My Beautiful Tapestry

I have been making a goal to write , and post at least once a day . For today’s I was going to write about this amazingly delicious sourdough cinnamon loaf I made .

MMM.. Tasty , My daughter even ate two pieces!!!!

Instead I found this piece I was working on a few months ago, and forgotten how much I loved it. My daughter agreed that this should be today’s feature , Enjoy .

A poem: My Tapestry

By: Me

I am Karlie Anne , daughter of Kathleen Marie , Daughter of Marian Alicia , who was the last in our family to have an arranged marriage. We don’t have a last name , not one that is ours to keep, we have brands and ownership in their stead handed down from father to son, but too swiftly taken from the daughter as if a simple trinket passes from one hand to another .

My mother was the first woman in our family to truly self govern , and like a steady boat on a turbulent uncharted sea she did. When I was a child she painted a beautiful tapestry of dreams and rights that I deserved just as much as any son of man. That tapestry I took as a promise of a new world , one I knew was mine . This world hated this knowledge I had , hated that I KNEW I WAS EQUAL. Hated that I acted as if I had rights not by earning them , but simply by existing.

For my daughter Emily Lynn I showed her with skill full hands how to navigate the murky waters, I warned of storms and obstacles that could take our small ship asunder . I sang songs of liberty and rights, of justice and fights . To always question, and to never bow.

In her I see power I only faked , She embodies this knowledge more than I even do , and of this I am so proud. She still has an even more turbulent road ahead despite of all new advances in equality. Most men do not let go of ill gotten gain easily . Too long they have sat thinking they are the only ones worthy of life , of leisure. that all below them must work swiftly or be called out and for only sixty years my family has truly had any semblance of freedom . So few compared to the thousands of years or so before…. I think the women in the world deserve it. For our family it has been less than one lifetime , but we pushed ourselves into the same playing field as men .

The bread was quite delicious though, but our equality is much better .

A Random History About Groundhog’s Day .

As a homeschool mom , and a formerly homeschooled person , I make a point to learn something new every day.

Today dear reader we are learning about the ancient history of Groundhog’s Day. I know to the USA Groundhog’s Day is the time once a year when numerous old gentlemen in old-fashioned garb go poke at a hibernating rodent. Please do not let the bizarre nature and pomp distract you from this ancient Celebration of spring. *The history dates back to ancient Ireland and was known as Imbolc or Brigid’s day. The day was a celebration of the midpoint of winter and spring. It was customary to start some seeds since plough Monday had just passed. The Catholic church absorbed this festival ( as often done in the name of conversion) and named it St. Brigid’s day. It was on this day the new candles were blessed for the new liturgical year. As time passed the day became known as Candlemas or Candle-less. Some customs held over from this historical time. As human mingling, and the Catholic church spread over Europe from Rome. Other countries joined in on this fun. In Germany, they added a Badger. A legend was if a badger was scared by its shadow on Candlemas Day that was a sign of forty more days of winter. This day was sometimes called “Badger Day”. +After immigrating finding no Badgers in the new world, but lots of Groundhogs or Woodchucks the tradition moved on with the new animal.

“If Candlemas Day be fair and bright Winter will take another flight . If Candlemas day be cloud and rain Winter is gone and will not come again”

Festivals Family and Food : Guide to Seasonal Celebration -1982 Carey D , Large J

^”The badger peeps out of his hole on Candlemas Day, and when he finds snow walks abroad; but if he sees the sun shining he draws back into his hole.”

Groundhog Day – Candlemass – February 2 – What does it mean? – Christian Teaching – thisischurch.com

That dear reader was our short trip into the long history of Groundhog’s Day . I hope you learned something today too.

Sources :

Not Your Normal First Blog Post

I never wanted to be a blogger, to me it is like standing in a room alone screaming for someone to follow you, while they are standing in their room yelling at everyone else to follow them. It is like a less personal Facebook, if that is at all possible.

Judging by that introductory sentence , you may tell I am not another blogger. I am not actually . I am an author, a novelist, a philosopher. Just I have no audience except myself. So that is even worse than being in the room screaming, I am stuck in my head whispering.

So, this brings me to my first official blog.

“I may be autistic”!! my brain screams while I try to organize my thoughts into this blog post. See I am getting tested in exactly 7 days. This may not be exciting for you all, but it is for me.

My brain, is not screaming in fear, or dread as you may think, I do not fear the title “special”. In fact I have been fighting for this title for years. See I have been trying to explain to people I am an alien .

No not the literal alien. Don’t worry I do see a therapist; she understood the analogy so let me explain.

I was always a unique child; my mom was so absolutely happy with me. See I obeyed rules, and didn’t break my crayons, I colored in the lines, and read by myself, and played quietly and calmly on the floor with my stuffed animals. This doesn’t sound too odd, until I tell you this was me always. I was reading by the time I was 4. The crayon thing? I was two.

I was raised on a small rural homestead in Petersville Alaska (Although we usually just say Trapper Creek, because that is the closest town to Petersville with road access. When I say We were off the grid, I am not kidding. This however is for a different blog post. See part of me always wondered if something was different about me because of me, or because I wasn’t socialized. I have been a part of society for 20 years now, I believe it is safe to say it’s me.

The symptoms of being autistic have been screaming me in the face for years though. See I don’t give an honest fuck what people think about me. This is beyond your normal teenage angst though; see I am a 35-year-old woman. My rule is if It’s not illegal, I am allowed to, that is why. See for me it’s either legal or illegal, and social construct is meaningless to me. It absolutely always has been. See I like rules, clear cut rules. I wish there was a list of everything you are allowed to do, instead of a list what not to. I am literal to a fault.

Am I wasting my time I wonder? See I have been trying since May to get tested. The local places don’t because my doctor is’t one of their redognised providers. My appointment is the step right below an official diagnosis. It is at the local autism center. See I told my new counselor about it, and she agreed. I felt heard, That’s all it took.

I almost didn’t go , I needed my counselor to believe me . When I went to my doctor, she agreed that I was presenting symptoms. When my doctor asked how a diagnosis would actually help my life.. The air was knocked out of my sails. I had just started noticing that maybe my weirdness was just how I was wired, but this took all that away. I was stumped, literally it wouldn’t change anything except my feelings, and I don’t use those for deciding factors.

See I have been through literal hell because of these same symptoms. I was a weird smart kid at Taft Middle School in Albuquerque New Mexico .

“Norte Ville, 505 woot”

To say they hated me is the understatement of the millennium.

I remember their faces mocking me. See I knew they were making fun of me, but I didn’t understand how it was funny. Someone being weird wasn’t a reason to make them feel bad. If I didn’t tell, they did it harder , if I told they did it harder and called me a rat. They used language I didn’t understand. My best friend Eloy, he tried to teach me slang, but I couldn’t pick it up. He loved me, for my weird self. He tried so hard to teach me.

This constant abuse carried on into Freshman year at Valley. I tried to mimic them . That year I sat notebook in hand reminiscient of Jane Goodall. I wrote down I was an alien, and I had to study teen human social behaviors or I wouldn’t be sent home ( did I mention that I need a reason to write?)

Someone got that notebook.

That I like to think of the start of the end. I am not going to go into detail, because that is a lot of unpacking of trauma (“Viking Hell”). So I switched schools, is what we will say now.

I made a façade, it’s actually based on those notes . I still use her to this very day. She has her own name, it’s Cherry. She has taken me on some wild adventures ( “My Life as a teenage run away “)

Anyway I have been remembering, and thinking since May, I do hope that I came out clear to my doctor. I use a lot of punctuation, and their system doesn’t handle “special letters “ like an apostrophes…

I told her I felt like Clark Kent who Just learned about Krypton.

I have been putting off all day writing this post. It’s currently 9:08 pm. I have been to “ promote this post” all day. That’s what I keep telling myself… no I don’t want to talk about how I feel. See I feel mixed , I would be happy to get the autism diagnosis.

“What if you’re not”

“What if you are really just dramatic “

“What if you being literal is just you finding an excuse to be an asshole “?

I whisper this to myself before I reach for the .doc in my Dropbox.

So here I am , coming in on the cut off for myself. I guess I need to give myself a due date …

See this actually brings my article ( am I allowed to call these articles?) to a full circle. I actually love that moment in writing.

I am not a blogger, I am an author. I just need a portfolio. See I have a lot of true , or true inspired stories in my head. I am working on a second post to post tonight , with a “Table of Contents” from my writing notebook. Please be on the look out of that. I always like reading the back of books before committing to buying them. Blogs don’t have that.

So I am making one for you.

Signed,

The Alaskan Rose

Signed, The Alaskan Rose

I am a talker , I almost called this blog ” The Gab” . I have been a talker since I can remember. I love talking, but more important things I love helping people, and opening eyes to issues they didn’t know even existed.

The purpose of this blog is a platform for me to showcase my writing skills. I am terrible at keeping a paper portfolio, and I have killed more computers than you could guess. So be it my writing skills get appreciated, or I am just gabbing to myself all alone on my part of the internet. Either way my brain is working, and staying sharp.

I will have a post up soon, but until then .

XxAK Rose