If I had a daughter by Sarah Kay

'If I should have a daughter, instead of "Mom," she's gonna call me "Point B," because that way she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I'm going to paint solar systems on the backs of her hands so she has to learn the entire universe before she can say, "Oh, I know that like the back of my hand." 

And she's going to learn that this life will hit you hard in the face,wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. 

There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by Band-Aids or poetry. So the first time she realizes that Wonder Woman isn't coming,I'll make sure she knows she doesn't have to wear the cape all by herself because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I've tried.

"And, baby," I'll tell her, "don't keep your nose up in the air like that. I know that trick; I've done it a million times. You're just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house, so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else find the boy who lit the fire in the first place, to see if you can change him."

But I know she will anyway,so instead I'll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boots nearby, because there is no heartbreak that chocolate can't fix. Okay, there's a few heartbreaks that chocolate can't fix. But that's what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash away everything, if you let it. 

I want her to look at the world through the underside of a glass-bottom boat, to look through a microscope at the galaxies that exist on the pinpoint of a human mind, because that's the way my mom taught me. That there'll be days like this. ♫ There'll be days like this, my momma said. ♫ When you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises; when you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you want to save are the ones standing on your cape; when your boots will fill with rain, and you'll be up to your knees in disappointment. And those are the very days you have all the more reason to say thank you. Because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline,no matter how many times it's sent away. 

You will put the wind in winsome, lose some. You will put the star in starting over, and over. And no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute, be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life. 

And yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting, I am pretty damn naive. But I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily,but don't be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it. 

"Baby," I'll tell her, "remember, your momma is a worrier, and your poppa is a warrior, and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more." 

Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things. And always apologize when you've done something wrong, but don't you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining. 

Your voice is small, but don't ever stop singing. And when they finally hand you heartache, when they slip war and hatred under your door and offer you handouts on street-corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.'

Sarah Kay is one of my role models, the way she speaks mesmerizes me and her poetry is beautiful and heart-warming. She was the one who introduced me to the world of slam poetry and made me fall in love with it. Initially, I wanted to go through and highlight the parts of the poem that I found meaningful but it it meant highlighting everything. It all hits home with me. I have a lot of thoughts in common with her but she has taught me to look at life with a different perspective. I've watched most of her videos but this one affected me the most. This is how I want to raise my kids. this is how I feel about trust, cynicism and vulnerability. this is the message I want to communicate through my actions-that it's not wrong to open yourself up to being hurt, to be in awe of this beautiful world, to love more than others think is wise, to believe that chocolate can fix a few heartaches. And to believe that everything, everything, happens for a reason.

a series of questions continued

How would you know if you have lived your life to the fullest?

a series of questions, can you help me answer them?

If happiness is the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich?

Fair Friday

You only see me now, the tired nod, the reassuring smile that says I'm fine. You only hear the funny stories, the jokes I attempt to make without getting the real punchline. You don't get to see the truth and you never will. Ever get the feeling that no matter how hard you try, things are just never right? Like reading a book and the ending sucks the wind out of you and leaves you there, not comprehending, gasping for air, grasping blindly at some sort of solid shape you can count on. Friends, I watched us as we changed. Slowly but surely. Of course that would happen, it's inevitable. I forgive you because I too, have changed. Life is not so simple now. There are too many new variables. Each goodbye suggests a longer separation, every hello so much more precious. When life suggests a change you do two things-try to fight it or try to accept it. I say try because either may not necessarily work out. But whatever it is that you choose, remember that life does and will always go on. The world will never stop spinning and your heart will keep beating.

Good luck and all the love from me,

stargirl

Nostalgia and Lemons Part 2

Nostalgia: the human emotion that creeps up on you over time. One day you’re laughing with your friends and the next you are overcome by that exact feeling; only months, or years later. You yearn to go back to that time and do it all over again. It’s something that we, as humans, would all experience at some point in our lives. Nostalgia comes to us, not as a hazy, abstract dream but as a solid, sharp memory much like when a camera suddenly comes into focus. 

But as George Wildman Ball memorably told Newsweek in 1971, “Nostalgia is a seductive liar.” The word nostalgia carries a positive connotation because when we look back at our memories, we tend to exaggerate the good side. As the saying goes, nostalgia is looking at the past through a rose-tinted window. It’s a yearning for when times were better, or a time we imagined that was better. As a reader and a dreamer, I spend a great portion of my time with my head in the clouds. So much that sometimes I’d prefer to stay there and the line between reality and dreamland blurs. 

But to live my life properly, I must move on, create new memories and look back on them in the future. No matter how happy we are, it will never compare to the life inside your head that’s looking at a land where the sun never sets. It’s a future that seems so uncertain…. But there are certainties in life and it’s that precious confidence that forces us forward. I will continue my way and you on yours, but sometimes we’ll let ourselves wander off the well-trodden path and pretend that we’re on a different journey.

Nostalgia and Lemons

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade and you---wait, rewind, what? Lemonade? Well that's boring. Ain't it? A while ago I watched a video of Steve Jobs give a speech to a graduating class at Stanford University and he said in his speech that "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." and according to Robert Frost's poem "The Road not Taken" being the norm is wasting time and is quite frankly, boring. So from this day, when life gives me lemons, I'm making apple juice. Or no, wait, stargirl juice ;)