Pass the Peace and Prayers, please...

I string tiny prayer flags, a kaleidescope of colors, across the morning windows....a reminder to believe, to see, to remember, to be thankful, to imagine, to pray, to be at peace.....And when the sun shines through, their tattered colors dance across my dirty floors...And I embrace another accidental gift...

This is it....the end of the year I will forever embrace....and the beginning of the one I was sure I would only imagine....

I've heard tell~tell that how you bring in the New Year is how you'll spend it...and I peek outside for a moment and smile at the tilted moon, quietly applaud the fireworks in a not too far distance, and  hum a little Johnny as the old boxcar rolls down the tracks, for just a moment, snuffing out everything but memories and my imagination....

I look down and the hemline of my flannel PJ's are muddy...proof that a river really is in my backyard and that no matter how many times I wander there, I have to touch the very edge .....have to feel the faint ripple of at least one wayward wake...before I turn around and head for home again...

I might not make it to midnight....
I won't tear up the dance floor....
trip in my high heels on the way out the door...
No, I won't  be Cinderella...this year.....

But if I fall asleep in Peace, and wake up to the River running.....
I have a feeling,
my year will be very, very Blessed....

May yours, too.....
Be the Gift....

The Tin Can Parade

The water is shallow tonight.  Muddy and almost warm, snaking by in slow motion..... And the edge of the sky sways a little....just above the dark forest of skinny little cypress witch fingers....their knotted hands waving.....

It's a spooky little night...

And a good one....

At dark....one by one, the endless strands of lights connect...the electric colors pop, flash, glow and the tiny little tin-can houses dotting the water begin to dance.....a cobweb of extension cords joins neighbor to neighbor, sign post to street lamp....and if you listen....
on this silent night.....
you'll hear the the merry "clink" of wine glass to Beer Bottle....
and sleighbells....
in the sky...
or
in my little hippie imagination....

Merry Christmas!  May the Gift be the moment.....the peace...the love....And may the Circle be unbroken....

The Colors of Peace

And so I flew barefooted
over the loose gravel and down the damp embankment
to the muddy edge
of Peace.....

Fat ducks waddling before me,
and wet dogs .... nose to the ground and tails to the sky...
trailing behind me....

This is Home now....
where the sky is wet watercolor paper....
soaking up our moods,
our stories,
our fate,
and casting it into eternity...
a technicolor drive-in movie splashing before  us...
The colors of now.....

Yes, this is Home now...

Where the bugs have tiny motorboat engines for hearts
and the snakes are bigger than make believe....
where our little glass houses are cellophane tents
and our twisted stories are peppermints.
little party favors for the passing....

I click the camera...
savor the captured wild sky one more time....

And remember....

Every day is the Gift....

And this one is mine......

May your sky be as blessed....

The Afterglow......

I stand at the dirty edge of this tin~can Paradise
and breathe differently than I have in forever,
or maybe ever before.....

I'm free....

And the river flows north.....
to the Sea....

Take me to the River

I made a little list of pros and cons....
in Giant Sharpie letters
and taped it with Scotch tape to the refrigerator....
and my Brain while I slept.....
I scribbled  it again on the back of envelopes in the car....
     in Traffic......
Like The Haunting....

I babbled it into the friendly ears and eyes of
my buddy at the bar,
my Sister Loves,
my children...
Strangers at the post office....

And then I decided....

I'm doing it....

Moving into a little gypsy house on wheels...
on the River....
the running water....
the setting sun....

The Hope....

I'll have to take two steps UP to grab a cold beer....

And one step out my only door to be in Paradise.....

I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner.....

Packing.....up.....

Team Peace and Team Colors...Corn Hole Boards.....
A few stepping  stones from 2001...concrete mixed in a kitty litter bucket and patina painted in the Florida Sun....
Moon Pies Garden Gate....graffitied and tattooed and hinged to swing with our moods.....
A record player and the five albums from after the Hurricanes....
Greg Allman.....Donovan....Charlie Rich....Johnny Cash...and the Allman Brothers....
Two pairs of cowboy boots,
two black Love dogs, a Siamese Cat named Deja and Isadora....the queen of all Felines....
3 psychedelic Samsonite suitcases stuffed with photos.....
Cheetos....
Two pairs of converse sneakers and a pink piggy bank....
a gazing ball...
a bird bath...
Granny Laniers bed and Nana's bamboo bar.......
Some Love Letters....
Three nude mannequins tattooed....
a cell phone charger...
a frying pan,
2 pairs of levi cut-offs,
2 travel toothbrushes, a crock pot, two Margarita glasses, 6 shot glasses, and a new pack of Solo cups.....
A Tent, 7 strings of prayer flags, a cot, and two coleman coolers.....
The Spirit of the Suwanne....the St. Johns....and the waves of New Smyrna....
The Memories....of mudpies....and Moonpie....and Martini Moons...and Rumors....
The Maybes, the wannabes, the I believes.....

Our Souls....

For everything else there's yesterday....And all those other happy endings....

We're running off to tomorrow......

Our House is a very very Hippie House.....

I wander around in circles, my fingers tracing memories in big fat summer dust, settled everywhere.... This House, these walls, these stories....painted everywhere......whisper to me...

And now we're waiting.  I touch things.  Move them ever so slightly.  Echo the little chant..."Keep, pass, toss" and decide their fate in an underwater , upside down state of mind.  It's time to Go.  To Move on.  And to look back, only with Love.....

I wonder, if like Nadine once said, someone will have to spend a fortune whitewashing these walls, sanding over our carvings, blasting the mosaics from everywhere they turn.  If someone will cleanse our house of it's spirit, it's blessings, it's internal tattoo's and I wonder if
for just a moment or
forever....
a tiny hippie haunting will dance on....
in the shadows....
the little creaks at night....
the accidental music of a woodstock wind.....

Good-bye little house and a gazillion earthly belongings.  We're packing up our memories, a few good pair of jeans, two cats, two dogs, a bicycle, a coffeepot, Grannys high poster bed, and Nana's bamboo bar.....and heading to the River....to live in a Gypsy trailer....

and laugh....once again.......

In a place called Peace....

Peace River and the sound of Drums.....

The sound of the Music was rhythmatic...
a lull-a-bye in the tangled trees above us....
leaves fluttering, cascading,
the ruffle of petticoats dancing  in the sky....
Old tree limbs rubbing, scraping,
their knotty arms and legs balancing in a high wire act  above our sleep....
Fat squirrels, skinny squirrels with Mohawks flying through the air,
skittish little trapeze artists diving, jumping, leaping,
and stopping every now and then to shiver,
and give us their beady little brown eyed wink......

And bats....swooshing....
gossiping with each other....
whistling in secret languages to the night stars....
Diving at make believe fire flies in the thick river night.....

A place called Peace.....

We found it there....
and slept through the pitter patter of the tiny footsteps of 300 pound Boars....
lost and lonely,
but too afraid to cross under the prayer flags, the orbs dangling from our trees.....
too intimated to pass the Spirit of the Dancing Lady ....or wake her from her sleep.....
We found it there....
drenched by Monsoon Moon rains....and ankle deep in tea colored mud.... laughing.....
We found it there....
right out our Real World
and
waist high
in Make Believe...

It was the perfect campout.....

The Reflecting Tide....

I blink.....
slow and double eyed...
a lazy man's wink....

And a gazillion years have passed.

The grass is up to my knees,
and the wishing pond is a bejeweled frog's farm....
My body aches..
from Time Traveling,
falling,
bumping,
bruising....
forgetting to watch out,
hold on,
count to 10 before I jump.....

I'm old again....

I drink my beer cold
and hobble in high heels....
I wrinkle just a little bit more with every summer tan...
I can still party all night,
but it takes me three days to raise my head when the music stops...
I'm  in Cahoots with Kimbies...and my baby sister Love...
and sometimes total Strangers that I've known forever
or just a moment.....

Tonight,
when I stopped by to visit Mom....she was playing the harmonica...
Beautiful and Blonde and in her very own world....

She smiled with (My very own smile 25 years from now)
and for a moment she wondered who I was.....
and then she hugged me....

And showed me her circles....
Painted and drawn,
dribbled on paper towels and canvas and paper back books...
Circles with eyes and occassional noses and fins and tails and melting peace signs....
Circles with sun rays and stingers and puddles and weeds....And words....

Shes' an Artist, you know.....

And I do know....

So I smiled with My Mother's smile (25 years before today) as I waved good-bye and glanced at the row of glistening Metallic Blue Shrubs lining her porch......

and remembered the little can of spray paint on her dining room table...fluorescent orange....
Just Waiting.........on her imagination.....

And me,
to follow her footsteps.....