Our time...

I dance in Combat boots. Laced one eyehook after another up my shin. I have a past. And I don't wanna go there again.


And so it goes....


The rinky tinky cell phone rattled across the kitchen counter.....vibrating over imported stone....crawling towards the end of the world...the inevitable crash. "I'll take it" I said, volunteering to both rescue the little thing from it's near death and to finalize our plans to meet up with friends in a little bit. And like all good volunteers, I followed instructions, slipped out the backdoor where there was "reception"....


One step out the door, two steps out from under the awning and then, on the third step, the last step, I fell off the earth. In the moonlight, I watched my falling from grace from somewhere high. "Watch your foot" I whispered to myself galloping in midair....And so she, me, tucked her right foot back, knee to chin, and dove Mark Spitz style over the ledge, left shin tracing, banging, skiing as we flew over the ledge, then the next ledge, and the next.....Courthouse steps I was never expecting, and then finally....the bottom....where the rock was finally flat. I kissed the floor quick. And unexpected. Chin, lips, nose. The sound of tiny tea cups shattering. And when the noise stopped, I knew.

I had barracuda teeth....

Today they sort of look like tiny pieces of chicklet gum. Strung across my smile.

But I'm smiling.

Miracles.

They blow me away....

Shortly after this could have been fatal fall, my handsome blue eyed baby boy, now bigger than his Daddy, was speared by the unexpected shattering of a 4 by 8 foot plate glass mirror, shearing his calf and severing both arteries and the major tendons, nerves, and muscles to his foot. His Father held on to him for life....a red sprinkler christening them both. Blue eyes locked into blue eyes. Waiting.

It's tomorrow now. The surgeries are over. There's a pulse.

And with my jack-0-lantern smile, I kiss him good night....

And believe.....

Rest in Peace.....

In the beginning, we were newbies. I remember where we sat and what I wore. The songs the band played. The wig Ms. Betsy had on. I smiled. Tapped my tennis shoed foot on the floor and finally, solo-d it on the dance floor. Kevin joined me. He couldn't hear the music and he couldn't introduce himself. We had to scooch really close to the drums before he smiled. He had to write his name on a napkin before I smiled. He couldn't hear. He couldn't speak. But, by God, he could feel it....

52 Fridays times two plus some have passed. I've barreled through the doors in cowboy boots, combat boots, barefooted. I've hugged people, kissed people, and just once.....slapped a wayward soul. I've slow danced, low danced, fast danced, no~touch danced.....held my lighter to the sky, my bottle to the heavens, and held my breath. I've fallen in love, met angels and demons, and family here. I've come through the painted door high on martini moons, wild from full moons, and tiptoed through no moons. I've been free here.

On Friday I knew.....

Ran my fingers down the painted front door and scrunched my nose up to the make believe speak easy.....

And made my entrance fit for an exit.....

Rumors.....

You never know what to believe.....

Pixies for peace

His little fingers open and close, the tissue paper soft wings of a newborn butterfly resting for just a moment, on the knotty limbs of an oak tree. He traces my veins and wrinkles, smiles, and holds on tight. Sighs and closes his eyes. For just a moment, I close mine, too. And I pray I'll live long enough, laugh often enough, to become a hundred year old pixie in his memories.



I'm standing at the ocean wall. And I feel her. Rising up in my heart. Hear her. See her. I spin around and know they feel her, too. Nana. She's at the bar playing Cahoot's with strangers. She's in patent leather knee high boots dancing with her new best friends. She has little lady fingernail shells stuffed in her yellow pocketbook. Magic potions in her carpetbag. She tossles my hair, runs her finger down my sunburnt nose, and throws her head back. Laughs and shoos me off...."Have fun, be free, little ones..."



Her face is scribbled. A thousand wrinkles swimming in every direction. Blonde hair piled on her head in banana curls. She's beautiful. The band drags their cords and amps, speakers, guitars, drums across the deck. "Testing one, two, three, testing".....and then she's gone. We're on our own. The man across the bar, with the Bon Jovi hair, rises and walks toward us. Giant fuscia hibiscus blooms in his hands. "For the flower children" he smiles....



And I look up at the sky and thank her.

When the Angels Call...

I'm drinking Champagne. Left over from a good time a zillion years ago. Recorked and shoved in the back of the fridge. I pulled it out and denied it the opportunity of a memory, popped the cork...a gunshot in the kitchen, a snapping bone in the living room, and it bubbled....

I poured it into one of the mismatched antique champage glasses Mary Cook gave me for a wedding gift as many years ago. And clinked her.

I'm waiting to hear from Skinny.

I'm waiting to hug her over a Verizon phone line, to sit indian style on the living room floor smoking cigarettes in tandem, hundreds of miles apart, waiting to explain to her why she heard the christmas bells, the jingle bells, the beckoning blue eyes of Nadine calling. Waiting to tell her, "I understand now"..... Waiting to tell her "I love you" again.... and again... and again....

I almost went dancing. Could've, would've, almost did. But then I wouldn't have been here. Wouldn't have heard the angels calling.....

The baby with the old soul......

She didn't know. Couldn't know. And so she slept in peace. Fluorescent lights flashed frantically to the rhythmatic noise sounding down the halls....sirens....doors sliding, locking, the padded footsteps of nurses hunkering down...yanking little ones from the tentative first time arms of their Mommies and wheeling them to the safety of the glass cage. No, she didn't know, that there amidst the chaos surrounding her first little breath, puff of sweet, sweet awaited air.... peace was born....and neither did we.

She had come to us by surprise. Concieved early and accidently, the gift of a rocky rebellious teenage romance. We gathered together, girlscouts around the ever needy campfire, and kindled her, watched her grow....watched her Mama, 16 before her birth, 40 after, grow.....

Her eyes opened, as if in surprise, at everything. Ceiling fans were giant ferris wheels doing cartwheels from the indoor sky. She oooohed and ahhhhed. Our mouths, each word spoken, were enchanted tunnels to places she wanted to travel. She stared. Studied. Leaned closer, until her little eyelashes kissed our lips, until she could almost crawl down our throats and touch the words before they left our hearts. And perhaps she did.

"Me'Me', it's time to rest now".....she tells Kimbies. All of three, and bouncing. But knowing. Me'Me's treatments leave her tired, and thirsty for just a moment's sleep.....She arranges the pillows just so on the couch, and with one shoe off and one shoe on, beckons her grandmother near. Pats the pillow. "Here" she whispers. Her little fingers trace her Mommy's Mama's face.

Love grows.....
She knows......

Wild horses and other love stories

Pregnant for the first and only time, with my youngest child, I had traipsed the eight city blocks with Haley on my hip. Not quite one yet, bundled in an acqua blue hoodie, and pantaloons, she was all moon-pie eyes as we crunched past the spectators. She cheeky-faced laughed at strangers waving, using her chubby little index finger to point out a million fascinations. I found the perfect spot on the curb, and plopped us down. Arranged the tokos cords just so.....

Haley's first parade! And here I was tethered to a little black box, carefully monitering Jonah, oblivious to us all, lounging in my womb. "Yeeeeeeaaaaah"! She pattycaked at the neon floats, middleschool cheerleaders, majorettes. "Yeeeeewwwwwwh" she squeeled at the painted poodles, the ballerinas, Uncle Sam on stilts. "oooooooohhhh" she whispered at the clomping of the saddled horses, the 4-H'ers on their backs. In the cool evening light, she ooooooed and awwwwwed at each set of legs tromping by....And then I heard thunder and groaned. We were perched lakeside and the crowd was twenty deep behind us..... I stared at the heavens, thinking "not now, please"......

.....and so I almost didn't see it, the giant shadow raising, higher, faster, mesmerized by Haley's chant...."wooooooooooooooweeeeee"....

...almost didn't hear it, the frantic rider commanding "Whoooah, boy, whooah"!

I scooped her up from between my knees and started spider crawling backwards into the crowd, the noise so loud...them, him.....the thunder. I couldn't do it. I knew it. Couldn't save my baby this way, so I threw her as hard and as high as I could...into the arms of the only eyes that had locked with mine. The eyes of a stranger.

The brawny arm that snatched me up one handed and lifted me through the crowd, had no voice, no face. I'll never know his name. Only that he swept me out of the horse's path, and left me, once safe, lost in the roaring crowd. I screamed. No one heard me. I started to crumple. To shake. Where was my baby?

And then ever so slowly, above the moving masses, chubby little index finger pointing...rising on the palm of an Angel, was Haley, laughing.

Put your money on the table....

And feel the love.....

It's amazing what an army can do....

Sunday morning, the dirt parking lot of our corner bar was swarming, purring, rumbling.....black boots, ponytails, bandanas, lots of leather, tattoos, and engines revved......a baby needed surgery, and the poker run began.

At 2:00 the masses came. The Indian, there, frying fish from all his early mornings out. Pink stuff has him whipped, but not enough to keep him down for this. The circle is in need. The band, after an early morning catnap, back again to play for love. And deep pockets everywhere. Smiling. Toasting. Giving.

One day.Two precious toddler twins. One in desperate need. Two parents. 60 bikes. 300 people. Ten thousand one hundred dollars by dark.

Two heads shaved: one male, one female. Sheared for the tiny sum of $3,300
Two locks of love....priceless.

One pair of 1970's men's disco shoes auctioned for $3.00. Price to watch the first guy they fit tap dance to Eric Claption: $300.00

Matching polyestor suit $15.00. Price to watch the tallest biker there strip down to his boxers and model it, $300.00

I have never felt so much love inside the same four walls in my life.

Perhaps, that's why, when the band climbed over the tables and shelves from the auction and started warming up....and a sea of arms and legs rushed behind them to clear the dance floor.....we all knew what the first song would be....

"And the house is rockin' tonight....."

May the spirit of yesterday carry on, the circle be unbroken, and the little one heal and laugh and play.....

Love grows.....

The Ghost of Christmas Past

I churned the gears down the river road, churning them out until they made a metallic moan, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, I'd never hit 4th before the red light. One baby booster-seated and one baby "I'm so big!" seated into the back seat, sleepy faced and oblivious to the ritual morning ride and Janis Joplin seeping from the console. And I was a little panicked.

The digitial dashboard clock was timing us, if I made the green, I had time to smoke a cigarette with Kimbies before dropping the children off, if it caught me on red.....forget it.

The Red light came quick and our seatbelts hiccupped. Snatching all three of us a little closer to the back of the ride. Three days until Christmas. And there in my rear view mirror were my sock-footed morning children, content, lazy, at peace.

"Dear Santa,
Don't worrie abot us. We ar good. We onle wont one thing. A camputeer. For Mommy and us. We love you a bunch and have oreos. And Moonpie wawnt bak at you, we told her not to, so you can come in our hawse.
Love,
Haley and Jonah"

Oh dear God, I thought, they picked only one thing. No hot wheels, Barbie dolls, puzzle ships, bicycles with frillies. One thing. For Mommy and them. The tree was decorated and dying already, we had lugged it home the night before, needles falling everywhere, on mighty clearance. I didn't have the nerve to put lights on it, and didn't have the heart not to. So I plugged it in anyway, and willed it not to burn the house down. They were thrilled.

The light turned green and I zoomed. No time now for a cigarette. Kimbies met me in the driveway to fetch them, in their pajamas, little square boxes of cereal in their backpacks. Another day at hippie daycare. I kissed them and slammed in reverse, free to smoke now, windows wide open. 1st gear, 2nd, 3rd.....

And then I saw them. The fireman's boots. Standing proudly next to the three matching garbage cans. It was trash day in our world. And I stopped. Reversed again. And stared at them.....

"I believe"......

So I snatched them.... the black rubber boots, Santa Clause's gear, and hurled them into the back seat. At lunchtime, Joe called me at the office, I panicked. He never called me here. My neighbor, my friend. Surely I forgot to unplug the tree and the damn house was on fire. I pictured him standing next to his pick-up truck calmly watching the flames, choosing his words carefully, as he watched my home come tumbling down.

"You said the kids only wanted a computer, right?" "Uh, yeah, but Joe, you know that ain't happenin', is the damn house on fire?" "Nah....it's okay, but I just picked Patty up from work and the hospital was throwing out all their old units, they're empty, you know" "What the hell are you talkin' about, Joe?" "Well, they're empty, they deleted everything from them, but Patty climbed in the dumpster and we grabbed one, and I'm pretty sure by tomorrow I can load it up with something" .....

Christmas Day....

My little ones awoke to the green glow of an institutional monitor in the hallway, the screen saver scrolling these words.....
"Love, Santa"......
it was fully loaded with battleship and checkers, and nothing more......

and the black rubber boots were under the tree....
with a note that read.....
"Now that we made it as far as Florida, we decided to barefoot it from here on......"


KJ....thank you for stirring this memory up, I'll explain the bottlecaps later.

The Feather.....

We called him The Indian. Never heard him coming. In the rowdy Friday night turbulance of our litttle corner bar, he snaked his way through the crowd, quiet and slow. I caught his eyes once or twice in the early days, small and dark, penetrating if captured, just under the brim of the cowboy hat. I always smiled. At The Indian. And he would nod. I watched him going as often as coming, the long dark braid down his back. We traded expressions for words. And it became a ritual.

When Kimbies was well enough and spirited enough to join us for Friday night beers, she slid through the crowd like Cinderella. Smiling, waving, "hey, how are you?ing" to everyone. She had heard their stories through the sister~grapevine, and recognized their faces from the hand me down tales. When Ronnie whisper footed past her, she embraced him....."The Indian". And they leaned in closer to each other, and whispered folklore stories and traded......phone numbers. Kimbie's hubby smiled. "She does that you know", "gives out our number"........ And that would be how we came to know The Indian as our friend.

He's doing the pink stuff now. The bad stuff. The chemo cocktail that poisens your system and maybe the cancer, that knocks you off your feet and makes you pray you fall off the earth and it ends. Kimbies knows. She's been there, viciously drugged by the "let me slowly kill you before I offer you hope" medicinal toddy. She waits. We all wait.

This morning I wandered, brick footed, into the backyard, tripping over mountains of construction debris and empty bottles. At the door to the shed/studio/condo/cottage/castle in the backyard, I found the feather. Held it up to the sunlight. And then placed it indian-quiet inside the doorway. For Ronnie's cowboy hat. When he hangs it here, in his new home.... "Gimme Peace".....

We're down to the finals. All the pretties are in, and done. Just waiting on the pro's. Some windchimes. And The Indian.....

I wish you peace.....

Plopped on the couch for days like a skinny little jelly fished washed a shore, I've had a lot of quiet time to myself. The incessant hum of the TV lugged into the living room for the occassion, lullabyes me back to sleep, again and again. I don't watch TV, but the parade of Angels tip-toeing in and out of my kitchen door, find comfort, I think, in flipping it on, tilting the screen toward the couch. I have no idea how to work the remote, so it's warm humming, a swarm of purring bees, rocks me back to sleep.
And I keep waking up with revelations.

Perhaps because Orhan reminded me how blessed I am by guardian spirits, I awoke today drenched with gratitude, and the overwhelming desire to write thank-you notes to the random angels in my life. The one's that don't get to see me smile, the ones I've never hugged or will never get to hug again, the one's I've been blessed with by chance..... The folks who have stepped both in and out of my life so quickly, and changed the butterfly effect forever.... I clink! you all, and thank you......

I start with these.....

Sweet Mothers of my daughters.....There are no words big enough to thank you for your trust, for gifting into my arms, your first born children. I see you everyday in their faces, their toes, the way one throws her head back when she laughs....the way they both think in black and white, siblings by chance, sisters by fate. I pray you know we love you, that we hope you believe in me, in us, in them, and know by trust, or faith, or visions from above that they are beautiful, headstrong, independent, and as in love with you as any Mother's child. I thank you often, but not often enough. And I just pray you know it. I can't send postcards to heaven, and I can't send them by first-name-only through general mail delivery. You were brave. You were strong. You loved your children so very, very much that you gave them emerald wings and they became my children....my dreams come true...my first born children, my precious daughters. There are no words big enough to wrap you in, to thank you with.....

Father of my children, Dad, Daddy.....We'll never sit next across from each other having heart-to-hearts, we don't speak the same language. And so I can't tell you this. And you would never understand. But I thank you for being there, the butterfly effect, so our family could be gathered. And I thank you just as much, for straying, for wandering, for our differences.... for pushing me to the bridge when it needed to be crossed. I thank you for leaving when I asked you to and trusting me to do right....to raise them, to love them and teach them to love you. I thank you for our freedom. For our wings......The girls are flying and free and Jonah keeps trying them on for size. One day, he'll find his fit and soar.....

Our lives have been rocky. And roller-coasterish. And wonderful. We've been broke and sometimes even poor. We've been afraid and sometimes terrified. We've been weak and sometimes broken. And we've been soldiers. Surrounded by an army of Angels. And that has made us rich, and sometimes generous. Brave and sometimes daring. Stronger than we ever imagined.

I wish you all peace and love,
and thank you....
endlessly

Sweet Friend of Mine....

It was a ten speed. Spray painted by thieves, and then, unclaimed, sold at the Sheriff’s Auction for ten bucks. We scooped it up and I had wheels.

They brought me here kicking, screaming, pouting, listening to “A Horse with No Name” on the staticky AM radio. I wasn’t impressed. The cobblestone roads, before I fell in love with them, were just bumpity and made the little Toyota we had inherited by chance, sound rattley and cheap. Piled in the front seat, with Skinny sandwiched between my legs, I watched the fancy yancy houses go by, the “isn’t it just beautiful?s” and cringed. I hated it here.

The evening of the Sheriff’s sale, I took off, spiked pedals piercing my flip-flops, blonde hair flying, cigarettes stuffed in the back pocket of the too-tight peanuckle cut-offs. I didn’t have smoker’s cough then, and I flew. Around Brewer Hill, and down, and down, and down to the water.

They were standing, shirtless, at the end of the drive-way,leaning up against a cheap little car, smoking. Just down below. Two guys with long hair billowing, lounging , blowing smoke rings, and laughing at the sky. Stoned probably. I fidgeted my fanny on the seat. The electrical tape wrapping the seat, transforming it from orange to black, stuck to my upper thigh. With my right hand I yanked the bent and crumpled pack of Kools from the thread bear pocket, poked one in my mouth, and dug deeper for the lighter.

Closer.

Faces coming into focus.

In the wind, flying, I tried to light the cigarette. At sixteen I was cool enough to do this, and maybe, even, flirt, on the fly by.

And so of course, I crashed. A mangled heap of stolen goods and a skinless chin at their bare feet. They barely even moved. “I’m Christian” he said. “Nice to meet you”…..

We spent years playing driftwood in the ocean, floating until we washed up, sun burnt and stoned. I giggled with him through his affair with the next door neighbor, Mrs. Robinson . I painted his bathtub in psychedelic colors and we planted fish there. We danced on tables and hung from balconies together. He taught me to drive a car, we traded poems back and forth and stuffed them in a manila binder…. “Our book”…….

He proposed to my best friend , beer-giddy on bended knees. We toasted. I stood by him when he called off the engagement and told the truth that sent her heartbroken, into the fast arms of a passing Navy Base Boy. I was there when his Father poured a scotch on the rocks, and his Mama, the one he gained by chance, stirred the drink she had been nursing since noon, and held her husband’s hand. I was there for the announcement, the Hush that blanketed the house, their hearts, their dreams. I was there, when in acceptance, they celebrated all he had become, the circle he had created…..

I don’t know how many years it’s been, I don’t know the date, the anniversary of his leaving me. But I know I miss him. And in the quiet of the walls tonight, I felt him here. Today, Orhan reminded me I had guardian spirits visiting ….And he’s not kidding…..

Rest in peace, sweet friend….
I hear you knockin’…..
And I'm listenin'....

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….

The Final Room

By Fate and By Chance....

I found a friend.

Sweet, soulful Baron.....
May the butterfly wings that carried you on this everyday roadtrip,
now grow stronger and mightier with everyday....
May the faces and the hearts you touched
smile bigger and ache deeper, live fuller everyday....
May the gifts you gave
be opened
over and over again....

Wishing you, hoping you, eternal peace in a place called home....The Final Room. Love you Man!