The list of Five

Five (5) Things I love to do…

Stay in my pajamas all day
(Not because I have a 104 temperature or because everything I own is in the wash and I forgot to put it in the dryer three days ago, but because I can and it feels good and I have pajamas!) Which I don’t, but I would if I could.

Swing
Like in a porch swing, a yard swing, a park swing, a tire swing, you understand….
As high as my dirty little heels pushing off from the sand can send me flying
With hair swooshing and a tummy full of “I’m afraid of heights” butterflies…

Sing
Loud
Guttural.
Very off key.
Because I can.
And in my world the louder you play the music, the better you sound.

Dance
In the kitchen, on the porch, in the street, on the beach..
Anywhere
Anytime
For any reason

Float
Belly up on a pink Wal-Mart raft
Finger-painting in the water
Eyes watching God….
Waiting on Peace….
In my little vinyl nightmare, the lazy round river… my backyard oasis
(OK, in My World it’s an oasis…to everyone else it’s a blow up pool)

Five (5) things I hate

Linda (An Angel who wears blue jeans) was aghast when I told her I was going to write down the five things I hate. “But you don’t hate anything! All that peace~love stuff, you know you don’t hate anything!” Well, I want to! And I do!
So here they are:

1. Prejudice.

2. War.

3. Eating octopus. Who ever heard of anything so cruel.

4. That there are, or have ever been, Children without hope. Don’t give me that “they can rise above the hate and the poverty and become a President” garbage. Odds are they will just grow up with the overwhelming feeling that they are not loved and that is heart wrenching. Everyone deserves to be loved. You don’t have to have opportunities served to you on a silver platter, but you have to know in your heart, you BELONG and then you can BELIEVE.

5. I’m going to really think about this one. I mean hate is a really big thing. I wouldn’t want to make a mistake.

Stupid Red Sky at Sunset

I've had enough time to not think...
to let the love affair settle...
busted tea leaves at the bottom
of an almost empty cup
And from here I can
almost see the things, the tiny
little moments of love
that swept me
like wet magnolia leaves in October
swirling, twirling,
Landing in a pile, stacked
haphazardly
against the lines I draw...
property lines...

You took nothing of me with you...
I snatch back all I ever offered...
And toss it on the porch

Leftovers

Road Trip

I'm home. I've just survived a roadtrip. Georgia and I. She could care less that we survived it, doesn't even know that we might not have. Since she gets car sick, she spent the last 6 1/2 hours laying face down on the back seat panting and drooling on the "still smells like new car" upholstery. My two attempts to take out a brand new mustang (one red and one blue by the way) that landed her on the floorboard, we're just hiccups on her journey. Since she didn't SEE the two semi trucks toting GASOLINE stopped in the middle of the interstate, she didn't have that instantaneous flash of fear I did, as we almost drove over the little Ford Mustang in front of us. Neither did she see the 21 car collision, that by the way, I didn't see either, which is why I almost parked us in the trunk of the 2nd Mustang. But being a dog and all, she kinda felt my fear so for the 10 miles or so after each incident, she did what any best friend would do....She growled.

And then of course, there was the rain. The instantaneous flash flood that said "Hey, idiot, you've just entered Florida, the hurricane state" and sent all four wheels hydroplaning. That, by the way, feels somewhat like riding the Zipper at 17. Your stomach is suddenly swirling with a zillion butterflies, your otherwise perfectly manicured hands, are sweaty and clammy, and your'e gripping the steering wheel for sweet life. The semi truck next to you is a psychedelic blur. So I did exactly what I did on the Zipper. I closed my eyes! Gotta love the florida rain. It stopped.

And the sun came out. The blinding beautiful Florida Sun. I've been staring straight into her face for several lifetimes. That's why I have "frown lines". Yep, My mother always told me to wear sunglasses, a big hat and sunscreen. I didn't. I basked, baked, rolled in the sun. Face up. Frying. Summer blonde. The only difference now, is that I'm blind on a good day. Have to wear Readers to see anything. So driving into the deep south, on top of asphalt mirrored by blazing puddles from a summer hailstorm, with a banging hangover...is like looking into ...hell!

And speaking of hell, try traveling with Georgia. Oh, she travels well, I mean with her carsickness and all. She just doesn't STOP well. You see, she has "seperation anxiety". Which is akin to having a lover with stalking syndrome. From INSIDE the wayside station ladies room, where the toilets flush and the sinks run and the blowers puff on their own and it sounds like you are at an atomic energy plant, I could hear my precious Georgia May wailing, howling...pitifully yelping at the saliva smeared windows. Endlessly. I have never tinkled so fast in my life. Except in the woods.

But we're home. And we had a great time. And Paiger and I met just where we said we would. In Georgia. And we danced to David Bowie and Guns and Roses on the wrap around porch. And we laughed. And did what we always do, we cried. Because we can.

Because we're sisters.

Peace, love, and corner stores.....

The Yellow butterfly of San Marino

SUMMERS, SISTERS, and THE SEAWALL

She wasn't a figment of our dreamy sunburnt imaginations. She really lived there. Her salty wings somewhat summer blonde, a little tattered on the edges. She'd flit and swoop and dance in the baking florida sun, this tiny little sun goddess. At night, like a firefly, we would catch glimpses of her, swirling, twirling in the moonlight (And don't you dare say butterflies don't fly at night!) She was always there. Everytime. At the seawall of SanMarino.

There, with our eyes to the ocean and the heavens, and our sandy bare feet propped on the seawall, we dreamed. We met the sunrise and watched her fall. We spent days and days, nights and nights, lounging at the seawall of SanMarino. We met strangers and best friends. Old souls and newborns. Lost kitties and lost kites. Lost souls. We made promises and we made pacts. We built sandcastles and made periwinkle soup. We drank coffee, then bloody Marys then beer. Bottles and bottles of beer. We sang, and danced, and told stories. We made up stories and laughed. We began to believe.

To believe in borrowed peace. To believe in the promise of tomorrow. To believe that we could make it no matter what. We spent stolen days and stolen weeks during stolen summers at the seawall of SanMarino. And the yellow butterfly, the tiny little oceanic ballerina, was always there. Reminding us to believe.

And then "poof it was gone". Our precious, tacky little paradise plowed upside down for high rise, concrete condos. God, it almost killed us. Where would we go? How could we escape everyday hell if there was no place to run to, to hide, to accidently stumble on?

And then, we saw her. The yellow butterfly of San Marino. And we remembered. To believe.

When this is all over, when the world as we know it is well again...we will have peace, and we will laugh and dance under the serious moonlight in barefoot sandals....

We will follow her...as she has followed us....

To a place called peace

"Tell Me About Your Rings..."

"Tell me about your rings..." he said so quietly, staring at my hands and the mismatched collection of meanings displayed there. This stranger, that I had known for only an hour or so curious as to the stories displayed on my fingers. Why did he want to know? What was he looking for? I looked down at my hands through his eyes..."What love story goes untold here?"

Instinctively, I reached up and touched my love beads, old and oiled with the patina of a thousand thoughts, touches, moments. I'll tell you about my rings, sweet stranger, but these trinkets, closest to my heart, that is where the love story lies...at peace....at rest....

For 19 years, this tattered string of leather (oh, it's been reincarnated a few times!) has been tethered to my neck. The three little clay love beads, once a swirling kaliedescope of color, now muted and sepia at best, were sculpted at my kitchen table, late late at night. Paige and I on an endless mission to spread peace and love to the world at large. We wove peace grapevine wreaths in those days , did string paintings of the world at war with peace watercolored across it's face. We believed. If we loved, we hoped, we prayed, we dared.....peace and love would come to all.

For a million moons, only the little love beads, strung like lonesome soldiers, dangled here. The soldered welded Peace symbol was a Sunday afternoon gift from my neighbor, Joe. God bless my Joe. I was hot, and tired, and trudging through knee high grass fighting a lawn mower with an adolescent attitude. I was overwhelmed with life and bills and the endless, never ending,rocky road trip that my life had become. In the blazing Sun, with tears and sweat fighting for first rights on my cheeks, I screamed at the sky above, at the random birds....at the top of my lungs....."I just want Peace!" The raspy choking lawn mower I was sure had camoflouged my impromptu rant. I kicked the dirt and kept mowing.

Joe never explained himself that day. He didn't have to. When I rolled the mower to the gate, he met me in the driveway. The little Peace Symbol still warm in his hands. I touched it. Felt it. He passed it to me. The first trinket to join my love beads. In the weeks to follow, it began to rust and I worried. Joe had sculpted this for me on a hot Sunday afternoon and I wanted to wear it forever. I rubbed it. Never ever took it off. The rust gave up. In the end, peace wins....

There is a tiny little "I love you Mom" charm. I can still see my daughter's eyes, 8 years old and so excited she had to help me unwrap her little gift. I hope that for as long as she lives, she can still see the look in my eyes. Love.

An Italian horn. A gift from a friend when all my good luck spells were broken. When peace was lost. When I had not yet discovered the yellow butterfly of San Marino. She dug it out of her jewelry box. To her, it was the yellow butterfly. To me, it was and always will be, reassurance, a reminder that hope is sometimes all you have....don't ever, ever let go of it.

Four hearts in the shape of a clover. This little one is etched with the markings of sand and time, a little jewel lost to sea and washed up at my feet by the tides. A precious promise from Paige, lost almost immediately, I ached and searched and finally, too many beers later, cried. Not because the little charm was lost forever, but because I wouldn't have it there, to touch, when I needed to remember, to hold real, her thoughts. And so it was meant to be, that when we least expected it, a little glint of silver glittered, and in the miles and miles of salty sand, I reached down and there she was. The mermaids charm.

May our lives be blessed. With simple things.

Peace and love

Love story to Joe in the January archives of www.Justgivemepeace.blogspot.com
Self portrait in love beads and Joe's precious Peace symbol all over the pages of Just Give Me Peace