I am from red velvet cake on Christmas Eve and a heart far too willing to care, from Wiseman and Parker and Bruggeman. 

 

I am from the martyr and survivor.

 

From be yourself and be more like them.

 

I am from beautifully decorated, stuffy pews. The do-what-we-say and don't think for yourself.

I'm from Winter Park and the Mayflower, frozen strawberries on a hot summer night and pecan pies as Fall rolls in.

 

From the outspoken baby telling her aunt to not sing, the spaghetti in her curls, and the tying of a June bug to your finger on a summer evening. 

 

I am from lonely box in the closet, the other realm where things disappear, and the once-upon-a-times that recall them from so long ago.

I am from pieces, gathered out of lives never meant to touch. I am from experiences, ghosts never meant to be created.

I am, simply, myself.

I wish I could say I had some more pictures...

... but part of living in the mid-South is that summer time is miserably hot. So, unless you want a picture more along the lines of this....

It's best to wait until Fall... or we move, whichever comes first. (It had better be us moving)

That said, here is an adorable video to tide my lone readers over. These are our two cats- Loki (gray and white) and Bandit (fat, black and white) playing.

The Story Of A Girl

And now you ask me, through your tears,
The age old question, unanswered through the years
Heredity or Environment, which are you the product of?
Neither, my darling, neither, just two different kinds of love.
-Author Unknown

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

She never really had a sense of belonging in her family; in fact, she disowned them for most of her childhood. She knew something wasn’t quite right, but she just never knew how to handle it

She met her biological mother, Laura, when she was 17 years old and her biological father, Mark, a year or so later. At that time in her life, she had no interest meeting her, and honestly was upset with her adopted mother because she had insisted. She didn’t understand why Laura had given her up for adoption, she thought it was because she didn’t want a child, or because she had gotten herself into some kind of trouble and didn’t have a way out.The girl was angry. And rightly so.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

When the girl was a child, she didn’t really have a mother that she felt she could talk too. They were on different planes, and it was very difficult to communicate. She often wondered if it was something that was wrong with her, was it because she wasn't blood-related that this breakdown in communication happened? Was it because she was physically, emotionally and psychologically different from the family she lived with?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Laura had the girl when she was in her early twenties; she had moved to Charleston, SC to live with her mother, Grandma Beverly, and step-father, Jim, for a little while. The girl never learned much about her biological mother and when she was pregnant with her, but she does know that Laura had already bought baby clothes and decorated a room for her when she decided that she was going to have to give her up for adoption.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Her parents told her that she was adopted when she was a young child, but that wouldn't keep her from throwing fits and “disowning” her parents because of something they did that made her angry. She used to pretend that she had grown up in an orphanage, and had lived a “hard knock life” and ran away; that was how her parents found her. Other times she would imagine that she had grown up somewhere, but a fire burned the entire place down and she was the only survivor. She had tons of scenarios that she could tell anyone about where she came from or who her family was, but deep down she knew none of them were true. She hated not knowing who she really was, what her “real” family was like, where she came from, and where she got her quirks.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The girl was adopted privately, so her mom had access to Laura’s contact information, and when she was 17 years old her mom called Laura and invited her to her high school graduation.

The girl was livid.

She didn’t want to talk to her, she didn’t want to meet her, and she certainly didn’t want her mom being friends with her. Regardless of her escape attempts that day, and no matter where she hid, her mother tracked her down and handed her the phone. She felt a little bad because she really didn’t want to talk to the woman on the other end of the phone line, and she knew she had heard her protests. She talked to Laura for about 10 minutes before handing the phone back to her mother, scowling and grumbling quite loudly.

A few weeks later, her adopted family met Laura, her grandmother, great-grandmother, and her youngest biological sister, Melissa, at Cracker Barrel. The girl's parents and her adopted sister, Blaire, got there about 10 minutes early, and waited at their table. She purposefully sat with her back to the door so she wouldn’t have to see them walk in. It was pointless though, she could sense the moment they walked in the door.

It was strangely comforting to see people who looked like her. They got through lunch painlessly, and exchanged phone numbers and she talked to them off and on for the next year before she left for Israel. A few short weeks before she moved, she met Mark; he and Laura had gotten married a couple years after she was born. She’ll never forget the first thing he said to her- “She has my hair!!!” The more she looked at his hair and compared it to hers, the more I realized he was very correct- their hair was identical. They have the same weird hair line, same curls, same color- everything. She had finally found someone who she could tell that she really belonged too. That day, something inside her began to calm down and she finally started to feel this odd feeling of belonging.

She didn't spend a lot of time with Mark and Laura when she first met them. It was still very strange to be around people that she was actually related too. She found it creepy that people she had only known for a short time could know her so well, and she them. She didn’t understand it yet, and it made her a little on edge, and at times, very moody when she went back to her adopted family’s house.

Every child, at some point in their lives, begins to wonder where they came from and who they act or look like in their families. For children that live with their biological parents, or even one biological parent, it is easier to see. Children who are adopted always question, “Who am I?”, “Where did I come from?”, “What is my family like?”, “Where did I get this certain trait?” and too many times, these questions are never answered. Too many times, a child never finds out and that little piece of them remains missing forever. It's never easy.

Once Upon A Dream...

Every Saturday was essentially the same. Once inside the gate, she would walk straight through the throngs of tourists and down the old stone stairs into the craziness that was the Old City. After winding her way through the cramped streets watching tourists haggle and vendors snicker as they sold a $1 trinket for six times its price, she would turn off the main street and leave all the shouting and stench of sweat behind her. She was now away from the vendors that dealt with the everyday tourists to those who knew her by name. The street was still a well traveled path through the Old City, but not one that just anyone took. You had to be brave to find this street (or the hopelessly lost), only the worthy made it this far. She was now in the "Christian Quarter." The gateway of Christian Quarter Road reeked of stale urine. Maybe the city always smelled that way. Maybe the vendors were just keeping ancient traditions alive. She loved the shopkeepers here though; if it was lunch time, she would eat 5 times before she had even walked the corridor. If she was too full to eat then it was baklava and mint tea.
The corridor was dark, and the large paving stones were smooth from millions of feet passing over them. During the dry months, this corridor wasn't difficult to walk, but during the winter, when it rained, it wasn't unusual to see a shop keeper, child, exchange student, or tourist slip and come within millimeters of kissing these smooth old stones.

Thankfully, she was relatively sure on her feet, and a very slow walker, so she never had the unfortunate meeting with one of the Old City's first inhabitants.

Near the end of the dark corridor was Zack's shop. Painted bright blue, it was so bright inside that it illuminated the stones almost the whole way across the corridor. He was always standing there with a goofy grin, waiting for her to show up.

“Good morning! Come, come ha'bib'ti!” (It's a pet name- my love- in Arabic.)

Zack knew when she would arrive, about 25 minutes after the boy. Warm tea was always waiting, steam pouring out of the little white ceramic cups. They would sit and chat until they'd had their fill of tea, then she and the boy would say their goodbyes to Zack and venture back out into the dark corridor in search of the closest toilet. The boy was an old friend that she had met on her first trip to Israel when she was 17. Although they lived on opposite ends of the city, they hung out every Saturday, Sunday, and various other times during the week. It seemed they had no other friends than each other, but they thoroughly enjoyed the others company, and never really got tired of being together. It was an added bonus that the boy knew a large majority of the vendors in both the Old City and parts of the new city in Jerusalem- they never got lost.

Once out of Zack's shop, they would make their way to the end of Christian Quarter Road and turn right, heading towards the Muslim and Jewish quarters of the city. To the left was a convent and the shop where she got her hair cut; further up past the convent and around the winding old path was the New Gate, spitting you out somewhere between East and West Jerusalem. Turning right led to houses hidden in alleys; it was less safe here as no tourists ever came this far unless they were very familiar with the city (or again hopelessly lost). Being only ¼ mile in diameter it would take them close to 8 hours to walk from one end of the city to the other (in a circular and often winding path), and they knew their way. Imagine being lost. Shopkeepers would give you bad directions or send you to a family members shop. It could take days to find your way out-- unless you ran into the boy and the girl. They were a sight for sore eyes to those unfortunate enough to have taken a shopkeepers directions.

The street they were on was pretty boring. Near the end of it, before entering the Muslim Quarter was the cheapest Internet café in Jerusalem; you really had to know where it was though. Ten (10) NIS (shekels- new Israeli shekelim) for 30 minutes, that was $2.50 back then. Just past the Internet café and down the stairs was part of the Via Dolorosa. What most people don't know is the real Via Dolorosa is about 50 feet under ground, but you can still get down there.

Once you descend a bunch of steep tiny stairs, you see the path to King David's Gihon Spring that was dug under the city walls when Jerusalem was under siege. The inhabitants of King David's Jerusalem could still get water even though the springs on the surface were poisoned. Walk past these ancient underground steps and, if you're quiet enough, you can hear the ancient women talking as they gather water. The old stone and water give off an eerie, musty aroma. As you pass over the stream covered in glass, you walk through a large crack in the rock. You are standing on a street that is over 2,000 years old. The houses still line the small street, but there is a huge boulder in the way, keeping you from exploring this underground city.

“When Herod died, construction ceased. The workers left this boulder here...” echoes off the walls. There are little windows and doorways in the houses and suddenly the true Old City comes alive in my mind. It is Friday afternoon in my imagination, there are women standing in the doorways shouting to the children playing in the street. Carts wobble by in the ruts on the street made over time from chariots or other carts following the same path day after day. The smell of fresh baked bread and the scream of the chicken being made into tonight's dinner echoes thorough the street, but no one stops to notice. They are all in a hurry to get home before the sun dips below their beautiful temple and the city falls dark.

Someone behind her gives a little shove and she keep walking, the scene before her disappearing into the darkness. Those poor tourists trapped by those crazy vendors, they are missing down there.

The road they are on above the ancient Jerusalem skirts the border of the Muslim Quarter before entering the safe and clean Jewish Quarter. The stones here are no longer the worn, large paving stones of the other quarters, they are neatly cut and look much newer (by at least a few hundred years). The Old City is silent today, no one in the Jewish Quarter is out on Saturday. They make their way through the silent corridors and window shop the beautiful jewelry and paintings. They walk past the ruins of the old market places from the same time period as the underground street. These look much worse off, the rocks are crumbling and it's hard to tell what you're looking at. The only noticeable features are the Roman arches above each doorway.

Children walk by and whisper in hushed tones as she and the boy stand close to each other, staring at the old rocks. This was the only place their friendship made sense- they loved those old stones. They finally peel their eyes away from the scenes in their imagination and walk to the stairs leading down to the Wailing Wall. It was the same routine with the soldiers at the check point every time they went.

“Why are you here?”

“To pray at the Wall.”

“Ok. Please place your bag on the belt, remove your shoes, hat and sunglasses, cover your shoulders ma'am and walk through the metal detector.”

“Miss.”

They always set it off; it was the CD player every time. You would have thought they'd learn. The soldiers would turn it on and listen for a minute before returning it to her purse or his bag without turning it off.

“Batteries aren't cheap y'know! Can't you ever turn it off?”

“Sorry ma'am.”

“Miss! I am not a ma'am!”

You can't help but feel a sense of awe upon entering the plaza where the Western Wall stands. Hundreds of men and women are always praying diligently at the old stone wall. They say, if you write a prayer on a piece of paper and place it in the Wall, God will answer it. What an odd superstition. It was rare they actually went to the Wall to pray. Men and women had separate areas to pray, and they liked being in each others company too much. They would sit for what seemed like hours watching people before realizing their stomachs were growling in protest.

They would exit the plaza the same way they entered. The soldiers didn't care to search their bags going out. The boy and girl would walk the outside perimeter of the city this time, skirting the Armenian Quarter and parts of the Jewish Quarter rather than winding back through the Muslim and Christian quarters. Lunch time was normally around 4pm, and if you walked by some of the houses in the Jewish Quarter, you could hear families begin stirring as the end of the Sabbath approached.

One of their favorite places to eat was a small pizza place down an alleyway just inside Jaffa Gate. It was the second alley actually, and just before you walked under an arch that would lead you out the New Gate. It was called Abu Shanabs, and the owner knew them by name. After their pizza, they would grab some ice cream from a vendor just before he closed for the evening, then walk across the street to the park, sit on the hill, and watch the sun set around the Old City. They never spoke- it would have ruined the moment. They both sat, pen in hand, paper on their laps, and wrote. Some days it was stories, other days it was just a journal of what they'd seen. Sometimes it was a letter to a friend. Once the sun set, their day was over. She was expected back at the bed and breakfast to help prepare food for the next morning and clean the dishes from the day; her work never seemed finished. The boy would walk her home. It wasn't always the safest thing for a young American girl to be walking alone at night. They would smile and wave goodbye, planning to meet again tomorrow. A long backwards glance would end the day- and she would always wonder.... what if?

Her fondest memories are hidden in those old stones. It was where she found out who she was, where she grew up, and where pieces of her heart still reside. She will never be able to face the eighteen year old child she once was on those streets again, she'll never say goodbye to her ghosts that reside in the dark corridors of the Old City. She will never feel those smooth stones under her feet again, nor remember exactly how smooth they were to the touch. 
Jerusalem will forever remain a perfect memory in her mind... untainted by reality. What's terrible is she isn't remembering it better than it really was. It really was that perfect.

Few pictures from today... more to come later

** As of Thursday, August 4th-- A large grass fire burned 111 buildings at the unoccupied, historic Chaffee Hospital in the Fort Chaffee area.

http://www.4029tv.com/news/28760506/detail.html#ixzz1UJHh8KOs **

We went to Fort Chaffee today to explore and take pictures... here's a couple of the more memorable ones.....

History captured

More pictures from around Fort Smith, AR

Concrete Angel

Tree in graveyard

Lantern at Miss Laura's - a restored former bordello here in Fort Smith

Sitting room at Miss Laura's

Sitting room at Miss Laura's

Coat rack at Miss Laura's

Butterfly

desk at the Commissary at the National Historic Site by Judge Parker's Museum

Museum at historic site

Carousel - and laundry

Steam Engine at the Trolley Museum

Gauges in Steam Engine

Caboose at the Trolley Museum