Tuesday's Towers

Tuesday for two

Towers with a view

Rattled awake

Alarm, denial, grief

Stare into the serpent's eye

Humans falling from the sky

Debris rains in gray, black billows

Churning guts, clutching pillows

No mistake

Lives taken by a thief

Time stands, still

Dusting of September chill

Blown apart

Airplanes, pieces of your heart

Fallen icon's wake

Staring, crying, disbelief

A sea of blue

Towers taken out of view

~Deborah Galarza 9/11/2011

New Game

In spite of my good intentions and those of thousands of other women on Facebook,
the new "Game" seems to have backfired in more ways than one via mislead friends with heartfelt congratulations, concerned e-mails, alarmed relatives, etc...

Before I joined in the 'fun', I questioned the premise of the delivery (pardon the pun) to raise awareness but who am I? I know one thing. It didn't seem quite right but I, like so many other well meaning people, jumped in anyway.

Then, I ran across this article http://www.viewshound.com/internet/2011/9/5/the-new-facebook-fad-im-four-weeks-along?utm_campaign=article&utm_medium=wall&utm_source=Facebook

The writer may seem overly dramatic to some but she does make a good point in her overall message and I had to face what I basically ignored when the game was first passed to me. It really is in bad taste.

I don't know where the idea came from and though, I see where the tactic is used to raise awareness to make people curious enough to ask, I believe we can be a little more creative than this. No offense to the game creator(s). I doubt he/she thought there would be this type of backlash but let's think about it. After all, how many women with this disease cannot have children because of damaged organs or chemotherapy? How many women can breastfeed after breast cancer?

Suddenly, the game feels thoughtless and I'm sorry to say, I played along.

I enjoy supporting our fellow sisters and brothers and I'm always up for a good game but I believe we need to rethink this one.

Just saying.

~Deborah Manning-Galarza 9/6/2011









http://www.viewshound.com/internet/2011/9/5/the-new-facebook-fad-im-four-weeks-along?utm_campaign=article&utm_medium=wall&utm_source=Facebook

Coming Soon My Screenplay

So, the job here is to write and write and write some more. I've been writing but not here. I'm writing a screenplay. Yep. You read right and you read write.

My screenplay title is going to be one of a few possibilities unless something better pops into my fuzzy fat brain.

1.) Fly the Friendly Skies
2.) The Only Way to Fly
3.) Silver Lining
4.) By the Seat of My Pants
5.) Flight Plan
6.) Broken Wings
7.) Champagne Airlines
9.) Grounded on The Wings of a Dream
10.) It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's a Blond!

Bet you can't guess what this screenplay is about. Okay, so it is obvious but there is no way you can imagine the situations that the main character finds herself in. Tune in next week for my hook. This isn't it.

Check back often and come with me on my journey of writing, re-writing, and blogging about writing which in all honesty is called, procrastination. My friend and foe.

Old Chinese Wisdom

To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; and to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right.

~Confucius

Toxins Kill

No one reads this blog. It has been hit only a hand full of times by one or two of my friends and the occasional wonderer. It is here for me to coax the muse and vent frustration. For anyone to find this page a person would have to be looking and I would have to wonder, “What were they looking for, really and why?”

In my last post (now edited) I let venom flow from my broken heart on to the screen. I kept typing until every bit of poison was out of my body. The toxic feelings of, loss, betrayal, and bewilderment were going to consume me if I did not do something to let it all out. The poison rushed down from my reactive, animal brain, bypassing my heart (because it was broken into tiny pieces). It did not feel right but still, I let that venom flow through my arms, into my fingertips, and onto the keyboard. Completely out of character for me, I spewed out caustic sarcasm, in scornful anger.

I read the words through tear filled eyes and I was sorry that I allowed myself to get caught up in it...

I am sorry if my words hurt anyone and I‘m sorry that my apologies won‘t matter...

Having served its purpose, which was to absorb my overwhelming feelings of loss, sadness, and alienation, my intentions were to write and delete the venomous words and replace them with words of kindness. For, I know your heart is broken too.

Ode to War

My Grandfather went off to war
Fighting Japanese who'd bombed our shore
Hiroshima, Nagasaki paid the price-we dropped the bomb
Grandparents, mothers, and children burned and gone
The cost too high? Yes to be sure
I know what we were fighting for

The world as one had gone to war
Families murdered, burned, the horror
When it was over Hitler was dead
No price too much upon his head
Far across the distant shore
I know what they were fighting for

My Uncle Bruce went off to war
Navigating spy planes o’er the shore
The Chaplin said, "Your son is dead"
Granny sadly hung her head
My uncle went away to war
Don't know what he was fighting for

My Daddy went away to war
Scouting runways by the jungle floor
He came home but had lost his smile
I've looked for it all the while
My Daddy went away to war
Don't know what he was fighting for

Our soldiers going off to war
Mothers, fathers, sons and more
On desert sands, dirt in their eyes
For oil, my God please hear their cries
They’re brave and strong right to the core
Not sure, what are they fighting for?

My friend’s son returned from war
He knew just what he would endure
When they brought him off the plane
A cold, wooden box with his remains
A mother’s heart broken, on her knees fell to the floor
“My God what are we fighting for?”

Deborah Jean 11/11/07

California FIRESTORM!

October 22, 2007, 05:43:52 PM

Isn't it funny how when you want to write, every situation can be a story? Therefore, you have to pick and choose what to write. At times, we are compelled by an event, situation, emotion, or simply a desire to try to reach our audience, share with them, and put them in the moment. It all boils down to story telling, the conveyance of words.

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Right now, here in California we have this terrible firestorm in the middle of the windiest days and driest year we have had for as long as I can remember. Wind is blowing at a steady 20 to 45 mph with wind gusts of 80 mph! Branches busted to the ground and smashed on the occasional, unfortunate vehicle and debris strewn about everywhere.

We have three major fires, one to the southeast, another five miles east and, the other 20 miles northwest of us. School is cancelled for tomorrow due to the possibility of a mandatory evacuation in our area. Our little town sits in a valley swirling with smoke and dust with fire closing in on two sides. I shudder to think about the 1100 homes lost in San Diego due to the 2003 firestorm.

Firefighters are attributing some of these fires to arson. Why would anyone want to deliberately cause such destruction? Such a thought process is beyond my grasp. Can they blame negative ions and the effect it has on the psyche? I doubt it.

The last news update I heard, Malibu's governor is worried that the entire city may succumb to the flames. A few celebrities have lost their mansions, many homes are still threatened, and a castle has burned to the ground. I thought this odd because it seems castles made of brick would have more resistance to fire on the exterior walls. Castles seem impenetrable to me. The way the wind is blowing embers and ashes around, every home, castle, and doghouse is at risk. Malibu Beach is bracing for a possible evacuation.

Yesterday at noon, the sun was totally shrouded by reddish-orange, grayish, black smoke, whipping about ferociously in the wind. The sky wore a sinister veil in the middle of the day with the reddish glow of a solar eclipse but much more menacing, dark, and foreboding. It looked like Armageddon!

Still, the firestorm rages on. Ashes with a texture more like gritty sand pelt your skin when you step outside. Breathing actually hurts because the smothering smoke filled with odoriferous, particulate matter hangs heavily in our lungs. We have suddenly become a bunch of smokers with a raspy smoker’s cough. The mere act of breathing burns your throat. Singing? Forget about it. With all of the moisture sucked out of the air from the hot, dry, relentless winds, skin feels parched, stretched to the limit, and cracking. We are now the possessors of chapped lips, dry mouth, and worry. Should we prepare to evacuate?

They have closed the roads and requested a voluntary evacuation for neighborhoods within a half-mile our house! Want to hear how the city fathers have planned for this one? The shelter they are asking voluntary evacuees to stay in is a building within one block of the actual evacuation area! Oh the irony! Since the shelter is also a block away from our home, I guess we are safe. I feel so much better now.

If our home survives, I’ll be thankful that the only thing I have to complain about in my everyday life is the thick layer of ash everywhere inside and outside, including the swimming pool and the vents of our cars. I made the mistake of turning on the air conditioner this morning and a cloud of dust sputtered into my face and eyes. Ash was sandblasted in every possible nook and cranny. What a mess to clean up! But hey, I’ll be happy to have a home to clean no matter how much I loathe housework! After all, housework, especially after a firestorm, is a pain in the ash.

-Deb