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.