One thing Yahoo could fix about tumblr
I follow a lot of people who appeal to me for reblogging to my Red Tash blog. When I follow them, they follow back Leslea Tash, which is a completely different blog altogether with a totally different tone.
I wish tumblr allowed me to follow people as Red, so when they followed me back, they might understand why I followed in the first place.
http://RedTash.com <~my other tumblr, the better one with a shit ton more traffic than this one.
Flamingos
Sometimes my mom did things to surprise me. She knew I liked lawn flamingos—initially because they were considered tacky, then eventually because they were pink and flamingos—so she allowed me to buy some to decorate my room.
During the brief period when I was away at college in Bloomington, before she pulled the blackmail move that would drive me away from living in proximity to her for nearly a decade, she missed me a lot. Once, she drove up with an antique aluminum flamingo for my yard. She had talked some old lady out of it, saying that her daughter just loved the things. I don’t know what other manipulation she used, or if she purchased it, but it was antique, with aesthetically pleasing faded, peeling paint.
I loved that bird, but that year when it came time to move, I was exhausted and I left it behind. For a moment I glimpsed it out the side window and just decided “No, I can’t keep everything.”
She was disappointed that I’d left it, after all the trouble she went to to get it for me. I felt pretty badly about that.
I’m not sure why I’m writing this right now. I feel sad that I left that flamingo behind, but not as sad as all the times my mother left ME behind. Just because she chose one day out of thousands to reach out to me with a show of love, why do *I* feel pain and loss? Probably only because she died first. Probably only because I wanted her to care for me every day—if not with flamingos, then with her heart. With caring in her heart would have come caring actions, caring words, caring deeds, an entire legacy that would remain with me for the rest of my life, instead of this legacy of sadness and, yes, anger & disappointment.
I know because she wasn’t the first parent I lost. She also wasn’t the last person I loved who gave me flamingos.
But that is another story, for another time.
I saw a male cardinal in terror and pain, downed by an automobile in the center of the road. It saddened me, but my only wish was for an end to its suffering, and soon. In my rearview mirror another car made my wish come true, but tears welled in my eyes. There goes another life. Another beautiful waste. And I wonder why I ever thought there was a point to this madness I call “paying attention.”
Girl on Flickr.
This outline has been hounding me for months. Fine. Written. Still, wait your turn!
“So my amazing daughter, Emma, turned 5 last month, and I had been searching everywhere for new-creative inspiration for her 5yr pictures. I noticed quite a pattern of so many young girls dressing up as beautiful Disney Princesses, no matter where I looked 95% of the “ideas” were the “How to’s” of how to dress your little girl like a Disney Princess…We chose 5 women (five amazing and strong women), as it was her 5th birthday but there are thousands of unbelievable women (and girls) who have beat the odds and fought (and still fight) for their equal rights all over the world”
- Jaime Moore, Not Just a Girl
(via yahighway)
