About Me

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Kymberlie Ingalls is native to the Bay Area in California. She is a pioneer in blogging, having self-published online since 1997. Her style is loose, experimental, and a journey in stream of consciousness. Works include personal essay, prose, short fictional stories, and a memoir in progress. Thank you for taking a moment of your time to visit. Beware of the occasional falling opinions. For editing services: http://www.rainfallpress.com/

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Girls Like Me

I'm not usually a fan of poetry - guess I don't understand the concept of stringing a few random words together to strike epiphanous upon the world.  But someone sent me this poem.  Someone who is a faint memory in a dark recess of my mind.  A sweet memory that I occasionally put my tongue to, and my pen when I need inspiration for tales that should only be told in the dark.   

It made me wonder why he sent it, then made me wonder how many other versed girls out there were just a little bit like me... 

A Crazed Girl

- William Butler Yeats -

That crazed girl improvising her music.
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,
Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling She knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship,
Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare
A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing
Heroically lost, heroically found.

No matter what disaster occurred
She stood in desperate music wound,
Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph
Where the bales and the baskets lay
No common intelligible sound
But sang, ‘O sea-starved, hungry sea.’
 
________________________________________________________________
 
Mightier than Estë is Nienna, sister of the Feantúri; she dwells alone. She is acquainted with grief, and mourns for every wound that Arda has suffered in the Marring of Melkor. So great was her sorrow, as the Music unfolded, that her song turned to lamentation long before its end, and the sound of mourning was woven into the themes of the world before it began. But she does not weep for herself; and those who hearken to her learn pity, and endurance in hope. Her halls are west of West, upon the borders of the world; and she comes seldom to the city of Valimar where all is glad. She goes rather to the Halls of Mandos, which are near to her own; and all those who wait in Mandos cry to her, for she brings strength to the spirit and turns sorrow to wisdom.
- J.R.R. Tolkien

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Fractured Fables

Dishonesty is a creature very much at home in my mind.  Residing with Dishonesty are Distrust, Deception, Truth, and a little girl who carries with her a book of nursery rhymes that are too twisted for the young age she appears to be.  But come closer, don’t just look – open your eyes and see…

See the lingering hurts of the world around her?  Not the hurts of others – rather, pain that she never sought, but arrows that she took just the same.  They are not visible to the eye until she turns her back to you.  One, two, I want you… Can you see the reflection flickering across her, like an old picture show?  She is the screen to what you project.  Like many films, the images are a collage of lies that come to be truth. 

Three, four, forever more… We all want something.  A home, a family, wealth or fame.  I want most to prove to that little girl that there is someone out there who does not want her for their own narcissistic need.  Someone who does not turn a blind eye to the arrows piercing her skin, who sees her as more than performance art. 


I’m the bad grown-up, who keeps bringing Dishonesty and Deception around while cajoling my inner child with “But this time it will be different, I promise!” yet my heart knows better.  The broken shards of promises past stab at the souls of my wandering feet.  Souls I have collected along my way, though my spirit dissipates ever more slowly at the breaking of each dawn. 

Seven, eight, test your fate…

We could barricade ourselves away from the world, she and I.  We could live harmoniously in my mind, rewrite the book of rhymes and paste colored flowers inside, that would flutter with the turning of the pages, and our minds would be a kaleidoscope of a sheltering truth.

What is the truth of perception?  What is a world that we cannot hold up a lie in our bleeding hands and compare to the honesty that washes the blood away? 

“The truth about lies is that we don’t always know when we’re telling them…”  It is a chant that I hear from the little girl, as she sits so small in a chair with feet swinging, never touching the floorboards that creak beneath her.  The dust is untouched.  No prints to disturb it, as if it had been many moons since she’d climbed there to open the book in her lap.  . 



At each dawn, sleep finds me, and it wipes away remnants of the day before, and sometimes remnants of days before that.  I don’t choose what is to stay, and what is taken.  I don’t have a magic wand with which to command “Take away he who lied, she who hurt you with her betrayal!  Banish the memory of those who’ve abandoned you!” 

Fate decides.  What is left to linger is what I can work with, what can be scribbled in a childish scrawl on pages that are scattered for others to read. 

“The magic chose the shape, not I!  I am a bearer!  
I am a dwelling! 
I am but a messenger!”
Nine, ten, it starts again…
 

Monday, May 9, 2011

For Sarah


Five For Fighting - Superman

“I’m just out to find the better part of me.  I’m more than a bird, more than a plane, more than a pretty face beside a train – it’s not easy to be me…”

I want to be me, for a while - want to be me, free of any distractions, any problems, any … thing.  Or anyone. 
         
Isn’t that a hell of a fantasy?

Fighting and managing to get through each day leads to the next one, but some days I don’t want to, and some days don’t know how I do. 

I want to be a non-entity.  A cloud.  A whisper in the wind.
         
Some days I want to cry, too, but don’t know how anymore.  I want to move my lips and say something meaningful about my soul, but don’t think anyone would listen.  Some days I want to yell and scream, beat my fists against a wall and kick a tree… but if I kicked a tree, would anyone hear the sound of my breaking toes?
         
What I do is write and lay bare my soul, and do it often, but in a way that is trying to link my feelings into a web with yours.  A favorite writer of mine, Peter McWilliams, once said “these are your words, I only wrote them down.”  He hooked me when he saw right through me.  That’s how I write - I don’t always want it to be just me in the big bad world.  I need to feel that connection, to know that we see the common threads between us all.
         
But this post… this is all about me.  And I’m struggling.  I don’t know how to do “all about me” very well.  To sit and spend an hour with myself, think only of me, talk only of me… don’t think I can do that.  For instance, my thoughts are rushing around inside so fast it’s like the Autobahn in there – all zooming endlessly in pointless circles. 

And I’m tired.  Tired of sleeping, tired of not.

Tired of exhausting myself caring for others.  I watch over my friends, as the stern maternal one of the group.  I try to take care of my husband, making sure his needs are met and his load lightened.  I’m the go-to girl for my family when they need just about anything. 

When anyone asks if they can do something for me, or asks how I’m doing and genuinely wants more than a ten-second “fine, how are you?” answer, I’m dumbfounded.  I’m not trying to play the woe-is-me card, honest.  It’s nice to be someone that people can rely on.  But, sometimes.. just sometimes – I want to be able to rely on people too.
         
I’ve been doing more things for myself lately.  Taking drives, reconnecting with old friends, carving out personal time for writing.  In doing so, however, without taking away from the things done for others, necessities such as sleep are sacrificed, and it wreaks its havoc.  It’s clouding my judgment too, or is it chasing the clouds away in a deluded clarity? 
         
I want to do things… drive down the coast, just let my mind rest, and zone out.  I want to go for walks at night.  I want my husband and I to be whole, and I want to be whole, alone, as well.  It’s very important to be ourselves, and to be as one.  The freedom is there, to grow into the next person I want to be. 
         
I just wish I knew who that was, but truthfully don’t have a clue.  Am I grown-up enough to find my way?
         
So this… this is where I am right now.  This is my pin on the map.  I need to figure out where my destination is.  I never, ever want to lose my husband as my companion, my lover, my partner, but I don’t intend to lose myself, either. 

Can I wonder, and wander?  Get lost and find my way back again?

Yet if I wander too far, it’s entirely possible nobody would come looking for me. 

“Men weren’t meant to fly with clouds between their knees.  It may sound absurd, but don’t be naïve, even heroes have the right to bleed.  I may be disturbed, but won’t you concede even heroes have the right to dream.  It’s not easy to be… me…”


(c) Kymberlie Ingalls ~ October 31st, 2008

Friday, May 6, 2011

Who, Me?


Kasey Chambers - Not Pretty Enough


We used to talk such shit about the pretty girls in high school – who didn’t?  I certainly wasn’t one of them.  Tall, awkward, with over-moussed hair and no fashion sense whatsoever.  My hair had no real color, just shades of brown and gold that was as drab as could be, and eyes that had no real color either, just a blueish, grayish bleh.  It was easy to understand why I was so far out of the circle, I was in an entirely different geometric region.
As an adult, I’ve learned to accept my mediocre appearance.  Still with no fashion sense, I don’t have a magical way with a comb and a cosmetic brush.  We all have our strengths, and looks simply aren’t mine.  I’ve had to gain the attention of the world (and men) the old-fashioned way… with my words.  At this point it’s the only weapon I have to distract from my battle scars that mar my skin as well as my spirit.

This is why I was so shocked to receive a random friend request on Facebook yesterday that left me feeling like the 80s were back and suddenly I was pretty in pink.  A man of similar age and the same high school sent me this request, very hot looking in a bad boy kind of way.  When I asked the usual “Hi, don’t recognize your name or photo – can you tell me how we know each other?”  the response was “May I know you, please?  I saw your picture and find you unbelievably sexy.”

Moan and grown all you want to, but the men reading this wish they had such game and the women wish you’d gotten that same response.  Tacky?  Yes.  Got my attention?  Absolutely.

Marital compliments aside (after the wedding’s taken place, they’re pretty much obligatory), when I’m sitting here looking down the barrel of a 40-gauge on my next birthday, this is sure to set every one of those candles ablaze.  

Strangers, men, see my photos online and tell me I’m too hard on myself – words I’ve heard are “rapturous,” “sultry,” “sexy.”  I equate all of this to “She has a great personality!”.  I’m simply realistic.  Anyone can get lucky with a photograph – the right lighting, having a good hair day, a rare smile that the camera didn’t hate.  Strip me naked and see how enamored you still are, mister.  My husband, I try very much to believe him – anyone else is shrugged off because I don’t dwell in fantasy, much as I’d love to be that spicy redhead they think they see. 

Most days I’m glad to not be one of the pretty girls.  My skin is already an uncomfortable fit, I’d shed it like a snake if I drew attention to myself based on my outer shell.  But when standing next to my petite, head-turning girlfriends, often I do feel like the Jolly Green Giant.  Everyone knows it’s Li’l Sprout that everyone fawns over. 

I’m going to take my unbelievably sexy ass to the bank with this compliment, sincere or not.  I’ll cash it, spend it like a sailor on shore leave, and not look in the mirror until tomorrow.


© Kymberlie Ingalls

Monday, May 2, 2011

A Writer Of No Words

It really sucks to be a writer with no words.  Like a carpenter whose tools are stolen on a rainy day, it's a double-whammy because it messes both the brain and the body.  Can't sleep, so I'm walking around in a zombie state of mind.  Can't think about anything else yet words escape me as if they were a prisoner on the run.

A long time ago, my dear teacher Mrs. Borem gave us the task of journal writing.  Every few days in class we had to sit for ten minutes and write.  I hated it, and have never been faithful in keeping a diary.  One day I gave the obligatory groan when she told us to pull out our notebooks.  She said "Just write.  You'll be surprised how fast you can fill up a page when you have nothing to say."

And I did. 

And I am.  I'm here with nothing to say. 

If my thoughts could settle themselves into some sort of assembly line, they might go something like this: 

"Wow.  So whatshisname… Osama..  is dead.  Now what?"

"Why is it Taylor Swift can carry a tune in a recording and never on stage?  Oh, wait, this isn't
Taylor - just another Taylor wannabe."

"There really has to be a law on the books somewhere that an insurance company can't fault you for an accident and pay on it without at least asking if you were involved."

You lie like a penny in a parking lot “now that’s a good song…”

And, as I read the quote of the day in my chiropractor's office - "The kinder and more thoughtful a person is, the more kindness they can find in other people" - well, sorry, I call bullshit on that one.

And I've had the day to prove it, starting with the crazy person who didn't like that I didn't like that she was tailgating.  After letting her know I wasn't appreciative of this newfound closeness by hitting my brakes just before turning off the road, this big beefy broad in a redneck-style SUV follows me and tracked me all over the parking lot yelling something out of her open window. 

She saw me parked and on my phone, thinking I was calling the police – coincidentally, I was on the phone with my chiro’s office setting my appointment for that afternoon. 

I started the day off with every intention of being kind.  The day just wasn’t kind to me. 

Look at that… I filled up my page.



© Kymberlie Ingalls