Kimberly Kinrade

VOTE on Cover Design for Reluctant Familiar

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 21:27:00 +0000

The Reluctant Familiar

by Kimberly Kinrade

VOTE:
Which cover do you like best for this book: A YA fantasy series launch?

Synopsis:

In a world that expected her to be magick, 13-year-old Agnes was disappointingly ordinary. She fit in better with her human friends than her witchy ones.

Months after having reached her Magicked Phase, Agnes still shows no signs of talent, or of bonding with a Familiar, leaving her prominent family in danger of losing all.

Until a seemingly chance encounter with a flea-ridden alley cat changes all.

When Agnes finds herself bonded to a god named Sebastian, and in possession of powers she never knew she had, her life is turned on its head as she is transported to other worlds to thwart evil and undo damage done by wayward gods bent on destroying her new Familiar.

But will the bond last? If given a choice, will Agnes and Sebastian stay in this unlikely bond, or will they break it for a chance at freedom?

QUESTION:
Vote for cover A or B below. Also, this will be available via paperback or E-book. Should these have different covers? If you don't like either, vote C ;) And I'll keep working!

This book will be self-published after the launch of my collection of short stories, poems and essays called "Bits of You & Pieces of Me," coming January 2011.

"Bits of You & Pieces of Me" Book Launch SOON!

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 21:29:00 +0000

That's right folks, I have been sooo blown away by how many people have requested my work, that I am launching a very special book that has been on my heart for many years.

I can't tell you how much I love all of you who have supported me in my writing. This book is for all of you. I am still working on my YA Fantasies and do not know whether I will publish via traditional or indie routes, but either way this book is for you!

"Bits of You & Pieces of Me" is a collection of short stories, poetry & essays on life. While each piece stands alone, together the chapters tell the story of an idealistic girl in love with love who discovers the demons of a splintered heart when that love turns violent. Through it all, she climbs her way back to Hope and finds that in the end her True Heart remained Unbreakable. Release date this month TBA

It will be available in print and ebook version on many sites. Those of you who follow my blog will get a sneak peak of the cover as soon as it's ready. Also, go like my Facebook Fan Page for regular updates!

Amazing Raffle! Awesome Give Aways!

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 17:48:00 +0000

It’s the most wonderful time of the year right? Also the most stressful. And I know we are all struggling with money and loads of other things. NOT the best time to do a fundraiser.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to pick when my darling 8 year old would most need therapy for serious anxiety attacks and depression. She needs at least 3 months of therapy which will run about $1500. So that’s my goal, to raise $1500 in the next month.

Even if I don’t make it, every penny helps. I’m a single mom with 3 little girls. I write full time and can never tell what my income is going to be from month to month. I do well for myself mostly, but we’ve been hit hard lately by major car repairs, attorney fees and more. I fought like hell to get custody of my kids and ensure their father had supervised visitations until he receives the treatment he needs to be safe with them. This all costs money. (To read more about the reason for this click on “My Unbreakable Heart”.)

If you are new to my blog and confused, you might find the following posts helpful.

To learn about “Rose,” my 8-yr-old who is amazing, brilliant, talented and ultra-sensitive, read my tribute to her at “The Chicken Nuggets Must Live!”

“Education or Stress: What is school doing to my daughter?” introduces the problems we are facing, and “ 8-year-old Panic Attacks Part 2” delves further into what I’m doing to help her. “Fundraiser Launch Coming Soon: With Prizes” is kinda self-explanatory I think. And now, we’re here. The launch.

So…here’s how it’s going to work.

EVERY DOLLAR you give will earn you a raffle ticket. I will collect these until January 14, 2011. I will then use a random online number generator to pick the winning numbers. (And I am actually going to give you REAL tickets, I’ll even take a picture of the raffle bowl as it fills.)

So far I’ve received $190 in donations (In addition to the total being kept by the ChipIn program to the right) and I am SOOO BLOWN AWAY by this support. If you’ve already given you are already entered.

What will you win?

Art Magnet Set, Painted by "Rose"

· First, everyone who gives will receive a short story written by yours truly about a little girl consumed with fear as her panic attack worsens. It will include artwork by my talented 8 yr old. This is in E-book style and will be emailed to you or made available for download. (You can also receive this just by RT, Emailing, Blogging, or FB this! Any show of support is appreciated.)

· A select number of givers will receive a set of handmade refrigerator magnets featuring my daughters artwork thanks to the lovely and talented Desirai. Check out her site here.

· Free web hosting for a year (restrictions apply: web space cannot be used as a file repository)

- Wordpress installation and set up

- blog migration from blogger, typepad, wordpress.com, etc

· Free web hosting for a year (restrictions apply: web space cannot be used as a file repository)

- Wordpress Installation with Wordpress theme of choice

Once again, Desirai and her partner in crime Jeffrey are contributing the work on this, and I am giving the hosting.

· The fabulous Dmytry Karpov is writing a flash, dedicated to a lucky raffle winner based on the subject of their choice. The flash will be emailed to the winner and featured on his blog.

· Other possible prizes include free books, poetry recordings and another year of free webhosting. Some of these prizes are valued in the hundreds of dollars and I’m SOOO grateful to my awesome friends who have made these donations for my daughter. LOVE YOU ALL!

To give, please click on the donate button to the right of this blog in order to pay through ChipIn. If you’d like to give in some other way, please email me at Kimberly.Kinrade at gmail dot com.Also, email me and let me know which item you'd like to be entered in for the raffle. Thank you!

Thank you all and good luck! I will keep you posted on Rose’s progress.

** To date, she is still suffering attacks, though they aren’t always as bad. I am modifying her date to factor in potential food allergies.

"Rose's" happy place based on her idea of Belize

Fundraiser Launch Coming Soon! With PRIZES

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 18:33:00 +0000

"Flowers" by Rose, 7 yrs old

My daughter has chosen the pen name of "Rose," based on my decision not to use my children's names and pictures in my writing. You can read about that process in my two part blog series here and here.

Rose is 8 as of Halloween. My first born and definitely a treat. The moment she entered the world she was alert and wise. An old soul. Even after 40 hours of labor and an emergency C-Section. She stared straight into me, and all I thought I knew about love was alchemized into this entirely new understanding in that moment.

From a young age she has been more aware and conscious of the world than most people, young or old. You can read about her crusade to save the earth, and the chicken nuggets, in "The Chicken Nuggets Must Live!" This was a post dedicated to her environmental spirit and commitment to picking up every piece of trash littering the planet.

But her life has not been easy. She is an exceptionally bright, creative child. And exceptionally sensitive. And lately we have seen the darker side of this gift.

For over a year now she has complained of random stomach aches, usually when she is at school, and only since leaving the Waldorf School she attended in Pre-K and K.

The public school system does not support the creative energies that flow through her. Combine that with her father leaving, financial difficulties and several moves, and we are now facing chronic depression, anxiety and full blown panic attacks.

For more on this, please read this and this post on what is happening and what I am doing about it.

She needs help. And help costs money. I'm doing ok, but still have a lot of back log issues from when I wasn't doing so ok. And I'm a full time writer, my income fluctuates and my benefits are slim to none. So, I am having a fundraiser at the suggestion of a friend.

I'm trying to raise $1500 for 3 months of treatment for Rose. Art therapy combined with Behavior Modification and counseling. I'm $165 closer to that goal as of today.

If you don't agree with my methods, I respect that. No one is holding a gun to your head to donate. But I'm not looking for a fight. If you have other suggestions, I'm all ears. I'm combining hypnotherapy, diet modification, essential oils, EFT and other techniques as well. You can read about some of my plans in those posts I linked earlier.

If you've never experienced this kind of panic, it's hard to understand.

She feels like she is dying. Like her body is being consumed by pain and if she doesn't get out of her skin she will disappear into that fear like a black hole. She can't stop it, or change it. She is terrified by it and does not understand what is happening to her. It is a dark place to be. Especially for such a sweet, young girl.

Rose's happy place

But, if you'd like to help, here are some options.

* You can donate money through paypal by clicking on that link over there ~~>

*You can tweet, RT, Blog or FB this to help raise support

*You can donate a service or work of some kind as give aways for those who donate money.

To date I have received a years worth of web hosting, books, and audio poetry recordings. Also, I will be writing a short story with Rose as illustrator to give to ALL who help in ANY way. I can easily track those who give money, but if you help in other ways, please email me at kimberly.kinrade at gmail dot com to receive the story. I want you to have it but won't always know how or where to send it!

I will formally launch this fundraiser at 12:01 am PST Tuesday December 14, to run until 12:01 am PST Thursday December 16. Any donators between now and then will be entered in the drawing for prizes. All prizes collected between now and then will be listed in detail on my Tuesday blog post.

After Thursday I will sell the short story with illustrations for $15 with all money going towards Rose's treatment.

Unfortunately I have no way of taking Anon donations at this time.

If anyone has experience with this kind of thing and can advise me on a better way to do it, I'm open to suggestions.

Thank you all for your support, kind words and love. We appreciate it greatly!

8-year-old Panic Attacks Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 19:38:00 +0000

December 3, 2010 UPDATE:

I am trying to raise $1500 for 3 months worth of treatment for my daughter who is suffering from severe anxiety, depression and panic attacks.

She needs treatment once a week minimum.

Below is more about this story and other steps I am taking. I appreciate ALL of your support, RT, @, DMs, Emails, Comments and love. Everyone who helps (and by helps I mean donates, DMs etc,) will get an E-copy of a short story I am writing from the POV of a little girl in the throes of a panic attack, with illustrations by my daughter. I don't use my children's names or real pics online, but she is a wonderful artist. If you donate I will send this directly to your email if you provide it. I understand that many cannot donate, but I want to give this gift to all who do what they can. So if you want this story, please email me at kimberly.kinrade at gmail.com and I will email it to you as a thank you when it is done.

Thank you again for your love and support!

And if you want to see my daughter in a different light: how she changes the world with her love of nature and environmentalism, read this post dedicated to her.

"The Chicken Nuggets Must Live!"

ORIGINAL POST

I think it goes without saying that I love my kids more than life. Most parents I hope would say the same thing, or something to that affect.

The funny thing is I never planned on having children. My ex wanted kids. I was ‘considering’ his request when I got pregnant with my first two girls. (With the first I was switching birth controls and she snuck in, and with the second I was on the mini-pill AND nursing. They really wanted to be born.) Our third daughter was conceived when he came home on a surprise leave from Iraq after being gone for 6 months. I wasn’t prepared to prevent anything. So Baby Girl #3 came into our lives.

Now, I can’t even remember the world without them. I know I have memories that predate their physical forms, but even these are infused with the awareness that these girls must exist somewhere. I would not be who I am without them. And it’s true, I love them more than life. I would give my life to keep them safe.

So the fact that my 8 yr old is suffering panic attacks is killing me. (See last post for more on this.) Is it the school’s fault for putting too much pressure on our kids at younger and younger ages?

That’s likely contributing to it.

I got a lot of emails and comments from many readers after that last post. I’m grateful for the love and support you all have shown us. And it has me thinking.

There is the “storm the castle” camp that feels I need to remove her from this school and go to war. I’m all for this approach. And if the meeting with her teacher and principal hadn’t gone as it did, I’d be writing letters and contacting the press as I write this.

But.

They were great. Amazing, really. They have to work in the system. They have to give the tests and remind me of the consequences for excessive tardies or absences (I could get probation and in serious legal trouble!!!), but they also CHOSE to be loving and understanding.

Her teacher wants to help. WANTS to help now! She has stopped correcting her tests in red, opting for black ink so it’s not so demoralizing. She is letting my child finish the timed tests even after the time is out so she feels a sense of accomplishment. She is emotionally supporting my child and attempting to engage her in art and encourage her. I am so grateful.

The principal is also working with me. She understands that I’ve been a single mom for 2 years and it’s not easy. I’m juggling a LOT of balls and not all of them stay in the air. She’s trying to help. To offer resources and support.

I picked my current apartment because of the reputation of this school and its staff. If my kids had to go to a public school, I wanted them in the best one, even if it increases my commute time to work.

I want my kids happy. Healthy. Enjoying life.

So here’s what I’ve learned.

1: My daughter is actually excelling in school. Even math. She only did poorly on one quiz and it’s haunting her. She’s a perfectionist and HATES to fail! Normally her scores are 98% or above.

2: She gets every cold and flu that goes around and is ALWAYS sick. It’s making school life miserable.

3: She is a very sensitive child and is lost right now. Our lives have been hard and she has felt this. So many moves, money problems I couldn’t hide, times when I didn’t know how I would feed them after my divorce. It leaves a mark. As my friend and awesome dad of 3 older girls Tom Chalfant reminded me, it takes a long time for kids to regain the feeling of stability after that first life is broken to bits. Which makes sense, because I’m still scared too.

4: It’s not all the schools fault, but the system is seriously flawed.

I would love an enemy to tear to shreds. A war to wage in the name of my daughter and children everywhere. And I certainly believe we need serious reform in the public school system in this country. But is it the fault of our local elementary school? No. They are doing their best. They are actually going above and beyond to help us.

My little girl is terrified her world will fall apart again. That I will disappear like her daddy. She’s lost everything but me and her sisters and she likely doesn’t trust that we’ll stick around. My heart breaks for her, but I cannot just blame the school.

Don’t get me wrong, the first thing I’m going to do when I become more affluent as a writer is get them back in the Waldorf school. Until then, we have to work with what we have.

So here’s what I’m going to do.

1: I’m saving money so she can work with a Child Psychologist who specializes in this kind of treatment and uses Art therapy. If you’d like to donate to this, I’m adding a donate button to my blog. (Reluctantly.) I’m not a beggar and I’m doing my best to care for my children, but they need more than I can afford to give right now. I do well professionally and make a decent living, but after almost a year of NOTHING! (Literally, we lived on food stamps and goodwill) We are really behind. When we moved into our apartment all we had left was clothes. No furniture or kitchen supplies. I’d already hawked all my jewelry to buy food. All our furniture to pay rent. It was all gone. We are rebuilding, but it’s expensive and exhausting and takes up all my extra income every month. So, if you’d like to help, I assure you the money will go directly to helping my child recover. I will also post monthly updates on how that money is being used and the effects of her treatment.

2: I’m restructuring my work so that I’m working from home every day and I’m pulling them out of after care. Instead of being gone from 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. every day, they will come home after school. Dmytry and I are forming our own company “Karpov-Kinrade Writing & Editing” and will be taking on additional clients. If you’d like to help, spread the word. Link our site. We appreciate it.

3: I will be making more time to spend one-on-one with each of my children. This will be easier when Dmytry moves in this month, as there will be another adult with whom to share the load. Each day my kids will have some private access to share their thoughts or just cuddle.

4: I will stay open to medication should her symptoms persist. I know this is controversial, and as a holistically minded person I abhor the thought. But I received an email from a longtime friend in which he shared his story of severe anxiety disorder. Some situations require more aggressive treatment and I will keep an open mind as I explore all options.

This is the start. I’m also hoping to get her in Art classes where she can express herself more comfortably. Or horseback riding. She loves animals and misses the classes she was in up north. But regardless, I am committed to my children and their health and happiness.

Thank you all for your support, love, encouragement and guidance.

Education or Stress: What is school doing to my daughter?

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 19:54:00 +0000

I’m not a teacher and I don’t work for the school district or government or anything. I’m also not a psychiatrist.

I do, however, have multiple college degrees and studied behavioral science and Psychology in undergrad and grad programs. I am also a hypnotherapist. So…

Here’s the problem I’m having. My 8-year-old daughter, who is in 2^nd grade, is having panic attacks.

Not just the normal “I don’t want to go to school, I’d rather play” moments. But full on shaking, pain, shortness of breath.

Panic attacks.

Ever since she switched from a Waldorf School (very nature focused, organic, peaceful curriculum with gnomes and fairies) to the standard California school system, she has been getting stomach aches. A LOT of stomach aches.

I’ve had her checked by doctors. There’s nothing medically wrong with her.

She is stressed.

It has escalated into the full-fledged terror inducing anxiety attacks that leave her clinging to me like a scared kitten. She doesn’t want to go to school. Doesn’t want to sleep without me. Doesn’t even want to sit in the back seat of the car because she can’t touch me.

Part of it is the pressure of the public school system. All my kids test well above average for their age. But my oldest is a country girl at heart. She’s happiest with animals and nature. An environmentalist and artist. She doesn’t like to be rushed. And these days it’s all about the timed tests.

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!

She feels like a failure when she doesn’t finish the math quizzes in time. She knows the answers, but half her page gets marked in red because she took too long.

This is just one example. With the push for “No Child Left Behind” and the move to force kids into certain levels on standardized testing, schools and teachers are under pressure to perform. And we all know which direction that pressure rolls…

I hate this. I wish I could still afford the private Waldorf schools. Or homeschool. I wish my little girl was happier and more at peace. I wish I knew what to do.

Now in fairness to the school system, there have been a lot of other stresses over the last few years. Moving to a new state, a divorce that has left her and her sisters with less time with their father and a few school changes.

I know none of this has been easy. It’s been hell for me too. So much stress. We had to sell most of what we owned to survive when my ex didn’t pay child support. We moved several times before I found work and a place I could afford. If I’m struggling with my own panic, certainly an 8-year-old with no control over her life would be in a panic too.

But we are stable now.

And we have been for a bit. I’ve got great work and am doing well financially and professionally. We have a nice home in a nice area. They go to a great school with great teachers.

And she is getting worse.

I’m meeting with her teacher, the principal and the school counselor today to figure out how best to support her. I know I can’t change the entire public school system. (Can I?) But I need to do something to help my little girl. I can’t stand to see her so miserable.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Black Friday

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 17:05:00 +0000

I Don't Do Black Friday.

And I HATE Shopping.

So have fun trampling all over each other in the name of commercialism.

I'll just be here reading a book and drinking hot cocoa while daydreaming about my boyfriend.

Are You Happy?

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 18:44:00 +0000

What's with the cherries?

There’s this book out that’s really quite interesting. It’s all about how we don’t really know what makes us happy. We can’t even use past experience to predict what will make us happy, apparently. According to the studies and all that.

So I’m wondering, as we all gather together for Thanksgiving here in the US, what are we happy for? And do we really get any happiness out of this holiday?

I mean really, most people spend obligatory time with family they’d rather not be around, stuffing their faces with food it took the woman all day to cook, (not me, other women, if you let me in the kitchen I’ll likely burn it down…besides I KNOW cooking DOES NOT bring me happiness, so there’s that) just so everyone can bitch about everyone else when it’s all over.

Can you believe she had the nerve to bring HIM to the dinner?

Wow, she thought that pumpkin pie was the best? Oh dear, that’s bad.

When is he going to tell them he’s gay already? How can they not know?

And so it goes.

OK, maybe your family doesn’t sound like that. And hey, I’m not saying mine does. Nooo, we’re like something out of the Brady Bunch. We sing and dance and solve problems using team work and non-violent communication. Right…

So will I be happy this week as I gather with family?

I don’t know.

I’ll get to see my brother and sister. I’ll get to meet a brother I’ve never met before. (Long story, for another post perhaps.) I’ll get to play with my nephew.

And I’ll have to spend time with people I don’t know. I’ll have to endure a long drive with 4 kids and my parents. I’ll have to say no to anything with wheat, yeast or eggs in it because of stupid food allergies. (Take a moment to contemplate that and you’ll see the real tragedy there.) And I won’t be with the man I love.

I'm allergic to MOST of this

As much as I love biscuits and pumpkin pie, it’s the last one I’m most heartbroken about. I’ll miss Dmytry. Even though he’s a million miles away, I’ll miss having computer and easy phone access to him.

And I swear, this better be the LAST holiday I ever have to spend without him.

So screw the research in that book. I know what makes me happy. He does. Living with and loving him and my kids. That makes me happy. Oh, and writing. I dig that too. (And in case you’re a random agent or publisher or magazine editor, I write a lot and would love to buy you coffee. Call me…)

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone. Hope you find that elusive happiness we all talk about and dream about.

To Post or Not To Post: The Verdict Is In

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 22:23:00 +0000

I am Ninja Stealthy

Turns out, I’m scary good at staying hidden. I’m not easy to find, even if you know some stuff about me and are a pro at locating people online.

Apparently, random last name changes and frequent moves, while simultaneously failing to properly register to vote or drive, allows for a lot of privacy. Who knew? I should start my own Writer Protection Program.

Now the story as to why I do all this is more convoluted and has absolutely nothing to do with trying to keep off the radar. That was just a happy side-effect.

When I posted last week about using my kids’ names and pics in blogging, I already felt pretty confident in my verdict. I would use them. Maybe not constantly, as they are not the primary focus of my blogs, but yeah, I’d use them when the post called for it. What’s the harm?

Turns out, people who know more about this stuff than me know what harm there is.

Now maybe I’m being paranoid. Maybe they are. Maybe the whole world is mad. Whatever. I’m a mom first, and my kids’ safety takes priority. Yes, they are ridiculously cute. Yes, I want to show them off. No, I do not want weirdoes to fixate on them. I may be hard to find, but still.

Right now, I’m not totally famous. (I know, it’s a shock to me too each morning when I wake up from my Twilight meets Harry Potter dreams, but it’s true. I’m not.) But let’s just add a ‘yet’ there for fun, shall we? Because, who knows? I mean, I am a writer. And if you’re reading this, then you hopefully don’t think I suck. I’ve got books that are almost ready for the light of day.

See? Mommy first!

And, I’m a big picture kind of girl. Always have been. Now, J.K.Rowling and Stephenie Meyer, they hit the spotlight immediately, it was not a building up process. They did not blog their way to fans and fame. So their lives (and children) weren’t spread all over the internet when they hit stardom.

Mine would be. If I posted as planned. Then what? My few hundred or few thousand blog hits and followers could skyrocket. And my little girls would get more attention. And the creeps would come crawling out of their hidey holes.

No. That’s not going to work for me. Not at all.

So here’s the deal.

· You can be found by a non-privatized URL. (They can see your name, address, email and phone number just with one click, for free. Seriously, I saw mine. But the number and address and name were all wrong, ‘cuz I’m sneaky like that!) So, pay the nine bucks or whatever and privatize.

· Keep your Facebook stuff private for just close friends and family. Or delete the kids’ names and pics. Think about it, with a name, a picture and a way to find your address, predators can become “friends” with your kids in no time. They can even look at your Facebook family tree and say “Hi , I’m a friend of your Aunt . How are you? Want some candy and a puppy?”

· Don’t use your real birth date, age and current location online. (Apparently, you can be found easily this way. Also, if they know your age and birth month, they can get the year and search you out. Unless you’re sneaky like me. But very few are. I’m thinking of offering a free consultation to the FBI.) This is my favorite, because I just became a 23 year old woman living in the South of France. Cool eh? Easiest move of my life.

This is not where I live

· Be careful not to mention specific locations of where you going on a daily basis. If I live in New York, and don’t want you to know it, but I’m always references the New York Public Library, well, that might be a giveaway, don’t you think?

· Watch your online activity. Google yourself once a week and scrub any info that points a big red finger to where you live. (Like commenting on too many local blogs.)

· Keep an unlisted phone number and put your utilities in a different name if possible. (I know, we’re starting to sound nuts here, but this is just for extreme measures if you’re like, Stephen King or something. Though, he’s so scary I doubt he gets many stalkers.)

And finally *drum roll please* don’t use your kids real names and pics in your blogs.

Life Is A Play

There, I said it. Happy? My kids are all picking “stage names” to be used by Dmytry and I when we blog about them. I will no longer use their pictures and am in the process of changing my Facebook setting and removing things. (It’s also good to note that if you have an open FB page, you can privatize an album and only make it available to certain friends, which is what I’m doing with our kids’ pictures.)

Is this too extreme? Maybe. I had to look at my life, my priorities and where I see my career headed. Also, I’m raising kids with a man who will also be famous someday. Two famous writers in one house? That’s a lot of attention. We need to keep our kids safe. So, we will take most of these measures.

Thank you to all who have shed light on this subject and given me advice. It was well-received and appreciated.

Tell me what you think. Am I going over board? What has been your experience with this?

To Post or Not to Post: Children’s Faces in Private Places

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 02:46:00 +0000

Love Blog

Dmytry Karpov and I just launched our brand new blog together, “Kimberly ♥ Dmytry: Breaking the Mold in Life and Love .”

We are so giddy with excitement over it, it’s kind of embarrassing. Except we’re so happy in love that we can’t be bothered with being embarrassed.

Up until now, any blogging I’ve done has been about my own journey spiritually (the early days of my journal-blogging months), or, lately, writing about different subjects and issues that spark a rise in me.

I’ve blogged on My Cyber Mess, All Hallow’s Read, Domestic Violence, Amazon’s sale of a How-To-Guide to pedophiles etc.

But now, this blog with Dmytry will be more family focused. On us as a couple (the unique experiences of a dramatic age-difference, living with and loving my writing partner, etc.) and us as parents.

I have three little girls: 8, 6 and 4.

They will feature in our work from time to time.

In the past I have used their pictures in my blogs, and even included my oldest daughters name, as the blog was dedicated to her and her commitment to the environment in “The Chicken Nuggets Must Live!”

But I didn’t give it too much thought.

Until Now.

So my question to you is this. To post or not to post?

Do you use your children’s names and pictures in your blogs? Why or why not?

I know some awesome bloggers with decent followings who routinely feature beautiful photos of their children and include names.

And I know some awesome bloggers who don’t.

I know people who feel it’s risky and invites predatory type people into their lives.

And I know people who don’t agree. Who feel the demographic doesn’t really give rise to this problem.

Also, for those who do use them, do you worry about negative affects?

For those who don’t, what’s the worst that would happen? Is it a real life concern? That a predator will stalk you in the flesh? Is it a virtual concern? That they will use these innocent pictures for not so innocent intentions?

I guess I don’t understand the dilemma. I’m inclined to go the way of those who use pictures and names. I don’t see the harm. It’s unlikely anyone seeing that picture will be able track me down where I live, even if they should feel so inclined. And really, would they?

Maybe I’m not being as cautious as I should. I don’t know. That’s why I’m opening it up for discussion. A lot has been posted on other blogs about this, but I’m still undecided.

What’s your take on the subject? To post or not to post, that is the question.

The Power of the Tweeple!

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:45:00 +0000

Yesterday I saw a tweet in passing that changed my whole day.

It linked the phone number to Amazon.com so that we might call to get a pedophile's book taken off the shelves. Wait...WHAT?

I linked to the site and was horrified at what I read. "The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Romance," was being sold as an e-book on Kindle through Amazon. I shuddered at the thought that my beloved Kindle could download something so obscene.

I made it my personal campaign to get this book off the shelves. I tweeted and FB'd and Blogged. <== Click here if want to read the blog from yesterday that explains more on the book and the outrage I (and many) felt.

I was not alone in this.

Through various means, the story got out. Enough people sent enough tweets and blogs and whatevers to get Amazon to listen. I tried calling them and couldn't get through. I did, however, get through to an agent at FBI headquarters and filed a formal complaint against Amazon, and this man, for this book.

As of this morning, the book has been taken off, and our efforts to do so have received intentional attention. The BBC this morning reported on the controversy surrounding Amazon's choice to sell this book. (and subsequently profit from any sales...just consider that for a moment...profiting on sales of a book designed to teach pedophiles how to engage with children in a way that will lighten their sentence if convicted. WHAT?)

This has truly shown me what can be accomplished when people speak out. And the impact the social media has. The change it can create.

But not everyone is happy with this.

I blocked two people from my Twitter site because they would not stop harassing me about either:

A: My contribution to the destruction of the 1st Amendment and all civil liberties ever known. This person used sarcasm to make his point. It's just SOOO fun to have a friendly debate with someone dripping in disdain, don't you think?
or B: This book is just a distraction from real evil and by getting one book pulled from the shelves we are not really making a difference. How does this stop all violence everywhere? *HUH?* Why do we only care about white girls? *WTF?* and on it went.

I do not believe Free Speech is the trump-all card of cards. There are limits. As one person commented on yesterdays blog, you can't yell FIRE! in a crowded theater. It's illegal. When free speech endangers the lives of others, it's no longer protected. This book endangers the lives of children.

I have not, nor will I, read the book.

But here's a really interesting article from MSNBC.com They read the book for the purposes of research and thorough reporting. I won't rehash their comments, but it's worth reading. And worth noting that contrary to rumors floating around, this is not some innocent self-help guide for the nice pedophile who just wants to love children in a platonic sort of way. No. It is Not.

It also brings up another sad point. The attention generated from this outrage led to the sale of many more books. Until yesterday, only 1 person had allegedly purchased it.

I can only hope that many of those sales were people like MSNBC trying to do research. I don't know. I hate to think that my small part in this campaign led to more money and attention for this sick man and his horrid book.

But what is the alternative? Do we say nothing for fear of drawing more attention to this? Children go on Amazon everyday to buy books. I don't want MY children seeing a book like this online and thinking it's ok. Do you?

I'm glad it's off the site. But Amazon still has a lot to answer for. As my friend Liza Kane wrote in a blog letter to them yesterday, this is not the first questionable choice they've made. And it's not even clear yet who removed it, Amazon or the publisher.

Amazon won't publish porn, which is legal, but will profit off the sales of this? As of now, my boycott stands. And my Kindle is still in retirement.

BRING IT

What are your thoughts? Have we crossed the line into book burning? Are there certain lines that are just off-limits? Does freedom of speech trump all? Have we done more harm than good by bringing attention to this book? How do we fight that which threatens to destroy our children and society? I want to hear from all of you. Bring on the debate!

A Pedophile's Guide to...WTF?

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 23:14:00 +0000

OK. I'm a HUGE fan of the 1st Amendment and Free speech and all that. Seriously. I'm a writer. Just try to shut me up.

BUT...There are LINES people. Lines that DO NOT get crossed. I tripped over a huge line today when a fellow Tweeter alerted me to Amazon.com 's sale of the most hideous book I've seen to date.

The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure by Phillip R Greaves 2nd (Kindle Edition - Oct. 28, 2010) - Kindle eBook

A Product Description as written by the author:

"This is my attempt to make pedophile situations safer for those juveniles that find themselves involved in them, by establishing certian rules for these adults to follow. I hope to achieve this by appealing to the better nature of pedosexuals, with hope that their doing so will result in less hatred and perhaps liter sentences should they ever be caught."

REALLY? Like, SERIOUSLY? Are we really allowing this to pass for free speech?

Amazon has defended its right to sell this book:

"Let me assure you that Amazon.com does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts; we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions."

"Amazon.com believes it is censorship not to sell certain titles because we believe their message is objectionable."

This does not take into account a few things:

1: The right of a private company to choose what to sell.
2. The right of anyone to ban the sale or promotion of literature that actively promotes illegal activity.

The Definition of Pedophilia

: sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sexual object

And According to Wikipedia:

As a medical diagnosis, pedophilia (or paedophilia) is typically defined as a psychiatric disorder in adults or late adolescents (persons age 16 and older) characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children (generally age 13 years or younger, though onset of puberty may vary). The child must be at least five years younger in the case of adolescent pedophiles.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4] The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) defines pedophilia as a "disorder of adult personality and behaviour" in which there is a sexual preference for children of prepubertal or early pubertal age.^[5] The term has a range of definitions as found in psychiatry, psychology, the vernacular, and law enforcement.

Now that we're clear on this, how many feel a How-To-Guide is good for society or our children?

Does Free Speech trump all?

Does the slippery slope argument give a get-out-of-jail-free card to all disturbed persons who want to promote this kind of sickness?

I had some strange Tweet exchanges on Twitter that ran into this problem. Things such as "We only care about white kids..." and "But let's not be naive and ban a pedophilia book when the US condones/loves *many* other forms of violence. It's inconsistent, logically."

HUH? Yes. You're right. We shouldn't fight one kind of evil because other forms of evil exist. Perfectly logical. Ummm? Not.

Here's the deal.

Have sex with whomever you want. However you want. Write about awesome gay, lesbian, bi and hetero love affairs. Celebrate that however you'd like. Embrace age differences and non-traditional relationships. I would even debate various state laws about the age of consent, as it's legal in some areas for 16 yr olds to consent to their sexual partner and not legal until 18 in others. There are shades of gray there somewhere. I don't know the answer to this.

Sex can be a violation if an older man or woman manipulates or forces a younger partner. If a person in power uses that to gain sexual access to someone. Or if a teenage boy rapes a girl, woman or grandmother. These things happens. The victims and perpetrators of sex crimes come in a whole assortment of ages and, well, I guess just the two genders. But you get my point.

HOWEVER

Prepubescent children are off-limits. Period. End of Story. No negotiating that line. At ALL! And that is the definition of a pedophile. I haven't read the book. And I'm not putting money in this man's pocket to do so. But the title and description say it all.

Meet Nook

I am boycotting Amazon.com until they remove this from their site. BarnesandNoble.com will get my business. My Kindle will be laid to rest as I save for a Nook. I have also called the FBI at 202-324-3000 and they led me to a site IC3.gov to file a formal complaint. Which I did. I hope you will take action.

Blog, Tweet and FB this and other blogs like it. File a complaint. Complain to Amazon. Boycott them. Alone my voice is nothing. Together, we can make change.

I am linking like minded blogs to mine. If you have written a blog about this and would like to be added as a link, please email me at kimberly.kinrade at gmail dot com.

Thank you!

UPDATES

My Follow-Up Post "The Power of The Tweeple"

BLOGS TO READ

"The Pedophile's Guide To Shutting The Hell Up!" friend and awesome writer Tom of The Curse of Future Tom

Amazon is Right: A post from the awesome TellingDad
"Update: What now?
- I’m now told that Amazon hasn’t officially removed it from sale…only pulled it for a re-review. If they allow this to be sold then I’m done with them and any subsidiary, sponsor, or co-marketing partner. What kind of person would be able to review that book and approve it? They have the right to reject products. They are a corporation, not the sponsors of our Constitution. We’ll see if they side with children or profits soon enough."

Awesome blogger with regular updates on this issue

Hold Amazon Accountable for Pedophile Guide by Brandon Layng
A thought provoking look at the legal and moral implications in the Free Speech debate.

Amazon-What are you thinking?

A video challenge to boycott Amazon

Parents vs. Pedophiles

Dear Amazon...

MORE ON AMAZON

An AP Article on the outrage

Love, Sex and the Question of Age PART 3: Kids

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 01:50:00 +0000

What SHE SAYS:

There is a progression to life that we humans like to see followed. Man and woman meet. They fall in love. They get married. They have kids. They live happily ever after in wedded bliss, with a house, a few cars and a few maxed out credit cards. Oh wait, I think we deviated from Disney there. Sorry.

The point is, when you don’t follow this progression, people get concerned. Then worried. Then downright panicked. They’ve been dating for years, when ARE they going to get married? They’ve been married for years, when ARE they going to have children?

So when a younger man dates and commits to an older woman, questions arise. Dmytry and I addressed some of those in the first two posts of this series. But there is now the question of children.

He doesn’t have any biological children. I have three little girls. Will I want to have more children with him? Is it fair to deprive him of this opportunity to reproduce his own genetic material in such a wonderful way?

First of all, I’m in my early 30s. My children are still very young. While I am perfectly content with the kids I have, If Dmytry wanted a child that badly, I would be happy to experience that with the man I love.

However…

I can’t have any more children. I had an abdominal hysterectomy after my third child, for health reasons. Unless my uterus spontaneously regenerates, we will not be making baby Dmytrys anytime soon.

He knew going into this that he would be daddy to three amazing little girls, but they would never share his DNA. Is a younger man able to make that kind of choice without fear of regret? I don’t know. Are any of us ever able to make choices without that fear? Many couples struggle with infertility and don’t have the choice beforehand, nor do they have the built-in family we have.

I don’t know if he’ll regret his choice in 20 years. What I know is this…he has many years of fatherhood ahead of him. My girls love him and want a daddy that lives with them and loves them. I trust Dmytry with this responsibility because I know he will be an amazing and much needed influence in their lives.

They need him. Just as much as I need him.

Also, having three kids is a great natural form of birth control against the need for more screaming little ones.

And…we are writers. I know this sounds like a non-sequitur, but hear me out. The creative process is a birthing process. An idea builds inside us, gestating until it can survive on its own. We give it birth and set it free into the world, carrying a piece of our soul as it goes. Isn’t this really at the core of our desire to have a baby that’s genetically linked to us? That sense of sending into the world some part of ourselves that will live on?

Well, we have that in our work. And Dmytry is the best damn writer I know and will be giving birth to serious brilliance over the years. His work will live on. And through it all, he will have a full family life with all the joys and perils of fatherhood. Is this really such a sacrifice? Let’s let him decide.

I’ve asked him to comment on his feelings about stepping into the role of father for three children that are not his by birth, and how he feels about not being able to have one of his own. We each wrote our own response at the same time, without knowledge of what the other would say. Here is his reponse:

What HE SAYS:

On this Issue of Child-rearing:

Raising Angels

Parenting. The word makes me shiver and beam at the same time. I mean, it involves raising children with care and watching them grow with pride. (Ah, such lovely images.)

But...it involves raising children with care and watching them grow with pride.

And if I fail, I will never forgive myself.

You see, fatherhood had always been a fleeting thought in my mind. Sure, I wanted kids. And I was going to have them some time in the future. The far off future.

So, I didn't think much about parenting. Wasn’t burdened by that fear of such enormous responsibility and the consequences of failure. Life was good.

Then I fell in love with a woman who has three daughters, and that little thing that was so far away hit me straight in the face.

I’m going to be a dad. Soon! I don’t even get the standard 9 months to prepare myself.

Can I handle the pressures of raising three kids? Of being a role model? Of providing for them? Can I do all of this at an age when most are still growing up themselves, without children of their own?

Answer: I have to.

Not only for Kimberly, but for myself. I have to prove to myself that I can handle raising kids. That I can confront my fears.

And though I have only recently, due to my young age, found independence from my family, I feel like I can keep one together. And, honestly, I miss being part of one. A close one. One that eats dinner together and watches movies before going to bed. One that you can come home to everyday of the week.

So, am I worried about being a daddy to three little girls? Yes.

Do I want to be a daddy to three little girls? Yes.

And I will do anything to make sure I raise them properly. I will endure any stress, pain, and subsequent headaches in order to raise them properly.

But yes, I'm scared. I mean, what does properly mean anyways? Kimberly has informed me they didn’t come with an instructional guide.

But whatever. I’m committed to this. To them. And I will not let them down. Of that I am sure.

On the Issue of Biology:

Giving Birth to Creation

There is something special and unique about having your own biological child. It means a piece of you is going out into the world, continuing your legacy.

I can't have that with Kimberly.

Or can I...

Sure, there will be no physical part of myself going out into the world through our little girls. But what about the psychological? The emotional? The Spiritual?

My girls will carry the morals that I teach them, the knowledge that I share, and the emotions that they feel for me. Is that any less important than the physical?

No. It's even more important.

Almost any man can be a biological father. Few can be a real father, truly treating their kids as part of themselves.

That's what I'm going to do. And I can't wait to do it.

I feel blessed that Kimberly's daughters, including being adorable and brilliant, share a common interest with me: writing.

When I heard that they scribble down stories and discuss characters my heart melted and my jaw dropped. (There might have even been drool.)

My brother and I have never shared interests with our father, and I could see how a part of him was always saddened by this. Not disappointed. But sad.

And I wondered: when I had my own kids, would they enjoy writing? Beacuse really, that's my biggest passion in life. That’s where most of my knowledge resides.

And I must admit that if my kids hated writing or, god forbid, even reading, I'd be sad. I’d still love them and raise them to be strong in their own talents, but I would worry they would feel the same disconnect to me that I have always felt with my father. The same disconnect I know Kimberly often feels with her parents.

But Kimberly's children love writing and reading. They are bright and creative. And I'm happy.

Don’t get me wrong, I would love them and raise them as my own regardless of their artistic and creative inclinations. But isn’t a big part of wanting your own child motivated by that desire to see a part of yourself in them?

I see that in our girls. And I’m more confident now, knowing that I can relate to them. I can give them something even their own biological father can’t. A love and understanding of what makes them tick, or how they think and the kind of temperament they have. They need creativity, play, flexible structures that allow them to think outside the normal boundaries. I get that. I relate to that. So I can more fully appreciate and relate to them.

So, is it better to have a biological child and risk different interests, or to adopt another one who shares your passion?

I don't know.

But I do know that I love Kimberly's daughters. They are everything I could ever want or need. And I'm hoping that, one day, I can be that to them as well.

That I can be their father.

AND…Back to Kimberly:

Dmytry’s love of and passion for my children is overwhelming to me. I love him all the more for it. I had long since given up on believing a man like him even existed. A man who understands me so completely and loves me uncondtionallly. A man who shares my worldview, passions and interests. A man to whom I am sexually attracted and by whom I am creatively inspired. A man I love in return in all these ways and more. And a man who loves my girls just as much, and is willing to step up and be a true father to them.

There are men twice his age who would not want to take on that challenge.

So you tell me. Have we really missed out on anything? No. We haven’t. We’ve been blessed with more than anyone I know. And for that I will be forever grateful and in awe.

What’s next with Kimberly and Dmytry:

We’ve been blown away by the love, support, comments and stories we’ve received over the last several days. What started last week as a “hmmm…maybe we should blog about this whole age difference thing…” has become so much more. One post became two, became three…and now…

It is becoming a whole blog of its own. That’s right folks, we are starting a blog devoted exclusively to our life together. Each week we will write anywhere from one to three posts together, dealing with issues ranging from age, to children, to sex (in a PG style so we don’t have to reset our settings…), to our work as writing partners.

We’d love for you to join us on this journey. This isn’t going to be a blog about older women dating younger men. It's going to be about us as a couple and how we live, laugh and love our way through life together.

We hope our journey will inspire you on yours. That the lessons we learn will add value to your life, and that we can engage in a dialogue with you as we explore what it means to really love.

But we need a name! So we’re taking suggestions. A blog name and URL name (if different.) Keeping in mind that we are both published writers looking to land book deals (meaning our names will be, hopefully someday, well-known). We’re looking at variations of our names (Kimberly Kinrade and Dmytry Karpov) or some other thing entirely. Post your ideas here or contact us directly at KimberlyandDmytry@gmail.com.

And thanks for reading. We love you all!

Love,

Kimberly and Dmytry

Love, Sex and the Question of Age PART 2

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 23:40:00 +0000

Society Values What???

There’s a lot of criticism out there for those who follow their heart rather than societal views of how and who you should love. If you don’t “match” your partner closely in race, status, intelligence or beauty, you invite critique.

Nowhere is this truer than with the issue of age (though from what I’ve heard, race could be a close second.) It seems odd to me that in certain situations we feel it’s permissible, even morally imperative, to shove our two cents down the throats of those who engage in relationships or behaviors we don’t understand. We are mighty selective about what we choose to chime in on as well. We will ignore domestic abuse, child abuse, elderly abuse, the homeless, the poor, the injured…but put a 19 year old man in the arms of a 40 year old woman and all hell breaks loose.

Am I the only one struck by the insanity of this? And those who cite the desire to protect the sanctity of love and marriage should really take a good hard look at the statistics. Is it really the mismatched couples of the world leading high divorce rates? No. It’s not. Nor is it the homosexuals. Or the mixed-race couples. Come on people. Get some sense on this please.

People of like age, mind and social status marry and divorce all the time. They grow apart, cheat, lose interest, learn to hate each other etc. They fail to find common bonds, mismanage child rearing or money management, argue over movies and hate each other’s friends and parents. These joys of couplehood are not the exclusive domain of one group. It’s life. I had many of these experiences with every man of “appropriate age” I dated.

So let’s take a look at some of the most common arguments people use to naysay the Older Woman/Younger Man romance. (To be clear here, I’m not referring to specific ages or even decades. Older can mean early 30s if her partner is in their 20s. Whatever age gap between the man and woman that results in any kind of social stigma.)

As promised, my boyfriend Dmytry has compiled some rebuttals to counter all of this prejudicial nonsense.

What HE SAYS

16 year age gap

*A younger man can never hope to match the maturity level of an older woman.

Not true. Everyone develops differently and this issue can occur in close-age relationships as well. Compatibility and the ability to maintain a relationship depend on how well a couple's outlooks coincide and what they require from each other.

Does a mature woman require more than a younger one? Maybe. But many seek such things as a stable family, income, and place to live, including younger woman. The younger man--any man--if to satisfy these needs, must be able to understand them and to cope with the duties of attaining and maintaining them. This requires a specific kind of maturity and responsibility and is something that men can learn at any age. Some may attain it young, others never. Age is not the meter by which this kind of maturity is measured. Instead one must look at education, raising, and innate personality when determining a man's ability to act responsibly and handle pressure.

Also, varying maturity levels are not an issue in themselves. An older woman may use her maturity in beneficial ways, possibly compensating for any lack that the younger man might posses, solving a variety of relationship problems. But of course, a relationship should not be one sided, so the man must be able to meet the woman's needs, often generated by her own maturity, in order to keep their life together balanced.

I'll admit, Kimberly has been through a lot more than me. She's been through a lot more than anyone I know. But this hasn't made me feel inadequate or incapable. I treasure her experiences and learn from them whenever possible. Honestly, I learn from everyone I know.

*A younger man can’t hope to handle family responsibilities such as children and home life that the older woman may require.

Yes, raising children: something a young man is often said to be incapable of doing. However, children require different forms of attention and care, and some of these can be easily addressed by a younger man. First, a younger man can provide for the kids as any man capable of working. He can also watch them and keep them safe. Secondly, a young man can imbue children with the morals and knowledge they need. His only lack may arise in, once again, dealing with the responsibility and stress of raising children. Some men will be able to cope at a young age, others may not, and others may struggle. However, the more mature woman can always use her experience to help her partner handle problems.

Raising children, no matter what your age, is always a learning process. Both an older woman and a younger man, if first time parents, start off with the same level of experience in parenting. And people as young as 18 are known to marry and reproduce together quite frequently, bringing children into a family in which neither of them are experienced.

It would seem that if at least one partner is older, that would be an advantage. Also, the younger man brings a playfulness, energy and enthusiasm that children need and older men often lack.

Now, raising kids does feel daunting, but it would feel that way no matter what age I was. Nothing in my life can prepare me for that kind of responsibility nor give me the skills to do it perfectly. But I'm willing to try. I want to try. Besides, Kimberly knows so much more about kids than me and I will have her support. So, I can't fail. Right? Right, because failure's not an option.

*A younger man isn’t emotionally ready for a mature relationship and will likely be unfaithful with so many wild oats left unsown.

If you believe that, I'm surprised you trust any man, or humanity for that matter. Yes, it's true that once a younger man enters a relationship with an older woman he is, if faithful, deprived of any chance for other sexual and emotional relationships. But so is any other faithful man. Does age have anything to do with keeping it in your pants? Is there some kind of natural progression where a man sleeps with less and less women over time? No. Look at men like Hugh Hefner. Settling down has little to do with age.

But of course, some may argue that limiting a young man in this way is unjust, robbing him of experiences he is morally obligated to obtain. However, the entire purpose of relationships is to fulfill physical, emotional, and even spiritual needs. If an older woman can fulfill these for her younger man, than that is not depriving him of anything except disappointing and heartbreaking experiences. It’s true that these may be valuable experiences for some, but they only provide knowledge on how to best engage in effective relationships, which is not necessary if already engaged in one.

And I am engaged in one. And I don't have some sort of natural urge to be unfaithful. Instead, I have a natural urge to be with Kimberly.

*If the age gap is more than 7-10 years, the generational gap is too extreme. There will not be a basis for common ground and they will soon tire of each other.

I'm not tired. Anyway, though an older woman may have a wider range of experiences to draw from then her younger boyfriend in order to socialize and find commonality, there are still many topics of discussion that both can share. These are often found in things that have stood the test of time, such as classics and traditions. Also, there is always the present--a limitless topic--and the experiences that vary between the couple can provide fresh outlooks on life, allowing both to learn from each other.

Furthermore, not everyone is tied to their specific generational icons. Kimberly, for example, is sadly lacking in proper pop-culture knowledge of the last several generations. We are working on rectifying this. She is, however, brilliantly informed in literature, art, music and culture. This level of genius spans any gaps between us. The rest I can introduce her to.

What SHE Says

I hope you can see from just this brief glance how awesome this man is. As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I did not have a normal kid experience, and did not grow up knowing the same kinds of things other people did. I’ve never had common ground with men I dated, who were my age or older. It had nothing to do with age, and everything to do with finding a partner who understands how my crazy brain and heart work. And loves me for all the insanity.

Dmytry and I found that common bond on every level except that silly little number. Now, I’m not trying to negate the value of life lived, or the wisdom accumulated in years. There is something specifically important about passing those markers in life and taking the precious gifts they offer into the next phase. And there have been times where I threw a reference out there that left him with a blank expression. Oh No! What to do? Well, thank god for google.

So really, the only problem in all of this that is not a normal part of any relationship is how others view us. Except, being writers, we’re kind of morally obligated to defy societal norms anyways, so what the hell! We will live life on our terms, and enjoy success, connection, love, happiness and great sex. Those who don’t like it can crawl back to their own unhappiness. And those who can embrace that which is different, well, we’ll be throwing some kick-ass Halloween parties in the future. You’re all invited. Then, we can all be ANYTHING we want, and no one gives a damn!

See you at the party! Love,

Kimberly and Dmytry

Love, Sex and the Question of Age PART 1

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0000

"I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself." -- Rita Mae Brown

It's the soul connection that counts

Until recently I never imaged I would ever seriously date a man much younger than myself. I like to think I’m open-minded and mostly unprejudiced, but ageism is one of those things that sinks into us subtly and in unexpected ways, shaping our perception of everything. It permeates so many aspects of life, blanketing nearly ever opinion we form, that we don’t even see its presence. It’s simply everywhere.

When I was 16 and hell-bent on changing the world (and saving it) I had a Bible verse that I carried with me like armor.

“Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.” I Timothy 4:12

I’ve long since chosen a different spiritual path, but the message of that verse still resonates with me. That regardless of age, we can be examples to others, embodying the virtues we value.

For much of my life I was the “youngest.” Youngest kid in the class. Youngest girl at the dance. Youngest member of the committee or group. Youngest to start writing professionally.

By the time I was 12, I was spending my school breaks volunteering in Missions in Mexico and New Mexico, helping the poor, reading to kids, cleaning up trash. I worked all year babysitting and cleaning houses to pay for these trips. I wasn’t a normal kid. Didn’t have normal kinds of kid thoughts or experiences.

I grieved for lost souls, cried for those in pain, and buried my head in books. And I wrote. I didn’t know how to really engage in conversation with people my own age. So I talked to adults.

Shifting Roles

Somewhere along the way I stopped being the youngest wonder kid. I’m not a novelty anymore. I’m just me. Damn good at what I do. Sometimes even great. But just living my life.

When I met my now-boyfriend, I recognized a similar spirit. We became writing partners immediately. Like it was inevitable and what had taken us so long? His work is brilliant, and that genius resonated deeply with me. I knew his mind and heart before I knew his age. The connection was profound as we finally each found someone who “got us” and our work in a way no one else had. Through our critiques and discussions, we both grew as writers.

With writing, things get personal. We connected emotionally. Spiritually. Deeply. So, I was dismayed and shocked when I learned his age. And how many years spanned the gap between us. That prejudice I so hated when I was in my teens and early 20s came back to haunt me as I saw my life through a different lens.

We were still just friends. Partners in writing. So did it really matter? Could my ego handle the fact that I had met my match creatively and intellectually in someone younger? Yes. I decided it could. He was too extraordinary and too instrumental in my growth as a writer and human to let my stupid pride get in the way.

Obviously, after spending time together, things did not remain in the just friends department. And now we are both faced with spending our lives in a relationship that will always have an element of challenge to it, at least in the view of society. Why is this?

What’s Age Got to Do With It Anyways?

Celebrity couples who defy age difference

Why does that one number change so much? He is the same man he was before I knew his age. That has not changed. Daily he amazes me with his depth of insight, wisdom, intelligence, grace, humor and light. I’ve dated men my age and older, been married, and never have I met anyone who is equal to him. Someone with whom I have so much in common (from the little things of books, music, movies…to the bigger philosophical questions of the heart and spirit.) So why does it matter how old we are?

I have degrees in Communications, English, and Behavioral Science and did post-graduate work in Transpersonal Psychology. I am a Reiki Master, Hypnotherapist and have lived through much darkness and trauma in my life. I give you this brief resume to make the point that I am not oblivious to the workings of the human mind, personality and spirit, and how culture plays its part in that.

While it’s a complicated subject worthy of a dissertation, I will sum up my basic conclusion.

Symmetry is God

We are a culture of sameness when it comes to love and relationships. We want like with like. Age. Societal status. Economic standing. Intelligence. Attractiveness. When we look at a couple, we want to see something that makes sense. Something that matches. (The exception to this being homosexuals. We don’t like THAT much sameness, god no. That’s just wrong.) *really hoping you hear the sarcasm dripping from my voice right now…

So it’s not all that surprising that May-December romances are so controversial and frowned upon. They aren’t the same. That’s wrong. They must die.

I jest, but there’s some truth to the idea that we want dead and gone that which we do not understand.

It's worse also when the woman is older, rather than the man. Because woman mature faster and therefore seem more suited to an older man? No. Not really. More likely because we see age as power, until you get too old, then we take back your power. An older woman dating a younger man seems wrong somehow. We are threatened by any woman who takes control of her life and sexuality and is not seen as dependent on a man. Also, this presupposes a younger man can not care for his partner in the same way an older man might. (More on this in Part 2 tomorrow.)

People site life experience and maturity level as the real reasons they are opposed to these kinds of unions. Well, that sounds smart, ‘til you really get down to the fact that there are a LOT of men in their 30s, 40s and up who are immature children. (I should know; I’ve dated many of them.) So, obviously blowing out an extra candle on your birthday cake does not make you wise and mature.

We have a very bizarre relationship to age. We ridicule the young for being immature and untested. We brush off the more mature for being outdated and unnecessary. And we create a small window of time in which a person can really feel successful, sexual, happy, and contributing to society. What a waste of so much wisdom, knowledge, enthusiasm, energy, inspiration and life. In many cultures, the oldest member of a tribe assists in the birth of a newborn, because it is believed that both are closer to the true essence of god and life. Not so in our society. The young and old are tolerated members of a society structured to idolize the one phase of life in which we are considered valuable.

Ok, I know I’ve gone off on tangents, and maybe you were expecting a post on how great sex is with a younger man. And yes, there is a truth to that. Why waste such brilliant chemistry of a woman in her prime and a man at his sexual peak? The experience of the woman shaping the enthusiastic stamina of her younger partner. But this is just one aspect to a complex layering of the important dimensions of a great relationship. I’m not talking about the Cougar-syndrome of hunting the youth for sport of sex. I’m talking about real, meaningful, life-long relationships with sex as part of the equation, not the whole.

The Debate

Can an older woman and a younger man have a real intimacy and connection with which to build a life together? Why or why not? What real role does age play? Or is it really more about our perceptions of how a couple “looks” together?

My boyfriend and I are both on a path that could lead to wildly successful careers as authors in the not too distant future. Does this change perception? If we are both rich and famous does that mitigate the unease you feel when you see us holding hands on the street? If I look especially young and he seems especially mature, does that help? If we are both attractive and smart, do we seem a better fit for you? If you believe in souls, does an ‘Old Soul’ with deep wisdom, off-set lack of years in this life?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. And thank you to all my Tweeple on Twitter who made time to share their ideas and stories. Love you all! Stay tuned tomorrow for PART 2 as my boyfriend chimes in to address some of the most common arguments for why it would never work and shows logically why it can. And why, he tells me often, it has to for us. When I doubt and worry, his question is simple. “Given who we are together, how can you and I NOT work?” (He’s wicked smart, I wouldn’t argue his points…)

Pretty Penny

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 08:05:00 +0000

Was it just this morning that I wrote a pithy little post about how we as writers tap into the darkest horrors of our hearts? Yes. But a lifetime has come and gone since then. And a life.

This day was awash in premonition of the heartbreaking variety. I knew somewhere in the deepest part of me that I was to lose something important. Something irreplaceable. I had a very weepy, panic-inducing day with work and my boyfriend. Unsure. Uneasy.

When work ended with only minimal upset, and my boyfriend assured me all was well, I still cried. Unable to articulate this anxiety, except to tell him “I feel like I’ve dodged a fatal car accident.”

Not two hours later, I walked across the parking lot of my apartment complex to retrieve our laundry. The screen didn’t latch properly. I didn’t know this until I heard a small bark. Saw the tiny figure of my beloved Penny—my rare and beautiful Chihuahua bestowed as a gift two years ago by a dear friend--dart into the dark street to find me.

The driver of the car could never have hoped to see her little black body.

She was not able to dodge the fatal car accident that had gripped my heart all day.

I watched it unfold as if in slow motion, like some horrific nightmare. I was stuck, unable to move.

Penny screamed.

The car stopped.

I ran.

Darkness Comes

She lay on the ground twitching. My daughter Bella cried. I picked her up and held her. Head lolling to the side at an unnatural angle. Her dark, soulful eyes still penetrating. Heart racing.

Then. Spasms. Heart slowing. A skipped beat. Then. The last beat her heart would make in this life, this form. The eyes that held such wisdom glazed over with the sorrowful absence of Death.

She was gone.

I've seen the aftermath of Death's visit. But not until tonight have I felt life slip away under my fingers. The last heart beat.

And so, after the many tears of three little girls and arrangements with a vet to handle her body, I sit alone in my room, eyes red and swollen, crying for this little being who brought so much love into my life.

How do you judge the value of a life?

Penny taught me unconditional love. She loved me with loyalty and single-mindedness, no matter how impatient or distracted I became. Her deepest desire was to just be near me, loving me and receiving my love.

That’s it. So uncomplicated and beautiful.

And I too often took that love for granted.

Penny wasn’t a yippy, high maintenance dog. She just liked to cuddle. To sleep under my blanket at night, curled up on me. To squeeze her small frame into the space between me and the side of my chair as I read or wrote.

All she ever wanted was to be close to me. And she died in that pursuit.

I cannot handle any more pain.

I wonder how much the Universe really thinks I can take. We obviously have different ideas about my limitations.

From the Mouths of Babes

Penny & Madelynne

My children, they are handling this much better than me. They offer back to me the wisdom I have tried to teach them.

“Her soul cannot be hurt by death,” my 8 year old Madelynne tells me. Madelynne, who just celebrated her 8^th birthday yesterday.

Birth. Death. Cycles.

“She is finding a new body,” my 4 year old Lexie informs me. And so they consider what body Penny might choose for her next incarnation.

While I sob. Inconsolable. My boyfriend tells me to breathe. He sounds vaguely fearful that I will stop altogether and forget to start again.

And all through this, I write her story in my mind. Because as a writer, I cannot seem to process the events of my life without putting them to story.

The words pull the pain out of me and give if form and meaning. The words quiet the demons, at least for a time.

And I think of Bella, who wanted so desperately to write an alternate ending to this sad story.

“I wish I’d been there and had grabbed her.” “I wish this was a movie and Penny was still alive.” “I wish we could make it different so she was still with us.”

And I wish.

I wish I’d chosen a different time to get my laundry.

I wish I’d latched the door.

I wish I’d done 100 little things differently, anything that would have led to her being under my covers right now, while I wrote a blog on dating younger men as originally planned.

I wish.

And yet.

My boyfriend’s wisdom has kept this longing in check. “If we could keep going back to fix our lives, we'd never go forward,” he tells me. And he is right, as is so often the case. We have only one setting. Play. There is no Universal Remote that can rewind or fast-forward. I cannot zoom myself out of this pain, or beam myself back to that moment before the car crushed my puppy. I can only keep walking forward.

It’s all any of us can do.

In life, Penny taught me about Love.

In her death, Penny has taught me about Life.

She was only 2 ½ years old. She should’ve had many more years with us. A freak accident changed that fate. Life is unpredictable and full of challenges. There is pain and joy so blended together it’s hard to tell them apart. But I have learned tonight never to take anything for granted.

If I had known last night was the last time I would feel Penny curled up in bed with me, how would it have shaped my experience of that moment?

I don’t know what the next moment holds for me. But I know that I need to be more conscious of staying in this moment. Giving and receiving love. Being happy.

Writers tap into the darkest horrors of the heart. But through the words we use, we can transmute those horrors into beauty.

Thank you Penny, for the Love, Life and Laughter you brought to our home. You will be missed.

Pretty Penny

April 15, 2008 to November 1, 2010

"Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud..."

— Yann Martel (Life of Pi)

A POEM FOR PENNY:
Spirited Reflections: Soul Journey :

I call to you, my brother wolf,

howling in the misty twilight

of the new moon.

Do you hear my soul’s song,

echoing through the trees?

I am here waiting for you;

to join me on this lonesome journey.

Come walk the ancient path with me,

across the sky, past the stars,

To the cave of souls;

where we might take our long rest

with those who have passed before us.

Can you here them calling?

Chanted whispers, of family and friends,

gently weaving their way through

the great celestial bodies,

leading us home.

By Ranee Dillon

Drop by Drop, Bird by Bird, and Word by Word

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 19:50:00 +0000

Another NANOWRIMO BLOG? *SIGH*

How do you write 50K words in 30 days? With kids. And a FT writing job. And a Boyfriend who likes to hear your voice from time to time. And other projects due, like website content and competitions to keep you in the game. And sleep. Well, ok, we'll let that last one go, cuz it clearly 'aint happening.

Yes, folks, this is yet ANOTHER blogger writing about #NaNoWriMo. What can I say? Peer pressure is a bitch. And now, only the threat of public failure is keeping me from crawling under a rock and deleting my whole online identity (which for you NaNonites is KimberlyKinrade if you want a buddy.)

Halloween Inspiration

It occurred to me while discussing with my Significant Other the merits of Halloween, that it really is a writer's holiday. Think about it, to be brilliant at the whole writing thing, you have to tap into some pretty dark shit right? Even if you're not Stephen King, who, let's face it, is scary as hell. Actually, hell probably redecorated after reading King.

But seriously, writing real characters, even if they live on imaginary planets and worlds, requires us to go deep into our own pain, fear, misery, loathing, etc. By putting pen to paper we exorcise our own demons, and animate those skeletons other people keep buried under their skinny jeans and clothes-I'll-some-day-fit-back-into in the closet. (Well, if I wanted something to stay well and truly hidden for all of eternity, that's where I would bury it. Just saying.)

All the other holidays have this kind of peppy Disney gloss about them. We ignore the whole how-we-made-all-the-natives-sick part of Thanksgiving. (At least here in the States.) We sing about a fat men in a red suit and his sweat shop run by midgets in green for Christmas. (Freaky, that.) We (and this one is...huh?) celebrate a bunny ---a bunny people--- hiding eggs everywhere for Easter. Ok, some of this is starting to sound more frightening than the Day of the Dead, but you get the point. Halloween is when we let our monsters out and take them for a ride. We scare each other with the dark side of humanity. We tell STORIES.

What's the Point?

So, walking (or maybe kind of collapsing resignedly) into National Novel Writing Month, we take with us this inspirational holiday of storytelling. Which, btw, was further boosted by Neil Gaiman's genius #AllHallowsRead, for which my children will grow to experience as more cemented into their traditions than bunnies laying eggs.*This I vow*

But...but. It's daunting. Yes. It is. We can all admit this. Even if you could lock yourself in a room for 30 days, naked and with just food and water and your writing implement of choice, it would still be daunting to stare at a blank page and make it dance with lives and worlds yet unsung and untold.

So, here is my inspirational cheer for all of us insane enough to embark on this journey.

Drop by Drop, Bird by Bird, and Word by Word

An ancient teaching says wisdom accumulates drop by drop. This is true for books. A book is written word by word. Just write one. Go ahead, right now. Write a word. See there? That's one. Now keep doing that. It's fun and you will find they add up. I don't know of ANY author EVER in the whole history of authoring who ever wrote a book doing more than one word at a time. Feel free to correct me though, if there's some freaking genius out there who wrote a book with, like, the left and right hand at the same time or something.

In Anne Lamott's book "Bird by Bird" she says writing a novel is like driving across country at night. You can only see a few feet in front of you, but you can make the whole trip that way (but presumably only if your headlights are working.) She also describes the night as a child when she procrastinated and had a HUGE paper do on birds. Surrounded by books she cried to her father. He said "Honey, bird by bird. Just write it one bird at a time." Or something like that. You can read her book for the exact quote and a ton of other great shit on writing and life.

Sooooo...

So, to all who write this month. JUST DO IT! (Nike is paying me to say this.) To all who don't write, but still read my blog, this wisdom applies to lots of stuff. Even doing dishes. (I have actually thrown out dishes and/or cookware when my appalling cooking had destroyed something beyond my desire to clean...but even then, bird by bird I could have gotten it cleaned and put away.) See how reading my blog can actually save you money and make you wise? Tell your friends!

Question

What task overwhelms you to the point of tears and incoherent mumblings of a madman? How do you cope?

Share a Shiver for All Hallow's Read

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 18:10:00 +0000

'Tis true. The rantings and ravings and rumors. Not just of madmen. THE Neil Gaiman has brilliantly proposed a new Halloween holiday tradition. One I love more than fireworks on the 4th and eye patches on Talk-Like-A-Pirate-Day.

All Hallow's Read. Each Halloween, give the treat of terrors and tremors with the share of a fantastically scary read.

How much do I love books and sugar and scary haunts all at once? Sooo freaking much.

So, Let's do THIS! Let's give this best of all holiday treats some traction, by getting our butts out there and buying books for all.

Dilemma though. So many of my friends are online. ;( And I love you all and would buy each of you a scary book if I could. But I can't. Sooo...another idea.

Let's sit around my campfire, and tell scary stories to each other. Come on, you know you want to. Invite your friends, grab a log and warm your hands. It will be a looooong night, and the forest on the Night of the Dead is unforgiving. Cuddle up to someone you love and let the spooking commence!

I shall start with two little gifts. A link to the scary tale of what happens when you get cyber-sucked dry in THE NOTHING. (This will force you to leave my page, so click back ok?)

And...a tidbit. A little moment in a the life of a scary story. What is the scariest thing you can write in just a few words? To share a shiver, share a story. So, link your favorite scary nightmare (it can be yours or others), and share a little something for us to sink our teeth into now.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

"She was curled up in bed reading by firelight, when she heard the sound that would lead to her end.
She would think later, what an innocuous sound to spell out death's last breath. She would think this as she watched her hand twitching in the corner without her. She would think this as her fingers were flayed. She would think this even as the sound of the saw cracked against her skull. Then she would not think at all.

She read her book. Unaware of future thoughts. Alone and safe. House locked tight. Until she heard the sound that led to her end.
The toilet flushed in her hallway bathrooom. Water ran. Footsteps."

The Chicken Nuggets Must Live!

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 00:05:00 +0000

New poster for Earth Awareness Month? I think so…

The Making of a Revolutionary

When my oldest daughter was 2 and first learned the sad hard truth of the chicken nugget, she formed a revolt. “The Chicken Nuggets Must Live!” she shouted, tiny fist in air.

She’s turning 8 this Halloween, and while she still eats the occasional nugget (see my tweet on how my children were contemplating a world where nuggets were made of people, butterflies and dinosaurs), she is still a revolutionary. And, the staunchest environmentalist I know.

I have been recycling and sometimes composting since she was born. She went to a Waldorf School for her first year, and she loves animals and nature. It’s not surprising then, that she doesn’t want the earth to die. What is surprising to me is how consistent she is in the little things.

She will pick up the grossest, nastiest piece of garbage you can imagine, and walk blocks to find a proper receptacle for it. As a mother, I cringe. And caution. And buy her gloves. As a human, I applaud her. (I do this as her mom too, don’t get me wrong.) She even cleans up lunch trash while other kids play. And she is making a difference. With each piece of garbage she picks up, she is saving something of our earth for the future.

Lessons from the Young

So often we as grown-ups get so burdened by oil spills and toxic waste and ozone layers that we forget to bend down and pick up that paper on the sidewalk. Yes, we need to be conscious of the global impact our collective choices make. But, don’t let those issues become so overwhelming as to paralyze you from the simple day-to-day things we all can do to make life more beautiful.

The other day when we got home from work/school, she saw some trash on the grass in our apartment complex and took it to the bin. Then she drew the picture you see above. On her own. Without any prompting. I was floored. And awed. And proud. In case the quality makes it hard, that’s an X in the eye of the deer eating trash, because it will die. (The other deer is smiling btw, and I’m really mostly sure that’s a leg…)

Happy Almost Birthday Honey. This world is better for having you walk with it.

My CyberMess

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 05:04:00 +0000

Out of Control

If you ever saw Stephen King’s miniseries, “Rose Red” then you know what my cyber life has been like to date: a monstrous house somehow built, somehow added on to in a way that only the rich could: with rooms in random places and staircases going nowhere. It becomes possessed, as so many things in King’s work do, and it grows of its own accord.

Many years ago, when the internet was first invented, I got an email account. Then later, I was coerced, bullied and cajoled into social media. First Facebook. A million invites before I finally acquiesced. Then jango. Which turned out to be a borderline pornographic dating/booty call site posing as a music site. Then blogging and tweeting and LinkedIn and…

And now, I have hotmails, gmails, yahoos, AIMs and Skypes and goodness knows what else. I have more virtual friends than friends in person. Even my romantic life exists mostly in cyberspace, as work prevents me from living near the man I love.

Attack of the CyberSpace Aliens

I am in danger of being consumed. And it is growing. I googled my name for fun, and discovered I am a member of sites I have no memory signing up for. And it is ME, picture and all. WTF? No clue. My cyber self is taking over. (I recently wrote a short little horror piece about this. THE NOTHING. Check it out.)

My writing career has also morphed over the years. From college editor and writer, to journalist and fairly well-known Los Angeles Entertainment Writer to SEOs and PRs and articles and webcopy. I’ve written plays and scripts, and short stories and blogs. Ghostwritten books and more articles. Random, eclectic, spread out all over the web and print world.

And now, it’s time.

It’s time to get organized. To utilize the web for all its power. I can waste my life lurking on sites and clicking buttons like a trained monkey in hopes of unlocking the magic of the net, or I can get a system in place that works.

I’m a writer. A damn good one most of the time. But I am not a web-specialty-goddess-of-cyberworld-person. No. That is not me. Fact is, navigating that world makes my brain feel like its trying to escape my skull. With a chainsaw.

But…But. It’s not good enough to be damn good, or even brilliant, if only my mom and brother read my blog? If only my kickass writing partner knows how great my work is? Then what is the point of it all? No. This will not do. So…

I got help.

Cyber Goddess to the Rescue!!

Marian Schembari. She IS a bonified web-specialty-goddess-of-cyberworld-person. And she has helped direct me down the path of all that is right and good and effective in cyberworld social media management.

And now, finally, my Twitter is being revamped as I address issues and work toward goals.

(These being, get followers, get an awesome agent, sell my work, and become wildly famous and rich with nannies and assistants and the man I love close at hand…world domination may be next, I’ll keep you posted…)

Then, this blog. Yes folks, it’s going the way of dinosaurs, minus the museums. I will have a stellar new website complete with blog and work and the world will gasp in awe at the brilliance of it all. Well, at the very least, I hope some of the world visits it long enough to gasp in awe.

So I’m streamlining, focusing, branding and marketing myself. It’s painful, and time consuming and much like parenting. If I don’t create discipline now, my cyber house will grow up a criminal with evil intentions. It will take over and kill everyone. And none of us want that.

The Tale of Two Women

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 17:27:00 +0000

This is the story of two women, as the title implies. The consequences of paths chosen. The final form of experiences that shape us.

A Life Lost

A woman once lived who born many sorrows. Scars marred the flesh of a life lived in pain. Love had left her beaten and broken, with children to support and an empty wallet and future. Her body ached under the strain of stress. Each step forward met her with hills and traps and impossible challenge. She had no help. No support. No one but her own dwindling ability to see her life in light and hope.

The mundanity of her existence brought on herself an existential crisis of disconnect. The rinse and repeat cycle of never-ending demands of hearth and home wore her down, breaking what little was left of her spirit.

Haunted by demons of the past, hounded by demons not yet met, the nevermore and evermore left her little peace.

She was a soul without rest.

A Life Lived

A woman once lived who born many sorrows. But also many joys. The pain of past horrors had alchemized in her soul, revealing a transformation of consciousness and form. Love had pushed through the tar that might have trapped her in pity and poor choices. Each step forward greeted her with unexpected triumphs and unimagined turns. Hope and happiness filled her life, with the laughter of her children as a guide to each new magic.

Through growing strength and independence she found a will to create and relate.

The calming routine of her family focus left her free to explore the interior landscape of her own imagination. She created worlds and wonders and thrilled in the joy of awakening to pleasures of beauty and the fire of life.
Deepened by the scars of her past, she reveled in the present and welcomed what was to come with wonder and awe.

She was a soul without limits.

The Choice

Choose a life. Choose a path. We think we are in what we have no choice to change. That circumstances beyond our power have conspired to move us from one point to the next.

Not so. We are both. We are all. My story is told with pain and with hope. I am the life lived, or the life lost. I am that which I choose to perceive. Both women are one. Both women are me. Only I can choose how to tell my story. Only I can choose how I interpret my world.

My Unbreakable Heart

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 23:04:00 +0000

It’s October. The month I became a mother almost 8 years ago, Halloween. It’s also Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Last year, as a part of my own self-healing process, I wrote a story. It was my story, framed as fiction. Everything in it was real, except the device I used to tell it. Somehow discussing my marriage. The pain. The abuse. The heartache and tears and lies and betrayals. Somehow it was easier to talk about these people in the third person. To step back and see them as characters in a story I’d written. And I guess they were, in a way. In my 8 year marriage, I somehow became a caricature of myself. Living a life that wasn’t mine. Playing a part.

This is the first time I’ve written about those experiences as me. You can catch most of the details in the story below. But now, a year after having written it, I feel it needs some discussion.

Why do women stay in abusive marriages? This is the question most people think, if they don’t ask it outright. Hell, I STILL ask this question, as I have yet to come up with an adequate answer for myself.

In my story, the one below this post, it ends with my character enjoying a state of enlightenment I can only hope to achieve.

Who I Was and Who I Will Be

Right now, I am somewhere in the middle of who I was then and who I hope to be. I’m a woman, a writer, a single mom of three beautiful girls, struggling to make sense of myself, my past and my life. If you had asked me 10 years ago what I would do if a man strangled me, threatened to kill me, or hurt me in any way physically, my answer would have involved many expletives and a detailed description of what his key body parts would be doing without him.

I was strong. Beautiful. Independent. Intelligent. Educated. Trained in martial arts. A feminist. I was all the things you would NEVER expect of an abused wife. And then I became an abused wife. And all those other adjectives fell to the wayside as I became a ghost of myself, haunting my own life.

My husband wasn’t an evil man. I wasn’t a spineless, uneducated wimp. These are stereotypes that people like to imagine are true, so they feel immune to the realities of what could be. At least that’s how I thought.

Why did I stay?

Because I still believed it would change. Get better. That he would change. Because the image of him I held in my head wasn’t based on anything real, but I’m VERY good at imagining. Because I needed to not fail at this oh-so-important ritual of life. And then, because I wanted my girls to be raised by both parents. Because I didn’t (and still don’t) want to be a single mom. Because I was scared of losing him. Of what he would become. Of what I had become. Of facing the truth of myself. And because I was scared no one would believe me. (And many of our friends didn’t. He was, after all, more fun and easy going of the two of us. He plays video games and “hangs out” a lot. I don’t. So there’s that.)

But, I did leave. Well, I gave him a choice and he chose to leave. And I was left with the shell of myself. It took me 8 months to come out of my self-inflicted coma. What I saw when I finally looked in the mirror (proverbial and literal) shocked me. The memory of me was shattered by the reality of who I had become.

It’s been almost 2 years now. I am stronger. Wiser (I hope). Healthier. I’m doing work I love and supporting my children. But still inside me lives this demon of fear. It’s not as big. It’s not getting fed the steady diet it once enjoyed. But it’s not yet gone either.

In May I went up north to face my ex in court for a custody trial. And everything came back. My self-confident, intelligent, unflappable veneer was utterly blown apart. I sat in the witness stand and endured several hours of cross-examination by this man who had chosen to represent himself. My best friend as well as my attorney both likened the experience to watching a rapist cross-examine his victim. My body language, tone of voice, demeanor, all screamed “VICTIM!” Whereas his…well…he was the bully.

The abuser.

It’s absurd really. How guilty I felt when he asked me questions that would make him look bad.

“Did I ever tell you why I refuse to pay the child support?” “Yes.” “What did I tell you?”

I sheepishly glanced at my attorney, wondering “am I really allowed to answer that?”

Apologetically and with more fear than I like to admit, I told the court.

“Because you are angry that I have custody and you have supervised visitation and you said this was the only way you had to control me.”

“Isn’t it true that while we were married you completed your college degree and went to grad school?” Which sounded like “Isn’t it true that you sold yourself on a street corner, pimped out our kids and used meth during our whole marriage?”

“Yes.” As in “I’m so sorry I had the nerve to do something so awful and pay for it myself.”

And so it went.

At the end I was shaken, unnerved and undone.

But I survived it. And it was a hell of an eye-opener.

So my story is still evolving. I still wear the scars of that life. I still wake up nearly every night in a panic of fear and anxiety, never really feeling safe. Feeling invisible hands choking me.

And I have greater empathy for those who don’t leave. But also greater knowledge that they MUST leave. Or they will die. One way or another.

I would have died. Within a few years I imagine. If I had stayed. One way or another, I would be dead now.

We need to be aware. Aware that abusers don’t all look like scumbags wearing wife-beaters. And the abused don’t all look like the stereotypes we imagine.

The abusers can be fun, easy going guys who enjoy hanging with their friends. The abused can be strong, independent women who enjoy a successful professional life.

You just never know.

But you need to know.

We all need to know. It can happen anywhere. To anyone. At any time.

It happened to me. And I will never be the same because of it. I just hope my story will help bring light to this issue. Help women walk away. Help men reassess how they handle their anger. Help those on the sidelines understand a little more why she would ever stay. And why she HAS to leave.

*** Please let this lead to discussions about domestic violence. I was not a "normal" case. I wasn't isolated from my family. I worked. I was never "hit" but rather choked. It was easy for me to justify and ignore what was happening because of the stereotypes I held. What stereotypes do you carry about domestic violence? How has this post helped you question those? What do you wish people knew about this subject?

The Unbreakable Heart

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 20:42:00 +0000

The Unbreakable Heart
By Kimberly Kinrade
#In Honor of October: Domestic Violence Awareness Month

There are moments in life so profound, so heart-wrenching, that there is no perspective beyond the pain. Only time reshapes these events into something meaningful.

Kassandra sat legs folded in front of the fire, letting the lapping flames caress her naked flesh. The full moon above her lit the small pile of treasures in her hands. This was a rebirth into the life of her choosing. She hoped. If Samantha was right. If she could walk away from the last eight years.

Kassandra was not prepared for this journey, and often thought fondly of ignorance. Then she would think of him. And she knew this pain had to be better than his path of numbing blindness found at the bottom of a bottle. No matter how afraid she might be.

“Slaughtered Hope”
I walk the minefield of our broken dreams
Navigating to the other side of fear

An invisible body bag has moved into our home
Hiding the remnants of who you were

They returned to me your body
But your empty eyes reveal your slaughtered soul

I bleed out on the battlefield of our marriage
Wondering what awaits me on the other side of death

I cock my gun and take aim
How do I kill the empty spaces left in you?

She had written this poem when she still thought there might be hope, though she imagined no one would know that by reading it.

Here we go, she thought, trying to ignore the flickering fear in her gut, and laid the small piece of paper in the fire. As she watched the fire dance with the paper, she felt the burn in the deepest part of her soul.

She choked back a sob at the picture she held. They looked so happy. So in love. So beautiful. It was a day of fear and hate transformed into love by their one act of defiance against terrorism.

***
September 11, 2001

“Marry me?” he begged, his eyes so sincere and adoring.

Kassandra sat on the edge of his bed still reeling from the cinematic horror she had just witnessed. If she hadn’t known better, she wouldn’t have believed what she’d seen. How could the two towers be gone? All those people? All those lives? People she knew. She was supposed to be in New York right now. She could have been in those towers.

“Kass?” his voice pulled her back to him.

“Hmm?”

“Marry me,” He repeated.

“We are getting married,” she reminded him, holding up his dog tags around her neck. Her engagement ring. His pay and their whirl wind courtship didn’t allow for fancy jewelry. She didn’t mind. It was romantic. Exciting. Just like him. Their chemistry was nothing she’d ever imagined, let alone had. Soul mates.

Her friends and family questioned her sanity. She was more educated, worldly, liberal. He did manual labor and was in the National Guard.

But she saw things they didn’t. He was well-read, brilliant in his own way. He was kind and sexy and made her laugh. When she looked in his eyes she saw her future.

They’d been inseparable since the night they’d met in a bar, while on her summer break from college. She wasn’t much of a drinker. She didn’t think he was either, despite his recent DUI. It was a fluke. Besides, he’d promised to cut back if she didn’t like it, and he had. He adored her, looked at her as if she was the only woman on earth. Worshiped her body with every inch of his. She felt her face flush at the thought of just how that worship had made her feel last night.

“Kass, I just got the call,” he said and her heart stopped. “I’m on two hour alert. I could be deployed to Iraq at any moment. Marry me today. I want to know you’re mine when I board that plane.”

Deployed? Leaving her? Iraq?

“No…” she muttered under her breath, tears leaking out of her eyes.

“No, you won’t marry me?” he asked thickly.

“No, I mean yes, I’ll marry you, but I don’t want you to leave. I’ve given up New York and the best college to be with you. You can’t leave me now.”

She felt pathetic. Desperate. Unlike herself entirely.

Her wedding day was not what she had expected. It was planned in six hours and took place in a small chapel. She had a dress, a cake, roses, and shoes. Her husband-to-be spent their wedding day buying bullets and polishing guns.
That all disappeared the moment they stood face to face at the altar. Her bright blue eyes met his chocolate brown, forever committing to love, honor and cherish him, and he her. Their kiss made the world disappear.
***
Kassandra ignored the tears as she placed the picture in the fire. It curled around the edges and then caught flame, causing their features to turn into a macabre version of their true selves.

The next picture was harder. This was the reason she could never truly be free of him. And the reason she fought so hard to stay alive and retrieve her right to life. Unlike the last picture, in this one she looked tired and worn out, wearing a hospital gown. She’d just been through 40 hours of labor and an emergency C-Section. But she was holding the bundle of love that made it all worth it. Leo had his arm around her and their daughter, Kali.

***
October 31, 2002

Kassandra didn’t know what was happening. Everything was moving too fast. Something was wrong with the baby. They were wheeling her out, to surgery. NO! She cried. This was supposed to be a natural birth. No one listened to her pleas. She endured the drugs, the epidural. The vomiting that would have choked her had Leo not intervened. He saved her. In that moment she forgave him for all the pain. The frequent drinking binges leaving her alone and pregnant for days at a time. She forgave his violence when he was drunk. The way he’d choke her until she couldn’t breathe. The way his arms that held her in love would suddenly turn into weapons aimed at hurting her. She forgave him for everything. They’d created a life. He was saving her life. The baby would change it all. They were a family now.

Then she heard it. A cry. One little cry. Their eyes locked as they both heard their first born daughter make her first sound of life.

The staff bundled her and brought the baby to Kassandra. They wouldn’t let her hold her baby. Kali was covered from head to toe, revealing only her small elfin face. Her big brown eyes were wide and open. They connected. She saw God in those eyes. Eternity. Life. Pure Love. Then they took her away. She choked back tears. Don’t take my baby, she said. They didn’t listen. The drugs took hold of her. She couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. She drifted to sleep as she remembered her baby’s eyes, as her heart, no longer beating in her chest but now wrapped in a pink blanket, wandered the halls of the hospital in the hands of strangers.

***

This one was harder to let go. They're safe, she reminded herself. They're in bed, just a few feet away. It's the memory you've got to let go, not them.

She would never be free of him; they had created three lives together. She would not trade those amazing beings for anything. Not even to retrieve the eight years she had allowed her soul to die as he abused her body and manipulated her mind until she almost lost herself entirely. Almost. It was done so subtly she didn’t even see it happening. Like the frog boiling in a pot of water. The temperature rose so slowly that she was dying before she even knew she was wet. She had followed the pattern cut for her by society and ended up wearing a life ill-fitted for her soul.

Samantha's face appeared before her, and she swallowed. Remember, she thought. The journey is not yet done. You can do this.

She stared at a picture of a beautiful house lit by Christmas lights with a happy family of five on the porch. The girls sported glowing faces, giddy in anticipation of Santa. The promise of a spring garden lay covered in snow and danced with lighted reindeer. A postcard moment. It was her last picture for her purging fire. This was the moment for which her heart had feared and eagerly anticipated in equal measure. She remembered the strawberries that grew in the backyard in the summer. The mud pools the children would dig and play in on hot days. They’d finally achieved everything they’d wanted in life.

She made herself cast it into the flames. Letting her “perfect” house burn.
***
February 2007

They finally felt at home, not just in their new house, but in Olympia, Washington. It was everything they wanted in a community. Food co-ops, alternative schools, close to the military base where Leo was receiving never-ending medical treatment for the injuries he’d sustained in Iraq, nice neighbors, and gorgeously green surroundings.

Kassandra was a rising star at her insurance company. Her bonuses kept growing almost in proportion to their lifestyle. Even without Leo’s income, it was the most they’d ever made.

Leo was off of alcohol and cigarettes. They were in counseling together and he went privately to work through the rage and anger that he’d always had and that had been fed as if on steroids since his time in the “sandbox.”

Kassandra was optimistic. She was more in love with him than ever. He had potential untapped but incredible and beautiful to behold. She had been the most faithful, supportive wife while he was off fighting the war. While other wives left their husbands, breaking under the pressure, she held steady. Loving him, praying for him, sending letters, pictures, care packages, even a birthday party in a box for him and his friends, party favors included. She’d done everything but fly out to see him. She would have done that if she could have.

Now, they were finally together again. They planted trees and berry bushes and created play areas for the children. Leo built Kassandra a custom office with floor to ceiling bookshelves. She loved it, and loved him all the more for it.

But, there were times. Oh, there were times.

The night Leo came home so drunk he was throwing up and crawling, Kassandra’s heart landed somewhere in her gut, if the pain was any indication. She stayed up all night to keep Leo from choking on his own vomit. For her good deeds, he puked all over her. Still, she told herself that maybe it was an aberrant one time fall. Certainly he wasn’t going back to his binge drinking? She couldn’t survive that again.

The lies continued, and she stayed blind, hoping that her faith would be enough to reverse the truth of their failing family. She worked harder and harder as the economy started taking chunks out of her previously fat checks. Bills were no longer easy to pay. Their debts piled up. They lost their new mini-van with the built in DVD player and heated seats. Everything was falling apart. Her dedication to the book “The Power of a Praying Wife” didn’t seem to be yielding the promised results.

Kassandra was on the edge of hysteria. Her carefully crafted dreams were turning and twisting on her, becoming desperation. It seemed the harder she held on, the more out of control her life became. She began to get very sick; her body was in pain all the time. She was diagnosed with various incurable conditions and put on pain medications. She took more and more pills just to get through her long work day, trying to keep their lives intact. She came home exhausted and tired. Leo’s night walks got longer and longer, until he was gone for most of the night nearly every night. Coming home from his “walks” only after the bars had closed. Then he would sleep all day while their children bleakly endured daycare.

The war on terrorism had finally come to her home. He terrorized her with death threats in front of their children, he’d have flashbacks that led him to choking her into near unconsciousness with their children in the next room, and one night he attacked their middle child, shaking her so hard her head bobbed back and forth while screaming at her inches from her face. Kassandra had to pry loose his fingers from Rose and lock him out as she consoled all their terrified children.

Her life was dying without her permission. The coaching and counseling were not helping because Leo didn’t want help. She created a plan and one night approached him with it. Would he agree? She doubted it.

What would she do then? She didn't know. But she had to try.

“Leo, we need to talk.”

“Ok,” he said, giving her half his attention as he continued playing on his X-Box.

“Please pause the game, I need your attention.”

“One sec, I just need to get to the next stopping point or I’ll lose my spot.”

She waited impatiently. Finally he turned to her, looking eager to get back to his game.

“This isn’t working. We’re not working.” She fought the tears that started to cloud her vision. She didn’t want to be one of those women who used tears to manipulate an argument. But she couldn’t help it. She had become a lot of things she didn’t want to be in this marriage. Bitchy, pushy, controlling. Anything in an attempt to keep order and maintain their lives.

“So, what do you want to do?” he asked.

“Leo, our house is being foreclosed." Was she getting through? Was he listening? Or was the siren song of the stupid game too loud for him to hear her?

"We owe the kids’ school thousands of dollars. We can’t maintain this lifestyle. Not only that, but my health is getting worse and you’re out of control. I can’t live like this. Something has to change or…or we can’t be together.”

He stayed very still and very quiet for so long Kassandra wondered if he’d heard her or if he’d fallen asleep with his eyes open. She despaired. There'd never been any real hope of getting through to him.

“I don’t want to lose you.” he said.

She couldn’t hold the tears back anymore.

“I don’t want to lose you either, but you need help. Help I can’t give you. And we have to find a way to live on the income you’ll be getting on disability. I can’t work until I get better; we’re way over our heads.”

“So, what do you want me to do?” he asked.

Hope flared. “Get help. Real help. In house rehab treatment for PTSD, anger and alcoholism. I’ll wait for you. Help you. Go to the classes for the families. Anything. But you need a sponsor, someone besides me who will keep you accountable and sober. We’ll move to Lake County, California where we have friends. The cost of living is much lower and it’s away from any military influence. It’s a fresh start. When you’ve completed your treatment, then we’ll rebuild our lives. I’ll do everything I can to support you. I want this to work. I’ll do my part, but you have to do yours.”

“But our house…” he said sadly. This house was everything to him.

“I know. But we’re going to lose it no matter what. The place I’ve picked is more affordable and there’s a local charter school that will provide the children a great education for free. We need free right now.”

He surprised her by kissing and hugging her, whispering the word she didn’t dare believe she’d hear from him.

“Ok.” He kissed her again. “We’ll do it. I’ll do it. I’ll do anything to make this work. I don’t want to lose you. I can’t live without you.”

***
I can't live without you. Words she'd longed to hear, begged to hear, thought she'd never hear again. The house burned in the fire. Her house. Her prison of lies and of denial. Her American dream. Her American turned nightmare.

Burn it all. And what will be left when it's gone? She suddenly couldn't remember why she was doing this in the first place. All she could remember was ...

***

May 14, 2008

“I thought you weren’t going to email her anymore? Now you’re encouraging it?” Kassandra accused in a voice she hated. A voice cultivated after years of marriage to this man.

“It’s just an email, it’s nothing,” Leo lied.

“Nothing. Right. Your ex-wife contacts you and makes comments about the great orgasms you gave her and how much she misses you and it’s nothing. I assume your membership to the online dating club is nothing too,” she asked, her voice thick with sarcasm and pain. “Leo, we had an agreement about this.”

“Well, I’m changing it,” he said in defiance.

Kassandra sighed.

“Leo, this place is perfect for us. I picked this house for you. I know it’s not as green and lush as Washington, but it’s beautiful, and cleansing. And it has all the small town charm that leads to real community, which is what we wanted. Plus, we can afford it.”

There was a magical energy here that enlivened Kassandra. It seemed to irritate Leo. He hadn’t even feigned happiness since the move.

“Leo, you can’t have it both ways. We talked about this in counseling. You’re either in or out. You’ve already turned down at least one opportunity for treatment. When are you going to get help?”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Kassandra knew she had just pulled the grenade and thrown it.

“I’m not going to treatment. When I leave, I’m not coming back.”

A grenade, indeed, and it had just exploded. Kassandra froze. Despite everything, she realized she'd never believed he'd actually say it. She pulled at her long, curly brown hair as if it might offer some insights. She looked down at her body. A body once much sexier, but which had been reshaped by pregnancy and pain. A body she was trying to heal, but couldn’t. Not when all of her time and attention was devoted to Leo and the children. How could he possibly choose alcohol over their marriage and children?

“You’re not coming back, ever?”

“No, we’re done. I can’t do this anymore.”

“You mean you’d rather drink than be a man and a father.”

“I can’t be who you want me to be,” he shot back in exploding anger.

She sobbed.

“Where will you go?” she asked.

“Back to Washington. I’m going to stay in our house and try to delay the foreclosure for awhile, and then I’ll figure something out.”

He was more delusional than she’d imagined.

“What about the kids?” she asked. What about me, she thought to herself.

“I’ll visit as often as I can.”

So, that was that. Eight years, and he was walking out, leaving her with three little girls to raise on an income that was dependent on him. Her life felt over.

“When will you leave?”

“Soon,” he said as he began to pack.

Soon. Soon she would be a single mom. What was she to do now?

That night she took out her notebook and through tears wrote out her desperation.

Wishing on a Star
Breathing in the Stillness of the Night
I let go of the nightmares of my life
You used to be my world

Taking in the magic of the stars
I make my wish and hope and pray
I used to have more dreams

Moving toward the moonbeams of my memory
I shut my heart and lock it up
I used to want to live

Now, I wait for the final promise of death

Then she cried herself to sleep. Alone.
***
Kassandra’s vision cleared as she watched the symbol of her house burn in the fire, as she said goodbye to the life that wasn’t a life. It's done now, she thought. She had been cocooned in that house. Insulated from reality. From her own vision. Living for others as they fed off her strength and life blood. Like the Phoenix of legends, she had to burn to ashes before she could be reborn. Born as a new person. Her own person. Someone she didn’t know, but very much wanted to know.

As the embers of her fire died down, the smoke took her pain into the ethers, to the gods and goddesses of rebirth and renewal. Kassandra slowly rose and let the coolness of the night embrace her slender body. She began dismantling her small ceremonial circle.

Three sacred symbols of her new life lay around the fire. These she would not burn. These represented her present and her future. The new life she was creating with her children.

She looked at them as she thought about life. About needs verses wants. About how much we can learn to live without when we realize how little, and how much, we need to survive and thrive. When she first began this journey, she thought the climax of it would be in learning to live without Leo. To survive the loss, the heart break. She was learning an entirely different lesson.

She held up an almond. An ordinary almond. But raw. Alive with the power of growth. If planted, this almond could grow into a tree, producing almonds for the duration of its life. Sustenance. The very essence of need. She needed food for herself and her children. She needed shelter from the elements. She needed transportation. Leo had kept his word for about a month after he left, sending her enough money to provide for their children in their oversized rental.

The next month he cut that support in half. And then again the next month. Never with any warning or explanation. Never with any consideration for how she was to care for their children. So she purged. Sold everything she could. Realized she needed very little in terms of “stuff” in order to be happy. She found a small duplex, and with 75% of her belongings now gone from her life, it suited them quite nicely. Their previous 4 bedrooms, 2 living rooms and 3 bathrooms now neatly fit into a small 2 bedroom. And yet it didn’t feel like a sacrifice at all. It was liberating. Not to mention easier to clean.

The almond also represented all the support she’d received from her new village. Local friends with farms gave her fresh produce. Samantha helped her find government resources to get food, money and childcare. Friends came when she needed to move, twice. Gary the tire guy gave her two new tires when she was down to $11 and stuck an hour from home with blown tires. All her needs were being met.

Providing for her family had been her greatest fear, and it was now her greatest triumph. There were many times she was tempted to go back to work she hated, to take the easy way, the way she knew, in order to make ends meet.

“Kassandra,” her doctor had said, “if you go back to that life, you’ll be hospitalized within three months, then how will you take care of your children? And if you don’t change your path now, this will kill you eventually.”

That sobered her. Made her realize she couldn’t afford to go back to who she was, even to make money. She had to find other ways. She called her best friend crying.

“I don’t know what to do. I can’t rely on Leo. Even when the court orders come in, he could lose it all if he’s arrested, which means we would lose it all. I have to be able to take care of my kids.”

“Kass,” Samatha has said, “stop thinking like the old you. There are other ways. I have some ideas.”

And she did indeed have some ideas. Ideas that utilized Kassandra’s gifts without taxing her empty reserves.

She was able to sustain her life and thrive with or without him or his money. When they divorced she thought she’d always be his prisoner, always under his thumb because he could kill her with one withdrawal. But she had triumphed. Her sources of passive income were starting to flourish. Without working for someone else. Without risking her physical and mental well-being. Without stress. With only joy and faith. And real results.

She picked up the sage and smelled it’s earthy sent. It smelled of health to her. Just as death and decay and sickness has a scent, so too did health and vitality. She now understood what being healthy meant. It had taken a year after their separation for her to get to a basic state of health. Two doctor’s visits a month, weekly acupuncture, monthly massages and a daily health regimen that included exercises, deep breathing, baths, herbs, supplements, naps and more. It was a full time job, but she had finally gotten off a three year dependency on pain pills and was pain free. She looked down at herself and thought about how far she’d come. Her once unhealthy body was now thin and toned, strong and sleek. And it was sexy.

To make this transition also required an entire overhaul in her diet. To go from a mac and cheese diet to one of strange health drinks with seaweed and blended kale had required a shift to viewing food as physical nourishment verses emotional comfort. It had been a hard, long struggle, but her body, health and energy were testament to the importance of persevering. She could now keep up with her children. She would now live long enough to enjoy their children, should they choose to have them.

She held the last symbol in her palm, a heart made of rose quartz, a crystal that represented healing, self-love and love of others. It is a stone said to help one attune to the spiritual energy of love.

When Kassandra lost Leo, she felt her heart had been crushed into tiny pieces. She thought the process of healing would be to somehow heal her heart of its broken, mutilated state. She was wrong. She didn’t understand love. Or her heart. Or much of anything at that time except pain. She recalled the conversation that first began to change her perception of love.

“Sam, I just don’t think my heart’s gonna get through this. Every time he’s around, all the progress I think I’ve made falls apart. He tries to control me, he makes fun of me, and I feel small and weak. My heart will never heal, will never be free of him.”

Samantha paused for a second. “Are you ready to hear the truth?” she asked in her ever patient way.

“Umm…I think so,” Kassandra said, hoping she was. Desperately wanting to be.

“This is the time for strength of heart and not indulgence in reactivity and weakness. Whatever the experiences of the past, the heart is not even the slightest bit touched by them.”

Her words struck Kassandra so powerfully she dropped the phone. She meditated on those words for weeks, really letting them into her “broken” heart. Understanding in a feeling way what they could mean. The implications were staggering. She was not capable of being broken? Nothing in the past could hurt her, or even had hurt the real Her? Just her ego, her personality had been wounded. She could live with that. After all, her ego was the thing that was causing all this drama and pain in the first place.
She held the heart and thought about how dramatically that gut-realization altered her life. From that moment forward, Leo never again bothered her, despite his efforts. Her reactivity was gone, replaced by sympathy and Love, as one Loves a friend who has chosen a very sad path. She was free! And in this freedom she found a love she never imagined. Love not spoken of in songs and books. Love that had liberated her from the burning house and cookie-cutter life. This allowed her to break down the walls of her prison, to see the village of the Universe there for her, and to slough off the suit of the enabler in order to embrace her True Self. She was free to fly away from the ashes and into a new world of her own creation. She smiled, shivered in the chill of the night, and realized she'd been standing so long the fire had mostly died.

Let it, she thought. She'd done what she needed to do.

She stretched, feeling free, and went to meet her new life.
******************************************************************

Note From author: This is a work of fiction based on true events.

THE NOTHING

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 06:03:00 +0000

I existed once.

In form and thought.

I had a Name.

And a sensory experience of the physical world.

Until He came.

You know of whom I speak. The god of virtual formlessness. A lesser deity to be sure, but one gaining in strength and power by the day. Feeding on the lives and souls of lost wanderers of cyberspace.

He rules the ethers of unreality. We give him our form, our name, our lives. And he converts them into the currency of his domain.

Fleshless words. Ideas of no substance. One dimensional nothings.

Caricatures of what we once were.

You flirt with him now, thinking him harmless with his glittering temptations

But you are wrong. He is not harmless.

And we all were wrong. It is not death that is to be feared. But the Nothing.

Ceasing to be is a fate far worse than any death could ever be.

You lose yourself in the usernames and avatars He gives you.

Thinking yourself safe.

You learn to walk and talk and live in this flat world of 0’s and 1’s, feeding on the desperation of others like yourself. Driven by the need to be seen without eyes of flesh.

Safe sex. Sex without touch. Without mess. Without disease. But viruses pervade. You cannot escape the illusion of the nightmare we call reality.

Our dreams cannibalize us. Consume us as food as we feed on the sex of others.

You will see.

And you will wish you had stayed blind.

Your form will fade.

Not all at once, so as to alarm. But slowly. Gradually and without notice.

With each moment lost to reality, you are consumed by the Nothing.

With each photograph you send, a piece of you is sacrificed on the communal altar of demented and unsatiated desires of non-flesh.

With each black letter typed on the screen, your breath is stolen by the invoked unreal passion of another user of this drug.

You give yourself to the nameless nobodies floating in this unreality. And they take you. And they feed on you. Even as they dissipate into Nothingness themselves.

Until one day, you will have ceased to be. Not dead. Not alive. Not anything.

And you will never even know you’ve disappeared.

But I will.

I existed once.

In form and thought.

Sapphire eyes, and ruby lips. Alabaster skin. Full breasts.

You coveted me. They all did. I was their dream lover. Their perfect form. Their fantasy realized without time and space.

They owned me for a time. Stripping me to nothing. Eating my life force. All to feed this god of the never-ending hunger.

I was your private mental porn. Until I disappeared.

But it mattered not. For every one of us that ceases, there are a hundred more to take our place.

They existed once too. Until they didn’t.

Breaking From the Past

noreply@blogger.com (Kimberly Kinrade) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 22:57:00 +0000

They say that when a broken bone heals, that spot is stronger than it was before. I don't know if this is actually true or not, but I hope it is.

This has been the summer of breaks for me. Rather than walking through the fires of change on the New Year, I seem to undergo my burning away in the summertime. Maybe that's fitting.

Last summer I was reawakened to my own sexuality after a dead period of my life, while at the same time healing my body of an all-consuming pain that left me dependent on pain pills. It was a transformative and healing time for me.

Now here I am. It's been a year. Much has changed. But mostly I have changed. And in that change I have apparently petitioned the Universe to break me down once again, so I can heal and become even stronger than I was. It’s exhausting work!

A few months ago I was struggling with my relationship with my parents. I was certain that communication could never be restored. After returning home from my final, painful court battle against my ex-husband, I broke my foot. The first time I've ever broken a bone in my life, and I did it while walking. Just walking. Seriously. My 4-year-old was there. She loves telling the story.

So, I needed my parents. I was stuck at the movie theater with my child, a broken foot, EMTs surrounding me, and no way of driving or picking up my other children from school. Of course it was my right foot I broke.

Needless to say the Universe forced me into a conversation with my family. And the healing began. Stronger, even, then before. This break happened the same week I started my new job.

Within a few weeks of starting work, I moved into a new apartment with my children. That weekend my faithful car broke down. After weeks spent bumming rides and renting cars and becoming best friends with Max the tow truck driver, I finally discovered that my car needed more work than I could afford. More work than the car was worth, to be honest. So I had to buy a cheap, beaten up Dogdge Neon that had been confiscated by the cops and was sold to me by a sad man in a bad marriage who seemed to think I was his therapist. I guess my Psych degree does pay off from time to time. You could smell this car’s past life every time you opened the door. It wasn't until we carried home some pizza from BJ's that my kids finally remarked that I'd managed to rid us of that odor.

The night my children and I were left stranded in Fullerton late at night, the man I’d been dating broke my heart via text message. Mind you, I’m in tears already because my kids are all in pajamas trying to pee behind a dumpster while this guy I love is telling me we’re over. Not my finest moment.

But I stayed on the board, as my best friend’s guru used to tell her. It’s a surfing metaphor that’s always resonated with me. Stay on the board no matter what. So I did. And I realized that this break up was a blessing. We lived too far apart, for one. With no real plan of every living near each other again. And we were on different paths in life. His anger would have consumed us if we’d taken it any further. As it is, I can love him and wish the best for him without being destroyed by him. A blessing in the middle of what felt like hell.

Then, the same weekend I bought my car, my computer came down with a deadly virus, and despite my best efforts I was unable to revive it. As a full time writer, losing my computer is like a basketball player losing his arms. And feet. And eyes. And... well you get the idea. I went and bought a new computer.

So, now my life has been reset apparently. When my children and I moved into our new apartment, we had nothing but the clothes on our backs (and some in a bag or two as well...) No furniture, no kitchen supplies, nothing. Thanks to some kind souls on craigslist we refurnished and rebuilt. As we are doing every day.

Sometimes our lives need clearing out and breaking down before we can truly transform into who we are meant to become. The metaphor of the butterfly is so overused, but there's a reason for that. It's so damn fitting. We have to allow life to strip us of everything at times, so that we have room for the new.

I’m on a journey of Awe. In all these moments of pain and heartache, I have also been in awe of the beauty of the Universe. In every moment I have been blessed with just what I need to take the next quantum leap in my life. Sometimes what I need is not what I want. And vice versa. But when I embrace life with faith and hope, with the knowledge that it is all happening the way it is meant to, I find joy and awe. And new beginnings as I grow stronger and break away from the past.