A heart shaped shell, tumbled in a thousand tides, grainey and wrinkled, tossed at my barefeet...a keeper
An abondoned birdsnest, delicately woven, lined with glad-bag trash and the neighbor's Christmas tree tinsel...a keeper. I pruned the tree and left one branch up and three branches down, a tribute to peace, and a Mother's determination. Even empty nests bring comfort.
Marbles, twirled and swirled, blown glass spun in a circle...pocketed by little boys, rolled on wooden floors....found 23 years later buried in Georgia clay... a sister's keeper.
Silver shoes, 3 inches high, scuffed just at the toe... glitter faded, straps stretched out....toe prints on their soles...Keepers
Pisces man with a wrinkled face, and a wrinkled smile and a Coors light in his hand....reaching over, diving in, embracing his "you still look 21 to me" gorgeous wife collapsing at his side....and saying "WE CAN DO THIS. IT's OK. I LOVE YOU".... Keeper
Christmas card with a Magpie poem ....Keeper
Wedding album, mildewed and tossed, pages eaten by hungary moths and uninvited roaches, chocked full of random papers, the key to your past...A keeper....meant to be lost for 20 years and found on a rainy Friday..to be wrapped up in Christmas paper and bows and passed onto my child with so many questions.....I apologize if i haven't told the stories right...memories are sometimes made-up as you go, but I love you, and unedited, this book, stuffed with the truth is a keeper....
Beer bottle caps. Damp from the chill. Tossed in a painted gourd. Collected year round, from Friday nights out, Sunday night cries....And later touched by the pen or the brush of a Magpie...reincarnated into jewels and sillies and ornaments...tossed amongst loved ones like fairy dust...keepers
Tattoos....You're stuck with them. Love it. Because you damn sure can't leave it. A permanent salute to the moment....keeper.
(And I am at this moment contemplating a yellow butterfly...come Paigey, and Kimbies, and Corinne, Linda, and Judy and Curty and Haley and Noah and Christine and Anna and Amber and Arianna Olivia and Peyton and Alana and Kyle and Stone and Tami and Dad-O and Grand-C and Chancellor and Scott and Annie and Nadine and Stan and JR and Jimmy Mac and Peggie and Badri and Sheila Anne and Tim and Papa and Nicky and Rumors and Joe and RCK and Vicci and Anne and Orhan and San Marino and everyone and everything that makes the butterfly effect so very very yellow...)
Keepers...May the New Year be Blessed with all we cherish....
and all we've yet to discover.................
Friday, December 29, 2006
Monday, December 18, 2006
On Borrowed wings....
On a borrowed computer, on swiped internet...from the porch....
I miss you guys! Miss Vicci, can't wait to see Kim's beautiful smile when she is gifted with your treasures...Anne, I can't begin to tell you....SLB, can't wait to see you, I mean CAN'T WAIT!.....C, Hope you and family have a beautiful Christmas blessed with peace, love you girls!... Orhan...God, i miss your posts....Everybody, wishing you peace, love, and a blessed New Year!
RESOLUTIONS....
I've tried it everyway. New Year's, that is. As a child, we hooped and hollered, twirled Nana's noisemakers in the air! "It's New Years!" Along the way, we started sneaking down to the basement, having James whip us up Suicides....coke and rum and vodke, pepsi and OJ swirled in iced tea glasses....gag me with a spoon! But it left us breathless, and sitting in circles, watching midnight grab the sky, singing...."Sha Na Na Na...Hey...Hey...Hey...Good-bye... holding hands, and sometimes upchucking heads. I ache now. We are not all here now. Those were the New Years we should have hugged each other harder and left the toilets to their own.
And then we were legally "grow-up". And we hung from balconies and french kissed at midnight. It was still good. Even the year Gary Fishowitz overdosed and sentenced himself to a life pacing in an antiseptic aquarium plugged into IVs for eternity. It was still going to be a good year. That was the year Christian came out of the closet, called off his engagement to Juliet, and rocked his parent's world. We applauded him. The year that Kimbies got suspended for smoking in the bathroom and the year that my boyfriend, in a a death defying act, flipped the camaro upside down and I LIVED! It's all good.
And then we were on our own. and dateless, and all piled up in a "too expensive" "too cramped for comfort" apartment and "What the hell?" they were having a Champagne and Caviar Party at the clubhouse...So we tooled our size six fannies over and swallowed fish eggs and pink bubbles and left with the first three cars that fled the scene...
And we married our rides....(Some of us for better, some for worse, and one just for the ride)
Time flies when you're having a really good time, and we must have because it's a blue that I really don't remember....and suddenly....
It's another life and
I'm at the airport and I'm watching as my soldier lumbers down the ramp and it's late, far too late to bring in the New Year, and I'm thrilled...
He's alive and He's home and I'm in loe and jet lag is an urban myth...
We set the clocks back four and a half hours and embrace the New Year just before the sun comes up....on our own make-believe time.
Years pass.
they bring their blessings and their curses.
I've cheered New Years and blessed it out. I've welcomed the New and buried, literally, the old...dug mammoth holes in the flower beds, and put the crap to rest. I've burned it. And run out into the street and tossed it's ugly karma to the sky...ashes floating aimlessly, landing on the curbs. i've kissed the sky and wished on stars...I've given up and gone to bed....
Last year, we started this "Resolution" thing again...The time had come. A million things to resolve to, to amend to, to agree to, to give in to. But we picked only three. kimbies and Butch and I. We must have known then. WE CHOSE PEACE. WE WANTED PEACE. And oh yeah, they would get a dog and I would get a boyfriend, We just sort of threw that in. We just wanted peace.
"Sometimes you get what you want, sometimes if you try, you get what you need" MJ and the Rolling Stones.
So we buried our friends, and Kimbies has cancer, and the first boyfriend in 14 years didn't work out.
On New Years Eve, we have reservations. Resolutions. Dresses. And a limo. Kimbies will be mannequin beautiful in her hippie bandana with her priceless husband at her side. We'll leave little Nay-Nay, the Chihuahua, in her pink tutu at home. We'll cheer. Probably cry. We'll dance. We'll have exactly one too many drinks. We'll hug. We'll all hold hands at some point and maybe fall on our knees on the dirty litle floor and thank God for the noise of rock and roll, and the healing, and the Angels that brought us here. And at midnight, we'll turn and kiss...
I'm so glad even resolutions give us second chances. This one is a keeper.
Peace
I miss you guys! Miss Vicci, can't wait to see Kim's beautiful smile when she is gifted with your treasures...Anne, I can't begin to tell you....SLB, can't wait to see you, I mean CAN'T WAIT!.....C, Hope you and family have a beautiful Christmas blessed with peace, love you girls!... Orhan...God, i miss your posts....Everybody, wishing you peace, love, and a blessed New Year!
RESOLUTIONS....
I've tried it everyway. New Year's, that is. As a child, we hooped and hollered, twirled Nana's noisemakers in the air! "It's New Years!" Along the way, we started sneaking down to the basement, having James whip us up Suicides....coke and rum and vodke, pepsi and OJ swirled in iced tea glasses....gag me with a spoon! But it left us breathless, and sitting in circles, watching midnight grab the sky, singing...."Sha Na Na Na...Hey...Hey...Hey...Good-bye... holding hands, and sometimes upchucking heads. I ache now. We are not all here now. Those were the New Years we should have hugged each other harder and left the toilets to their own.
And then we were legally "grow-up". And we hung from balconies and french kissed at midnight. It was still good. Even the year Gary Fishowitz overdosed and sentenced himself to a life pacing in an antiseptic aquarium plugged into IVs for eternity. It was still going to be a good year. That was the year Christian came out of the closet, called off his engagement to Juliet, and rocked his parent's world. We applauded him. The year that Kimbies got suspended for smoking in the bathroom and the year that my boyfriend, in a a death defying act, flipped the camaro upside down and I LIVED! It's all good.
And then we were on our own. and dateless, and all piled up in a "too expensive" "too cramped for comfort" apartment and "What the hell?" they were having a Champagne and Caviar Party at the clubhouse...So we tooled our size six fannies over and swallowed fish eggs and pink bubbles and left with the first three cars that fled the scene...
And we married our rides....(Some of us for better, some for worse, and one just for the ride)
Time flies when you're having a really good time, and we must have because it's a blue that I really don't remember....and suddenly....
It's another life and
I'm at the airport and I'm watching as my soldier lumbers down the ramp and it's late, far too late to bring in the New Year, and I'm thrilled...
He's alive and He's home and I'm in loe and jet lag is an urban myth...
We set the clocks back four and a half hours and embrace the New Year just before the sun comes up....on our own make-believe time.
Years pass.
they bring their blessings and their curses.
I've cheered New Years and blessed it out. I've welcomed the New and buried, literally, the old...dug mammoth holes in the flower beds, and put the crap to rest. I've burned it. And run out into the street and tossed it's ugly karma to the sky...ashes floating aimlessly, landing on the curbs. i've kissed the sky and wished on stars...I've given up and gone to bed....
Last year, we started this "Resolution" thing again...The time had come. A million things to resolve to, to amend to, to agree to, to give in to. But we picked only three. kimbies and Butch and I. We must have known then. WE CHOSE PEACE. WE WANTED PEACE. And oh yeah, they would get a dog and I would get a boyfriend, We just sort of threw that in. We just wanted peace.
"Sometimes you get what you want, sometimes if you try, you get what you need" MJ and the Rolling Stones.
So we buried our friends, and Kimbies has cancer, and the first boyfriend in 14 years didn't work out.
On New Years Eve, we have reservations. Resolutions. Dresses. And a limo. Kimbies will be mannequin beautiful in her hippie bandana with her priceless husband at her side. We'll leave little Nay-Nay, the Chihuahua, in her pink tutu at home. We'll cheer. Probably cry. We'll dance. We'll have exactly one too many drinks. We'll hug. We'll all hold hands at some point and maybe fall on our knees on the dirty litle floor and thank God for the noise of rock and roll, and the healing, and the Angels that brought us here. And at midnight, we'll turn and kiss...
I'm so glad even resolutions give us second chances. This one is a keeper.
Peace
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
