I Must be Dreaming....

I woke up swallowing words. Whole words. Big chunks. It made my throat feel raspy, smoke scratched. Like trying to swallow Saltine crackers in the desert.

I blinked. There was no sunshine billowing through the curtains. It was dark. But morning still. I could hear birds. Chirping. Sqwauking actually. The cats were playing round-da-round, flying through the halls chasing the mischevious poltergeists that only come out to play in the last moments of night.

I almost choked. Swallowing whole phrases. Instant replay of every NEVER I ever said.... rushing past me, through me, into me. Eyes wide open now. Night vision working. Everything is the same. The same old comforter piled in a heap at my feet. The wooden floors scratched and carpeted with cat and dog hair dancing just above it's surface. The alarm clock glaring, the time set two hours and twenty minutes into the future. A reminder that I need to wake up confused, because the comfort of actually knowing what time it really is, will lull me back to sleep. I gulp. It's O.K. Everything is the same. I was just dreaming.

But I wasn't. That was hours ago, and there are words stuck in my throat, tatooing the sides, hanging on like tonsilitis..... I can't swallow them yet. Go there.

I said I would never ever again feel this way. Never ever again go this way. Never ever again.

I was wrong. Welcome to my World. It's all good, baby...
I still feel the butterflies....

The Kiss...

I’ve been in love only once. A very long time ago. And for a very short time. But it lasted forever.

A romance Untainted by the first four letter word. The first harsh ugly word. The first possessive, jealous, bigoted, arrogant, righteous, selfish word.

We talked. He spoke seven languages, English not his native, and spoke them all well. But it’s what he did with his words that grabbed me with octopus arms and hugged me in tighter.

He wove them. He used them for music, for background effects, for medicinal purposes, for tickling, for thinking out loud. He sent words instead of flowers, and gifted me with stories. It was as if we had known each other a lifetime in no time at all…. And we did, because we shared our lives, our childhood secrets, our silly dreams, our disappointments …. The brown bagged everyday stuff, the chaotic “Isn’t this a crises to anybody, but me?” crap, the “I believe in…….” fairytale endings , the “I’ve never told anybody else this….” secret lives that we tote around in dirty Samsonite luggage….. Afraid to pitch, for fear it will be discovered, weary from hauling it around all these years.

We danced and sang out loud, added words, made-up words, used other world words. When he left for Desert Storm, we mailed words across the ocean , army lugged in duffle bags, wrapped in yellow envelopes. We traded tiny cassette tapes, weeks, sometimes months, in the traveling, just to hear each other’s words….

We listened. To each other. And danced in the kitchen.

I married a man whose vocabulary consisted of one, two, three, and four letter words. Occasionally graced by a few BIG words like… Toyota, Delmonico, and some expletives best left off the list. We talked about who fed the dog last, what the neighbors were up to, and the interest Rates on our credit cards. We danced on occasion. We ate well always. We fought like hell.

I listened last night. I watched the words as they were born. As you struggled to build them into a formula that I could understand, as your body spoke the words before they left your lips. When you finally quit fighting with yourself , the words fell fluid like into our space. Where I could touch them. Sense them. Hear them.

And then we danced in the kitchen….

It's good, It's all good

OK. My hair is falling out. Those spaghetti straight golden tendrils that I used to twirl between my fingers when in thought, that I used to plop up on top of my head, held securely by a pencil, when it was hot. It’s all falling out! Breaking off in obscene places and just leaving my head. “Must be the stress” my girlfriend Sheila said. “It looks like you were ironing it and fell asleep” she added. Thanks, girlfriend! I do not iron my hair and when was the last time I "fell" asleep? I fight it, baby!

I first noticed it in July. Woke up one morning with this tuft of crimped hair just sort of static-like at the back of my crown. Damn! Did someone CUT a chunk of my hair while I was sleeping? And then, uggggh, it kind of spread. Like I was going for the bangs look all the way around my head . Check the chemicals in the pool. I must be baking out here in the lazy round river. No, no, it’s good.

Geez….what’s a girl to do?

In August I noticed that the blow dryer was spitting little electric flames out at my face, burning my earlobes.... and was overcome with relief….. Shhhhhwwwweewwww…. Close one! I’ve been frying it every morning and just didn’t realize it. Pitched the blow dryer and replaced it with a new “better” version….only blows cool air. Heal me, please.

Uh, no. It’s still falling out. Skinny fetched me hot oil treatments, ummm, to no avail. OK, it’s good. It’s sympathy pains. I’m sure that’s it. Our beautiful sib, Kimmilee is going through chemo and losing her hair in chunks. Like every thing else in our lives, we’re just doing it together. It’s good. I can do this. But, somehow, I know….. No…this isn’t it.

I wake up one night tossing and turning and there is Deja, my blue eyed wild child Siamese dancing in my bedhead hair, swatting up a storm! That’s it! She’s been thinning it all along and I’ve slept through it! But, no….I stayed awake for 7 nights in a row, and she never once again, offered to come and pull out my hair in my sleep. I even tried to bribe her.

So now it’s November. I’ve changed shampoos, pillowcases, chlorine, blow-dryers, brushes, and boyfriends.

I woke up this morning and it was fixed.

Must have been the boyfriend thing.