changing gears....

some of you may not know, but i have moved back to south mississippi. i have started a new company with my partner. in the last year we have successfully opened two boutiques in south mississippi. we have sacrificed quite a lot in moving here, but the rewards in being able to positively impact a small community is fascinating to watch. i never thought i would return to my home in the south. life surprises us! my brothers are having children and sometimes being near family is powerful. its the undercurrent of strength that moves us forward in our lives. it was wise to return. in surrendering myself and my supposed wants in life i have found my dreams. i have found a niche of friends in the burg have support and challenge us in ways i never expected. my "downtowners" are the things that life is made up of... strong and passionate, free spirited idealist that aren't afraid to get their hands dirty to be the change in our world....this continues to be the driving force that makes jason and i work harder everyday....let the work continue!

Alice....

When I was very young I remember hanging out with my grandparents at their 1920’s American bungalow style home. The dinning room was Tiffany blue with dove white trim. Wall to wall carpet in a complimentary neutral and the long wall of the room was complete floor to ceiling glass. The glass was single pane; you could see all of the little imperfections and squiggles from its hand made quality. Beyond this gallery of windows was a beautifully trimmed lawn, privet hedges, azaleas and camellias in full bloom, and pebble paths lined with mixed plantings of impatients. The crowning glory was the ameba shaped swimming pool that hosted my unique grandmother swimming laps in a swim cap, navy swimsuit, and red lipstick.
Many afternoons were spent lying around next to her on the sofa while she ready books to me in the living room. I remember the way the tapestry fabric twisted and turned and how the leaves of each abstract flower changed color. The chocolate, plush pile, wool carpet always felt so luxurious under my feet, and there always seemed to be a glass of sweet tea available whenever she needed to take a moment to turn the page. Her hands were porcelain white with red nails featuring a sparkling silver ring with an electrifying blue topaz being worshiped my little diamonds encircling it. Her eyes were like the ring, electrifying blue topaz, lined, and very sharp, but softened by what she saw in me. Her personal style was that of a Mrs. O. Lots of navy skirt suits, red and coral lipstick, pill box hats and little clutches. To top it off she drove a Tiffany blue Cadillac, which always remained in the garage, excepts for when she drove to the super market or church.
What I remember about her was how she made me feel verses true visual memories. I remember snippets, like an old black and white reel that has weathered in its can. It has spots. Holes….I felt warm, and I can still hear her heart beating while I lied next to her. Bum, bum……bum, bum….bum.bum. I think that my whole life I have chased that particular feeling of warmth. It’s powerful, connected, electric, yet calm, silent, and pressing. It’s a quiet high of unadulterated love.

Thursdays in the height of summer.....

Thursdays in the height of summer, are possibly the most perfect time of the year for middle class America. I, on the other hand, find humidity and heat absolutely repressive; as repressive as Jimmy Carter on the television, or even more repressive than Eleanor Roosevelt’s personal style. I would rather have a beautiful spring day Jackie O style is Hyannis port, or an enchanting fall New York evening Viviene Westwood style. I find that as we progress as a more casual society we become less and less aware of our appearance. This is absolutely baffling to me?!?!?! This generation has been bombarded by society and the media. Selling to each new generation a new concept of beauty and fashion, style and aesthetic. How have they missed the boat? Is it because we have just seen our predecessors fall to the personal style wayside? Haven’t we all heard our fathers say? “I am getting old it doesn’t matter what I look like!” or “I have had 5 children its OK that I weigh double my healthy weight.” Does each younger generation just give up a little more than the last?
Funny enough our predecessors will quickly say that everything “wrong” in this country is because “kids” these days don’t do this, that, or the latter. Well if my grandparents were the greatest generation, what didn’t they do to make us the worst? I say that they laid the ground work for divorce, abortion, and corrupt politics. YET ,my friends, when liberal minded youth try to make this America a better place we are told that we are nieve, ignorant, or worst yet un holy. WOW ……well if we still lived in a world of “greatest generation” thinking. We would still have slaves or at least maids. We would still have spouse abuse,….oh wait we do. We would still have wars over seas….ok. So what is my point? Well if you shop at Wal-Mart I assume you don’t have personal style and that you are cheap. If being cheap is about being less aware of our personal appearance….if we are less aware of our own sense of self what will ever make us AWARE of the world around us?

I am Love ....

I am love....OK so I have to rant for a minute....last night Jason and I went to see I am love featuring Tilda Swinton...who I am convinced is a post-op tranny. I am just saying. She is fantastic. Riveting, intense, perfection. I am truly inspired to live a life of lux and fantasy. In this life story everyone is fully dressed in decadence. The family is waited on hand and foot, including removal of rings and jewelry, unzipping of dresses, and romantic overlaying of nature on top of the the over sensual romance of food and sex. Perfection! The family is as closely woven as the fabric that their company manufactures. Each of them are closely stitched to the other making the luxurious weave of animosity, hurt, and resentment even more mysterious. The imagery of rain, and nature, grass and food....OH the food is art with is the aphrodisiac that is the conduit for the connection of the matriarch of the family to the chef de jour. This is a must see....

Tuesday with music and coffee

Well I am sitting in Starbucks as most decaffeinated Americans are not doing right now. I find it so interesting to people watch as I serf the net. The gentleman next to me just injected himself with insulin, there is a schizophrenic that just asked a newly married couple if he could have their seat and then there are the comer's and goers of the average coffee house. My other half is at work and we live the simple life....apartment, both work full time, insurance, cars, and all of the other things that are apart of the day to day. Recently everyone in my life is having children. Funny enough we aren't one of them. As I inch into my thirties, I am starting to get pains of paternal guilt...if that is what you can call it. Apparently all Americans were not created equal...I am watching how our society takes care of the mentally unstable, the uninsured, and the decaffeinated. A cup of Joe can't fix these concern I have had of late about how difficult it will be for myself and my partner to adopt. There are thousands of children who don't have parents much less good parents. The other day I was at work. A mother of two was shopping for herself. She had one in diapers and the other was under 10yrs old. The mother preceded to shop while her toddler runs out of the store ...Really? She continues to peruse the merchandise under the glass case. She glances over at her other daughter and says " where is she going?" Really? I was furious at this mother who again just kept on shopping with no care to her child's safety at all. I was outraged! Who gave these Americans the right to have children.....? Just because you can do the deed and produce doesn't mean that you deserve to be a parent. Sometimes I think its the parents that should have been aborted. Well until then I will continue to drink my venti unsweetened iced coffee with soy, live my simple life, and wait for equality.

Finding the Courage.....

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." - Eleanor Roosevelt

First of all, I have to say that this is one of my favorite people in all of American History. I have read her biography and I am proud to say that I share some of her philosophy on life and education.
Today, I was reading the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ,in a letter to the editor. A mother of 3 sons replied on the Presidential address to school aged children. " I believe in democracy, freedom of speech and diversity. Varied opinions make the world interesting. They broaden our thoughts and deepen our understandings, even if we never agree." "While I understand the parental instinct to protect one's child from harm and hurt, I hope that instead of censorship we each take this opportunity to sit down with our children to teach them to be thinkers and listeners and tell them that with hard work, an education and sheer determination, they too can be president of the United States."
This mother's insight is true wisdom. I believe that we must take courage as Eleanor Roosevelt spoke of and allow these uncomfortable conversations to be developing diving boards to better prepare us: parents, teachers, and leaders of businesses or heads of state, to build the ground work for those tougher conversations that will happen later in a child's life.
I like to call these seemingly smaller conversations "feather beds". What I mean by that is, we lay the ground work and build the relationships so when the harder more painful moments in life happen we are better prepared. We in essence lay a common ground of understanding a "feather bed",so when we disagree or hurt each other the "feather bed catches us and allows us to hit a soft place. The common ground of love and respect.
Its just a thought ,but how do we lay feather beds in our own relationships?

Dreaming Bigger.....

"It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow." -Robert H. Goddard

Lately, as I inch closer to 30 yrs. old, I constantly question myself about dreaming bigger. I never thought that dreaming was ridiculous. I encouraged it in myself, my family encouraged it, my friends allowed me to do it. So therefore I dreamt. Fortunately, all of them haven't come true and sometimes I believe that my own pride and stubbornness got in the way. I am at least honest about that fact.
For example, My parents told me that when they were young and newly married, that they wanted 10 children. Well, God only blessed them with 4 sons, I guess they had a dream and through the birth of each of us we became their hope, and now their reality! The Bible says that the sins of the father pass generation to generation. Well, I believe that the dreams of the father and the hope of the mother create the dreams and realities of the children. My parents were the reason that I saw more for myself, because of them I was challenged to seek out happiness. Their words were the words that I heard in the darkest hours of depression and pain. Their words inspired hope in me.
So now even with the mundane repetition of daily life, we must dream higher and faster and greater so that the dreams that have gotten us this far as a person, society, and nation are not lost. Thomas Edison dreamed of a world where we could see at night. His reality was a dream of Ben Franklin's the time he flew his kite!