ecrivez plus de lettres d'amour!
Below you will find (1.) a present-winning game, (2.) a list-making game, and (3.) their friendly intersection:
Generally, the only sort of "memes" that I do are the kind which I make up myself, or at least in part. Question and list games that, as you've probably noticed, I like to make interactive. These two, however, I snagged from two lovely ladies who we'll call A. and C., and then bent them together. I couldn't resist this first one, as it's so remniscent of the handwritten-mail projects/communities that I take part in. Here goes:
The first 3 people who respond to this post (with their own answers to the list, below) will receive a surprise from me in the mail. Note: If you're an eager little beaver, and would like to post something simple - such as "ME ME, SEND ME SOMETHING!" - and then enter your answers, that's fine. In fact, that would be a whole lot preferable to people rushing through their answers, since I really would like to know what you have to say/share. Further Note: I'd very much love to read your list, whether or not you're one of the first to post. **See ETA, at bottom.
Whatever I find/concoct/gather for you, I'll send within 3-6 weeks. I'm posting my address later today, so you can leave yours then, if you weren't already going to. The only requirement, so to speak, is that you - in turn - post some version of this to your own journal or website. Or, as the original writing said; that you "pay it back." (The original guidelines were more basic - they didn't involve the list below, and the person doing the sending had 365 days to send off the mail-nuggets. Feel free to use that template, my template, or to alter and stir as desired.)
*
I miss...
1. The Ocean. Verging on desperately.
2. New York City's poetry scene. My friends within it, the passion throughout it. Five bucks for a night of rhythm and emotion and that slow-building sense of Hope that has nothing whatsoever to do with the cover charge.
3. Working directly with kids, on a regular basis. Knowing that I'm helping them, even in those thousand tiny ways that add up too slowly to see while they're happening. Actually - everything about kids - from tickling them into giggles to soothing them from tears. Balancing the therapeutic and the maternal successfully, so that I might help a teenage girl to surrender the self-harm tools she had hidden, on the same day I read bed-time stories to a four year-old until my throat is sore, and she hugs me so hard that when I stand from the bedside, she's still clinging to me like a giggling, fiendishly adorable octopus.
4. Dancing beneath stars. Live music soaring up to meet those same stars. Leaning back into arms that love me.
5. Touch. Being able to let go, to trust that illness won't mean that I can't be there for someone. To lose myself in the blissful, wordless interchange of skin.
I cherish...
1. The oxygen I find in language; reading writing editing; the emotions (and a million things which, paradoxically, I doubt I'll ever quite name) that thrill through me as I write.
2. You, you with the wings. "Even when I'm at my worst, you make me feel special. How do you do that?" "Magic."
3. The intricacies of the faces and voices, the thoughts and laughter, of those who I too often live without.
4. Tenderness.
5. My bebes; the furry orange-black-white fluffball of a Diva, and the Mama's Girl sweet Siamese.
I am more than...
1. Cleavage, short skirts, fishnets, thick smears of kohl, artfully applied glitter - and all those names these cause me to be called, all the assumptions these cause people to make.
2. My limitations.
3. The sum of my illnesses/The A-Z of my symptoms.
4. The litany of ugly names I was called as a child, by an angry man who I'd done nothing more to than be a child. The echoes of those names in the physical violence of men who came later.
5. I know yet.
I would like to...
1. Live in the Grecian Isles, with someone I adore and a purring band of felines. And perhaps a couple of sugar-gliders. And maybe a bunny or two. And a raccoon. And possibly a family of turtles...
2. Publish my own writing and photography, as well as the writing and art of other fabulous folk.
3. See my body as it truly is.
4. Be well. Be well. Be well.
5. Redirect the American Government's budget more-or-less entirely - healthcare, affordable housing, education, gay marriage, medical research, fair wages, international aid, peace and sunshine, et alia - with a brilliant team of assistants to help me do the math.
I actually...
1. Miss some people so much that it physically hurts.
2. Sometimes still have a hard time saying No, occasionally to the point that I sicken myself.
3. Sometimes still dream of being a ballroom dancing star.
4. Believe in hope and humanity, Despite It All. I have to.
5. Have so much love in my heart that, at times, my entire chest aches and I feel as if I'll fall flat with the beautiful, terrible weight of it.
*
...How about you?
[ Edit To Add: Okay, okay - Change of Game Plan. I sort of knew I would do something along these lines, if I posted this. Because not only does competition make me itch and twitch, even when it's utterly innocent and in the form of a silly online game, but I'm also a big smooshball. And as soon as I saw that even 1 past the 3 "winners" posted, my heart twingey-twinged. So then; second prizes, anyone?! In general, who knows what I might eventually send to who - I have all sorts of mail creations in process as we speak, both simple and not-so-simple, finished and not-so-finished. But as relates to this particular game (and how it makes my heart all warm to read your answers, my darling muffin-fluffs): I'll send surprise packages to the first 3 folks within 3-6 weeks, as planned. But also, I'm thinking I'll need to send at least a very purdy postcard to everyone else who responds, within 8-10 weeks. Viva La Postage Stamp! Keep Mail Art Alive! ]