f l a m i n g o
Scenes from the past
My mind is going crazy today, I'm thinking about so many things.
Things have been bad in my mind for a while, like what else can I do to change things, make them better, pay things off, get Erin to school in NY, pay off my car, pay loans off, get rid of stuff at home so I can move in the spring, overwhelmed with work and too much stuff at home, animal messes, not enough sleep or time for myself.
I have images in my mind from the past about "good" times and what I wanted for my life in the future. A house. Nothing fancy, just comfortable. Even if I could have a basic plain house and have to put my stuff in storage and sort through it all later, that is what I want. A fresh start, something clean and bare. I have so much clutter all around me, physically and mentally, I don't know how much more I can take. I don't know how I've kept on this long. The first words out of my mouth every day are "God help me" and I say that several times a day. He is the only one that truly knows me and what I'm going through, good, bad, sad, and he knows all my thoughts, which is fine with me. I want someone to know. I want help.
Always, I have thought about houses and a "feeling" that a house gives and the type of house I want. I have been thinking about past houses that I have lived in and friends of mine have lived in. And I can "feel" how it was. I want that again. I want comfort. I haven't had comfort in a long long time. It has been survival mode, for at least 18 years. I have never been "back on my feet." I have never been "on my feet" to begin with. I have started out underwater and am continually trying to "keep my head up" literally and figuratively. I am overwhelmed. My parents helped me as much as they could. Looking back, I don't know how they did it, raising my sister and I. We lived in a "priveleged" area but we were not. My dad constantly struggled with his business, but somehow kept it going until he couldn't do it anymore. He worked until two months before he died at age 79 two years ago, and he never missed a day of work. My mom has Alzheimer's now, and really only remembers things from her childhood, and gets those mixed up with stuff from present-day.
I work like my dad does. All the time. Little time or money for vacations. Or time off. It is just trying to stay "ahead" which really isn't ahead at all. It is "just making it." I don't know how or if I will ever be ahead. Even working as much as I do I am "just making it" and that isn't enough. What I do is never enough. I stay up late so I can do things I enjoy to kep my sanity, like art or watching TV shows I like. I get little sleep. I don't want to sound "heroic" or get sympathy, but I feel like other people would have crumbled a long time ago in my situation. I still feel like I am "crumbled" and will not ever be together again.
I think of buildings and they styles of architecture I like from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. And the images from those eras bring to mind. Yesterday I was thinking of the Ford Rotunda building and the Christmas Fantasy display that everyone came to see, and that was in the 30s through 60s and the building burned down in 1962. I think of our house on the mountain in the mid-70s and the big windows looking out over the city. It had orange carpet and dark brown paneling and a moss rock fireplace. It was beautiful. I want to re-create this house, and build it someday for myself. Who knows if that will ever happen. I think of the schools I went to in the 70s and 80s. Cement buildings with character and design and shapes. Buildings don't have any character these days. I think of the playground that went out to a field and the hot sun making the weeds dry in the field, or growing up through the cracks in the pavement that the 4-square lines were painted on. I played Jacks on that pavement with a friend. I remember the green carpet inside the school and the folding accordian walls to divide the classrooms. I remember the crayfish we had in a wading pool in the classroom for a pond unit. And walking down to a pond to study the tadpoles.
I think of walking home on the last day of school before Christmas break, and a boy friend gave me his Christmas ornament he made, a ice cream sugar cone base with a silk ball ornament on top for the icecream. I think of our basement at that house and the craft room and the big living room area and my dad's desk with a behemouth of a calculator. We liked to play store and use the calculator/adding machine as the cash register. So many memories in this house. I want to re-live them all in a house of my own. It was comfortable. The covered patio. The chain-link fence with light purple irises along it, dividing it from the neighbors yard, in the spring. Now it is all fences that you can't see through. Our swingset. I would go out and swing and I remember a song I made up while swinging "your are my boy" and I can hear the tune in my head now.
I remember bike riding and riding on dirt trails between houses. I remember my mom watering flowers in the evening when it was cool. I remember my dad snowblowing the long steep driveway in the winter. While there are some good things about computers and internet these days, more conveniences, it was so much simpler 20 - 30 years ago. I cannot keep up with technology, all the new stuff coming out. My "old" stuff is so out of date it doesn't work anymore and I don't make enough money to replace it all.
Right now, my thoughts have left me. As soon as I leave the screen from typing this, the thoughts and memories will come back. I want better times. There was something happening in the 50s and 60s and 70s that was right where only one income was needed. I am not saying at all that women shouldn't work or have careers or a profession, I am a woman myself, but nowadays, it is impossible in my eyes to have a household with one income. And I hate that. For 20 years I have wanted to provide for myself and my kids, and have a comfortable house or place to live. That hasn't happened. As I said before it has been survival mode. I can't even begin to think about owning a home. Even small older homes, like 50 year old homes that aren't anything great, are impossible for me to own. And the new houses these days are insane. There is nothing "small" or reasonably priced. I think there needs to be more smaller and affordable housing built, that a single person could afford to own.
Anyway, I am thinking about songs that remind me of "better times", and not necessarily the words, but the tone and music. New Radicals "You Get What You Give" and "Someday We'll Know." It reminds me of malls in the 90s. I liked how that was back then. Alot of malls are gone now. The age I was in the early to mid 90s, it was before I have done irrepairable damage to my life. Heart is full of pain. I try to keep moving forward. I keep hoping for the best. It never happens. I feel alone.
My favorite books are about houses and/or photography. The House At Sugar Beach is an autobiography about Helene Cooper and growing up in the 1970s in Liberia and then fleeing the country when war broke out. But I love it, the description of the house, and the photos she shared, and they all had American names which was interesting to me. I wish I could transport back to that time and see it. S is for Silence by Sue Grafton is a favorite of mine, it takes place in 1953 and "present day" 80s, about a housewife that goes missing and they find her car. This book of hers touched me the most and I have read her whole alphabet series. Double Image by David Morrell, about a photographer that was in Bosnia and then came back to America and found a house with a connection to the Hollywood Golden Age. It takes place part of the time in a Frank Lloyd Wright-type house. I love it. I love that style.
I'm thinking about the Jetsons and the Mid-Century modern era which I absolutely love. I want a house like that style, even if it isn't large and dramatic. I want a small Mid-Century house that I can get furnishings for in that style and start fresh. I am sick of all my literal baggage I have, and I am working hard to get rid of it.
I remember watching Flintstones, and Jetsons, and Bullwinkle in the 70s, at my friend Heather's house, and they lived in a mountain forest in a big beautiful house. Her dad was an architect and her mom was an artist. They had a beautiful alpine type garden outside. Dark walls inside but lots of windows all around and a light blue carpet in the house. Heather had hamsters and I wanted one. I remember when we moved to the city from the mountain, I got a white albino teddy-bear hamster that I named Fuzzy. And when Heather's had babies, I remember her bringing it to our city house and it was brown on the nose and butt and white in the middle and short haired and I named it Happy.
Scenes from the past
My mind is going crazy today, I'm thinking about so many things.
Things have been bad in my mind for a while, like what else can I do to change things, make them better, pay things off, get Erin to school in NY, pay off my car, pay loans off, get rid of stuff at home so I can move in the spring, overwhelmed with work and too much stuff at home, animal messes, not enough sleep or time for myself.
I have images in my mind from the past about "good" times and what I wanted for my life in the future. A house. Nothing fancy, just comfortable. Even if I could have a basic plain house and have to put my stuff in storage and sort through it all later, that is what I want. A fresh start, something clean and bare. I have so much clutter all around me, physically and mentally, I don't know how much more I can take. I don't know how I've kept on this long. The first words out of my mouth every day are "God help me" and I say that several times a day. He is the only one that truly knows me and what I'm going through, good, bad, sad, and he knows all my thoughts, which is fine with me. I want someone to know. I want help.
Always, I have thought about houses and a "feeling" that a house gives and the type of house I want. I have been thinking about past houses that I have lived in and friends of mine have lived in. And I can "feel" how it was. I want that again. I want comfort. I haven't had comfort in a long long time. It has been survival mode, for at least 18 years. I have never been "back on my feet." I have never been "on my feet" to begin with. I have started out underwater and am continually trying to "keep my head up" literally and figuratively. I am overwhelmed. My parents helped me as much as they could. Looking back, I don't know how they did it, raising my sister and I. We lived in a "priveleged" area but we were not. My dad constantly struggled with his business, but somehow kept it going until he couldn't do it anymore. He worked until two months before he died at age 79 two years ago, and he never missed a day of work. My mom has Alzheimer's now, and really only remembers things from her childhood, and gets those mixed up with stuff from present-day.
I work like my dad does. All the time. Little time or money for vacations. Or time off. It is just trying to stay "ahead" which really isn't ahead at all. It is "just making it." I don't know how or if I will ever be ahead. Even working as much as I do I am "just making it" and that isn't enough. What I do is never enough. I stay up late so I can do things I enjoy to kep my sanity, like art or watching TV shows I like. I get little sleep. I don't want to sound "heroic" or get sympathy, but I feel like other people would have crumbled a long time ago in my situation. I still feel like I am "crumbled" and will not ever be together again.
I think of buildings and they styles of architecture I like from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. And the images from those eras bring to mind. Yesterday I was thinking of the Ford Rotunda building and the Christmas Fantasy display that everyone came to see, and that was in the 30s through 60s and the building burned down in 1962. I think of our house on the mountain in the mid-70s and the big windows looking out over the city. It had orange carpet and dark brown paneling and a moss rock fireplace. It was beautiful. I want to re-create this house, and build it someday for myself. Who knows if that will ever happen. I think of the schools I went to in the 70s and 80s. Cement buildings with character and design and shapes. Buildings don't have any character these days. I think of the playground that went out to a field and the hot sun making the weeds dry in the field, or growing up through the cracks in the pavement that the 4-square lines were painted on. I played Jacks on that pavement with a friend. I remember the green carpet inside the school and the folding accordian walls to divide the classrooms. I remember the crayfish we had in a wading pool in the classroom for a pond unit. And walking down to a pond to study the tadpoles.
I think of walking home on the last day of school before Christmas break, and a boy friend gave me his Christmas ornament he made, a ice cream sugar cone base with a silk ball ornament on top for the icecream. I think of our basement at that house and the craft room and the big living room area and my dad's desk with a behemouth of a calculator. We liked to play store and use the calculator/adding machine as the cash register. So many memories in this house. I want to re-live them all in a house of my own. It was comfortable. The covered patio. The chain-link fence with light purple irises along it, dividing it from the neighbors yard, in the spring. Now it is all fences that you can't see through. Our swingset. I would go out and swing and I remember a song I made up while swinging "your are my boy" and I can hear the tune in my head now.
I remember bike riding and riding on dirt trails between houses. I remember my mom watering flowers in the evening when it was cool. I remember my dad snowblowing the long steep driveway in the winter. While there are some good things about computers and internet these days, more conveniences, it was so much simpler 20 - 30 years ago. I cannot keep up with technology, all the new stuff coming out. My "old" stuff is so out of date it doesn't work anymore and I don't make enough money to replace it all.
Right now, my thoughts have left me. As soon as I leave the screen from typing this, the thoughts and memories will come back. I want better times. There was something happening in the 50s and 60s and 70s that was right where only one income was needed. I am not saying at all that women shouldn't work or have careers or a profession, I am a woman myself, but nowadays, it is impossible in my eyes to have a household with one income. And I hate that. For 20 years I have wanted to provide for myself and my kids, and have a comfortable house or place to live. That hasn't happened. As I said before it has been survival mode. I can't even begin to think about owning a home. Even small older homes, like 50 year old homes that aren't anything great, are impossible for me to own. And the new houses these days are insane. There is nothing "small" or reasonably priced. I think there needs to be more smaller and affordable housing built, that a single person could afford to own.
Anyway, I am thinking about songs that remind me of "better times", and not necessarily the words, but the tone and music. New Radicals "You Get What You Give" and "Someday We'll Know." It reminds me of malls in the 90s. I liked how that was back then. Alot of malls are gone now. The age I was in the early to mid 90s, it was before I have done irrepairable damage to my life. Heart is full of pain. I try to keep moving forward. I keep hoping for the best. It never happens. I feel alone.
My favorite books are about houses and/or photography. The House At Sugar Beach is an autobiography about Helene Cooper and growing up in the 1970s in Liberia and then fleeing the country when war broke out. But I love it, the description of the house, and the photos she shared, and they all had American names which was interesting to me. I wish I could transport back to that time and see it. S is for Silence by Sue Grafton is a favorite of mine, it takes place in 1953 and "present day" 80s, about a housewife that goes missing and they find her car. This book of hers touched me the most and I have read her whole alphabet series. Double Image by David Morrell, about a photographer that was in Bosnia and then came back to America and found a house with a connection to the Hollywood Golden Age. It takes place part of the time in a Frank Lloyd Wright-type house. I love it. I love that style.
I'm thinking about the Jetsons and the Mid-Century modern era which I absolutely love. I want a house like that style, even if it isn't large and dramatic. I want a small Mid-Century house that I can get furnishings for in that style and start fresh. I am sick of all my literal baggage I have, and I am working hard to get rid of it.
I remember watching Flintstones, and Jetsons, and Bullwinkle in the 70s, at my friend Heather's house, and they lived in a mountain forest in a big beautiful house. Her dad was an architect and her mom was an artist. They had a beautiful alpine type garden outside. Dark walls inside but lots of windows all around and a light blue carpet in the house. Heather had hamsters and I wanted one. I remember when we moved to the city from the mountain, I got a white albino teddy-bear hamster that I named Fuzzy. And when Heather's had babies, I remember her bringing it to our city house and it was brown on the nose and butt and white in the middle and short haired and I named it Happy.