At the Matinee

The last time I was going to be a ballerina, I clunked through all the closets, dug through the drawers, pilfered through old suitcases and found one....just one...tattered pink shoe. I pirouetted out into the living room, spinning madly to Jethro Tull, and my daughter, eyes barely lifting off the book she was reading, muttered..."Ma, you can't do that anymore, you'll break your foot". I never quit twirling.

And of course, I was in surgery, three days later. And still in a cast three months later.

Today, I was a ballerina again. On my own private stage, the heavily wooded curtains hiding me from the audience in the red velvet chairs. The wind an orchestra....the sun a spotlight shining only on me...

Sometimes we just have to believe....

And keep on dancing....

"Will you be my friend?"

I layed belly to the sky, toes draped lazily over the edge of the yellow vinyl raft, fingers air drumming in the water....drifting....in circles. I never opened my eyes, pretending to know when the clouds passed and exactly how they were shaped by the heat on my eyelids.....rubber stamps of sunshine in the cool negative shape of angels, elephants on their hind legs, horses with wings.....

I listened to the wind. To the trinkets in the sky. The natty faded towels on the clothesline; a sudden parade of American Flags....exactly the same size, the same color, as my kindegarten year.....hand over my heart ....the fabric billowing, the chain clanking hauntingly against the pole. Squirrels, or rats maybe, I don't know, ratatatted back and forth across the crooked fence line, racing madly to nowhere. There was traffic in the distance, and then close. Boom boxes rattling. Gears shifting. A siren. Still, I didn't open my eyes. This was my peace. And I was gonna live it.....

I don't remember dreaming. I don't remember the 45 minutes I disappeared from earth forever.

But I remembered how I got there. Comfy cozy in the lazy round river. Waiting on the boys. Floating round and round and round....saying thank you......

Swimmin' with frogs....

I scooched down the ladder, one step... two...third's a charm....and plowed into the pretend ocean, water streaming past my face, Christmas tinsel in the sun. God, I love this pool!

The yellow raft bobbed, up and down. Suddenly splashed, it looked like a radiator gurgling in the summer heat...steam rising, bubbles popping. I reached for it, ready to plop my Saturday skin in it's arms. Then she croaked. Made this funny tweaky sound. And I saw him. The frog. "Shooooooo!" I fussed. He looked at me and croaked. "Arrrrrrggggh" I gently lifted the raft over the edge of the pool, pinned the edges to the tidy whitey clothes line that hangs like a broken power line over the lazy round river and let the yellow mattress blow in the wind, it's bottom sweeping the grass....."Shooooo, little one" I whispered. He croaked again. "Come on bud, I made you a ladder and everything"..... He croaked.

I swam that day. No floating. I gave in and let him sit perched on my vinyl dream, staring at me.

Yesterday I woke up to a sea of tadpoles, splashing, swimming, playing follow the leader, dip and dive, "Look, Ma, Look!" in my little round river.....


Squatter's rights.....

Swimmin' up hill.....

I fall in face first. Imagine the blue Kool~aid waves crashing on the blow up shoreline. Slip into my mermaid skin and day dream. Five more days. My hair billows out on the surface, a thousand golden sea snakes swimming in a halo.... I open my eyes wide, wider, and wait. My contacts float off, tiny cavier eggs finally free. I smile for them. Five more days. And then no more counting....

I float in a circle, upside down and backwards, the current finally catching up to me, and then turn around and plow into it! This is how it feels when you take off from the seawall running, running, running and the ocean finally laps you up, whisks you away, slathering you with kisses. I can't wait. To be free......



To sit perched on the edge of the earth, a sandpiper, digging to China....
To dance under the mist machine and the neon light of the moon, 17 again, but wiser....
To hear the sea monsters rumbling, grumbling, tumbling in the night and watch them wallow backwards, foamy tails between their legs, when the Sun comes out ....
To slurp beer can oysters
and spurt salt water to the sky....
To build Peace Castles and scribble sand graffiti with my toes....
To sing in the choir, the next rock~n~roll band, the outside shower....
To paint henna tattoos on the legs of strangers
and the backs of friends....
To play driftwood, floating until I wash up on the shore...
To feel the love.....

I climb up the rickety plastic ladder and laugh. Peace is comin'..... Five more days, baby!