The heart's connection to a pan of brownies: A dedication to my Mom

I believe that memories and feelings are tied to certain “objects or tastes” throughout our lives. For example, the smell of bubble gum (Hubba Bubba watermelon flavor) instantly takes me back 20 plus years and puts me in my childhood driveway, colored chalk in hand and drawing a hopscotch game onto the cement. I’m in jean shorts smacking and popping bubbles under the sun and can feel the warmth of the driveway on my butt. When I smell suntan lotion I can also simultaneously smell the fabric softener my Mom used on my beach towel and feel the sensation of my body laying on it, the tiny blades of grass poking through onto my back and the feel of sunshine on my face and the tightness of my ponytail.

Smells are huge for me and memories flood back once I catch a whiff of something familiar. Wrigleys Spearmint gum makes me think of my Grandma’s purse as she always carried that green gum with her and gave me a piece every time I rode in her car. Fried fish, boom I’m a child back at our cabin in Alexandria, I can hear the waves of the lake and my dad is standing over the frying pan with a spatula in hand and I can hear every sizzle. One of the biggest memory trips I get is when I smell baked goods. In particular, bars, cookies, and brownies. Oh, my Mom’s brownies were divine. I remember running through our front door when I got home from school and right away I’d know that she made them even before I saw the 9x13 pan on the counter. The scent gave it away. I’d open the lid and the frosting was still warm and gooey as if she had timed it just perfectly to when we walked in the door. She was so sweet like that. They always had a tiny little corner piece taken out because she always had to give it a taste. Damn they were good and I haven’t had them in years.

What I do have though is the recipe and so today I decided to glance it over. Hmmmm, well the only healthy ingredient on the list was the 1/2 cup of boiling water and I’m trying to eat very clean and conscious as of late so I thought I’d make a few substitutions. I mean it can’t hurt to swap a few things out right? So instead of butter I used coconut oil. White flour, bleh, I used some gluten free flour mix. I thought it looked a little thick so I added another egg. I didn’t use the regular white sugar Mom would use but opted for some raw cane sugar and a little coconut palm sugar. The mix looked the right consistency so I crossed my fingers and stuck it in the oven, getting excited for the wonderful smell that would soon fill my house.

Five minutes passed, then ten, then fifteen. What the hell? Did I forget to turn on the oven? Nope, it’s hot. I walked outside and walked back in, and still I smelled no chocolate. Did I remember to put in the damn cocoa? Yes, I had. Is my nose broken!? I opened up a jar of peanut butter and sniffed. No my senses were definitely in working condition. Then the timer went off but the smell never came. WTF!? Ok so I stuck the toothpick in and it was perfectly done and looked really good even though the smell was blank. Maybe the taste will make up for the non existing aroma?

Um, yeah, not so much. I let them cool just enough to dig a fork in and take a nice big bite. Huh? Where’s my Mom’s brownies? I got a hint of candle wax flavor on my tongue. This rectangular pan of dark brown something was a mirage to what should have been a sweet moist bite of warm chocolate sin. Granted, I hadn’t attempted to create the frosting yet but why bother if the base is all jacked up? Crazy enough though, the kid thinks they’re great (under a mountain of whipped cream that is).

Lesson learned: Some things you just can’t mess with. If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. And honestly? Sometimes it’s worth it to just keep things as they are, even if they’re on the unhealthy side for the sake of memories and satisfaction. My Mom had tons of cookbooks and recipe boxes and this was the ONE AND ONLY brownie recipe she reverted back to for as long as I can remember. Obviously, she knew it was the best and if she knew anything it was how to bake. So I’ll put a little star in the corner of the recipe and note “No adjustments” because at the end of the day, you just can’t mess with perfection.

Exclusive: Kim, Kanye, and baby North "take naps together!"

Warning: Venting ahead.

OK so I just saw this “update” in my news feed as if it were some ground breaking-OMG-can you believe it?! type of jaw dropping news and well I have to blog it out and give it a big old “WHO GIVES A F#@K?!”

So let me break it down for you famous people who think that spending 5 hours on your Swarovski encrusted fingernails and 1/2 day in the make-up chair, oh and wearing a $10,000 pair of socks equates to your worth, you need a reality check (no your Kardashian show does not count as reality). This is not how normal people in society function.

Just because you are so busy spending money and time trying to look hot (your double plumped lips are not by the way), this does not constitute as a job. Just because people publish ridiculous articles about how doting you are to your child or how miraculous it was that you actually made the time to sit by your (not yet divorced) girlfriend while she pushed a baby out of her (Brazilian waxed) vagina, this does not mean you are actually worthy of any praise doing what all of us other normal people in the world would do without thinking.

Just because you are famous does not make you more special for oh let me see here...holding your child, napping with your child, or giving them a bottle. Wake up people this shit is normal, even if you think you came up with some erratically cool, “no one will ever be able to copy” name for your wrinkled baby such as North West. It isn’t original, it’s obvious. It’s not cool, it’s desperation. The shock wore off after 6 seconds. Poor little North West (who will likely end up directionally challenged) was worthy of about 10.5 million eye rolls before he hit his first 24 hours of life all for a little “oh they finally reveled the name!” publication.

Word up Kanye and Kim: No one gives a shit. Nobody cares that Kanye is by your side certain hours of the day during his busy schedule, or that the crib cost $10,000 (they just piss all over the sheets anyway fyi) or that Kanye refuses to change diapers (really!?). Just because people know your name it doesn’t make your baby any more special even if the gossip mags do pay you multi-millions for a brief (likely exaggerated) 1/2 page print of a few sweet words that you whispered or photos of the cute baby blankets and booties you bought. Ugh.

Get over yourselves. I’d like to see a nice real article about how the baby pooped on your Gucci skirt or how you only got 2 hours of sleep because your bawling baby kept you up all night and it took 2 more hours in the make-up chair to fix the under-eye bags. Because honestly? Having a newborn is not all sunshine and roses (even if you toss out the money to make it appear so in the glossy pages of a magazine). Us real people know better.

So shut-up. Put away the false lashes and put on the sweat pants like a new mommy should. And Kanye, I don’t care how much money those jeans cost or how toned your ass is, you still need to pull up those damn pants.

Vent over. Aaaaaand breathe.

The five year twitch

Our cell phone. Our “smart” phone. Our love. Our wing man, assistant, stereo, camera, and calendar in one. These tiny rectangular objects have slowly become our LIFE all wrapped up in a cute little package that can fit in the palm of our hand. Access to anything our heart desires is practically a click away. We are spoiled incessantly by the convenience of this little smart rectangle and yet we completely take it for granted, but what the hell it’s technology, times have changed and I love to love it. My iphone and I were inseparable for almost 5 years...

But....

Like any relationship...

Things get a little too comfortable after awhile. Things get slightly uneventful. Same ol’ same ol’. The parts feel the same, the sounds are repetitious, same colors, blah. Sometimes you want to spice things up a bit. Try something new. Could the grass be greener? Could the mind be quicker? Maybe there’s a better fit for me? What can I say, I got the itch. My palm? It got the twitch.

Along comes something “bigger.” Enter "The Samsung Galaxy" (even sounds more macho doesn’t it?) Wow! The size spoke volumes right away. The face was brighter, the package was larger. Made my little iphone look like a teeny weenie next to a rocket. It took awhile to figure out my new relationship and how “we” would work together. At first it kept piping up and beeping, ringing, vibrating at all intervals through out the day and I was powerless to stop it. I went nuts. It finally stopped for no reason on day 2. By day 3 I had stopped text messaging all together as the keyboard was a pain in the ass. Mr. Samsung couldn’t read my body language and adjust to my touch like thee old iphone could. You literally have to have fingers the size of toothpicks to hit the damn keys right. But the ring tones of seagulls and waves? Well, my ears were in love. I didn’t have time to figure out this new personality and what keys to press for what. We had more than one verbal altercation which resulted in me saying : “I f#%*@g hate this phone!”

But....
My new case with the bright colored stripes looked all hot and fashion forward. It went with my personality. We looked good together. Things were going alright for a new relationship  but while I had Mr Macho Samsung charging up on my night stand I was still sleeping with my iphone. As in spooning it actually.

Why?

Because there’s a particular sleep app that I rely on the soothe me to sleep and to wake me with angelic harps and a breeze. Samsung doesn’t have the app. There are similar apps with similar features, but not like this one. (It’s called sleep cycle and it’s the bomb)There’s just certain things an ex has that the new fling will never have. I missed my itunes. I missed the way my iphone knew my thoughts before I thought them. Read my mind and practically typed my messages for me. It spoke my language, understood my slang, and well, it just “got me.” I tried to get over it but couldn’t. I still found myself yearning for my old comfortable relationship and still reached for my old iphone in the morning only to be reminded that the functions have been stolen away from it. I felt like I was cheating on a rectangular object. How messed up have I become?

End scenario? I got me a new iphone5. I love the iphone. I didn’t need a new relationship, I just needed to work on the old one. It’s like my technological box got a makeover, worked out a bit, and slipped into a new pair of skinny jeans. I just need to get a hot new case for it to slide into and we’ll be rocking the world again.

I broke up with Samsung and won’t look back. At the end of the day “size doesn’t matter.” At least not in the smart phone world! But if you love something? Go ahead and set it free, it will always come back if it’s meant to be. Me and my iphone, my iphone and me, forever and always in “sync” we will be.

Death and New Beginnings

Death.

The word that sounds like darkness. It makes me feel cold and if spoken in the right tone can create a tiny trail of goosebumps along the outer portion of my arms. It’s not a pretty word. It’s a clouded term dripping with depression. I think of graves, gloomy skies, black weeds, sunken hearts, and a deep night sky. It feels like an END. A sorrowful end. I like happy endings so the word death does not appeal to me.

I don’t like the word die either. Again it sounds like an end. A life has now become final. They have DIED. They are no more. Gone. Evaporated. Nothing.

I don’t belief in death and I don’t believe in dying.

I believe that people move on to the next the level. I believe they change forms. They graduate. They blossom. They start anew like a sunset in the early dawn. They wake up in another place. Their soul floats away into the beauty of their next phase. When they leave this world another one awaits and greets them with open arms of which they willingly embrace and breathe a sigh of appreciation for. This is the circle of life. There are no end-of-the-roads here, but a constant turn of phases. A ring of change, a big circle of constant improvement and growth. A horizon.

New beginnings. This sounds like a light-hearted phrase. I see sunshine. I feel hope. A challenge perhaps, but change is a certainty in life. You accept it or resist it. I see it as a clean state.

I wrote a little poem about it. Just kept typing as the thoughts popped up. Random and quick but true to my perceptions on the topic. Wanna hear it? Here it goes...

Do Not Think Of Me as Death (a tale on new beginnings)

Do not think of me as Death
I am a new Beginning
I am not dark
I am not withered
I am glowing, awake and singing.

Do not think that I am over
I am not final
Forever is me
My journey here is complete
I came, I conquered
now I’m free.

Do not think of me as death
I did not stop,
Just left an open space
My soul went up and away
gave me new meaning
in a brand new place.

Do not think of me as gone
You can’t see me
can’t touch me, but I’m here
I’m not tangible
to your hands
but an emotion
full of love, not fear.

Do not think that I have died
I live in your mind
I can’t be erased.
I’m the warmth in your heart
the swell of your chest
The catch in your breathe
and the tears on your face.

Death didn’t take me away
My path changed
a new journey has begun
A world unknown
to those still here
I’m one with the stars
the moon and the sun.

I am not death
I did not die
I moved on to a new beginning
On a road built of peace and love
still growing
still learning
and still singing....

~~~The art of forgiveness~~~

Forgiveness.

The word alone is like an open door surrounded by a foggy peace and an echo of “aaah...” in angelic tune.

The possibilities are endless and the beauty of forgiveness is like artistry for the soul.  Forgiveness gives you control of your life, wisdom for your mind, fuel for your soul and is honestly the greatest gift you can give to yourself. It takes all grudges, misfortunes, regrets, and wrong doings and wipes them away like a big black eraser over a dirty chalkboard. Shit be gone, that is the art of forgiveness.

Forgiveness allows you to:

Not understand things but release them with love anyways.

Not know for sure if there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but hold a match on your path to find it.

Not know all the answers, but have faith that solutions will come.

Not sweat the small things because it’s the big things that count.

When you forgive you are allowing yourself the recognition of what you deserve and do not deserve in your life. You care about yourself enough to know that you don’t need petty discrepancies weighing down your happy mind and hurtful feelings taking up space in your precious heart. Other peoples words and actions have nothing to do with you and to forgive is to repel them. You release the negative and embrace the positive for the better of YOU. Forgiveness is looking at your heart and saying “you’re worth it.” You owe it to yourself to forgive.

Forgiveness doesn’t require any physical strength, it doesn’t cost a dime, and it can recreate your mind instantly.

It doesn’t even require an apology, that is the beauty of forgiveness.

*Poof*----forgive and be free.

Aging: The inevitable mosquito

I had a feeling this day would come…it has been slowly blowing across my shoulder like a whisper, well perhaps more like a mosquito that I kept swatting away. I don’t know if I’m trying to deny the inevitable or perhaps I’m in a funk or have some preconceived inkling that I should feel a certain way so I am trying to turn into something else in a resentful manner. Maybe it’s Winter. It’s easy to blame the snow on my mood. Perhaps a lack of sun is playing tricks with my brain and yet I can’t help but conclude that I may have reached that point in my life where I feel I have crossed over that hill between youth and mid-life and fell into that sinkhole where I can honestly say without trepidation “I think I’m getting old.”

I do not like this. I do not feel “older” inside and my mind is like a rainbow of vibrancy ready to burst through my eyeballs and yet many of my surroundings and subtle hints along the way are leading to this conclusion.  Case in point: I went to brunch with 5 girlfriends yesterday. We went to a bar in northeast called Legends. Their specialty is Bloody Mary’s and vodka sunrises however nobody ordered alcohol. (I would have but everyone else got virgin Bloody Mary’s and since I hate that drink I ordered a hot tea with lemon- who orders that in a bar?!) Last year at this time I was bar hopping in 4 inch pumps and green attire with a flashing leprechaun on my left tit and swinging down colored beers while chanting along to Irish songs. I do believe I was prancing, gleefully down Grand Avenue and it felt GOOD. I was also hiding my grief behind a mug of beer but it felt right and it worked. The sun was also shining and I felt more alive, ready to live every day of my life like it could be my last. This year on St. Patrick’s day I was at a bar not drinking, dressed in all black and discussing the proper age to potty train a child and getting excited about planning a garage sale. I love my girlfriends and I really need to sell some shit at a garage sale, but how is it that I suddenly feel like I have aged 10 years in the span of one. What’s my problem?

Am I old? Middle aged? Young at heart but wrinkled on the eyes? Looking back I remember the strange point where you’re in your mid-to late twenties and every now and then you go into a bar and don’t get carded. You know you’re over 21 and know you look over 21 but you wonder why everyone else thinks you look over 21. Then you’d meet some guys and they’d ask your age and your girlfriends would say with a cute smirk “how old do you think we are?” They’d say 22 when you’re 25 or 25 when you’re 27 and you sort of giggle inside thinking it’s a compliment (even though they’re likely humoring you) and then there’s the day where your 26 year old girlfriend asks that innocent little question of “how old do you think I am?” and the guy says “28?” And that’s the day you no longer ask that stupid question. Who the hell cares anyway? There’s nothing wrong with looking your age, that only makes sense, but when someone guesses you’re older than you are? You’d think the world was ending.

It’s true what they say; when you’re 16 you want to look 21 and when you’re 28 you want to look 22. Life moves on. Numbers go up. Breasts go down. It’s all relative, it’s all gravity. It’s life. My whole issue lately is trying to decide when the hell this aging thing seemed to hit me so hard. I try to figure out exactly what has changed and when the hell it happened. I’m happy. I love my life. I want to embrace this whole getting older thing and not let a silly number dictate how I behave but I have a difficult time with maturity and adulthood. I’m a big kid and I like to rebel and stand on my own little pedestal while peering into the box that everyone else is thinking inside of. I am a black sheep. I march to my own drum in my own band on my own turf in my own world. I can’t control the getting older thing and quite frankly, it ruffles my feathers (my bold, sparkly, in-your-face feathers).

What changes? When I look in the mirror I still see the eyes of that six year old girl in blonde ponytails with 3 pieces of pink hubba bubba gum in her mouth, trying to blow a bubble bigger than her head. I still like her. She was comfortable in her skin and effortless in her confidence. I still feel like I want to draw pictures with colored pencils and play hopscotch til the sun goes down. Maybe I just miss the fresh air of Summer.

Aging is hard because the number tells a different story than my mind. I feel like it’s a deception of reality, a lie almost. Not that 35 is a bad number or anything, but I feel like I don’t match the mold.  I’m not ready for this sinkhole I feel like I’ve fallen into.  I see eye bags that don’t belong on my face, wrinkles that don’t blend with this skin and the aging hairs that don’t belong on my head and I will never embrace that shit. I feel healthy, full of energy, and I feel like I will forever be in my 20’s no matter how many days I wake up and how many calendar pages I flip. The hands of time will always be in control and I will keep getting older and older and older but my heart will forever be young and that will never change.

So the whole “I think I’m getting old” thing? The thought is inevitable. I just need to rephrase it as a positive: “I’m blossoming with age.” “I’m ripe in my years.” “I’m growing with enthusiasm.” Screw it. I’m getting old, but nonetheless, it’s still better than the alternative and I’m very grateful to be alive even if I have to swat at my age like a mosquito.

367 days and counting

365.366.367. Does it matter when that one year anniversary marks a day that put a scratch on your heart? What’s with the whole “year” thing anyway? Who decided that precisely 365 days constitutes a year composed into 12 sections called months and increments called days made of 24 hours made of 60 minutes made of 60 seconds and so on. BOOM. It’s been a year and 2 days since a piece of my heart seemed to vaporize and slip away to the other side with my Mom’s soul leaving a hollowness that will forever reside in me. I don’t like dates, months, and numbers anymore, never cared for them actually. I wish time could just be time, days could be days and we could all just live. If we’re all supposed to live for the day and live like it’s our last then what’s with all the counting and numbers and keeping track?

It was like March crept up like some impending doom this year. Knowing this was the month that was horrendous last year, I really wanted to just forward through the first couple weeks of this month because even though I know that 365 days doesn’t mean anything and time is irrelevant when it comes to matters of the heart, the calendar still told me that on THIS PARTICULAR DAY, March 12th, 365 days ago my Mom died. I couldn’t avoid it. Just when you think you’re at peace with everything and understand the who what when where and why the hell did that have to happen, you can’t help but think back on those moments last year and wonder “how the hell did I make it through all that?” and begin to unravel everything in your head and replay images, thoughts, words like some movie you need to watch 20 times just to understand the plot. I get it. It happened. I just wish I knew then what I know now because things may have been different. Or not. We’ll never know.

What I do know is this: The more life goes on the more I miss her because that time span between the last time we had an eye to eye conversation seems to stretch longer and longer apart. I yearn to see her to tell her about all these things in my life that I’m supposed to tell to a Mom. Since that won’t happen but in my dreams, of which I have had many conversations with her in the deep of nocturnal world and I believe them to be real, I also just talk out loud to her in my car. All the time. Like a lunatic. I can feel her in the passenger seat next to me and I talk to her out loud like she’s physically present. I always feel better after doing this. I ask her questions out loud and the answers seem to come to me, floating through my mind like snowflakes and suddenly certain ones stick and I know that’s her.

I ask for signs from her incessantly, acting as if she’s some genie in a bottle and the world is this crystal ball she now has the power to manipulate and mold in my favor. I imagine her as this angelic guide who follows me around and puts a protective bubble of mystical good fortune over my life. She’s my secret miracle maker and I feel like this invisible chain of love and understanding forever links us.

It’s been a year if you want to count about it. One whole year. I don’t know what I expected to happen on the anniversary of her death. It’s not like the sky would open up and this ray of light would shoot down so I’d know she was happy or something. Oh wait, that did happen. That is the photo above. I stopped traffic to take it on the side of the highway with my hazards on but I never worry anymore about getting hit by passing cars since there’s an angel on the other side who has my back.

Anyhow, it’s not like 365 days would suddenly turn and I’d feel better.  I just got a flood of memories and images of her last days. Her lying in that bed in our living room watching her gasp for breath wondering if she felt the pain and knowing she did. Being powerless to stop it. Holding her hand that was so warm and swollen and stroking her fingernails that were positively perfect looking. Her hands always looked like she had a French manicure even though she has never had her nails done in her life. The whites of her nails were amazing. I have her pinkies. The look of their slender elongated grace and the personality of how they perk out when sipping on a cup of coffee. Every time I look at my hands I think of her and remember the beauty of her fingernails and the last time I held her hand.

I tried to focus on the normal things about her rather than the moan of her breathing and the vacant look in her eyes. I thought of the warmth of her hand in mine. I stared at her hand for what felt like hours when she was slipping away and remembered all the beautiful things those hands have done from cradling babies to planting flowers, wiping tears to peeling potatoes. Those hands must have applied over 100 band-aids, started hundreds of bubble baths, raked a million leaves, made a thousand braids of hair, and rolled out countless pounds of dough. Her delicate fingers held Danielle Steele novels, made the beds of far too many people, hung laundry with clothespins nearly every year of her life, and sewed with pride matching outfits for her daughters. Those hands never stopped. They decorated cookies, washed windows, placed the needle on record players, twirled baton, changed diapers, delivered Avon orders door to door, held countless nursery rhyme books, painted ceramics, decorated birthday cakes, tied shoelaces, wrapped scarves, tied ties, fastened necklaces, and put in her gas permeable contacts that she always said were “the only contacts she could ever wear.” That always made me giggle inside. Her hands were indicative to her soul and I felt lucky to be stroking her perfect fingers.

My Mom becomes more special to me as time goes on. The things she did for me hold a more powerful value than they used to. I delve deeper to find the meaning in things. I pick apart my childhood and sort happy memories into this imaginary scrapbook in my mind that I can page through at any moment and it exudes comfort and puts a happy bubble in my heart. She lived a beautiful life of wondrous moments. I was so lucky to have been given the gift of a delicate and sweet mother who was warm hearted, nurturing, and forgiving. Those are the things I like to hold in my mind. The good stuff is worth recapturing and meditating on and no matter how many days have passed and how many March 12ths I will see in this lifetime I can still feel her hand in mine like it was yesterday.