Getting to Know You
“10 things I’ve done…that you probably haven’t” came from Melinama at Pratie Place – at least that’s where I first saw it. It’s another fun way to get to know each other. Feel free to share your own list. I would love to print out a collection of some of the most interesting ones. This is mine (in no particular order because my mind doesn’t think like that):
1. I jumped into a hole in an ice covered pond, naked after a sauna.
2. I lived below the poverty level for 15 years as a single mom raising 2 sons.
3. I got interviewed for the Roanoke Times on 2 occasions for home schooling my young sons.
4. I put a down payment on my house using money I earned selling my jewelry at Grateful Dead shows.
5. I got married on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The setting sun and rising full moon were in the sky opposite each other, like a bride and groom. It was a blue moon.
6. I wrote a book about losing my brothers a month apart, which spurred a Hull Village reunion in Massachusetts and a story about in The Boston Globe.
7. I swam in a phosphorescence bay at night in Puerto Rico. Every move I made lit up the water like day-glo.
8. I lost my shoes in a Washington DC park while touring the Smithsonian Museums with a group of Blue Mountain School kids. They wouldn’t let me in to the view the Hope Diamond because I was barefoot. I felt like a dejected orphan working through a poverty complex.
9. I once went to a Halloween costume party and no one there guessed who I was. I then went in the bathroom, took off my costume (black), which revealed a different one (red) underneath. I went back to the party, confusing every one.
10. I met Jessica Lange at a Washington DC Peace March in protest of the Iraq war, handed her my poem “Dream for President Bush,” and she said “Thank you.”
And number 11, to end on an odd note (are you really counting?), I set up my first blog largely by myself, which is right up there with jumping in the ice pond naked and was a lot like looking up words in the dictionary that I didn’t have a clue how to spell.
March 22nd, 2005 11:48 am
Hi Colleen,
I just had to respond cause I thought the title could be something like “10 Things I’ve done…that you probably haven’t… or have you?”
1. I’ve jumped in that same pond naked after a sauna during November. It’s an eye opener!
2. I probably lived below poverty line as a single mom with 3 boys, but I’m not sure. I had everything I needed just wanted more.
3. Didn’t have indoor plumbing or extra money so I built a composting toilet out of scrap plywood and a construction bucket so the kids didn’t have to go outside to pee in the middle of the night.
4. First meal with my three sons in our new “house” was a can of soup heated on the woodstove and shared by candlelight on the plywood floor. A glorious celebration!
5. I was also married on the Blue Ridge Parkway – the first time. The next time around I plan to enter the ceremony canoeing down the Little River from my house and landing at the home-site where I plan to share the rest of my life with my beloved.
6. I always dreamed of having my own art studio so I built one. Bigger than my house!
7. I have also swum (swim, swam, swum?) in the Phosphorescent Bay in Puerto Rico. WOW!
8. “Dissolved” a breast tumor with visualizations, homeopathy (my doctor in Charlottesville), and faith just before I lost my health insurance.
9. One Halloween I dressed up as a peaceful Woodland Flower Fairy in flowing white and pastels. Near the end of the evening I sought out to remind partygoers of Death dressed as Kali Ma with my blood drenched tongue, sickle and necklace of skulls. I turned a few heads, but left them intact.
10. Met God for the first time – for real – on this earth plane during this lifetime while dancing barefoot in the grass up on a hillside overlooking the Rock n Roll rowdies.
Lora Leigh
March 22nd, 2005 4:35 pm
Ah, Colleen…
I’m so proud of you for overcoming your technophobia! Your blog is awesome. I’ll share my eccentricities soon when I am not moving and scrambling for time on the computer.
Love ya,
Mara