Falling in Love with Fellow Prisoners by Gwendolyn Zepeda

A few years ago before Gwendolyn Zepeda was Houston's Poet Laureate I heard her read at Inprint's First Friday. I've pretty much followed Gwen Zepeda's writing since I read about her in the Houston Press and attended her "Quinceanera I Never Had" reading event. By the time she read at "First Friday" she had already published a few books, but I had never heard her poetry.

There was one poem in particular that spoke to me. It was her poem "Proposal" that can now be found in her new book of poetry, Falling in Love with Fellow Prisoners. I loved that poem from the moment that I heard it. The funny thing was that I was married at the time so someone could ask why I loved the poem so much or how I could relate to it.

I think that many women can relate to the poem, even married women. I believe that as women we are socialized to grow up, get married, live happily ever after and sometimes women put their dreams on the back burner. That has always been an idea that I have struggled with because even married women should be married to themselves first. How else can you love yourself and in turn love your spouse and your family? I know many people don't agree with this idea and that's okay.

I subscribe more to the idea that a woman should put on her oxygen mask first. If I didn't do things to keep my sanity I wouldn't be able to take care of my kids and now more recently my elderly father. I have to be very sane in order to do what I do every day. If a woman is committed to herself she can be even more committed to her family.

Fast forward in time. Gwendolyn Zepeda published her book of poetry and I went to her reading. She didn't read "Proposal" that night, or she read it before I got there, so I didn't know it was in the book. She read a lot of other great poems like, "The Mexican in Me/The White in Me" and one of my other favorites, "His Son is His Everything."

I pre-ordered the book that same night but life carried me along the way life does and I never got to the bookstore to pick it up.

I was reminded about it on Facebook again and I mentioned "Proposal" to Gwen in hopes that I didn't sound too much like one of those weird obsessive nut/fans. (I had mentioned it to her before and that I lost my copy.) That's when Gwen told me that the poem was in her book and I remembered that I never went back to Brazos Bookstore. I made it a point to go pick it up and as soon as I got in my car with my book I turned the pages to the poem and I read it to my sister, as my son listened in the back seat.

It had been so long since I had read the poem that I had even forgotten the title. As I read it I was moved again by Gwen's words.

I've been divorced for two years now and the words never rang so true to me. I don't plan on remarrying and if I ever do, it won't be until the kids are in college or at least nine more years. I know that I don't know what can happen in nine years. I realize that. But for now, that's the plan.

I'm a single woman again and I want to be married to myself more than ever before. I am the woman I deserve and the last stanza of the poem is my very favorite.

"The day has come and I swell with pride.
I've finally captured the girl I deserve.
I'm ready to be my own bride.
I'll lock the rest of the world outside."

I'm ready to be my own bride.

First Week of School, Structure Again & Blog Themes

Every year I can't wait for the school year to end so that I don't have to wake up so early every morning all stressed out in the rush to get the kids to school on time. I look forward to the summer break. But as I get into summer I start to long for the structure that the school year provides. I look forward to Fall and Winter!

(Photo borrowed from Manteca School District)

This year the summer flew by. It seemed like I always had something going on and I rushed forward to reach our family vacation to the East coast right before school started. We had a good time and we had some challenging times but I'm sure it will be a vacation we will remember for a long time. Next one is to the West Coast.

I came back to the "Back to School" rush, buying them their uniforms and school supplies and suddenly here we are. They started this past Monday. I woke up at 6:30 every morning for a week and this evening I finally crashed and burned. I fell asleep for about 2 hours.

I crashed because of the structure. Every day I stayed up all day and I worked. I had a couple of meetings and I worked on a project that I'm finishing up. I didn't come home and take naps like my friends may have thought. I'm not going to say I wasn't tempted, but I didn't do it. The results were that I got a lot of stuff done but my fuel ran out around 8 tonight.

Now here I am awake at 2 a.m. and I realized that I started this blog a few days ago and forgot about it. I'm kind of tired but I took a shower and my hair is still wet so I'm going to wait a little longer.

One of the cool things I did this week was to go hear Gwendolyn Zepeda read her poetry. She was awesome as always and extremely entertaining. Whenever I listen to people like her and like Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess, I'm always struck by how funny they are and I wish I could be funny like that. But being funny isn't that easy. You either are or you aren't and sadly I'm not really. At least not like them.

And I've said this before. I'm not brave like them either, especially not brave like Jenny Lawson who will say ANYTHING and I do mean anything. I want to blog like that. But I don't. I blog like this because this is who I am and I can't blog like Loida Casares pretending to be Jenny Lawson. It just wouldn't work. All of you who know me would be all, "Why is she talking like that all of a sudden." Yeah, that's not good.

Here lately I've also been hearing about how a blog should have one theme. Like Julie & Julia's blog was all about cooking. Then there are crafters and sex writers. I don't have ONE solid theme. I'm all over the place, but I kind of like that because really, that's who I am. That's why at the top of this blog I list all the things I'm passionate about. I like to blog about all these different things.

But I still worry that I'm supposed to be blogging about one certain theme and that if I did I would have millions of followers. What do you all think? My lovely readers who never leave me any comments. I know y'all are out there even if you don't comment. My Google Analytics tells me you are. Unless you just all happen to come across my blog because of my awesome Nike quotes and then leave.

So if you can, drop me a comment and give me your opinion. Should I stick to one topic, like the kids, the challenges of HISD, the challenges of having a son with Asperger's, my daughter who has been part of the Vanguard program in HISD since Kindergarten. There are a lot of things I can talk about or I can just stick to an education theme. Decisions, decisions....