Friday, August 03, 2007

Behind the gate......

It was ugly. A big box tucked in the corner of the yard. One window and an old splintered door. I peeped inside and fell in love. Rickety metal shelves lined the walls. Giant penny nails were hammered everywhere. A box fan was wedged into the one window, cranked open and crooked, it’s electrical cord dangling like a dead snake hooked to the windowsill. My studio.

The lawnmower fell in love with it too. And the leaf blower, the rocky horse, the old pie safe I’ve lugged around for years. My tile collection, scavenged by the truckload, took over the floor space, stacked precariously and dangerously high. Eventually my album collection, the old wedding gown I saved for ….(What child of mine would want to wear the gown gone wrong?) , Jonah’s baseball cards, the hand-made stilts, and the leopard skin couch I scarfed from an abandoned house, all took up squatting rights there.

The boys used to sneak cigarettes and the occasional Budweiser there, adolescent legs dangling from the stacks of tile, pretending most probably to be perched on Hooter’s barstools. From the graffiti on the walls, on occasion they got lucky. In the clubhouse.

Three summers ago, after the hurricanes pealed it open ,naked to the skies, I decided I really didn’t want a studio in the corner yard. But she lived. She got all new walls, concrete this time. A beautiful new roof to match the house. And we stuffed her to the brim with coolie cups and neon floats, giant inner tubes and coolers, and called her…..well, we called her The Shed. The little dream whose time had never come.

Tonight, the measuring, marking, making good things happen for good people crew is coming over. We’ll clink and take notes and knock heads. The Angel driven trucks will roll in and gift us with drywall, insulation, lightening fixtures, a sink, maybe even air-conditioning. We’ll light the fire and toast to love and when we’re done…..

The little shed will be called home.

To a friend.

And maybe, this is all she ever dreamed of….

82 comments:

JR's Thumbprints said...

We all need that creative space we can call our own. I rebuilt an old migrant workers' home into a gardening shed. Tore out the old electrical and plumbing, tore down the chimney, rebuilt each wall and installed new windows. It's a place for my wife to use. She's a master gardener and needs the space to plan.

JustRun said...

"making good things happen for good people crew"

That's a beautiful thing.

Lola Starr said...

Home is always nice to find. :)

robkroese said...

Cool. My office is in my barn. :)

eric1313 said...

I hope she loves her home. She deserves one for her art. Now, her art needs homes. Like the library of congress. Seriously, this is really folk art that you produce and helped me get a feel for.

Wish I could clink with you all. I love the good things happen to good people kind of do it yourself mentallity. You are all about that kind of positve thinking.

We all need homes;

eric1313 said...

glad I have where ever I go, just a click away!

singleton said...

jr...it's probably heaven to her, a garden paradise. That is so cool! I hope our little barnraising goes as well!

justrun...it's so true. We made a chain of love out of a telephone. He called her, she called Kimbies, Kimbies called me, I called Chey, and we started calling in the troops. wham! Bam! thank you ma'am....The tinker crew was born!

karma....everyone should have one. Hopefully this one will work out karmically for everyone involved...

singleton said...

diesel....See what I mean? just a little imagination and poof! There it is!

eric....yes, we all need homes. It can be a treefort, a lean-to, a room down the hall, but it has to be a place we call our own, where we're free.....Here's to hoping our circle just got bigger and better and stronger....and that within these walls, our friend feels as at home, as we do!
Clink!

Me said...

The Shed is an Australiana staple, seriously. Everyone has either a garage or The Shed here in the Island Home of Oz.

Loved the imagary of the young ones sneaking cigarettes and beer (and girls) into the room. So cute. Totally something I would've done.

And by the way, I will certainly be kidnapping you whenever I find myself with a beach home; you will be making it look pretty. Peace and love? Not until the job s done ;)

skinnylittleblonde said...

lightening fixtures Honey ...that would be your computer. LOL, just put a light fixture out in the gingerbread house! ILYSVFM.
Going out dancing tonight?
I'll meet you there in my dreams! xoxox

eric1313 said...

Clink!

singleton said...

silly Orhan....peace~love always, first, in the middle, and in the end......Ahhhh, just lemme loose on that little beachside garage or shed.....And we'll be paintin' imagery.....Psychedelia matches your decor, No? :)

SLB.....Good Lord! Lightening fixtures! Yep, I'm a little fixated!

And we are, but first we're having a pow-wow, gotta knock heads, recruit the rest of the army, and rattle that can can! I wish you were here so bad.....to lead the Hippie Parade....banging our drums with hammers and screw drivers, playing the saw......and crankin' up that Barbeque grill! ILYSVVM! If your phones ringin' off the wall in the middle of the night....I'm home and full of the chat!

peace~love my magpie fairies!

singleton said...

eric....clinkity tink! In real time!

eric1313 said...

clink!
for real?

Jacob said...

Cool. My barn is in my office!

Have you seen my mirrored twin?

Me said...

The hippie inside says yes, the business man on the outside says no. I'm sure we can find a suitable middle ground -- or I could just give you carte blanche? I certainly like the latter option ;)

Momentary Madness said...

May I please get inside your head for a day just to relax- hang out in the shed, have a beer, lounge on the leopard and drift away into the collected tiles...... "and everyone smiles as you drift past flowers that grow so incredibly high.......Lucy" Sorry, I'm gettin' carried away. Love it.
Y;-) Paddy

SHE said...

what a beautiful read!

"And maybe, this is all she ever dreamed of…."

-my thought/feeling exactly-

the whole thing..

crisis, help, teamwork.. right down to this very post:

destiny

God shine on each of you; God shine on the work you do

karoline in the morning said...

yayyyyy! i'm back to read your wonderful storys..i did miss you singleton...and i thought of you whilst i whiled away my days toes buried in the sand, head in the clouds and breath on his lips...

luv your new digs...911 on your 'puter and life in your very own frilly-dilly letters and kaleidescope of colors...

k

:)))

Rachelle said...

Okay, I'll show you mine if you show me yours.... wedding gowns gone wrong that is :))
I keep saying, we can modify it, but will that ever be enough?!?!
Hmmm.... methinks not!
Slainte~
Rachelle

singleton said...

eric....for real....

Gawpo....LOL! In that case, my garage is in my kitchen!

Orhan.....are you saying compromise? Your neighbors will love you! Until Skinny and I sneak back under the cover of dark with a 12 pack of spray cans and add the finishing touches! ;) the business side of you can claim you didn't know a thing about the hippie chics lurking in the shrubs, tripping up your walls!

singleton said...

paddy.....you can climb inside this ole noggin' for a beer and cheer anytime, just pardon the clutter, and ummmmm, could you bring some tunes?

she....it's funny how things come together in ways and times you never thought of. Thank you for blessings, I'm gonna pass em through the circle.....One hug at a time, one beer at a time....

singleton said...

karoline...yeah! i gotta bop over and hear all about your paradise, ooooooohhhhhhhhh....."whilst i whiled away my days toes buried in the sand, head in the clouds and breath on his lips..."
makes me swoon!

rachelle...LOL! OK, here's the real story....Nobody wanted to get married in it again, so I dyed it a delicious shade of peach, added irredescent sequins, a crown, and a magic wand.....And poof! I was Glenda, the GOOD WITCH!

peace~love girls!

eric1313 said...

sittin with sister listening to Rachmaninov. Reading the words of a Hippie!

Clink?

Chris Benjamin said...

what a great history (herstory?) of the barn, and a what a great new phase in its life!

singleton said...

eric...must be feeling the sister love, off to clinkity tink with Kimbies and her crew for BBQ,Beers,Stories,Cheers and whirling and twirling. Were your ears ringing in the night? Had to scroll through all the steps on the porch (comment boxes) to find the poem that crawled into my world yesterday. Found it. Lived it. Thank you my friend. And that's prophetic, long story, but so very very prophetic.

Clink! Of course!

Benji...I love it! history/herstory!
perfect! And yes, it is both.

eric1313 said...

I'm here clinkin' smoke rings and pizza. Now I've got SRV's The Sky is Crying on.

We have the BBQ going, too. Ribs and boneless chops. The war is quiet right now.

I'll have to look for the poem! I went through a creative sprint all week, until disruption. Now it's been days since the ship blew her horn.

I've got to get something going. Talk to you latter, friend

justacoolcat said...

Clink to that.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one that collects bits and pieces of tile. I long for the day when I have truckloads.

karoline in the morning said...

lol..i had to share this little secret, i used my wedding dress for halloween one year...sewed spiders and webs all over it...it was certainly fortuitous...perhaps that was when i realized it was done..

never let a good dress go to waste i always say...

;)
k

SpongyBones said...

I can't think of a better inhabitant for the old shed then you! Nobody else could live up to the great history of it!

skinnylittleblonde said...

Karoline has such a great idea Sister!

singleton said...

eric....well you've pelted out pages and pages before the disruption, and they're awesome....we can't color everyday! Mmmmmmm we had london broil and crab legs, A whole lotta feastin' goin' on....

suchacoolcat.....Oh I wish there was some way to share, like you were closer or something, I would give you a truckload....for real! You can clink! to that!

karoline....likened souls think alike! Mines been around the neighborhood a few times! clink! A little imagination goes a long way!

Spongy....well, actually it's a friend that's movin' in, but I've got my paint brushes ready, for that, well you know, extra touch!

SLB....I see your mind tickin'! IMYSVVFM!

eric1313 said...

just got home with beautiful timing. We can't all color every day or night, but damnit....
you know?



OK, OK
write on, right on
tight-cut baby blues
says
"listen to yourself
writing about not
writing
and you think I'm
a rainbow,
you think I'm the word
faerie!"

tight cut baby blues
loveworn fringes
some torn some burnt
everything about you
says
"shut the fuck up and
enjoy your bbq, baby.
color your world
like liquid blue
green eyes
that you swim in
before you wake up,
the brown eyes
of your genie
before the sun
and its day reign"

tight cut baby blue
of blues
you tell me to listen
and I know
you hold the key to
victory
what everyone wants
victory
a low house payment
the children fed
and the warmongers
put to bed

V

two fingers spread
like legs said
"Victory?"
"shut the hell up
and dance"

then you call it peace
tight-cut baby blues
two fingers

V

and really
you're saying that
they're the same

eric1313 said...

Hey, it was good at first. I would say we almost did clink!

singleton said...

clink!

eric1313 said...

clink!
LOL
you are home!

eric1313 said...

I colored!
I liustened between the lines and I colored bright all over and windex or fantastic or bleach ain't gonna clean it off--just like when i was a kid! My mom was a lot different than yours, god bless the both of them.

singleton said...

yup, racing through the words .... v

singleton said...

yes, I love it! you got it goin' on!
"V

two fingers spread
like legs said
"Victory?"
"shut the hell up
and dance"

then you call it peace
tight-cut baby blues
two fingers

V

and really
you're saying that
they're the same "

Damn, Eric, how do you know?

eric1313 said...

Tell me when!

btw
Real time! I posted right after earlier, so basically, I colored then, to!

eric1313 said...

It's just the feelings and words shared, friend.

eric1313 said...

Thanks for letting me know

eric1313 said...

clink!

singleton said...

you gotta new post on? I thought I checked, I'll have to scooch over .Nice to see ya again, my friend

singleton said...

It's so weird, SLB agrees, almost kinda spooky, how you take the the tiniest thread and spin a tale so damn close to the truth, it's gotta be a fairytale

eric1313 said...

thanks
I have to share it. You guys are the ones inspiring me so much I wouldn't want too many more inspirations. I just know how people feel by their writing and the atitiude it presents. That's how I get to know a lot of people, through their writing

eric1313 said...

smashed my thumb in sis's car door tonight!

IHSVVFM! (H is for hurts)

clink!

singleton said...

And it shows. I so hope things are gonna come together for you soon, peace~home~313 etc. Is it lookin up?

eric1313 said...

I'm still alive!

singleton said...

Ha! I know that language very well! Sorry, sorry, sorry!

eric1313 said...

Yes and...
in Detroit the other day, I was walking up to the office floor when outside a few pedesyrians were injured by a car driving on the sidewalk.

Things are looking up. I have options.

eric1313 said...

thanks for the sorrys
you don't have to say that
It was only my spacebar thumb!

singleton said...

I went to the river, tripped on a sliding rock and almost busted my tutu (oh yeah, I would've made a perfect ballerina), got bit by a crawling ant on my damn eyelid, came home, walked thru the kitchen door and the kitchen cabinet door fell off the hinges.....landing at my feet! Good times are comin'

singleton said...

Funny but I always think of writers needing their thumb to hold a bic pen scribbling on crumpled napkins by candlelight in dusky bars or restaraunts:)

eric1313 said...

Man, I'd help you hang the door.

I was a maintenance man at a place with 306 appartments from 18 til i was twenty

eric1313 said...

twenty three, actually

My right write hand is OK!

just the left thumb, luckily

singleton said...

TY, I'll probably just leave it propped up for the rest of it's natural life!

singleton said...

a token reminder of the day, which actually was a whole lot bigger than it sounds....
the river anyway
with dragonflies
and giant hawks
swooning
at
my hair

eric1313 said...

You can always hang hippie beads!

eric1313 said...

They thought you
were a riber goddess
the dragonflies

the carry souls to and from
the clouds

eric1313 said...

your hair was the sun
to them and to
other eyes
you set aflame

of couse the hawks
kne your name on the wind

eric1313 said...

it was the name
of everything we here alone
in the dark
weeping joy
for life
and
the circle

singleton said...

It was really strange...
a parade of dragonflies
perinwinkle and lavender
transluscent
candlelit
lacey
milky
all polka-dotty
dancing, skipping on
the muddy water. Beautiful actually.
And they kissed me when we left.
Really.

singleton said...

I pulled the sunvisor down and peeped in the mirror, sure that they had left a tracing-paper thin tattoo on my cheek

eric1313 said...

THey left their mark

eric1313 said...

as only they could ever
but none see it

unless
they too can fly
on a single breath
of the hurricane gales
late at night

Gill said...

Angels are imperative.
Home is so much more, once our souls are poured into it.
Anything is possible.
xo
Blue

eric1313 said...

but I often wonder
where they fly off to

when it's 12:16

and the night
is still laughing
pure springs of love

eric1313 said...

it was to late for that

or maybe
not


(are you there sing?)

eric1313 said...

did you leave?
I didn't mean to leave you hangin!

singleton said...

Blue.....yes. On the wings of Angels, everything becomes touched. And so much more vital and alive, and perfect. May the circle grow and be blessed, and forever remain unbroken! Clink!

Eric....oooops, sorry! Middle of the night wanderings from the neighbors on the porch, and my eyes were crooked and crossed from an endless Friday that spilled into Saturday, and the story goes on and on...... I'm so glad to see you pumped up, pouring out legacy lines.....
psssst...hope the thumb is better today!

peace~love my friends

eric1313 said...

I smoked a cigarrette, came back and waited around for you, tossing pebbles at your window like I do, with the hope that the inside sunshine beams out at me once more in the middle of the night.

Be well, my inspiring friend. I'm so very glad to know you.
p~l

singleton said...

eric....Ahhh, you can never trust me left to my own, I wander.....collecting pebbles in the sand!

peace~love, my friend

eric1313 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
eric1313 said...

Look at that! E1313 at 3:13. What luck. Took forever to write the damn thing! Plus, that isn't even what I had in mind when I popped back here to the porch. Was going to write something else with the poems and I think I still will do that.

But I was inspired to write about wandering.

eric1313 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
eric1313 said...

peace~love accepted graciously.

this is crazy. Hope you like reading!

I've edited the bejezuz out of it--but not the soul. That's the same as always.

Wanderlust
E1313

We are both wanderers. Its how we've seen so much that we have to speak the stories out loud in the stifled dark. Stories posted high in the air, beaming around the world on satelite arrays that many eyes will see and many more will not, but it is all in balance, and nothing more can be asked of the universe.

We wander by habit, looking around, watching everything tick and tock, thinking about how the whole contraption works. From love, to the wind and waves, to the nations of the world and their ceaseless bickering and politics, politics, politics and wars. Wars that eat the living and spit out corpses, wars over everything on this shrinking earth, alone as it is in all the vast emptiness of the cosmos, its sisters distant and small like the head of a pin in crushed black velevt, the sun it's only friend, mother, healer, destroyer--not so alien from so many others we've seen wandering alone through their own universal black night shroud, regrets and wishes the only thing keeping them above the ground, the only thing they seem to know.

We wander to the Himalayas, to the south pole palm trees under ice, to the bottom of the sea or to the place that Aurora is born near the edge of the wind's kingdom. We've been there a million times before and in the future, climbing poetic mountains of fire and ice, using metaphoric wings to steal ourselves from a fall.

And when we sleep, we wander where the earth takes us. We wake up laughing at the irony: Our feet carry us so far, the earth carries us farther, the sun hurtles through the galaxy of angry stars swarming like killer bees, each one racing against only time itself, carrying us back to Eden's birth a million light years away.

But our minds transcend this, wandering to before the begining, wandering to after the end, having drinks with God and his cronies around their poker table before saying our respects for all we have seen. Our minds hit the switch and turned the furnace called sun on high as the world was born from ashes and left-over love from her past life in a glowing purple cloud. We see the others, the glowing red hot souls wandering the infinite horizon looking for their own answers to their own questions, looking so often with their truest eye closed. The answers we sought only posed more questions--if the rest of the souls knew that, would they give up and wander home, lock their doors, nail the shutters closed and bury themselves in their crawlspace to save themselves from the heartache and brokenness of drifitng forever in the void of everything and nothing?

I start to think they would give up and lie down, but you grab my arm and shake me like a tree in the spring rains, the flash from your eyes turning shades of colors not yet named but dreamt of by artists and other mad souls who see in that spectrum apart from the norm. Your eyes speak litanys, poetry burning like yellow candleflames reflected by the starry night sky. Your mouth speaks passion plays in words and caresses, and your body's language tells me the answer to that broken question of my thoughts. We wander not for the answers--though we seek them--not for the sake questions--though we ask them, not for the sake of anyone or anything else under sun and moon. We wander for no other purpose than why we breathe, eat, fuck, sleep, laugh, cry, dream or die...

We wander because that is our nature.

We wander from birth to death, hand in hand or alone slinking through shadow and mist, but we wander all the same, all bright stars on a path of ages. The flash in your eyes told me that. We wander and complete great circles in the fields of grain. We wander and by journey's end we find the story writes itself, the story of questions answered by questions, whispered in our ears by the knowing wind. We wander and we will forever, death and life being only a change of worlds. The circle is infinty, and we complete it, and are completed by it.

We wander.

End of story.

eric1313 said...

BTW

"Funny but I always think of writers needing their thumb to hold a bic pen scribbling on crumpled napkins by candlelight in dusky bars or restaraunts:) "

I have actually writen a lot of notes of cocktail napkins by dusky light, everyone wondering what the hell I'm doing while they are drunk and staring an uncomprehending that there is more to life than what one's genitals tell them to do. Not much more, but enough. I can do bad by myself. Proven fact.

Anyway, g'night!
clink!

Rachelle said...

HA-HA!!!! You and I must have had the very same gown.....
*scary thought*
But did you have a matching hat??? I didn't think so.
Doubly troubling.
How do you spell doubly??
:))
Great idea, now where's the peach tint..... *crash-bang-clink*
Rachelle

singleton said...

eric.....I wandered right behind you, slowing down and waddling in the words, kicking some like river rocks, wandering......
face first to the sun!
Thank you!

rachelle.....Oh No! Not a hat! Pssst....the pinch tint is at the grocers right next to the "green" tint.....which was my first inclination!

Clinkity Clinkity Tink!

eric1313 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
eric1313 said...

Tight cut baby blues,
and love-tangled fringes

Everything about you
says
"shut the fuck up and
enjoy your bbq, baby."

Tight cut baby blues,
you tell me to listen
and I do, I know
you hold the key to
victory--
what everyone wants
victory--
a low house payment
the children fed
and the warmonger
wannabes put to bed.

V for victory

Two fingers spread;
like her legs said
"Victory, so sweet,
just shut the hell up
and dance, baby"

V--for victory

And really
you're saying that
it's all good and
it's all the same
spirt to soul
peace to love
maybe baby blues--
V flashing victory
one more kiss before
the blazing dawn.