I think we all need to hear something like this now.
Poem: The Madmen
I think we all need to hear something like this now.
Category Archives: Thoughts
I Could Not Have Gone to College Without Federal Aid
When I graduated from high school (I think I was third in my class and my SAT scores always got an “ooh” of respect although I do not remember what they were), I already knew where I wanted to go to college. UNC-Chapel Hill received my “yes, please” in the return mail.
Problem was, I had no money, my parents (who had not had the opportunity to attend college) had never had a chance to save any, and I had little or no know-how on how to get money for college. A conversation with the financial aid office at UNC solved that problem. I soon had several low- or no-interest loans from the federal government and a couple of higher-interest loans from private institutions to tide me over for the full four years. My father also applied for and received a federal grant so he could help me.
This was my first real experience with the federal government, and I was very grateful. My country believed in me! My country was willing to invest money in me and the promise I had to be a contributing citizen. The belief of my country gave me the belief I needed in myself.
I now own my own business, having raised three children after working as a journalist and librarian. My student loans were paid off years ago, I pay taxes every year, and I’m happy to do it because of the opportunity my government gave me when I was in need.
This is how the American Dream should work, and I pray the U.S. government will not fail the students of now and the future. Believe in them.
Poem for the New Year: Stranger
My resolution for 2025: I’m going to figure out who I am and why I was given the gifts I was given. I’m going to finish the novel I’ve stopped and restarted multiple times. Maybe I’ll figure out why I am not as kind or giving as I want to be. Maybe I’ll figure out what it is I actually want.
Why is my hair pink, anyway? Obviously because I dye it pink, it doesn’t grow that way. But why? I feel like it’s always been pink, whether that was my doing or not. At one point, I thought dramatically that it turned pink from my broken heart, but now I think, just as dramatically, that my heart never really broke.
It’s probably somewhere in the middle. That’s usually where you find truth.
Anyway, Happy 2025, everyone! May we all find something new and shiny this year.
Stranger
By Michelle Garren-Flye
I want to know you better, stranger.
Why do you tick on even when beat?
I know you quicken when in danger
that so far you’ve managed to cheat.
Breaking you once was a simple chore
but now you’re smart and made of stone.
Like the pig’s house, you’re something more
than straw, but you survive there alone.
I dread with anticipation the day we meet,
come face-to-face and I can no longer pretend.
If only we could shake hands on the street,
perfect strangers right up ‘til the end.
It’s no use, it must be confessed:
I feel you beating away in my chest.
Winter Solstice: Let’s Celebrate the Darkest Day of the Year
Today is the winter solstice, aka the darkest day of the year. There are fewer minutes of daylight today than on any other day.
It’s my favorite day, not because I don’t like light but because I do. I love light, and if today is the shortest day, then we start getting longer days tomorrow. It’s like hitting rock bottom but knowing you will have the strength to climb back up.
That’s why I wrote my book Winter Solstice, which is now in print in my “Author’s Edition”. This is a day we don’t always appreciate or even note, but it’s worth remembering if there’s a down, there’s usually an up that follows.
Home
There’s nothing like a mountain fog. It’s hard to put it into words. I remember when I was a kid growing up in Brevard, N.C., I loved foggy mornings. Waiting at the bus stop, I felt like the sky had fallen on me, soft and cool and protective. Later, as a grown-up navigating mountain roads in the fog, I still felt that mystical sense of otherworldliness.
For the past few days, I’ve spent a lot of time poring over pictures of flattened, flooded towns and videos of raging, red rivers full of debris. It’s hard for me to believe this is what’s left of some of the beautiful mountains where I grew up. I’ve lived on the eastern side of the state long enough to know there’s probably more saltwater in my veins than the red clay of the mountains now, but at times like this, I know there’s no denying it.
The coast may have been my destiny, but the mountains are my origin.
I haven’t been back in nearly two years. My mother passed away in February 2023 and I went back for her funeral. After that, my father moved down to Charlotte to be with my uncle and my older brother, and my mountains were just two hours too far to go.
I wonder how it became this hard to take time to get somewhere that’s still important to me.
I heard today that Interstate 40 Westbound was closed at Statesville to stop people wanting to get into the mountains—searching for friends and family, most likely, but maybe just curious. Maybe people like me who suddenly realized that the mountains of their origin might not always be there. The towns we grew up in can be wiped off the earth’s slate.
I’ve heard that Brevard survived, for the most part, in spite of being walloped with 30 inches of rain. But I’ve seen nothing to support that. There’s a webcam in downtown Brevard that is currently offline. I check it daily, sometimes hourly. I know it will likely be days or weeks before it comes back online, if it even survived, but still. It would be reassuring to see.
So little communication is possible, even with my brother and his family who still live there. I’ve gotten a few texts. He managed one phone call to my father.
I feel like the entirety of the North Carolina mountains is shrouded in fog now, but unlike the fog of my childhood, this is not protective, it’s a reminder. Nothing is permanent. Everything can be damaged or taken away.
the sky falls on us
while you, lost mountain girl,
roam the lonely coast
Copyright 2024 Michelle Garren-Flye
A Poem for Lamar and Drake
I originally had decided to write a blog post about finally re-watching the entire series of “Lost” because I always felt sure I missed a lot during my first watch of the show during six erratic television seasons. (I really had, too. No doubt, lots of stuff missed during that first viewing.) Then I happened to listen to a podcast about the ongoing war between the two rappers Kendrick Lamar and Drake, found I had an opinion about that, too, and that opinion actually developed into a poem, so, in the realm of Things I Have No Business Commenting On…
Being a fifty-plus-year-old white woman, I don’t really keep up with the hiphop/rap scene much, although I’ve undoubtedly heard some I like. The first I’d heard about the Drake/Lamar feud was a couple weeks ago in a chance remark from a friend. I was interested because Kendrick Lamar had actually achieved something I once wished I could when he won the Pulitzer Prize.
The podcast I listened to was a Washington Post podcast, so fairly unbiased. I’ve read a little more since and talked to a few people. Everyone’s got an opinion, and some people have a less than complimentary view of Drake, influenced, no doubt, by salacious (the news loves that word) rumors and claims about his relationships. As one person said to me with great disdain, “Who’s on team Drake?”
And yet, both rappers have been acting out, putting out music practically in real time over streaming services. It reminds me of old battles that happened in newspapers between politicians or poets like Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg (that’s one of my favorites). Except these “songs” are more than inflammatory disses, they’re downright mean and often libelous, and more than one has been taken down almost as soon as it was put up. Maybe by a manager or someone with some creative control and more common sense?
So, even though I probably don’t have any right to have a real opinion about this rap battle, I was nonetheless moved to write the following poem. As for if I’m on team Lamar or team Drake, I’d just like to say I hate to see anybody wasting their talents dragging apart an art form they both excel at and should spend their time promoting. What good will it do the music world if two bright stars develop a black hole between them?
Beef
By Michelle Garren-Flye
Send out your diss
over the interweb.
Its mark won’t miss
your intended jab.
Insulting pushback,
wasting your time.
Get in the next crack—
make sure to rhyme!
Talent you got in spades
but gotta be sure to rile
when you throw shades!
(What rhymes with pedophile?)
Take it from this old white chick:
you could do so much more.
You could make each word stick,
bring the world to the floor.
But go ahead, send out a slur,
defend what’s left of pride.
Growl and bark like a mad cur,
and we’ll watch from ringside.
Why Gen X should be mad at Markiplier
This morning I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts while walking my dog. “Distractibles” stars youtuber Markiplier and his friends Bob and Wade. My kids introduced me to these guys. They’re freaking hilarious. Except today Markiplier, a Millenial born the year after I graduated high school, glibly stated that Boomers were the generation before Millenials.
Nope.
Listen up, younglings. Gen X is a thing. We are here. We listen to podcasts, read books, consume goods and services, and many of us are not retired yet, so we’re still contributing to the workforce. We might even be your supervisor or boss.
I’m not saying we’re all that great. In fact, we are somewhat responsible (not completely, but we’ve done our share) for the state the world is in right now. Do not call us Boomers. For some of us, Boomers were our parents. For others, the children of the Silent Generation, Boomers were youthful aunts and uncles. Or the young parents of our friends.
Gen X was the generation AFTER Boomers. We’re the generation that learned, early on, to keep our heads down and stay out of trouble. When we were growing up, paddling was still a thing. Sometimes we were even instructed to go out and cut our own switches so we could be “switched” on the backs of bare legs.
This was not child abuse. In fact, our parents were, at least sometimes when we were lucky, good parents. They worked hard to provide. We were the first generation that really mostly had two working parents. And after-school programs and child care weren’t really a thing. We took the bus to school after eating a bowl of cereal, and quite often we came home to empty homes. We had chores. We did our homework without anyone telling us to or standing nearby to re-explain what our teachers had already told us.
And then we watched afternoon television and sometimes fended for ourselves for dinner if mom was working late. We ate bologna and cheese without wondering if the pre-processed foods would damage us. Organic wasn’t a word then. Whole foods? Sure! I ate a whole hot dog.
Gen X has an inbred respect for Authority, which goes hand-in-hand with keeping our heads down and what I see as a sort of impotent anguish and anger about the state of the world. Combine that with a silent disapproval we inherited from our Silent Generation parents regarding mental healthcare and you can see a bit of a pattern.
I object to being forgotten and lumped in with our parents’ generations. We’re still here and we’re still actively working on making the world a better place, even if it isn’t always in a super showy way.
People who are (or were) Gen Xers:
- Kurt Cobain.
- Will Smith
- Elon Musk
- Tupac Shakur
- Julian Assange
- Tiger Woods
- Justin Trudeau
- Robert Downey Jr.
- Eminem
- Kanye West
People who are NOT Gen Xers because they actually ARE Boomers:
- Donald Trump
- Barack Obama
- King Charles III
- Bill Gates
- Vladimir Putin
- Howard Stern
- Johnny Depp
- Elton John
- Bill Clinton
- Michael Jordan
Not included in this list because he’s actually from the latter part of the Silent Generation: Joe Biden.
Don’t worry, though, Markiplier. Gen X also pretty much does not “cancel” celebrities that piss us off. You might find us watching “Caddyshack” for instance, even though we now know Chevy Chase (born in 1943 and therefore officially a member of the Silent Generation) is an a$$hole.
(Also, I loved Magic Carpet.)
Note: This post was written from the POV of a Gen X’er who was the child of two white, middle class Silent Generation parents.
Photo and text copyright 2024 Michelle Garren-Flye
Happy Valentine’s Day
I’ve been told that the worst sin is to covet what you don’t have. It does seem that this is the way most humans spend their lives. I do not except myself from this, either. It’s always hard to wait for the universe to bring you what you need. Especially in today’s world of social media designed to display everything others have.
And today is the worst for those who covet love. Romantic love, family love, the love of friends or even pets. Our spirits yearn for all of it. Unless we feel we’ve been denied it for so long we shut ourselves off to it. Unless we decide we are one of those unfortunate individuals who was put here to never have what others have…no matter how much we covet it.
Perhaps there are such individuals. I don’t know if they were made that way by whatever heartless gods there are or if they became that way because they coveted so much they couldn’t see or feel love anymore.
I believe there is love out there for you if you truly open your heart to it. I cannot tell you what form it will come to you in. It may or may not be the true love you see in fairytales. It might be a stray cat or dog. It might be a flower blooming in an unexpected place or a kind word spoken by someone you thought was indifferent.
Look for it. You’ll find it if you’re persistent. And when you do, let it fill you up with love that you can share with someone else.
Happy Valentine’s Day. I hope this day finds you filled with love to give others.
Self Portrait in 30 Years (a poem)
Self Portrait in 30 Years By Michelle Garren-Flye She sits on her porch as people go past, taking notice of what they bring into her past. Little bits of their lives that pepper the now… a tired mother…a crying child…now it’s all past. Her son mows the lawn now every two weeks. She likes it best when one week has passed, when the grasses breathe rustles and chirps echoing in her heart like songs from the past. Those days when everything hurt so much— if only she’d grasped that one day they’d be past. Her daughter brings groceries, unpacks them inside: “mom, come in, the summer’s heat is long past. You’ll catch cold out there in the autumn breeze. What keeps you outside when supper time is past?” She smiles and takes her daughter’s dear hand, hopes she’ll never know this longing for what’s past. She could have dreamed up a magic spell back then and stopped precious time before it had passed: when she was a happy, tired mother of three… now a lonely woman thinking only of the past. She searches the stars for Orion’s sword belt, Longs to fly to their light, leave this ache in the past.
Congratulations, it’s a ghazal (pronounced “guzzle” not “gu-ZAHL”, much to my disappointment).
Ghazals are hard to write due to their rhyme scheme, which involves repeating the same rhyme over and over. It can sound monotonous or forced. I’m just getting started playing with ghazals, so if it sounds monotonous or forced, I apologize.
The inspiration for this poem actually comes from a house. I used to walk by this house and see a little, old lady sitting on the front porch. I often wondered what her story was. I waved at her a few times, but before I got the nerve to stop and speak to her, I saw an ambulance there in the middle of the night. And then the little, old lady was gone.
I have no idea what happened to her, but her house is going through a major renovation. The porch is still there, though. I like to think she was lucky enough to spend her last days sitting on her front porch, maybe thinking of her loving children and eventually slipping away into her memories of past glories and loves.
Maybe that will be me someday. Because even if it’s painful to remember past sweet memories, it’s definitely better than not having them.
Celebrating Endings (with a poem)
I used to panic whenever I’d draw the Death card from a Tarot deck. How could that possibly be a good thing? Even if it’s just the end of something, if it’s the end of something good, it’s gonna suck.
That’s why we as humans tend to celebrate beginnings. Birthdays, wedding anniversaries, the New Year. But we don’t really acknowledge that with every new beginning, something ended. The carefree life of a non-parent, the single life, the old year.
Today I pay respect to an ending in my life by celebrating what it was and what it brought me. It’s bittersweet, but I know that this is a new beginning, too. I’m ready for what’s ahead.
Let’s go.
Loop By Michelle Garren-Flye You left me once in the middle of a rainstorm, I was tying my shoe, concentrating on each loop, and you took the umbrella and wandered away because something else caught your eye. I finished my task but I was soaked to the skin and even though you gave me my own umbrella, I never really forgave you for taking ours. I doubt I ever will. I’ll bring it up at family gatherings and every anniversary as if you could go back and change it, hold the umbrella steady above me. Turn back the clock because without that, the end will never change.
BREATHE: Michelle Garren-Flye 