Just a Thought

Just a thought I had today. People need people. I think people who say: "Who needs people?" are actually people who need them the most. The things they strive for, usually recognition in the form of "success" or fame, is so that they can say to all the people they did not need: "Look at me!"

It was just a thought as I was making my bed and thinking about how I get looked over a lot. How my little man gives me kisses when I am sad (or happy) and flowers just because. How he makes me feel more special than most people.

I was thinking about how I still need to be recognized for skills other than mothering to make me feel whole. Thinking about love and disappointment and setbacks, and goals. How life takes you places that are unexpected and that that phrase isn't as romantic as it sounds. How I need people and I can't say I don't if I am being real. I want to be real.

 I want to be a conduit of truth-either the waters of truth refreshing or the electricity that is shocking. Beauty is made up of truth. Symmetry or not. Everyone wants to beautiful too whether they admit that or not.

We need people. We want to be beautiful.

What I Wore to Church

I was so excited to find this shirt that I had to wear it to church the next day. My husband and I set out this past Saturday to hit some garage sales but the weather was not up to garage sales standards and we couldn't find any. So, we went to an antique store and Goodwill. We checked everything out in the store and came up with nothing until I was walking out and this blouse was on a mannequin. 

The skirt is a hand-me-down from my Aunt Marilyn years ago (and I mean YEARS like 15 or more). The belt is from a tunic shirt I bought a few years ago, good ol' black tights from Wal-Mart and the shoes that must be most featured on this blog, my black Nine West shoes I snagged at the Cookie Jar Resale. 

I've often thought of writing to Clinton Kelley and Stacey London to remind them that a super cute, appropriate, and chic wardrobe can be built around thrift store items. Thanks, Mom, for teaching me how to thrift shop. Also, thank you for letting me put together funky outfits because I know my choices probably made your orderly personality cringe sometimes. 

Dispel All the Dark

This isn't polished yet but it is still sort of shiny

Little child dream

Dispel all the dark

The dark that tries to bite you

And hide you in its cloak.

Make bright the world around you

Love all who you see

Wish and wish and wish

And climb every tree.

Dance in the puddles

Run in the rain

Laugh when you are joyful

And cry when you are in pain.

Emotions have value

Just as logic does

But let neither overtake you

Only let love.

And love until you burst

Because sometimes that how it feels

And sometimes you bruise your heart

When you’ve fallen head over heels

But laugh and laugh harder

Laugh at all the world

Because their ideals aren’t so important

As living life unfurled.

And living life with purpose

If that purpose only be

To live with love unfettered

And to be what you must be.

To know that God is bigger

Then you will ever understand

And you are living life secure

But not jailed by his hand.

People will always wonder at you smiling

Or for most anything at all

Except for being like them

And that dream is sort of small.

-Emily Chumchal Andrews

Culture, Part One

Culture, Part One

Plastic silhouette peel-off

On your mud flap

Bumper

Crumble it up and discard

When it isn’t shiny anymore.

-Emily Chumchal Andrews, C. 2010

What I Wore to a Christmas Open Mic

The first picture doesn't really show the outfit but it is me at the mic reading a poem of mine. 

 The jacket I bought a long time ago on clearance at Sears

 The blouse came from Karen's Closet a consignment store nearby. $5

 The red jeans have appeared in a recent post. I got them on sale at Macy's. Thought I might see what the red belt looked like with the outfit (got it at Goodwill $2).

And the boots were bought 3 years ago. I found them at a cheap shoe store in the mall in the little girl's section. I cut off the extreme laces that were hanging off them and they are perfect now!

Merry Christmas, y'all!

Wish

So just come dance with me
Dance all night long
In a crazy rhythm
And to our own song

Let the world have theirs
And I will have mine
And you are it
And we dance in time.

And we dance harder
And we dance slow
And we laugh at life
And we don't know.

All we know is each other
And our bright bright eyes
And the fact that you are mine
And that we have no disguise.

That the world can hide
And go on being sad
But we don't miss it
They've been had.

We can just be each other's
In our castle made of dreams
When we enter this house
All is as it seems.

Home is where we are
Life is who we are
Happy is what we are.
When we are... together.

-Emily Chumchal Andrews
December 18, 2012 ©

Pal

There is a certain time of year that I think about the death of a person who was very dear to me. In fact, I don't think I have yet had someone else die that was so very dear to me as him.

His name is Eugene Fowler but I called him "Pal." When my parents moved into the house that we grew up in they did not know that there would be not only a neighbour, in the best sense of the word, but a dear friend. Pal was in his 70's when my parents moved in and my mom was pregnant with me.

Pal had a garden, fed the birds, and mowed his own lawn. He worked on his car, he was amazing. When my parents brought me home he was the first person to hold me. I fed the birds with him, worked in his garden with him, and ate waffle breakfast with him. I named him "Pal" because he was my pal and I can still see myself sitting on the hood of his classic blue car mindlessly chipping off the paint and him saying "Now Peaches, don't do that." He called socks "stockings" and if he didn't like something I did he was not mad he was "cross."

I visited him most every day coming through the back screen door. I would pile all the pillows in his house on the couch and sit high like a queen in front of the Television. I sat far back because, as Pal told me, sitting as close as I tried would "ruin my eyes." He took the gate off of his fence just so that I and my siblings could come back and forth through his yard freely. I remember when someone new moved into his house and they put up a gate. It was a reminder that Pal indeed was gone.

 I climbed his trees and built forts in his yard. I drank his 7Up and ate all his peppermints (especially the chewy ones). I remember his yellow vintage stove and cobalt blue lamps, his living room always seemed so rich. I hid in his wooden side tables and prank called on his phone. He bandaged my cuts, I still remember the drawer that held the Neosporin and Band-Aids. My Pal. His birthday was this month and I suppose that is why I am thinking of him. He was born in 1905. He was dear to me and my family. I will always love you, Pal.