welcome to the next chapter...

once a long time ago, i read on a blog, "i am a lesbian but thats not all i am". i was then just teetering on the edge coming out as a lesbian. back then, although i understood what she was saying, i was completely drowning in that one dimension of my identity. i knew then i was more than also but such turmoil tends to shrink your field of vision. it is scary and exciting and anticipatory and it is exhausting.

i am almost 5 years out now. some things look differently in my life. some things are the same. but i revel in the knowledge that i am a lesbian and in the knowledge that i really am more than just... my field of vision has grown to include the wide open spaces of life's endless possibilies.

for those of you who know me, you will be able to find the familiar places of my old writings which i will have on the sidebar. for those who stumble upon me and find yourself confused by fragmented references or are struggling to come out later in life, you will find the Closer to Fine link most helpful. I recommend reading it from the beginning, it makes more sense.

one more thing, blame my lack of capital letters on e.e. cummings...

Monday, May 30, 2011

insomnia...

its been going on for many days now but last night was the most amusing (sarcastic voice inserted) night so far.  after taking my prescribed amount of sleep meds and mediation,  my heart starts to freak out and i ended up treating the panic attack....    once it subsided i was sure while i was curled up comfy i would just drift off.  then came the music... i havent even seen this damn movie in years... why now?  over and over and over...
i used a very unlady like swear word after about fifteen minutes of this, i threw off my blankets and stomped around trying to find socks.  then, still with that song torturing me, i found some flannels to put on underneath my nightgown and headed for pine sol and the other cleaning products.    the kids floors are beautiful now and full of lemony freshness.   unfortunately, my head was still full of really bad cockney accents.   i looked at the clock and it says 4:30am.   i literally threw the mop down, put on my coat and went to buy the only thing else that could possibly put me to sleep.  dipenhydramine.  i walked into maverick looking like the maniacal insomniac that i was.  i grabbed the over priced solution and stood for a minute because i realized that it was stocked right next to the condoms.  i started to laugh...  they should sell them in a set... if you can't get lucky you can go to sleep instead. 

back at home i settled into bed again and took my meds.   not long after that i could actually feel the sweet feeling of being dozy.   it might have been 20 or 30 minutes that i had just drifted off.  ahhhhhhhh.   then from somewhere in the house i hear this blood curdling scream or squawk and skittering and realized that the cat has probably brought in his spoils of war.   unfortunately for the whatever it was, it was still alive and fighting for its life.   i laid there and screamed the cats name and i heard him run off.   i wanted so bad to go back to that floaty place,  but i knew if i didn't get out there to try to save the creature it would be torn (yeah i know gory) from tip to toe all around my house the next morning.  besides i really don't  think listening to the circle of life going on right outside my door, is really music to sleep by.

so i get up.   i don't know what is waiting for me.  the cat once brought home a rat as big as a  terrier.  i peeked down the hallway.  there is was.   tiny scared little bird, obviously stunned and wounded.   i decided to try to herd it out of the house.  i closed all the doors except the front and back doors and found some cardboard to help him scoot the right direction.  the minute i tried to start this endeavor it took flight (good sign) but hid somewhere in the living room.   between swearing, i kept trying to explain to the bird i was trying to get him outside where he/she could at least have a chance if he could stay in the trees.   i dont think he understood english.    once i would get him out of one hiding place, he went someplace else.   meanwhile the dipehydramine was trying to seduce me back to the bedroom.

finally, after a good 45 minutes i wrangled the bird close to the backdoor where he could smell the fresh air.  there was a moment that i thought "my god he is wounded and i am sending him off to his demise"  but its not like i am dr doolittle or something.  i knew he could fly and if he could just stay in the trees he'd be okay.  (yeah who am i kidding) but perhaps with a little bit of luck..... oh fuck there's that song again.

i hope i sleep tonight.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

just a day trip...

i have been thinking for a while about a good place to go to think.    it needed harshness and beautiful and all living in harmony.  

2 years ago my partner and i went to the snake river gorge and took some terrific pictures.  she was so happy she did a cartwheel.  i think it was the first cartwheel i have ever seen a grown up do.  i will make sure i walk passed that place to remember her joy.     i want to venture out further into the sagebrush to the wind gardens.  i want to wrap my arms around the steel pillar and feel its vibration.  look up and watch the blades go around and around.

i want to remember the why we ended up there that day.   we were getting ready for a friends wedding and after the rehearsal we took off to find something new for the denver native to see.   it was so much fun.  we went home to shower and crawled into that bed that our bodies fit perfectly.

seems like so far away now.     i will wind my way back toward the bridge that used to give me nightmares when thinking of letting my children walk across it.  its not scary to me anymore.  it speaks to me the way king's hill did.   other reasons, other seductions, perhaps just a soft place to sleep.

Friday, May 27, 2011



i went for a walk tonight.   i had to breathe.   i had a staring stand-off with my ex who would have stood there staring back forever had she not said something.   i didn't say what i really wanted to say.   instead i just stood and let my vision go blurry.  the wind was blowing and as my vision became foggy i could see her in my favorite picture of her.  so beautiful,  a smile that out shines the stars,  a shoulder i swear was molded just perfectly to fit me.  a body that could curl up in a spoon position that i could almost hold every part of her.  i remember the last time.  hysterically she called to get her away from a barking dog...  i ran to her in pj's,  grabbed her dogs and held her hand until she was safe in my bed.  i rolled away for a minute to adjust my arm and she cried, "where did you go?"   i rolled back over and whispered that i was right there and that she was safe and nothing was going  to get to her.   i felt her body slowly relax and she was blissfully asleep.   she felt so good.  i put so much love into that night.  praying it would penetrate deeper than it would have been if she had just crashed on a friends couch. 

morning came and life went on.  i don't keep track of all the shit that passes between us, i peruse over it and file it away so that when it happens again i can laugh at myself.  but i do remember the soft times.  times that will forever fill me with memories of her.   i choose that.  i could choose the smile and her wrinkly nose.  her dancing with my daughters and buying her Miss PiggleWiggle for her because it was her favorite childhood book.  giving her her first easter basket.   i will and choose to remember these things because they bring a smile and a softness into my heart.   i refuse to point fingers any more.  i have officially let her go.

i pray everynight that she will soften her heart.  remember the good things and get on with her life that could be filled with love and laughter.  lovers and other happily ever afters.  i want that for her as much as i want it for me.   how could i not?  i have loved her, known her, watched her for such a very long time.  she is a good woman.  she has so much to give.  i lost her but there is no reason why someone can't look at her and see that she could be their everything someday.


whirlwind vacation in the making...

i will be hitting denver, omaha, lincoln, kansas city and never once see tennessee and that is where she actually lives.   this ought to be interesting.   i miss her and bongo.   they won't be coming here until july,  i hope it stops raining by then...

Thursday, May 26, 2011

another phone call i don't want to answer...

my films are in on my mammogram....

i already know there are people out there thinking i deserve whatever bad happens to me.  (they said so in writing so don't bother calling me a liar or martyr, or whatever the new word is for the unkind vulture crowd)  I know there are people who will berate me for not doing it sooner i have that copied as well just so i never forget the face of cruelty... 

i don't happen to think anyone deserves to die from cancer.   my mother did.  lung cancer.  it was painful and ugly and horrifying.   the day we came back from her MRI which showed the mass creeping around the outside of her lung and headed for her spine, she asked me to run to the store for her.  she gave me the list and as i scanned it she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said,  "please don't say anything to me about wanting cigarettes".  it was a moment i will never forget.  i looked at her hand writing,  i looked up at her.  she wasn't my mother anymore.  she was just a scared little person who was just told she was most likely dying.  there was no one or nothing to blame.  it was exactly what it was.  period.

there is a piece of me (a horrible little piece which rises in me like a volcano and demands a sacrifice for cruelty and hatred)  that would like to grab a few people by the hand and take them back to the night my mother died.  her hand in mine and tell her that its her own damn fault.  chicken shits all of them,  they wouldn't do it.  as far as i know they all smoke as well.  let it be said here and now,  i don't think any of you deserve to die from any sort of cancer.

so i dodged the phone call, sue me, blame me, talk shit about me.   i am/was that scared little person,  the one i saw in my mother.   i was lucky the first time,  cervical cancer seems to be the "golden child" of cancer.  it grows slower than many.   who knows what the hell the dr. is going to tell me about my mammogram.  but i will journal about it and those of you who will find joy in the diagnosis, if it turns out that there may be a problem,  you can start a brand new blog.  sadly,  you will most likely have many followers. 

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

a clean slate doesn't always mean peace...


i only have a short list really.   being gay cancels out so many of those men/boys who courted me with beautiful words and nonexistent intentions until i was way into my 30's.

 i have only really loved a few women.  and please don't mistake "love" with "sex" because they are two different things.  that doesn't mean that the women i have had sex with i didn't care for.   i treated them like jewels and they always knew i was present when we were together.  the women i have loved and i  have had intense sexual/emotional relationships with, there was more that i gave to them.

there was my first.  i was ignorant and innocent and so flattered that person "like that" would have anything to do with a person "like me".  she was like a circus clown, filling up a helium balloon, ie my ego.  she filled it with all the things she knew i wanted to be.  when she handed me that expansive balloon,  i wanted to believe that i really was all those things she had put into it.  she wrapped the string around me tightly and as i lifted off the ground, i first felt the rush of freedom.  my feet no long carried the weight i had be carrying for so long.  before i cleared the trees though i saw something in her eyes, immitigable pretentiousness.  she knew i wouldn't come back down in the same spot i had lifted off from.  she knew,  that moment was THE moment that me and my life of my entire family would never be the same.   when i muse about it, i see the clown from Steven King's novel IT.  but in the spirit of honesty,  i was a lesbian and eventually i would have escaped...  maybe more gracefully.  maybe more dramatic.  one cannot foretell the "might haves".   because they do not exist.

there was a woman in between IT and my beautiful colorado woman.  she stole money from me,  she told me she didn't have enough money to go see her dying father in New York.  i took out money from an investment account at the tune of $1700.   she never went.   "she spent it on bogus "back pain" appointments all around the valley.  a few months later,  she father did die.  she didn't go...  i don't even recall any tears.  she used me for everything she could.  i remember one time, while putting up the swingset for my girls, she looked at me and said,  "i am going to marry you"....   "oh you think so?"  i said, as i looked at her and saw the rope wrapped around my wrist that my first love had wrapped so tightly.   she stayed long enough for me to nurse her through back surgery, i bathed her and changed her tampons and then she was off,  i think to florida.   "Grifter" i think is what the name is for people like that.

i keep a picture of my colorado beauty.  she thought i was beautiful.  she thought i was intelligent, she loved my blogging, she loved my imagination,  she loved what a "smooth" flirt i was.  thats what she called it ya know,  "smooth".   until the world turned upside down.  i won't go into details because it is so fresh.  the wounds still weeping puss and the bruises are everywhere.  but i have her picture.  i have several.  my body reacts to them exactly the way it did in person.   But it is over.  Please God let it be over.   our passion equaled the hate.

one lives out of state and is (i hope) out of range of such hateful manipulation.  however, she is schooled in psychological deficiances and can explain to me why they (you) acted so hatefully.   may Freud bless frat boy.

there was one more.  she fell into the intellectual not sexual  catagory.   people threatened her that if she was with me for whatever reason she would pay a price.   they gave her an example of the type of price she would pay.  she decided that i was collateral.  i can tell you that this one REALLY hurt.  congratulations to you if you are responsible.  you won.  but in the grander scheme of things you really will lose.  karma is a equal opportunity bitch.

not one of these women i would ever ask back into my life.  that is assuming that they would ever want me back, which is a prime example of magical thinking. 

i pray however that one day a girl will come to love me, regardless of who tells her not to,  a girl who has no agenda other than wanting to lay down with me every night.   keep each others feet warm.  giggle quietly over private jokes and love making that lifts us to where we are supposed be be.

please goddess,  hear my prayer. 

amen 

kanji


happiness, harmony, honor, faith, family

and my hands in which i asked my daughter why do you want to have my hands in there?  she said, because you made it and it will stand for artist.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

more than just a trail...

 i keep hoping that i will get a text from someone who will tell me that i have more worth than the threats of her "so called friends".   that i am worth her time, her emotions, and her fear that people who were her friends before. we became good friends i wish it  would transend the evil of what toxic bullies who would threaten her.  i know it won't happen,  i have always known my value.  its not worth anyones dicomfort.   why on earth i could ever think anything other than that.  it always has been, it always will be.

i had my binoculers ready for the next run up the mountain.   i could never make it up all the way but we  found this cave and this beautiful hillside filled with all kinds of birds..  but we stopped when we saw the owl.   we watched her for several minutes,  we watched as  she watch us.  she watched the other birds who have made their home within the rock that surrounded her nest.   But her eyes were certainly on us. 

I promised to bring my binoculars next  time. she was so exicted to see that beautiful mommy close up  watching over her babies.  but that will never happen.  well perhaps i will on the a day i know she wont  be there or pray she won't be there.

i want to see the mama owl.  watching over her young.   i want to step through the creek one more time that i teased my friend by splashing water on her and watching her run with that beautiful grin on her face.

pitiful that any of these things should matter to me at all.  i don't need her loyality.  although it was sheer bliss when i had it.  she was special,  for a while.

just a volleyball game...




THE WOODLAWN WOLVERINES
VS
THE 25TH STREET VANDALS

( okay okay everyone wanted to call the Broncos but this is my blog so i can name us whatever i want)

WE ALL WON!




Friday, May 20, 2011

someone told me once that she had been advised that insomnia never killed anyone.   so i sit.  i hear the clock ticking away the minutes of my life...  it might not be killing me but it is usurping seconds, minutes, hours, of my life in which i lay here wondering why i am not someone important.  or doing something important.

why am i not  standing without fear on the Golan Heights screaming that if Syria takes complete control of the controversial land Israel will have no defense as Syria and whoever else wants the Israelis exterminated, bombard them from the hills.

why am i not spending time at the interfaith sanctuary?

why can't i connect with people and make them feel understood or comfort them with basic commonality.  i don't want points... i want a connection.

what am i waiting for?   the need is now,  i am not blind.  what is wrong with me that I cannot become someone who will have made a difference in the world  when i am gone?

why am i not heard and respected when i speak about the damage that hatred and bullying can do to people.  if not me? who?  i have been bullied all my life.  in childhood, in marital situations, in coming out as a lesbian, and by the gay community  itself , which i so desperately wanted to find a place in.

i am either lazy or paralyzed with fear.

i am a glaring example of a full fledged hypocrite.

perhaps that is what i hear in the tick tock of the grandfather clock above my head.  the reminder that each click is one more second that i am doing nothing important for the world around me.

5-7-5


Thursday, May 19, 2011

longing

if you could only sit slowly on the edge of my couch,

staring down at your hands and picking your words gently,

you reach for my arm and you feel my silk skin that smells of mango and vanilla.

looking at me, gauging my reaction as you slowly slide your hand up to my elbow.

you reach with your other hand to cup my jaw line and your eyes well up with need and permission.

i lean into your hand, moaning quietly and saying how good your hand feels.

you lift my chin up and ask me to open my eyes and look at you.

i am locked in the moment, praying you won’t make me wait too long to watch you move closer and brush your lips against mine.

i take in a breath, waiting, quietly begging that tonight you will not stop with a good night kiss.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

its genetic...

one of my favorite author/narrator is Garrison Keillor.   i don't think of him often but when i do, the last few lines of Lake Wobegon instantly appear in my head,

"Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known."
Garrison Keillor.
it may take a few times to read it and digest it to understand its full meaning.  all i know is that it delights me.  its really not a stretch to compare his statement to Dorothy when she woke from her technicolor coma,
Dorothy: "Well, I - I think that it - it wasn't enough to just want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em - and it's that - if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with!"
i am oddly pulled to "old world" pictures and collectibles.  i don't mean "old" old, but nostalgic replications of "old".   Thomas Kincaid has often tried to lure me in to collecting his porcelain houses complete with street lights, snow, carriages and hurried shoppers, men tipping their top hats to passers by as they make their last minute purchases,  women with long flowy dresses, adorned with fancy hats, furs to block out the cold,  white gloves and buttoned shoes, window shopping in pairs.  it all looks so beautiful and when i see these things there are feelings that well up in me.   feelings as if i have lived there, known that life and i become melancholy and home sick.  how funny to be home sick for a time that i never lived.  perhaps that time never did exist.  artists and the like do like to prey on our yearning for simpler, more romantic, more polished time.  i.e. Norman Rockwell.
  
" the good old days".  what does that mean really?   these villages Thomas Kincaid sells never existed in my experiences.  but yet i feel the memories.  a friend, a long time ago suggested that it was just in our genetic makeup to be attracted to that unknown era which Thomas Kincaid loses himself in his gardens, landscapes and his collectibles.  i suppose you can buy the fantasy through installments of more money than you can really afford.  yet you still feel the yearning.  its as if by owning these beautiful things will make us feel comforted and back to our youth.  but again,  my youth never looked like that.

i tried my best for many years to make that "certain something" come alive in my home.  God it was so exhausting i finally cried uncle.   a full blown Martha Stewart nervous breakdown.  no more electric reindeer on the lawn for me.

here and now really isn't all that bad.


screaming mommy toy reprise...

January 23, 2006

What is Your Sin?

We all have weaknesses. We all have areas in our lives where we fail time and time again. While doing some rather heavy introspection lately I have come to the conclusion that I am guilty of committing one sin more than any other.

The sin of omission.

It is an easy one to get sucked into because there are so many ways you can excuse yourself from not acting, not saying, not doing. And indeed my best and long suffering excuse is that I am weak and shy and I don't do well at standing up in a crowd of already raised voices to speak my mind. It's just an excuse. It doesn't negate the act (or non-action) nor heal the emotional or physical consequence of my habitual "not doing".

So many things I have chosen not to say. Leaving a void as wide as my guilt is deep. A void that people, being human and acting accordingly have chosen to fill with their own interpretations of what they think should go into that nice empty space. Or what serves them best. Not their fault, I left the empty space.

There was a story I was told a long time ago. It's about a woman who had gone about the town spreading rumors and hateful things about many of her neighbors. She felt remorse and wanted to find a way to fix the hurt she had caused. She consulted a wiseman who was known throughout the land for his far reaching intelligence. She told him what she had done. He listened to her story and her sadness. When she was finished he looked at her and said,

"The first thing you should do is take this basket of feathers. Place one feather on each doorstep of a person you have hurt with your words and then come back to me."

The woman thankfully took the basket and began her work. By dawn, she was finished and hurried back to the wiseman. She said,

"I have done what you have asked me to."

The wiseman smiled and said,

"This is very good. Now you must go back to each of those houses and retrieve each of the feathers from the doorsteps. Once you have all the feathers back in the basket everyone will forgive you and your sin against them will be forgiven and forgotten."

The woman stared at him. She said,

"But those feathers won't be there. The wind will have blown them away by now... they will be gone." The man smiled at the woman. "As are your words, like the feathers, gone, blown far and wide and gathering them and taking them back is impossible..."

Now granted, I differ from this woman because I am not in the habit of speaking falsehoods and ugliness of or towards people. But replace "rumors" with "things left unsaid" and I am not so different. I have never been one to weigh sin against sin. I have never been one to say one sin justifies another. No matter what someone else has done to me it does not justify mine done purposely or inadvertently against them. It just doesn't. I am busted. I am guilty.

Where do I go from here? Do I have the courage to stand amongst the screaming and speak my mind? Will I no longer hesitate when a space between me and a friend needs an "I love you"? Will I find the kindness and insight needed to say "I forgive you." when I would rather coddle my pride, furrow my brow and push away an already humble heart? Will I jump to say "I am sorry." before time stretches the chasm hopelessly wide?

What will I do? What would you do?

Sunday, May 15, 2011

an evening with Virginia Woolf

i have had a long standing love affair with Virginia Woolf.   she was elegant and thoughtful.  she provokes thought within me. she is sometimes a mirror that reflects my image back at me and sometimes a window to gaze out at the world around me.  we had a good night together last night.  a reunion of kindred spirits, of teacher and student, within my book, dog earred with a well worn spine.  she begins her writing of a Room of One's Own talking about words and their meanings after being asked to write about women and fiction.  she couldn't address it head on because she was not a head on type of person.  she was like a tree,  solid roots but branching off into the sky reaching for so many other ways to express her thoughts.  some branches twisted, contorted, perhaps painfully but always still reaching for the sunlight, for more, one more word that will be the perfect word.  fancinating.  so Virginia sat beside me last night and i talked to her...

words seem to be flying around me.  not like butterflies softly lighting on my shoulder but as if i am carrion.  each diving in to tear a small piece of flesh from my body.

i have come to the conclusion that people are cruel.   some are intentionally cruel.  instead of working through their disappointment or disillusionment with the world around them and letting go of the burden that always comes with anger and hurt, they carry it around like a prized possession, a trophy, a permission slip to be caustic.  or like a cow,  throwing up previous eaten food to chew it all over again instead of feeding blissfully from greener pastures.

there are those people who are accidentally cruel.  they react to situations which they are unable to think through before doing a hurtful thing.

there are those, who in my opinion, are some of the most irritating people to exist.  the apathetic.  the silent ones.  the people, for whatever reason, do not utter a word when the vultures attack.  they sit safely within the frenzy, not wanting to voice their objections to blantant hatred and bullying.  they value being with the crowd over speaking up and perhaps leaving themselves open to becoming carrion as well.

all of these catagories have one thing in common.  they are all just human nature.  no matter how much i shake my head in disappointment at the deliberate, accidental or apathetic actions of others,  i know that at one time or another i too have fallen into these catagories,  i know that there is nothing anyone can do to change inate human nature.  i always do hope however, that we all want to grow to a higher place in our evolution, to reach the next tier on the Hierachy of Needs.  i always hope that we want to be better people.  i always want to believe that everyone wakes up every day striving to be honest with themselves as they take their first look into the mirror and know they should expect more of themselves.  more peace, more compassion, more empathy, more of all things good for their spirit.   after all,  hatred is sneaky. its an equal opportunity vulture.  you may think you are spitting it out and away from you,  like a cleansing ceremony.  but there is always some left behind.  it sits inside you, poisoning you as well.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

grey's addiction...

"Mrs. Snyder explained to me that when fate comes into play, choice sometimes goes out the window. Maybe Romeo and Juliet were fated to be together, but just for a while, and then their time passed. If they could have known that beforehand, maybe it all would have been okay. I told Mrs. Snyder that when I was grown up, I'd take fate into my own hands. I wouldn't let some guy drag me down. Mrs. Snyder said that I'd be lucky if I ever had that kind of passion with someone, and if I did, we'd be together forever. Even now, I believe that for the most part, love is about choices. It's about putting down the poison and the dagger and making your own happy ending... most of the time. And sometimes, despite all your best intentions, fate wins anyway."


  Grey's Anatomy

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

carpet demon...

where:  sitting in conversation with youngest while waiting for school to start.

"well," i said,  "it looks like its time to go in sweets."
"okay mom,"  she said,  "love you!  have a good week! oh and seize the day!"  she grinned from ear to ear.
"um, what?" i said, grinning back.
"what what?" she said.
"seize the day?  that's terrific, i like it!"  still grinning then thinking perhaps i would teach her another way to say it.   "carpe diem emma bear"  i said.
"um what?" she said.
"what what?" i said.
"carpet demon... what the heck mom?" 
"what?" i said and burst out laughing.  "carpe diem, it means "seize the day"" wiping the tears out of my eyes.
"oh!  okay... i think i like carpet demon better."  she says as she steps out of the car.

she blew me a kiss and waved until i was out of the parking lot.  carpet demon little one i thought as i drove away to seize my own, demons be damned.

Monday, May 2, 2011

the lady of shalott...

generation gap:  my daughter heard a song by The Band Perry which is an interpretation of Alfred Lloyd Tennyson's  "Lady of Shalott".    funny side note:  we saw the video in the doctor's office when she was feverish and not well.   we were held spell bound by the song and video.  after it was over i sighed very deep and she spouts off with,  "well that's a great video to see while you feel like you're dying in a doctor's office!"  we both cracked up while other unwell people looked at us without the appreciation we deserved.  it was funny, but i guess when you feel like CRAP its easy to miss our sense of humor.  *we forgive you*

i told her about the story/poem from whence the song must have been inspired.  and then i remembered Anne of Green Gables, in her delicious dramatic interpretation of her own life had a scene where she acted out this very poem.   hannah sat there looking at me in stunned amazement.  something i don't take for granted anymore because soon she will realize that i do not know everything. 

for everyone's entertainment here are the three pieces of expression of Tennyson's poem.


The Lady of Shalott


On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.
Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Through the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four grey walls, and four grey towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.
By the margin, willow veil'd,
Slide the heavy barges trail'd
By slow horses; and unhail'd
The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd
Skimming down to Camelot:
But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?
Only reapers, reaping early,
In among the bearded barley
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly;
Down to tower'd Camelot;
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers, " 'Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott."
There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.
And moving through a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot;
There the river eddy whirls,
And there the surly village churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls
Pass onward from Shalott.
Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd lad,
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad
Goes by to tower'd Camelot;
And sometimes through the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two.
She hath no loyal Knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.
But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often through the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot;
Or when the Moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed.
"I am half sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott.
A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.
The gemmy bridle glitter'd free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily
As he rode down to Camelot:
And from his blazon'd baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armor rung
Beside remote Shalott.
All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn'd like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.
As often thro' the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, burning bright,
Moves over still Shalott.
His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;
On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow'd
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flashed into the crystal mirror,
"Tirra lirra," by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.
She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces through the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.
In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining.
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And around about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.
And down the river's dim expanse
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance --
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.
Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right --
The leaves upon her falling light --
Thro' the noises of the night,
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.
Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darkened wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.
Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and Burgher, Lord and Dame,
And around the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.
Who is this? And what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they crossed themselves for fear,
All the Knights at Camelot;
But Lancelot mused a little space
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott."

Anne is sent to her watery grave....

The Band Perry "If I Die Young"

i love the strings that interweave through the genres of expression...