The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

Not a joke

Okay, a couple things to take note of on this day of fools.

I called my mother. Nearly sixty days of silence and I called her up as though it were a regular part of the routine, and neither of us mentioned the rift or the fact that she still doesn't know why I was angry with her. Life is short, I thought, I have made my point and it's time to move on. Whether she has learned anything from it remains to be seen, but I'm not so deluded that I think of myself as the innocent in the situation. I know how she works and I let the conversation take its course without trying to ease out of it. I could have sidestepped the drama if a small part of me didn't want it, I know, but this does not erase her part in the nonsense. She's still careless when it comes to speaking but I don't see this ever changing. Maintaining harmony will involve my acceptance of her thoughtlessness. It's part of who she is and always will be. She's not entirely bad, I know it, and one day I will have a thirty-something daughter who will probably see me as some kind of bloodsucking pariah. I will want her to love me the way she appears to love me now and my heart will verge on rupture if I know she thinks of me as an annoyance. I don't know what my mother wants our relationship to look like, but I'm pretty sure that if it falls short of that vision, I'm at least partially responsible. A new chapter, then. Let's see how far we get with this unspoken truce of ours.

Second, I got published. Yeah, that's right, published. I woke up this morning, ambled over to my computer, bleary-eyed, bitter about seven o'clock feeling much earlier than it ought to and logged in to my email. There was a new email with the address of a magazine I'd submitted a few poems to about a month ago, and it appeared to be a response email rather than an update or alert to a new issue release.

Dear Tara,

We would like to publish your piece, A Single Strand in the next issue of Inscribed ~ A Magazine For Writers.

It is officially live on April 1st, 2009.

April Fool's Joke? If so, how incredibly cruel! But then, I looked for the magazine and sure enough, I'm listed as a contributor/artist. Artist. I have never thought of myself in this way, but I have to tell you the mirror is a lot more interesting to me now than it was yesterday. I stared at the screen for about five minutes and wondered how excited I'm supposed to be. Screaming it out seemed a little bit too enthusiastic, and taking on a laid back attitude seemed sort of wasteful, so I sat in silence: stunned. I am happy about this, make no mistake. It may not be a prestigious literary journal, but an editor of a magazine which receives many submissions on a daily basis picked one of my poems and said it was worth a read. I have to mention that MaryLou suggested I submit the poem after she read it, which I did, because we all know she's got a keen eye. Thank you for the gentle nudge, Mary Lou.

It is said that when a person dies their body weighs 21 grams less than before their passing. I feel heavier today, but I like to think its the weight of new happiness in the soul.