Change

When a cashier gives me back change I find myself merely throwing it in the bottom of my purse. Often times if it is just a few cents I find myself leaving it on the counter for someone that perhaps is a few cents short. Every now and then I saunter past Abe as he stares up at me. Disregarding the luck that he may bring. Over the holidays I began thinking about change. It all stemmed from a little game between my niece and my dad. Pops would put a coin in his hand and ask Livie to guess the hand. Livie would tap one of Pop's hands. Her face lit up when the coin appeared; however, if the coin didn't appear she would giggle and simply tap his other hand. Again the joy would come back to her eyes. Later she came up to me and asked me if I had any change. I dug through my purse and found a pound from my summer trip to the UK. I was so excited to explain how far that piece of change had traveled. I explained how I had to get on a plane and fly to a far off place. I told her how a real queen lived in a castle and that I strolled through her garden. I then handed her the pound. I thought she would cherish it, but to her it mattered none where it had come from. She was merely eager to play with her change. After a few minutes, the pound was dropped behind the couch. She asked me for some more change, but this time a quarter because it was bigger. I laughed to myself and dug through my purse to find Livie Lou some more change.

In the past year, my life has change immensely. I have also seen great change in others. My friends have given birth to precious girls. My dear sweet cousin and friend have vowed to spend their lives with the men they love. I have watched a friend gracefully accept sobriety. A dear friend will soon embark on her career inspiring others and reforming an education system by merely caring about her students. I have met the love of my life, moved in with him and now promised to live a happily ever after with him. There is so much change going around. I now sit wondering what change is to come. Perhaps a move back to my hometown, perhaps having to leave the home here I have created on Guilford, perhaps having to leave a career that I have invested 9 years in. Part of me is filled with angst and wonder. I then am reminded of Livie. Why can't I treat life's change like Livie? It doesn't matter where it has been, its history, its worth, it is merely change to be played around with. To be held in your hand until comfort is found with it and the change is lost, only to be replaced with more change, and perhaps even bigger change. The change I have gone through so far, and that I have witnessed in others this year allows me to breathe for a moment...giggle and simply tap the other hand.

Queen of Hearts

so deal em...she awaits hands stretched out...there is an emptiness, a longing for feeling of anything...and cards are dealt and hope is fed and anticipation lingers...lord knows there is a chance slim or none, slim or none, that he could be the one...he could be the one that holds the queen of hearts..he could be the ace added to my spade that brings me my full house..my full house..perhaps he is the king this evening holds within his blue suit...lord knows there is a chance slim or none that he could be the one....and we sit and play the game. all is lost in our lack of shame...he doesn't even know my name, but there is a chance, although slim and none, that he could be the one....that he could be the one. and i am willing to up the ante with a little leg from this dress from Paris in hopes that he will throw down a little attention from his American eyes to these naked thighs...and there is the risk of hoping he is the one....and my chances are slim and none...but with each stroke the time is passing and my youth i am not sure how much is lasting...and the risk sometimes isn't even realized and what is at stake can't be matched...in hopes that this night will ever last.... Deal me in while he is angle shooting. Looking around she’s not there. Decide to stay cause I’ve got a good pair. And lord knows there is a chance slim or none slim or none that he could be the one, he could be the one that holds the queen of hearts…His hands are ablaze by the river on 5th street where he lays me down without a sound. Recently I’ve been bleedin and I’m not about to bust, but I know he is about to call my bluff. So I ante up and straddle, cause I have got a leg up on luck. And just as he is about to go all in I begin to put on the heat and raise him to a Royal Flush. Push, Split. We are on a one way straight hoping for the pay off. Two of a kind we double down. Lord knows there is a chance slim or none that he could be the one, he could be the one that holds the queen of hearts and the memories will fade and hands will be dealt....while the queen sits full of heart waiting for her king to fulfill her house....less to be held and more to be felt...

Yes Virginia, there is a confident woman

*NOTE* The title of this blog is a tip of the hat, or curtsy if you will, to a woman who played a pivotal role in women's literature. While I respect Virgina Woolf immensely, I sometimes wonder if we met for a spot of tea how our conversation would ensue. The calendar has shed many skins since A Room of One's Own was published. Women and their roles in this world have evolved. Woolf believed that a woman must have money and a room of one's own to write. In her era women played their roles as housewife and mother, with no time for self. The role of woman has changed. Women are running for president these days, not running households. Each of us has a room of our own, but is it a room or a prison? For sometimes too much time for self can be hazardous to our health. Our thoughts bounce from one wall to the next and insecurities begin to echo within the quiet corridor.

Here are a few quotes that you may want to read before reading this blog. They come from Woolf's A Room of One's Own.

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

One must strain off what was personal and accidental in all these impressions and so reach the pure fluid, the essential oil of truth.

Life for both sexes—and I look at them, shouldering their way along the pavement—is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion that we are, it calls for confidence in oneself.

Alone in a room of my own. Dusk dawns. Choir of crickets chirp nature's gospel. The crescendo and impatience of their serenade resonates resembling the sounding of my alarm. Snooze I reach for but have yet to find within all these secrets shared. Friday. pay day. pocket no longer just full of posies, for I have received payment for services rendered. Yes, dear Virgina I have my money and I have a room of my own...but I long for tradition. No distractions linger.lover never found kisses upon my lonely lips. loins yet to have birthed beautiful proteges. No messes to clean up less those that I have made myself. Bed shared with only my desire, dreams for the more of life. Grazing in your green grasses of motherhood and wifery. Bound by our wombs, our words. Sisters are we searching for the essential oil of truth. Conceived by our convictions of failure. Chasing the impossible with maddening hope to produce truth in our fiction, but within our fiction we find our reproduction of non-fiction. For with every stroke of the quill, every pound of the key we produce our offspring. A part of our self attached always to each word for they are our sons and daughters.they have our eyes, they are a reflection of all we have seen, they have our heart they have felt the fire and fright. Within our art there will always be a part of us, we can not disconnect. incandescence. Creatures of illusion we are. Life presents perils packaged in pretty blue boxes. You are right it is in deed a perpetual struggle that calls for gigantic strength and courage and above all confidence within ones self, but is the confidence all an illusion? Must we fake it till we make it? Alone I remain in my room of my own wondering if somewhere on 56th street a miracle is happening or if a grown up Virginia is realizing their isn't a Santa Claus? I will hang my black stockings by the chimney with care, but would much rather them be strewn half haphazardly across the floor in a room that is not my own.