Saturday, September 6, 2008

Night Owling




I come from a long line of night owls. I am a night owl with early bird responsibilities.

When the house is oh so quiet I sometimes just sit and inhale the silence.
There is nothing else left to do. Everyone is asleep. No one to look after except myself for the moment.
The writing pours out of me. I am glad I can type fast without getting caught up in looking at the keyboard.

Outside my office window, which is usually loud with nature's music, is silent as robins, sparrows, cardinals and wood peckers sleep.


Raccoons bring the party during the night. They screech and fuss at each other. They walk on our roof with raccoon boots. They swing and slide on the neighbor's swing set.

This is the time I write and work on my novel. I catch up on email. I search for that agent. Maybe I'll work on a collage or a new greeting card design. I might catch up on 30 rock or Lost. I can get a bunch of windows open at once on the Mackie Mac. Working on this a little and then work on the next thing.




Haiti

I have to send some blessings and prayers to Haiti. My people who have suffered so many losses when two, three hurricanes hit the island back to back. I ask the universe to please protect my people.







When i was little I lived on the island. There are things I remember very clearly. In the 70's we used an outhouse. The gray brown out house with the terrible poopoo smell and dark foreboding hole where I threw stones and wads of balled up toilet paper.

I remember my mother coming home in a white uniform. I lived in a turquoise house with coral pink walls inside.
I had many cousins and I was free to roam as far as I could. I never got lost. I never went too far. I had two grandmothers and so many aunts ready to feed me, or spank me depending on their moods. I played with dried mango seed which was my doll and played jacks with dried pig knuckles. I never went hungry. I never felt poor.
Bless Haiti who held me in her arms for those two years I lived there where I unlearned American English and renamed my Grandmother "Big". The whole family started calling her that.

An island already devastated now must deal with this. I hope the new administration really gives Haiti some positive attention in the form of money, agricultural assistant, food aid, job production for road building and food growing. Haiti was the first free black nation in the Western Hemisphere. The people fought back against the people that held them as slaves and defeated them! Is this why the island is left to perish. Is there a long held grudge against this tiny island because of Haiti's revolution. Meanwhile children eat dirt cakes to stop the hunger pains.

Tomorrow we are supposed to get a scaled down version of a hurricane.

Peace

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