I gotta talk to you for a minute about Andrea Gibson. I’ve got talk about her, because I don’t know if I have ever, ever been so moved by the work of a single individual.

Andrea Gibson is a master of spoken word, an award winning slam poet.

“Gibson is also among the nation’s most admired and emulated poets. Her verse is at once personal and political, concrete and abstract, feminist and universal, filled with incinerating verbs and metaphor and delivered with gut-punching urgency. You can hear the ache in her soul every time she utters God’s name, and even her inhales sound desperate. It’s not uncommon for audiences to gasp at some of her turns of phrase or rise to their feet when she finishes a poem.” MATT PEIKEN

She is a woman of uncommon passion, her performances lit by an internal fire that powers her through her poems with the force of a freight train, slicing through lines with the sharpness and precision of sword. She spits her words out like bullets – hitting me right in the gut, and in the next second changes course and breaths out her message with a gentle caress that makes her words drift to my ears like leaves falling softly to the ground. Every word carefully chosen, unflinchingly delivered, cutting through bullshit and convention with the energy of someone determined to create change but also with the tenderness of someone whose heart is so big she has to hurt more than most of us. She performs with ferocity and with compassion and with so much feeling that I am left raw and exposed by the power of her honesty.

I want you to watch these videos. I want you to close your eyes and absorb her words, her passion, her activism, her fire. I want you to feel her work with every fiber of your being. I want your toes to tingle and your heart to pound and for you to feel changed by what you hear. I don’t know exactly why I’m telling you this, why I think you need instructions or set expectations. I can’t quite imagine that you could listen to these words and not do all these things. I don’t know that it is possible to be fully present and aware and NOT be wholly moved by the spirit and soul of what this woman creates in the performance of her art.

Blue Blanket
I am moved by every single piece I have heard her read, but this one – this one more than any other – brings me to my knees. It slams into me and makes my breath feel tight in my lungs and my heart thud in my chest. If you have ever been violated, if you have ever sat and held a woman who has been violated while she cried or sat in horrified numbness, then you will feel this poem with every last cell in your body and the final line will remain a part of you long after you have finished listening.

I do.
Love poem and political statement all at once, this is just one the millions of reasons why it matters that love just be love, without restrictions, or inequality or limits on who and how and why.

“i never needed more
than the stars on your grin to lead me home
for fifty years you were my favorite poem
and i’d read you every night
knowing i might never understand every word
but that was okay cause the lines of you
were the closest thing to holy i’d ever heard
you’d say this kind of love has to be a verb”

Dive
Life dosesn’t rhyme. Paradox, irony, mirrored reflections - it’s all the beautiful grey between stark black and white, it’s the ambiguous spaces between absolutes where the brilliance of life resides.

“”it’s your worst sin saving your fucking life
it’s the devil’s knife carving holes into you soul
so angels will have a place to make their way inside
life doesn’t rhyme
still life is poetry — not math
all the world’s a stage
but the stage is a meditation mat
you tilt your head back
you breathe
when your heart is broken you plant seeds in the cracks
and you pray for rain
and you teach your sons and daughters
there are sharks in the water
but the only way to survive
is to breathe deep
and dive”

Say Yes
The world needs us right now more than it ever has before…this poem is hope - empowering, uplifting hope. This poem is the life I want to live.

For Eli
This is how I feel about war – not just the one we’re in now – but every last one of them.

““one third of the homeless men in this country are veterans
and we have the nerve to Support Our Troops
with pretty yellow ribbons
while giving nothing but dirty looks to their outstretched hands
tell me what land of the free
sets free its eighteen-year-old kids into greedy war zones
hones them like missiles
then returns their bones in the middle of the night
so no one can see”

Last night I was introduced to the most amazing song (thank you, thank you, thank you Erin Michelle).

Exactly: Amy Steinberg (Click to open a new window and listen while you read)

This might be one of the most powerful pieces of music I have ever heard. As tumultuous as my life has been lately, I want to cling to the lyrics and the melody like they are the source of my life itself - which in fact, I think they might be. I have immersed myself in this song this morning. Turned it up loud and dove deep into it, until it filled every fragment of my body and soul.

If everything in the universe is energy - and I believe that it is - then everything we encounter transmits some of its energy to us. The energy that communicates itself to me most directly is the energy of words and music – I feel them on a deep, vibrational level. This energy of this song, from the very first note, nestled itself into the very core of my being and sent the most comforting light coursing through my body. I think I want to become this song.

As my dear Leigh said last night “That’s my church, my faith, right there. That’s all you need. One time to hear that song and it becomes your Source.”

Lately, the Universe has been testing me greatly. But as much as I have been tested and changed and cracked wide open, I have also been gifted and carried and lifted so very high. I have been given, in my darkest, most confusing moments the gifts of amazing people, profound wisdom, important lessons, deeply impactful music. Over and over again, these gifts have found me at the exact moment I needed them, giving me energy, peace, strength.

The Universe is wise. So is this song. I hope you feel it as much as I do.

This video is incomplete – but wanted to share anyway.

Part Four: Underneath it all
Subtitle: you are what you wear.

So then, all was well (meaning I didn’t buy anything else) until we hit Nordstrom. We were going to look for bras, and the fitting ladies at Nordstrom are my bra-fitting-gurus. Genius they are, in a class all their own (except perhaps for the one creepy guy I keep hearing about down at 32nd Street and Thomas - who apparently can accurately tell your exact bra size just by looking at you, but I digress).

It so happens that my own bras are not giving me quite the lift and separation they used to. After a year and a half of yanking them down breastfeed multiple times a day I was inching closer and closer back to saggy and draggy.

Can’t have that.

So, we did the measuring* and the trying and all that necessary but not so fun stuff and found what we needed (although my usual M.O. is to figure out what I need at Nordstrom and then find it for 1/3 of the cost on eBay. Shhh - don’t tell anyone). On the way to pay we happened to glance around at the panty selection.

Right in front of me I saw the most beautiful circular rainbow of brightly coloured wisps of lace - the display for the Hanky Panky Low Rise Thong. My mind went to my current underwear drawer, filled with dingy, grayish, serviceable panties (not granny panties, mind you, I have not sunk that low yet). Nothing even remotely approaching sexy to be found.

In my former life I had a drawer full of the cutest lingerie - matching bras and panties for all occasions and outfit requirements. After all, you never know when you’re going to get in that car accident or…something. But then I got married and had kids and [insert sad, pathetic all-to-familiar tale of finding happiness but losing bits of ones self along the way]. Somehow at that moment, I felt like my entire life could be summed up by my pathetic underwear collection.

I saw the $18 price tag, and winced. First $100 dollar denim and now $20 underpants? I must have been mistaking myself for someone with money.

I tried to talk myself out of it, really I did** but then I saw that they came in the most perfect kelly green (I so love green, don’t you?). They called my name much too loudly for any remaining shred of common sense to drown out their tempting siren song. I didn’t have a chance, don’t you see?

After all, wouldn’t it be wrong to wear my amazing new clothes with depressing, old worn out underwear underneath? Almost insulting, somehow. I mean, there’s always that threat of a car accident or…something.

Perhaps it was the catchy beat of Nickelback’s Rockstar that was playing in the store at the time that convinced me I was just the kind of girl who needed these panties (I mean, don’t we all just wanna be a rockstar?). Rockstars do not, I am certain, wear boring, dingy panties.

Whatever justification I throw at it (and clearly I can come up with several), I left the store with those panties.

I abhor the thought of becoming predictable, but you knew I would, didn’t you?

They are so worth the 20 bucks. I have gone through several thong wearing periods, but (no matter how much I tried to convince myself) it was never a comfort thing. It was often a practical panty line thing - nobody wants to be the only one in the room with a bad case of VPL.

There’s also the whole idea that nice undergarments are kind of like a bullet proof vest. No matter what the rest of you looks like, if you’ve got on nice lingerie it’s still possible to feel like everything is under control. I could wear dirty sweats and not brush my hair - but if I was wearing this for instance, I am fairly certain I could take on the world.

Indeed (I feel my very own feminist treatise coming on) nice lingerie is all about female empowerment. Uh huh.

And also, there is always that car accident possibility.

…Okay - back on track…

So seriously, these panties ARE all that and then some. Apparently Hollywood loves them as well (there’s that rockstar thing again). They are comfy, they are beyond sexy, and being low rise, thin lace and thong-ish they are, in reality, quite functional too. All this - and one size fits most - a veritable miracle of modern fashion engineering. When I’m wearing them I feel a bit saucier, a bit sexier, and a little bit bad, in a very good way.

I think I’ve been talking about them a tad too much though. Recently, my friends and I got a hotel suite in Scottsdale for our annual sanity retreat (highly recommended, all you mamas out there). Apparently I went on-and-on about my passionate feeling for my new panties (I say apparently, ‘cause I consumed a few frozen strawberry margaritias, so I couldn’t necessarily give an accurate report).

At some point my friend Nancy told me to “Take off your *ucking pants already” and just show everyone the damn things.*** If you know Nancy, you’ll know she just doesn’t talk like that (that would be Karen’s role). She so startled me that I found myself standing up and unzipping my jeans (yes, those jeans) to give them a peek. I had to. You just don’t say no to Nancy, especially when she gets all tough like that.

[Note: Despite my peek-a-boo sessions with some of my nearest and dearest, this entry will not be accompanied by another self-portrait. A lady has to keep SOME things from her public. It’s the air of mystery that keeps you coming back, and all that.]

I want to own more pairs. I want my own miniature lace rainbow. I am being held back however, by the idea that I could have five pairs of panties, or another brand new pair of kick ass expensive jeans.

Tough call.

* Dream Shameless Strapless by Le Mystere: 32 G. Thirty-two G! So much for my hopes that they had gotten smaller since Jules cut down on nursing.

**Don’t think I can’t see the skeptical smirk on your face. I’m crazy intuitive like that.

***My friends, dear though they are, do not take well to the idea that they cannot know and see everything about my life. And yea - Crazy Queen K - I’m talking ‘bout you in particular.

I like a lot of things, but I’ve got to be pretty impressed with a product for me to rave about it. Partially inspired by Brooke’s hit lists, I’ve decided to include a Rave feature on my blog, where I share things that are too good to keep to myself.

My very first rave is for Hug A Dub Dub, an online store featuring all -natural handmade products for mom and baby. I first came across the website when searching the MDC Diapering Forum for cloth diaper safe rash creams. Several people raved about the Chamo-Lano-Dula Bum Salve, so I decided to place an order. While exploring the site I decided to purchase the Gentle Baby Wash and Lavender and Chocolate Soap. I wasn’t sure which scents to choose – so I let the owner Mandy know that I liked citrus scents and vanilla, and told her to surprise me.

My order arrived very quickly, I knew what the package was even before taking it out of the mailbox because I could already smell the soft lavender scent from the soap (which turned out to look as beautiful as it smelled). I opened the Baby Wash next and was absolutely delighted with the heavenly Creamsicle scent that Mandy had concocted. Trust me when I tell you that it smells EXACTLY like Creamsicle; gave me an ice cream craving so bad I could hardly stand it! It really does smell good enough to eat. The Baby Wash was meant for Julianna’s delicate skin, but I’m afraid that I’ve been going through the stuff so quickly I’ll have to place another order soon.

I’ve been equally impressed with the Bum Salve. It creates an incredible moisture barrier that lasts through the night, yet does not feel heavy on the skin. It rubs in so nicely I’ve been tempted to try using it on my poor, dry, cracked and scaly feet! It has a very light and natural scent, and works like a charm on the bit of redness that Julianna gets occasionally. Best of all, it is totally safe for use with cloth diapers.

My first order impressed me enough that I went back again, and ordered a few more products. The Super Rich Moisturizing Crème, which I also ordered in the Creamsicle scent, is fantastic. I tend to get really dry and itchy skin once the weather turns cooler here in Arizona, this cream is very rich and heavy – yet absorbs nicely – leaving my skin silky smooth.

My absolute favorite so far is definitely the Dreamy Chocolate Lip Balm. This stuff smells so good I have to keep reminding myself that it is not for eating, and it keeps my lips super soft. As an added bonus, the cocoa powder actually leaves your lips with the perfect amount of tint and shine. I’m absolutely addicted to the stuff, and will probably run out of this soon as well.

I love knowing that these products are so lovingly made, and only use natural ingredients, no icky petroleum, or chemicals with unrecognizable names, only things like shea butter, coconut oil and calendula. I’m already planning my next order, and am definitely going to purchase the Coffee and Citrus Blossom soaps, as well as some of the Belly Butter (for my pregnant sister in law). I have a funny feeling I’ll find something else to add to my cart as well!

Use the code “crunchyinside” to receive 10% off all orders placed before the end of November!

Edited to add: Maisha posted below that shipping is free for orders over $30.00!

www.hugadubdub.com

Jeanette