Life Through The Eyes of Stacy

Many think that a poem isn't a poem unless it's set to rhyme. I will tell you different.. but all that in another time. I am full of words, some big and small. Some are tiny syllables and some are mighty tall. It is what I'm trying to say and not always what I said.... So read carefully and I'll effect your very head. The world is full of love, hope and pain, but at the sun's goodnight when all that falls is rain we must reach within and find the places where words and music fill the empty and lonely spaces. Words are gifts, rhymed or not... and in the silence of truth they are all that is a good, life's proof.

I can see now in the ugly and honest light of day that I was never in love with him. Or am I? I do love him,  yes...like a friend...I suppose. I Love him, sure... Like an abused puppy who loves a man because he loves her~ because I know somewhere deep inside that someone as useless as me should take hold of whatever love I can get. ....because I truly feel too ugly inside and out to deserve love. Pull the shades, blacken out the light. Damn it, I cannot stand the sunlight... He would sit here in the dark with me as long as I like but urge me into the light eventually. But my breath does not hitch and catch at his sight nor does my heart or stomach or toes feel anything that love poems romanticize about. Is it him?  Is it  possible that he is simply but very sadly not the one ? Or is is me? Me.... Am I too broken to put together enough of myself to love another human being? Me,  as selfish as the wind doing what it might and too damaged to kno...

I'm afraid to do well, to write a masterpiece because if I do~ by chance or luck~ where will it end? Next I'd be expected another and another and more until so many words will be pulsating in my head. I wonder often, what would come of me? If I were a labeled a poet or a writer of any kind would I change? Already I try  harder, dig deeper for something wise that doesn't belong to my brain. Being me,  I write about love, death, beauty of the world and angst. What more can I borrow from this world... this tiny world that I've comforted around myself. I guess I'll have to venture out... see the sights and taste the cuisines to ever give more. Until that bravery comes to me I'll write about what's in my little ole head  and hope it gives you or even myself, a feeling of familiarity... of hope. Copyright © 2013 Stacy J. French~Roosa

I adore you from afar.... Like a tree overseeing the ocean, I watch you wave and roll away. I remember your words... Like pictures, they take a place in my memory book. I turn through the pages. I see your face in those snapshots but time is melting away the details of your face and even real in~hand pictures can't put back what is lost. What are the last words you spoke? To me? What was the last thought that came to your mind? Did you know it was over? I didn't get to say goodbye. ....I will never say those words or hear them from you.   Copyright © 2013 Stacy J. French~Roosa

Imagine, after a life of not being understood~ 20 plus years of feeling only halfheartedly loved you finally meet your best friend. She was always there but it took your own growth and seeing the other side of what she had endured to realize she was the friend you needed. You talked to her about everything and she shared her own worst fears and heartache along with her happiness. Then one day the call came~ In one moment your best friend is gone. She's breathed her last "I love you"~ Words you never got to hear. You wonder how long  she laid there dying alone. Alone without anyone. That haunts you more than anything. You buried her in her most favorite dress. Her beauty transcended even death's grasp. As you watched them close her casket she was all at once gone... And so went your faith, your belief that loving her would keep her healthy and that being a good person would bring long lives to all you love. Gone was her smile, her heart a...

All the love songs speak of a Love  that is created in Heaven with more distance than the stars and strength of the sun shining. The music, the words~  The emotions incited sway and dance  with such timed and controlled rhythm. It's so exciting and perfect there  in that song world with no room for reality. I get caught up in the words.  I find myself daydreaming  about that Love that songwriters feed us... Over and over they play until they no longer mean anything. If I love you it may not be a Love story written in books or caught in the melody of a song,  but I love you with all of me... and I abandon all hope of living without you. ...Still, the thought occurs to me~ Love is only as grand  or as boring  as we make it... I could show you more the love that is trapped in my heart for you. I could hold your hand more, linger in our kiss longer and stare into your eyes  until those damn love songs are not...

Tipsy~ Toes on the sharp edge of Day and Night. Dark and Sunlight. Itsy bitsy tastes~ Love teases me with tiny morsels of hope that like a damn baby bird I open my mouth wide for the nourishment of His promise... From the other side the dark offers great big mouthfuls  of comforting  numbness. ...Safety from heartbreak and pain. The line between is getting smaller. It's thinning like a  braid undone. I am either going into this place ahead hoping for unseen  and lasting sunshine or falling to a darkness soothing and familiar but lonely as Hell.... But a place, an emotion,  I know I can count on. Give me a reason... just one~ To jump into this abyss of hope. I'll follow you down but you have to lead... Cause at this moment I am lost and weary... I could fall either way. ~Stacy French Roosa~

There is something so marvelous and euphoric inside the emotions  of being deeply and truly in love. Not just a feeling,  but a innocent surety that all will be okay. Calm and excitement play in your stomach~ Some call it butterflies but I think those jittery feelings  are little explosions of hope, of possibility and of life. When His eyes are on you,  when he watches you with desire  you want just to stop the world,  hold him in your arms and spotlight back the same feeling to him~ To hold him, kiss him~ To feel every emotion between you embrace. And you cannot get enough. There is never enough time, of kisses or sweet words between you and Him. Just His hand on the small of your back incites such brilliance that the world is brighter,  the colors deeper~ To spite the darkness, night offers nothing short of a chance to dream of him. All doubt of tomorrow retreats like darkness stolen by sunshine and spreads off somewher...

This is not so much a poem as it is a stream of thoughts I let myself realize tonight... You say you love me yet your words have no arms... Your promises can't hold me through the night but make me cold and longing for Love. You say you need me... Still, I am forever sitting here alone In a world all my own that Is being quickly built out of doubt. You say you want to spend your life with me... That you want to give me the world... That you will protect me and my kids.. So, why are we here in this in between space? Why are you stalling and taking such time when you are the only one who can give us the very start of our life? You seem to hold your own pride above and beyond your love for me... I am imagining the life you've spoken... The words like bricks piece together our walls. But Promises can't support these walls and hope will not create the floor under my toes. A home is waiting for us yet you are gone somewhere and I don't know if you'll come back. ...

Just a voice...a tiny little "ahem" and then a pause. Everything that her voice needs in order to speak is hanging in that pause like a very delicate dandelion that went to furry leaves. Just a voice....a fragile, unsure stutter that in the air among all the other voices falls to the ground.  She waits for the din of conversation to give but her second attempt at a voice is swallowed up by the booming voices from all over the room~ Some voices lift into the air in high pitched shrills, others fall to the ground in different layers of base tones ... No relief comes so she must reach deep within and find the strength to speak strongly and with commitment. But then, wait...The words~!  Oh my, the voice needs words for her voice to wrap around or else she will just be singing.... (and badly at that, mind you). What should she say? What words when strung together will get and keep their interest?  She searches her vocabulary, her memory but she knows th...

~ There is at least one man in the world who is a walking bomb ready to go off. You've met him. He's that guy who is very outgoing. He's friendly and he'll literally give you the shirt off his back. He's usually quite popular with the guys but is almost always a part of the "boy's club" where, without words, he and his guy friends believe that they are above all others, especially women. This goes out to those members of the "boys club" whether its a workplace, fire department, friars club...Anywhere...This is to the "friends" who believe their buddies blindly.  When he's in the world his face is sweet, his personality is outgoing and he's tame. You probably love to hang out with him. You'd trust him with your car, your family, your life but he's the biggest coward you'll ever meet...if you'd ever be introduced to the "real" him. Still you're not meant to meet the real guy. He's got a m...

In this trek across America I have learned many things...Yet of all of things I've learned about our country, the land and how scary some people can be while others can be amazing, I've learned more about myself. For instance,   I've learned.... 1) that I can do ANYTHING if I set my mind to it or have no choice. In the 2 and a half weeks I've traveled in a packed to the gills SUV with 3 other people, visited the Grand Canyon to spite my own fear of heights, gone to two of Jesse's very close family's party's, traveled 3,000 plus miles where I had to go in and out of dozens of the busiest, dirtiest bathrooms and all while trying to keep 2 kids (one with a horrible double ear infection and ruptured ear drums) happy. It was NOT easy. Sometimes I wanted to get sick and more than that I wanted to hide, but I did it. 2) I, as picky as I am about food, (and wow, I am picky...if the bread is too soft or too hard, the pizza is too "Dominoes" like or t...

I am a people pleaser. I try so hard to make everyone happy. Even when I write I tend to hold back many of my opinions because I hate the idea of anyone disagreeing with me. But then I realize in this mess that I am NOT worthy of even one reader if I am not going to write as openly and as honestly as I can. If I am just going to tip toe around and say only what I think people want to hear, then why would anyone waste their time reading my thoughts? My very last blog about my feelings about my hometown brought on a few disagreeing readers. I guess they didn't understand how I could put down a town where I lived. If they read my blog carefully they would have read that even from the beginning, even with my very first sentence, I was apologetic about how i am feeling presently. I am also aware that my negative feelings may have more to do with my tendency to push away anything that may cause me pain. My hometown and the people I've left behind are still here with me and I...

Please, read with understanding that I am just coming to find myself and come to terms with some strong emotions with this 3,000 mile move to California. I have just let go of the hand of the Berkshires to fall into the lap of a world, of something bigger than I've ever known. We all want roots, don't we. We want to know we belong to someone, to something...I have never felt that way in Lanesboro or Pittsfield...Especially after some good friends turned their backs on me when my husband and I decided to divorce. I learned that a man they had just met, who was born and went to a whole other school and town and who joined their volunteer fire department only a few years before, had more say and influence than myself who had been born and grew up there. Chalk it up to bad luck or crappy people who all just happen to work or are connected to the same place, but it seems that people should stop judging and start just letting things be. I am ashamed to say the following but not beca...

It's day 2 and its been quite a day! I was woken up in a bit of a rush. Jesse thought he'd wake me up last so I could make up for the sleep that I lost from 230 am on. It was very sweet of him. We got on the road before 730am and met the ground running. Coffee...Give me coffee! So, we fill up the car with gas and our cups with hot fresh coffee and we are off. We were only into our ride a few hours when we saw a sign for the Zoo in Ohio. Now, if you know me you KNOW I do NOT make suggestions to go off our a to b route but I knew that the coming week would be full of cramped living as we drive west so I suggested we take a detour and visit the zoo. We'd only been to one other one before in New York but it was when the kids were too young to remember. The zoo was the best!!! I loved to see the tigers and the bears. Even the birds were fun to watch. Tessa loved the tigers and lions and to spite her ear ache, she totally forgot her pain it seemed and went back for a 2nd look ...

The day came yesterday when it was time to hit the road, as they say. We had spent a crazy few weeks trying to pack what we thought we could fit in our SUV while getting ready to sell everything else. The emotion that is attached to possessions is without reason. On one hand these items are "things". They can usually be bought over and over again and in many places but the very one that is in your possession becomes, at least to me, like a face-less person with a personality....Especially if the item was given to you by a loved one. In that case it feels almost like you are selling and leaving behind a part of that person. And even though you reason in your mind that no, that is NOT true...that they are JUST items, when the day comes to sell them no amount of money is enough because how can we attach a price to an emotion such as love? That is why I asked everyone else what price they thought I should sell the bear or the piece of furniture for. That was the only way to deal...

On Sunday morning we will pack up our truck and begin our 3,000 mile journey to California.  Jesse, who was born and lived in CA all of his life until the last 2 years when he moved here to be with me, will introduce myself and my 2 teenagers to life in the sunny (and more, importantly snow-less) state. Ask me how I feel? If you were here you'd take one look at me and know in an instant. I, Stacy French, an agoraphobic who suffers anxiety so badly at times that I cannot leave my own home to grocery shop, will get into a car and drive, drive drive drive and drive some more all the while coming across almost a dozen states, thousands of people and any number of scenarios while traveling to get to California (In one piece, I pray), only to live in the home of Jesse's very gracious and giving family ( they must be to be taking us in) and to meet any number of Californians as well as the rest of Jesse's huge family. Now, can you imagine?  And forget about me...How about my ...