The Canvas

You came to me wrapped in skin;
soft, smooth, clear, flawless,
skin.
I cherished it, cared for it,
bathed it, oiled and powdered it.
What clean, tender, soft skin.
I kissed it, caressed it, pampered
and protected it as a fine
piece of art.
I didn't know it was only a
canvas.
I thought it was perfect
as it was.

Mag 213 

© K. Lynette Erwin, 2014

Manifesting the Dream

Almost from the beginning of our relationship, Steph and I have dreamed of owning a home in the country that would be suitable for hosting an artist's retreat. It, in fact, is the primary reason we started our non-profit, Allabreve.org. At this point, our primary focus has been upon author support services and providing websites at a low cost to artists and arts organizations, but we've always had a dream of providing support to musicians, artists, writers, and actors with funding and retreats that encourage them to do what they do best. With the arts on the austerity chopping block in most governments and with public school budgets slashed to the bare-bones minimum, people in the private sector must move up to the forefront and provide educational opportunities and funding

to help artists realize their talents and promote the arts in a world that is literally starving for them.

Recently, we've been sensing the "call" to step-up our efforts towards manifesting our dream into reality, but to do so is going to require contact with the right people--those with the same vision as ours and who either have the money to make it happen or who know investors who have

money and the desire to be a part of something like this. We do know many "right" people in many "right" places who very likely could put us in contact with the ones who could help us turn this dream into a reality. That's why I'm posting this entry today. It's one way of putting out the call. The universe knows what we desire. We're ready now to make this thing happen!

His Room

I cleaned your room today.
Evidence of tortured teenage paradox
strewn across the floor.
Baseball cards, skateboard magazines,
and candy bar wrappers among
empty beer bottles and photos of a girl give
evidence of the man struggling to emerge.
Tucked in rumpled linens, an empty cigarette pack
concealing what you didn't want me to know.
I knew this day would come.
Mothers aren't ignorant of such things.
How do you think you got here in the first place?

Mag 212

© K. Lynette Erwin, 2014

Who Decided that Celebrities Were Obligated to Be Your Child's Role Model?

Today on Twitter, as I scrolled down my tweet list, a particular one caught my eye. A woman asked why, since Marilyn Monroe was a drug abuser and died of a drug overdose (which is still hotly debated), do so many girls look up to her as a role model. I wanted to answer her question, but since it was Twitter, I didn't have enough space to tell her exactly what I thought. If I had, I would have answered her by asking, "And what makes you think that she was obligated to live her life according to your expectations?"

Celebrities aren't role models, they're celebrities. They get to be celebrities because they're movie stars, musicians, or sports figures, or politicians, or sometimes for no reason at all other than they're spoiled rich girls who have a reality T.V. show. Celebrities are created by the public and they're often people who we wouldn't necessarily choose as role models for ourselves or our children. And since it's the public who has given them their

celebrity status (often for acting in ways that is less than role-model worthy), why do we put them up on pedestals and insist that they live their private lives according to our moral and ethical standards?

If I might make an observation here, I don't believe girls look to Marilyn Monroe so much as a role model as they admire her for her physical beauty and her mega-celebrity status. Marilyn is more than a celebrity, she's an icon. She was never "role model" material nor did she ever pretend to be. She was a sex pot, blonde bombshell and she used it to her advantage. She had affairs with the most powerful men on earth, and she was never a "good girl".

Marilyn Monroe wasn't Mother Theresa, nor did she ever pretend or wish to be. Nor did she ever expect to be your little girl's role model.


© K. Lynette Erwin, 2014

The Morning Breakfast Table

Family breakfast at our house was an adventure. It began at 7:00 A.M. sharp when Dad yelled up the stairs to us kids, "Get up! Breakfast is ready!" It always struck terror in me because I knew my feet had better hit the floor before he finished his sentence or there would be hell to pay. We'd throw on our robes and slippers and yawn and stretch our way down to the kitchen breakfast table where Dad sat at the head with his Bible and a devotional pamphlet. Mother would still be buzzing about making the last minute food preparations and pouring Dad's coffee as we all shuffled in and sat down to the table.

Across from me sat my younger brother. He always wore a sullen expression and avoided making eye contact with anyone. When Mother sat his plate of eggs, sausage, and toast in front of him, he would pick up his fork and with it, lift his sausage patty and stare suspiciously underneath, as if something with eyes was lurking there. I don't think he ever found anything, but he always checked.

My baby sister sat to my left in her high chair. She was the kid who wouldn't eat. Every family has one. It didn't matter what was set in front of her, she refused it, so I was the one with the fork-load of scrambled eggs swirling it towards her mouth and making airplane noises in hopes that she might give in and take a bite or two.

After the last piece of toast came out of the oven broiler and was stacked on a plate with the others, Mother would sit down to the table and Dad would open his Bible and read the passage that he had carefully chosen for the day. This was our family devotion time and it was held at the table every weekday morning and on Sundays. The only day we got a break from it was on Saturday when Mother made pancakes for breakfast and Dad joined us kids in the living room with our TV trays and watched Bugs Bunny & Road Runner cartoons.

In all my years growing up and in all the years of family table devotions, I can't recall the subject of one of them. I think the only person in the family who actually enjoyed the ritual was my dad, who had a predilection for pontification and who seemed to like making the first fifteen minutes of every morning (except Saturdays) more difficult to stay awake through than our minister's forty-five minute church sermons. He never seemed to notice that while he preached on, my brother and I would cross our eyes and stick our tongues out at one another, or that Mother sighed and watched the clock, worried that our breakfast was getting cold.

After the sermon was finished we would all join hands and Dad would appoint someone to say the morning blessing, which always seemed to be a contest over who could deliver the most compelling or touching prayer and to which Dad would listen for indications that we had paid attention to the devotion. After the "Amen" was said, hands would drop and Mother would arise from her seat and serve our cold breakfast.

Pass the jelly, please.

Mag 211

© K. Lynette Erwin, 2014

Remember

Remember the past, but don't linger.

Remember what we had, but move on.

Remember what we lost, but don't grieve.

Remember? You captured it all in song.

Remember the joys, the laughter.

Remember the heartbreak and tears.

Remember the tender, stolen kisses.

The memories sustained us through the years. 

Now at last we're together.

The memories of love brought us here.

It was the captured song we remembered,

And it kept us from all fear.

So remember the past and linger.

Linger in my arms and in my heart.

And when once again, death comes,

We will never again be apart. 

© K. Lynette Erwin, 2014

 

Manic

You blew in with no warning and,

in typical fashion,

with your destructive, acerbic, tongue,

peeled the paint from off the walls,

and left me covered in the dust of

your destruction. 

So here I sit

trying to decide where to

begin picking up the pieces

leftover from the tirade.

Flip the switch.

The lamp is still on.

© K. Lynette Erwin, 2014

Mag 210

I Don't Want to Be in Your Play Anymore

People who know me know that I love the theater. I've been an actress since I was old enough to stand in front of the television and mimic the singers, dancers, and actresses who caught my fancy on all of the variety shows and movie musicals that were so popular in the 1960s. I was in my first live stage production at the age of nine and by the time I started high school, I'd been a part of so many plays and musical productions that I couldn't count them all. I love drama and I always have--on the stage, that is.

Unfortunately I also grew up with a lot of drama that wasn't always played out on the stage. It was Shakespeare who said that "All the world's a stage and all men and women merely players...", and he was correct. We all have to deal with a certain amount of offstage drama, but that doesn't mean that we have to create it nor must we be willing participants in the drama that someone else creates. The problem is that when we grow up in the drama, it's all we know. We don't realize that we don't have to live with it or that it's even harmful to us not only emotionally and mentally, but physically as well. We literally become addicted to it like a drug, which in fact, it is a drug, or at least it causes a chemical reaction in our bodies and gives us a rush like a drug. The natural hormone that it creates and feeds on is adrenalin, also known as the "fight or flight" hormone, and it's that chemical rush that causes our addiction to drama.

It wasn't until a few years ago after I had a major gallbladder attack and I had to have my very sick gallbladder removed, that I learned that stress and/or "drama" is a major contributor to gallbladder disease. It

was then that I made the decision that when the surgeon cut the diseased organ out, I was going to excise the drama from my life at the same time. I literally said "no" to all the people--family, friends, acquaintances, co-workers, people on Facebook, etc.-- who were addicted to drama and who not only created it, but who tried to suck me into it. Not only did I stop participating in other people's drama, I quit creating my own and sucking others in. At first it was hard. Like any addiction, you go through a period of withdrawal that literally leaves you feeling sick, empty, and bored, so to counteract the boredom and fill my life with something where the drama once was, I decided to write the book that I always wanted to write. After writing and publishing two books, I concentrated on losing the weight that the drama-induced stress caused. Pretty soon I found that not only did it get easier and easier to stay out of the drama, it also got easier to identify people who were addicted to drama and who were seeking to suck me into it. And once identified, it was easy for me to tell them that I didn't want to be a part of it and to go away.

Yes, I made a few enemies when I walked off their stages in the middle of a scene, but I actually found a whole lot more friends in the process--friends whose plays are much more fun to be in and who enjoy taking the stage and then standing back and giving the stage to me for a while. If life must be a theater, at least I have a choice of whose play I want to be in.

Indie Author News: Featured Indie Book: So Faithful a Heart (K. Lynet...

Indie Author News: Featured Indie Book: So Faithful a Heart (K. Lynet...: Featured Indie Book on Indie Author News : Historical Romance So Faithful a Heart (Special Edition) by K. Lynette Erwin.