The day is done. I'm phsyically tired, but I'm emotionally charged. Mentally... I'm 90% there.

Divine messages have once again interjected into my life. Perhaps in the most usual form, but I believe I got the memo.

I finally finished Jennifer Weiner's Certain Girls late last night.  Again, my hats off to her for such an excellent work. I will admit it was in a bit of shock towards the end when she decided to write off a character. Honestly, I pretty much grieved last night with Cannie Shapiro, because like her, I too had grown accustom to the character that was killed off. The person was a permanent fixture in the fictional world of Cannie - so I thought.

Nevertheless, my revelation didn't come with the character's death as it served as an culminating event to the plot. It was more so Cannie's reclaiming herself in the aftermath of everything - her true purpose in life... her Divine purpose in life. What was it? Naturally it was to write. The calling was there ... been there... for Cannie to write something sincere from the heart. From her gut. Not out of anger as she did with the first novel that eventually caused her shame and made her hide under a  psuedo. Though she was good at it (apparently) and found her comfort zone in writing under another name, it wasn't the REAL Cannie.

The way Weiner summed up Cannie's fears on writing again or just writing a book in general hit home for me. It was all about protecting the ones she loves in the midst of her own madness (true or made up) and releasing in order to let go..or maybe just coast along in a comfort zone.  Yet deep within, because of whatever insecurities her real life's work or purpose in life was obscure of foggy.

This morning I arose with thoughts in my head on finishing my work/manuscript as I scrambled around prepping my daughter for her big day in church. She was dedicated today and for a time I felt as if I were going to cry. Actually I did most of my crying last night as I read through Joy's bat miztvah and her message and even made some comparisons of my own daughter's life. Like a bar/bat miztvah a dedication is very much indeed an important milestone. It's a process or MY commitment as a mother... a parent... to "offer" my child's life back to God. It's up to me to guide her through life and raise her in the light of God until she is old enough to say "Mother I want to fully commit to Him."

As I listened to my pastor's words today during the dedication and during the sermon (from which he preached on the widow in debt with her empty vessels and filled it with oil as Elisha instructed her to do and further told her to sell the oil in order to repay her debt - 2 Kings 4:1-11) the tears filled the corners of my eyes.  Today, I was not only being charged with the duty of motherhood, but also my purpose. my writing...my oil.

Are my vessels (of life) empty?

I probably still have some cleaning to do, which is something that I may need to serious sit down think and pray on.

If anyone who reads my blog doesn't hear from me in a while.. don't worry... more than likely... I'm behind closed doors working with my oil to fulfill something that I do feel is calling me.

I have a story to tell... somebody's needs to hear it.

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Kimora and daughters fashion week 2008

1. Viewing Kimora Lee Simmons' reality show.

I cried.

Last night's (Sunday) episode was a part two to Kimora and her production team staging the Phat Fashions fashion show for New York's Annual Fashion Week. A segment of the show features Kimora giving her oldest daughter, Ming Lee, a pep talk about her hair. Ming Lee, 8,  was about to take part in a rite of passage that all little girls of color (or perhaps any girl) goes through at some point. In prepping for the fashion show, Ming Lee's hair was about to be "blown out" or straightened via the blow dryer. Kimora's pep talk was more of handing out "the law" in how to keep up with such a hair style, plus bumping up Ming Lee's chores around the house - to washing dishes.

After a kiss to seal the hair and chores deal, and Kimora's daughters asking her how old was she when her hair was blown out - to which Kimora responded "at the age of 13 when I was hitting the runways in Paris" - an emotional mommy began to break down and cry. Ironically, I was crying right along with Kimora as she (maybe with a little bit of dramatic overtones) talked through tears of how her babies are growing up before her eyes and it was all too much for her.

I thought about my own daughter. How she is a little over 13 months now. I look at her now and compare pictures I took of her last year when she was a few weeks old. She's definately older. She has her own personality.  She is starting her journey of becoming her own unique spirit.  I'm anxious, scared and happy at the same time to the different rites of passage she will go through - menstrual cycle, first bra, allowed to have boys call her, wearing stockings, wearing high heels, makeup and of course hair permed/straightened.

I was roughly 12 when my hair was processed. My mother was furious. At the time I didn't understand what the big deal was. I just knew I was tired of the hot comb. I had enough war wounds  (hot comb scars) behind my ears to plead my case. My grandmother agreed and "ordered" it done. Aunt P, who worked as a beautician at the time, commenced with the order. PCJ (as it was/is called) or Pressing Comb in a Jar did the trick. Funny thing is, all those years I spent with processed hair, I finally let the chemicals go. It's been eight or nine years as I've returned to my "au natural" roots (which do need some professional work here and there), and began a regime of washing my hair every two weeks and either letting it air dry into a bush or finding the patience of pressing my own hair with the hot comb - only to make it managable to comb and not bone straight.

However, back to Kimora.... 

It was at that moment of her "breakdown" that I truly gained respect for Kimora as a business woman but more importantly as a mother. Though she is demanding and a bit of a diva with her over the top ways, the love she has for her daughters is not for show for the Style Network cameras. It's real. In all that she does, she always makes it a point that no matter what, when her babies need her she is there.

I can only hope that I am doing just the same for my own daughter. I'm always careful to continue to let my passion for writing and all that I want to do drive me, but making sure it doesn't leave my daughter in the dust somewhere. Whatever I achieve in life I want it to be for us - God, my daughter and myself.

Certain Girls: A Novel

Jennifer Weiner

2. Reading Certain Girls

Since I began reading Jennier Weiner's latest novel, I've been happily entralled in Cannie Shapiro's world again AND her daughter, Joy. Ironically, I laugh when I read Joy's thoughts, because like any adolescent in this world what "tween" doesn't think their mother is a little "off." As I've been reading I have noticed that I see myself in both Cannie and Joy this time. Joy represents my "ugly" teen years, but she also represents something new in my life... yes my Snickerdoodle. Though Cannie is a little older than me in this book (she's in her 40's where as in Good In Bed she was right on the bullseye as my current age - late twenties) I still related to her on some level as she flashes back to her twenties to relive some horrid "single mom/writer" moments.

What's funny here.. in keeping with the theme of rite of passages...Joy is obviously about to go through one with her bat mitzvah on the horizon. However, as I keep reading it seems that her rite of passage is coming in another form as well..learning the real truth of how she came to be and beginning to understand her mother's intentions, ways, persona...etc.

Part of Cannie's past deals with a book she wrote that was based on her life. However, she fictionalized it with a hyper/over sexed heroine as she told a tale of how she over came some of her issues with the men in her life; a father that didn't want her and a boyfriend that was a pile of....shit.  Not to mention a mother that eventually admitted that she was a lesbian. Naturally Joy ends up reading the book and at the moment is seeking answers, on her own, about her mom and dad's relationship and her existence.

When I initally started blogging (in 2002) and decided that what I wrote would eventually end up in a manuscript or book form, a lot of it did sound like a broken record. That was because it was during the time when I was in my depression and part of my solace or my comfort zone at the time was through sex.  As I began to put the pages together, I didn't like what I saw. Granted it was my truth. That shit hurt. Still, I always worried about who would eventually read my truth if in fact it did get as far as being published. Who would it help? Who would it hurt?

My manuscript has been changed so many times because

1) I'm never going to be happy with it until my brain can finally say "STOP!" That's just the writer perfectionist in me.

2) Though I did fictionalized it, those who are close to me will know it's about me. So what will my mother think, especially in some of the mother vs. daughter scenes?

3) Since becoming a mother, I now feel it's my duty to use it (or perhaps anything I write) as a tool to teach my daughter a (few) lessons in life.. for when she is older and is able to comprehend what I went through.

In reading about Cannie and Joy, it's also bringing up a couple of the same issues I had.. umm HAVE... with my mom.... the over protectiveness and the broken communication line. Where I am currently in the story I do feel as if the crap is about to hit the fan. I'm just anxious to read about it and see where the two Shapiro ladies will go from there.

Another rite of passage...being able to face your truths, the whole truths so help you God.  

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Forgive me "father" for I have sinned it has been several days, maybe weeks, since my last confession.

I've been on a slight mission ever since I purchased a dress a week or so ago. 

My mission...finding the perfect black patent leather clutch purse.

After my free oil change (thank you Mazda), I ended up at Target today and was very disappointed in their selection. Really... how hard can it be to find a nice black patent leather clutch bag without big silly bows? I know I'm a child of the 80s but DAMN!

COOOOOME OOOOOON!

I steered the cart away from that department, picked up a few items for the Snickerdoodle and landed in heaven. 

My eyes lit up when I saw the stationary/card section.

Greeting Card Whore

Okay, I don't know what it is about me and greeting cards or stationary exactly. I don't even know when this addiction started. I have a fetish for pretty paper thingys.  I literally have a collection of greeting cards that I have not given to anyone, because they are too pretty to give to just anyone.

Hey some people collect stamps.

Me....

I'm a pretty paper person.

I did manage to pick up a couple of Mother's Day cards that I will be giving to my mother and grandmother. I still have May birthday cards to pick up. oye! 

Eventually the cards I have in my collection will go to someone... well.. I'm not too sure about the card with the glamour high heel (as pictured above). I simply adore that one. So if anyone gets it, they better damn sure appreciate it.

Anywho....

Needless to say, I caved to my greeting card addiction right there in the middle of Target. To hell with the clutch purse...for now.

On to Barnes & Noble.

My original mission with B&N was to pick up the May issue of Allure Magazine (I actually got the last copy! Did everyone know this was the annual "naked" issue?) 

Again, I was in heaven.

1. I was in a freaking bookstore. I miss buying a book or two.

2. B&N has just about any pop culture and sub pop culture magazine you can think of.  I'm a straight up glossy, airbrush, feature writing, artistic photography, quirky article, inspirational and motivational, 1,000 word count..... WHORE!

Today's Picks from the Newsstand aka Barnes & Noble (4/29/08)

Along with Allure, I picked up two of my favs.

Black Book and Fader (oh I missed reading Fader!)

I also picked up the 2008 edition of Writer's Market! Oh how I NEED this as I scope out who to query for freelance projects and even further my search for a literary agent!

(Big Score for me!)

Also, I could not resist another Jennifer Weiner book.

Gnb cover

OK! Stop! Hold it! The last book by Weiner that I actually own, read and loved was her first, Good In Bed. I could relate to that book on so many levels - and probably even more so now. Ironically I thought about that book last night. I had the urge to re-read it, but my butt was too lazy to get out of bed to hunt for it in my maze of boxes and such thanks to renovation inconvenience. I never got around to reading In Her Shoes, which I'm mad at myself for - since I wanted to read the book before seeing the movie. I didn't bother picking up Little Earthquakes, because after reading the synopsis I wasn't interested. However, today I just couldn't refuse her latest, Certain Girls. The story picks up where Good in Bed left off. So yes... if you are a Jennifer Weiner reader... Cannie Shapiro is back!

With nothing much more to say I would like to be excused now from today's confession.  I'm eager to do some self assigned homework in drumming up some ideas, reading a chapter or two in The Purpose Driven Life and skim through my magazines while drinking some ice tea and wiggling my toes under my covers.

If there shall be a penance for my addictive ways let it be the Snickerdoodle refusing to sleep unless she curls up with me. I can handle that.

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*Please note: "My Retrospect For Life" will be done in multiple parts as events started two weeks ago and I'm catching up on some writing. Entries maybe a bit long.  Please bare with me as I'm still trying to sort these events out and obtain another level of understand about my life and this new life I'm sheltering.  Thank you*

Gnb cover

Ever witness your life on screen or read about it in a book?  It’s your life, but with a different cast and a main character who is “supposing-ly” fictional. For almost the past two weeks I’ve experienced a dejavu.  Because what happened to me, I could have sworn I read about it a few years ago in the book Good In Bed, by Jennifer Weiner.  I loved the book on so many levels, from the writing to the whole plot or scenario of things, to even the witty nature of the main character, Cannie Shapiro.  At the time I read the book I identified with the character so well… or so I thought.  The only thing I had in common with the Cannie at the time was being a plus size writer, working for a news publication with aspirations of turning a manuscript into something other than what it was.  Now I realize at the time I only identified with her on some level. 

It wasn’t until almost two Mondays ago those thoughts of Cannie and her plight came flooding back to mind and I would really feel connected to her and so many women in this world like her.  It was the Monday that I went to have a sonogram performed.  Mind you, this was to check to see if I had any fibroids or any cyst on my ovaries.  Within five minutes into the session, the technician turns to me and asks, “Did you know that you are pregnant?” My body couldn’t move, but I do remember just feeling weak and limber.  I barely managed to get a “no” come through my vocal cords.  The technician continued to take snap shots of my abdomen as I laid there in total disbelief.

After it was over, he confirmed there were no obstructions.  No fibroids.  No cysts.  All my complications I had assumed to be digestive, was nothing more than my body going through the motions of being pregnant. I was not just a few weeks pregnant; by the technician’s measurements of the fetus I was 13-14 weeks. That whole day I sulked, cried and just didn’t know how to handle the news.  Naturally my immediate reaction was to go home, grab the yellow pages and look up abortion clinics. I found a doctor that I was comfortable with at the hospital center and made an appointment for that upcoming Wednesday.  My decision had been made and though I was telling myself that I was comfortable with the decision, my body, my baby, my heart and my soul were telling me different. 

It didn’t take long for me to think back to Cannie after finding out.  Like Cannie, it was a surprise pregnancy.  It couldn’t have happened at the most inopportune time in life.  Like Cannie, it happened in the midst of a confusing time during a relationship/friendship with the ex.  So yes, Hazel is the father.  Just like me, Cannie cried and freaked out and contemplated over terminating the pregnancy.  However, unlike me, Cannie never went as far as making the attempts to try and terminate it. 

Between that Monday and Wednesday, I reasoned with the baby, God and myself.  Through more tears, I wrote a letter to my baby asking for forgiveness for planning its death rather than birthday.  I prayed through that letter as I asked God to take my child’s soul and care for it.  I pray that my deceased great-grandmother would find my child’s soul and nurture it just as she is doing for the two children that Aunt P lost (explanation of this in another entry of another journal).  I cried and hugged my stomach.  I hadn’t even seen the picture on the sonogram screen and part of me wasn’t sure if I was pregnant.  A few times I thought that technician could have been mistaken, but I was proved wrong by Wednesday morning.

Wednesday had arrived and I was ready for my appointment by quarter after nine.  Yet, Divine Intervention had to have stepped in…well tried to. My cab had arrived an hour late and I when I got to the doctor’s office they told me I would have to reschedule. I told the nurse what I was there for and when she looked at her schedule sheet, she told me I wasn’t even down for a “procedure.”  I was down on the schedule for having an evaluation.  In fact they purposely didn’t schedule any “procedures” for that day because the doctor had to attend some big meeting later on in the day.

As the nurse continued to talk to me I appreciated her concerns and her sensitively towards the situation.  She finally asked me if I was sure I wanted to do this.  At the sound of her question my tears uncontrollably rolled down my face.  She begged me not to cry, because she would too.  Then she said, “I will tell you this.  He isn’t in this for the money.  If he sees the slightest hesitation in you he will not do it.  If he sees that you are too far gone he will not do it.” 

She asked me once more if I was sure.  I then sucked up the tears and told her I was.  She had worked something out with the doctor where he could evaluate me for the day and depending on how things go I could come back later in the week for the procedure. I was last person the doctor saw for the day.  I was sent to one of the procedure rooms and looking at the instruments I went numb.  The vacuum or the suction machine sat against the wall not too far from the examination chair with stirrups.  Once I hopped into the chair, naked waist down with a towel wrapped around me, I took notice of the glass jars that sat on top of the machine. I figured that’s where the remains end up after suction.  I noticed the posters on the wall illustrating the growth of a fetus.  I looked over by the sink area and saw various sharp silver objects.  To my right was the sonogram machine.

After sitting in the room alone for five minutes, the doctor walked in with the nurse that had been “consoling” me.  He introduced himself with a little humor and began the evaluation. He gelled some instrument up and stuck it up my patootie. This was a new step in the sonogram phase.  After he probed my insides with the instrument I believe he let it stay dormant inside of me for a few seconds or so.  I’m thinking this was to open the cervix. After gelling up my stomach and placing the wand all around, I observed his face praying that he didn’t see what the technician from Monday saw. 

Not only did he see what the technician saw, his measurements were far greater than reported to me on Monday.  By his measurements I was 19-20 weeks.  When I heard him make that announcement along with the due date of March 21^st, tears formed in my eyes and I said, “well I guess I’m going to be a mother.” Right after I made that statement I couldn’t help but to break down and cry in the doctor’s arms.  I continued to cry as I got a glimpse of my baby on the sonogram screen.  I even asked to keep the picture.  Why?  I have no clue. 

After I gathered myself together and my things, I was bombarded with all this talk about how to go about applying for DC Medicaid since my insurance plan is a bit janky, prenatal care and other things.  My mind was clouded and all I could think about was how overwhelmed I was feeling.  By the time I left the office my selfishness still prevailed.  When I got home, I continued to look up abortion clinics, this time seeking those that do procedures up to 24 weeks.  I found another place and ended up making an appointment for that Saturday at in the afternoon.

After scheduling that appointment, I found it odd that I had to convince myself over and over that it was the right thing to do.  I desperately wanted to talk to someone closer than close to me about what I was doing.  At the time Hazel knew the situation and wasn’t trying to convince me one way or the other.  His thoughts were, whatever I decided he would be there supporting me.  I had spoken to my sister Linda and even though she is totally against abortions, she too assured me that I would have her support no matter what I decided.

I don’t know what possessed me to pick up the phone Wednesday evening and dial my grandmother’s number.  My mind and my emotions were so raw and so fragile, that I knew I wouldn’t be able to contain myself. Luckily, Aunt P answered and she was the right person I needed.  I tried to sound calm and carry on a normal conversation and eventually I broke down and confided in her through tears.  She didn’t see what the big deal was.  She figured that since I am 26, working and have a good head on my shoulders I should be able to handle motherhood, especially with an outpour of family support.   

I tried to reason with her that all of this was bad timing.  I was being selfish in my thinking and I knew I wouldn’t be able to take care of a child.  I tired to tell her that I didn’t feel stable in my life right now and there is no way I’m bringing a child into my mess. Aunt P tried to get me to see the blessing in what was going on, especially the issue I have concerning my health and the possibility of not being able to conceive. Nevertheless, she too assured me that she would be there for me no matter what and would be willing to go with me on Saturday evening for my final attempt to rid life.

“I can’t let you do this alone,” is what she told me.

With her words I felt more at ease about my final decision.  I wasn’t alone.

(To Be Continued)

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