Happy Halloween!

halloween from 3 years ago, my last big party

halloween is my favorite holiday of the year. it always has been, and i think always will be. i love that there's a day that the whole family can be creative and dress up and decorate and play jokes on each other and be spooky. i just love halloween. my favorite thing to do is to scare the bejeebers out of the kids that come to my door for candy. it's a ton of fun, i just love hearing their screams and giggles. and come on - who can resist the baby in a costume? it's too cute. i like halloween cause there's no pressure. no worrying about gifts or preparing a feast, it's just fun.

i have celebrated halloween every year of my life except this one. this year i have no home to call my own, no reason to dress up or have a party. it's a little sad, but i'm not stressing it - next year i'll celebrate halloween again. i am still trying to perfect my graveyard decor and i have big plans for it next time. for now, i'm gonna be an onlooker, not a participant.

kombucha

have you heard of a drink called kombucha? i just read about it today and i am totally intrigued. it sounds like it might be something i like. bryna introduced me to yerba mate, with cream and sugar, and i love it. i found this website about kombucha and i'm thinking about buying a mother batch. if you have any opinions on it, let me know in the comments. it appears to be getting very popular and can't be any worse than noni juice!

my very first piece of pottery, which i gave to my mom...

being back at dry pond is like having a powerful flashback. i remember spending thanksgiving there with just johnny and my mom and syrus and grilling steak outside in the cold and how incredibly awesome fresh baked french loaf with cream cheese and fig jam is. i remember all the way back when it was a worn down shamble of a house and fixing it up with ricky and a crew of mexican immigrants. i remember meeting my cousin's baby mama at a major family holiday gathering and having to keep my aunt aja from attacking kris's girlfriend from the other side of the dining table. how many countless hours of karaoke sung and korean card games played, fires lit in the fireplaces and meals eaten. i find random things left at dry pond and accumulated into a museum of family crap, like the above pictured pottery, which i made in my very first pottery class. i hate going to dry pond but i also love it. it's just a really emotionally charged place.

feeding time at the koi ponds....

we went up tp hurricane shoals park after collecting crystals so i could dunk my feet in the cold river and it was so relaxing, i had to record the moment. well, it was relaxing to me and my mom, i don't think johnny was very relaxed, he was on his second day of forced nicotine withdrawal (by forced i mean he had no choice of smoking around my mother).

too much to catch up on!

my mom sewing a skirt for me at dry pond

besides the fact that i constantly lose vital components to either my laptop or camera which prevent me from posting and/or uploading pics, i've been so busy lately that i can't even remember all the stuff i wanted to blog about! the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of friends and family and job hunting, apartment hunting, roadtrips and living out of a suitcase. this is literally the first chance i've had to sit down and write. so while my camera is uploading 300 pictures onto my computer, i'll just briefly touch on the highlight of events.

picked crystals on my new green skirt...

i've spent a lot of time with my mom. going to dry pond and her land that has the crystals. we've picked so much crystal that it filled a pickle jar (thanks, johnny!) and 3 strawberry cartons. i'll post pics of that. i've learned a lot of new things about my family, my mom's past, why she did the things she did and it was kind of a breakthrough. for the first time in her life, she apologized to me. she really apologized and admitted things she never could. she's still a stubborn pain in the ass but i understand her now. the woman has had it tough and never got any credit for it either.

bog mint tea, picked fresh from the koi ponds!

i also spent a lot of time with my cousin suejin and it is now a top priority for me to help her and her mom make a better life for themselves. suejin is 6 months pregnant and has absolutely no support - physically, emotionally, or financially. they are teetering on the edge of homelessness and despair and i just can't bear to think that i've been helping everyone but my own cousin my whole life. she and i are so alike, and i can imagine how totally sad and broken i would be in her position. i don't feel sorry for her, i feel frustrated at how things have happened.

my wonderful friend Shai from india is in town for my wedding. Unfortunately, the wedding has been postponed and she flew all the way from Mumbai! luckily, she's not pissed off and we are all so happy to see each other we don't care. I missed her terribly and I don't want her to leave but she's got other places to go, people to see so she'll be gone this friday.

shai finds a broken perfume bottle in her luggage...

shai is so cute!

new relationships

I think that the overall tone of this blog is going to lighten up significantly as the year ends. I know a lot of bad things have happened (and even though I blab about a lot of it here, you don't even know the half of it), but things are still looking up and from experience I know that once you've hit the bottom the only way left is up.

So I'd like to take a much needed moment to reflect on some of the good things that have happened recently. First off, my mom is talking to me again, and I am talking to her. I did not speak with her from the day I told her I was getting married to the day of my uncle's funeral and the moment I saw her sitting by herself and crying at the funeral home, all I could do was hug her and tell her I love her. I think she needed me more than anything. I felt bad about our rift but we didn't even have to mention it, it was like it never happened.

I also re-united with my long lost cousin Suejin. Her and I were estranged because our mothers had a huge fight when we were kids and never spoke to each other again (the silent treatment is a hereditary skill). Suejin and I went out to have coffee and started to re-kindle our relationship. Before our moms fought, we were inseperable. In fact, we even used to dress alike and hold hands all the time. We fought each other like cats and dogs but also knew each other like the back of our hands. She was the closest thing to a sister I had as a kid. We felt like we had been robbed of our relationship so we decided to be close again no matter what our mothers say.

This last one is a little bottersweet because I managed to learn some news things about my family and in the process lost my other cousin Kris. He didn't die, but he turned his back on me and my mom. Normally, this would have hurt me and angered me but there's nothing I can really do to fix it so I'm letting it go. In exchange for that, I understand my mother on a whole new level.

I also made some important self-discoveries that I think came to me by the balancing of karma. I am beginning to believe a little more in the concept of a destiny, and the idea that you are born with one. I think it's an inherent talent and disposition towards something that had to have been manifested by a previous soul and reborn as a new person's destiny. I know it sounds completely nuts but I promise I'm not becoming a fanatic mysticist. It makes perfect sense to me, only because I don't believe in coincidences. I think it's truly a blessing to recieve your destiny because you will feel everything you lacked like confidence when insecure and happiness when sad. It's like finally having peace of mind. Like finding something you cherished but lost long ago. Maybe it's just me hitting a very late puberty. I feel enlightened.

I am also feeling financially enlightened as I am now managing her hotel project and will be compensated. And, Johnny has finally gotten an economic break. I can't wait until the election, as I truly think things are going to get much better.

smooshie has a new nose

I've only been gone for a week and it seems like an eternity. I've come to think that I don't consider Atlanta home anymore. a week is all I can take. The stress level there is beyond high. I can't even imagine how people live there anymore with all the smog, traffic, corruption and panic. My body and mind were screaming "get out of here!" and my ankle flared up along with my insomnia and indigestion. At one startling moment, I realized I was homesick, and I felt sad and insecure. I was drowning in sorrow with all of the rest of the city.

So, I couldn't take it anymore and posted an ad on craigslist in a moment of weakness; despite the obvious stupidity, and searched for a ride to savannah. To my surprise I got a reply the next day from a woman named Maureen telling me she was headed that way and if I could tell her who I was. I hitchhiked on the internet. So I replied back,

Hey Maureen,

I'm Heather, I went to SCAD and my fiance and I live in Beaufort (which is only 30 mins from SAV). I'm stuck in Atlanta with my parents cause I had to go to a funeral and they were supposed to bring me back to Savannah this weekend but then they had other plans they forgot they already made. I don't want to wait until next weekend so I thought I'd try to find someone heading my way. I can literally be dropped off anywhere in Savannah, I have friends and family all over the place. I just don't want them to waste gas coming to get me cause gas is so freakin expensive. I was hoping to get a ride with a female driver cause ya know.. parents would freak out if i told them i was hitching a ride with a strange man...not to mention fiance would probably not like that! Soooo glad you're a girl... or are you a guy with a girl's name? I'm betting you're a girl. Anyways, I'm not psycho, don't smoke, don't care if you do, and will listen to whatever you want to listen to as long as it isn't gospel music. I'm scad alum (masters in architecture) so I'm not some crazy college kid with pink hair and piercings everywhere. Pretty normal, relatively.

my cell phone # is ******** and I'm staying in Doraville, right by spaghetti junction. I can be up and ready at 7 am and I can even take turns driving if you want. Let me know what you decide and I will go ahead and tell my parents peace out!

So now we are friends on facebook. Maureen turned out to be a really cool chick with two beautiful kids, a 3 year old boy named Reed (a.k.a. Diego) and a 8 year old girl named Ridley. I watched cartoons and movies on the DVD player in the car with the kids and talked about homebirthing with Maureen (she did solo homebirths for her brood). It was actually a really pleasant drive and we enjoyed each other's company. Her kids were "in showbizness" cause they were going to savannah to be in a SCAD thesis film. The little boy was really happy go lucky and bright as a star. He liked to watch the cartoon Diego (like Dora the explorer, fyi) in spanish. The little girl was a bit ornary at being awakened on a saturday morning at 6 am to take a 4 hour car ride. Before even leaving atlanta she was asking if we were there yet. But she was adorable and sweet, too. She would touch the back of my elbow with her big toe from the backseat.

The whole thing just made my desire to have kids flare up and we even talked about that. Her advice was to "just do it". heh. alot easier to say than do. Anyways, we had lunch at sentient bean coffeeshop at forsyth park and then went our separate ways. I'll miss my 4 hour friend.

But once I got into the car with johnny, I felt 100% better. I realized that I felt more at home in savannah and beaufort than I did in atlanta, and how weird that was because I used to hate savannah. When we got home, the dogs were naturally really happy to see me and I got kisses all around. I noticed smooshie was not in the horde of dogs attacking me, so I called out for him and I heard him start his happy whining and crash through the doggie door, nails all slipping on the linoleum. I guess he was outside, but once he realized who was standing before him, he became frantic to find a toy to pick up and offer to me (he always greets bearing gifts). It was the best feeling in the world. I noticed immediatey that his nose had changed to a light pink color.

When I find my damn camera cord, I'll be uploading a ton of new pictures.

it's fall

one of very few pictures of my halmonee (grandma)

it's been a crazy month. i lost a family member and sort of gained one at the same time. i'm working on it, anyways. my mom and i are talking again and i realized that my mom is capable of apologizing and i am capable of forgivness and we both owe it to each other. because she's my mom and i'm her daughter and even if i get a blood transfusion i'll still be her kid. and to my surprise there's a lot more about our family left for me to learn. i guess every family has their skeletons in the closet but it just seems like mine has way too many. how do they manage to rack up so many skeletons?

it's still surreal to think my uncle hans is dead. it seems like he's still at his shop, doing acupuncture. it's like it didn't really happen. but then the image of him in his casket flashes in my head and i remember how i'll never hear his voice again. he had a strong voice, and a hearty laugh. him and my mother look most like my grandma who died when i was little because of a drunk driver.

in the end, it was alcohol that killed my uncle. it's alcohol that ruined my family. i had no idea how evil and destructive alcohol could be. i'm glad that i'm not into alcohol and that my mother isn't either. it's crazy how dangerous alcohol is but yet it's legal and how marijuana is harmless and illegal. i wonder if my uncle had used pot instead of alcohol he might still be alive today.

but anyways, i'm OK. i'm still a little numb but i'm going to be alright. i know that my uncle and my grandmother have been recycled into a new life and i'm sure it will be a happy one. i imagine their energies floating in the sky and their memories remaining deep within them.