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.....