Nana

When I was 14, she was 66....
Blonde banana curls cascading down her back , dread locked ahead of her time. Skinny little legs and Blue Mascara. Patent leather pocket book exactly the color of The Yellow Submarine. My Nana. Skinny's Nana. Kimbies Nana. She was wild.

She laughed with no reserve, head tilted back, guzzling the wine of stolen moments from a long fluted glass.
She danced with the abandon of a Ballerina in red slippers, with the wind up wings of a Go-Go dancer, with the free spirit of a magpie faerie.
She told stories in a whispered language only those in cahoots would ever understand or remember in the morning.

She was tickled pink when women burned their bras, but believed in keeping the sexiest ones, the ones in ice cream colors and wicked lace, for the night time....
She rubbed elbows with everyone....catching their magic, and savoring it....
She Loved scary movies, patent leather boots, mini skirts, red lipstick, smokey bars, storytellers, rock and roll, Liberace, romance novels, and her handsome hubby....
She was wild....

She taught us secrets we'll pass on to our daughters and nieces....

I felt her,
heard her,
hugged her...
on Saturday night.....

And I know when she peeked down,
eyes sparkling,
head thrown back ready to laugh,
she was thrilled.

You taught me well, Nana.
I wore fishnets with the combat boots.....

Close your eyes....

I can vividly remember the first night...

They sipped pink champagne in long fluted glasses and in between the vinyl grooves, they set their drinks on the mahongony table...

And it left rings in the morning....

She swirled and twirled to Ray Charles, Bobby Vinton, Louis Armstrong, Chubby Checkers, The Tijuana Brass....and just for fun...The Grasshoppers....He dipped, and spun....and laughed....

I sat on the couch and watched. Long gangly legs in a pink velvet dress and blonde bangs chopped off to match my Barbie Doll. Kimbies and I had to be very, very quiet, or we had to go to bed....

I barely breathed.

On the blue carpeted floor, they shimmied and watootsied and "Love potioned Number 9'd" each other.....

And then I grew up....

I went to first grade, and fifth, and senior prom. I fell in love and out of love. And got married. And divorced. I raised my babies. I danced on coffee tables, balconies....and beaches. I danced in empty bars, at concerts, in traffic, and in the kitchen....

But I never forgot...
they might have, but I didn't...

The magic of that night...

Of them closing their eyes and feeling the music....

I believe in Magic...

Ketchup Soup

She stood in the kitchen, fuzzy slippers blackened at the toes, nubby slip~proof soles, worn thin. Her bottom lip sucker kissed her top lip over and over again. She was chewing.....

Chanty boy sat wedged in the high chair, a wadded up dish towel to his left, a rolled up T~shirt to his right. In case he teetered. We were hungry. I sat barefooted across from Chance at the kitchen table, toes stretching to tap, tap, tap him on his chubby thighs...make him smile. Robbie was makin' him cream of wheat and until it was ready, I had to keep him entertained. .

When she scuffed across the kitchen floor, blowing 'backy smoke on the bowl of grits, I kited past her, snapped the fridge open and stared ..... "Ugggggh"..... Milk, ketchup, mustard with crust on the cap, leftover po~cakes, a bottle of insulin, and 3 cans of Lite Beer. I slammed the olive green door shut and twirled in the kitchen, opened the pantry door. "Aint nothin' there" she murmered, never taking her eyes off the rubber spoon, off the baby she was feeding....

"Ugggghhhh"! I flopped back into the bentwood chair and without another word began knawing on my fingernails. "What the hell?" I mumbled and she never answered me. It was OK to cuss around Robbie, she did it all the time, and she wouldn't tell...
.

She swirled the spoon around the plastic bowl one last time, and Chanty had his encore bite....full and happy now, his heavy little head nodding, falling into the high chair tray. Fat and content, he would sleep well... She made sure of that....

She wiped her hands on the dirty green apron, walked to the kitchen door and spit....the kind of spit meant for contests between 9 year old boys. I watched it in slow motion, rising, hurling, flying....past the steps, over the monkey grass, into the blue blue sky..... And then she scuttled back into the kitchen. No words now. She opened the fridge and did the stare down. Eyes squinting. Nose scrunching. Then she hauled a big ole pot out from under the counter and made us all Ketchup soup. I stood behind her, falling in love. Noodles boiling, tumbling, rising, falling, plumpened in the rew. I put my face as close as I could to the gurgling pot, a steam bath of magic kissed me....
.
Four of us sat at the kitchen table, skinny legs dangling, tapping the floor, shoveling hot ketchup soup down our souls. Thanksgiving dinner would never be this good. Skinny beamed at me across the table, front toothless, and upper lip kool-aid stained. Curty boy slurped in silence. His tummy filling. Kimbies yummed out loud.....
.
We've tried to make it a dozen times since then. In poor times, silly times, late at night. It's never been the same. We've added gourmet spices, arty shaped noodles, food coloring, and bits of bacon... It's never been the same....
.
The magic is in the moment....
and
the
love....

"Our house was a very, very fine house"

This is where we grew up. Not where we spent the majority of our childhoods, Kimbies and I, but the mostness of them.....Here, in this thirty-two room playhouse.

I remember the very first time we saw it, empty except for the furniture that had been custum made to fit the nooks and crannies....that came with the deal...the giant round satin couches filled with goose down.....We tried them out fannies first, over and over again, laughing as the brocade spit feathers flying....the toy box under the windows, wrapped in a semi circle, empty, except for a few old crayons and the scribblings of children before us.....my beds, set head to foot lining the east wall, wrapped in a meandering wrought iron grapevine.....I took my fingers and traced the walls....New Orleans was there, in all her dark and smokey taboo....hand painted on the walls....

We moved in and rocked the neighborhood. Our parents were beautiful, he, handsome and successful and rarely home, she, whispy and blonde and "different". It was here that Curty learned to crawl, and babble, and ride a bike, that Skinny and Chance were born. It was here that we first learned to believe.....

in happenchance
and fairytales
and to dance to our own music....
it was here that we learned there were a set of tracks that
were laid right side up and wrong side down
and that it was okay to cross
them,
skinny legs flying on spider bikes with banana seats and spokes spiked with poker cards and clothespins.....

here that we learned unconditional love.....
to not be afraid of poltergiests or ghosts or things that goes bump in the night....
to take in strays, because they're not really stray after all,
they're just waiting for you to open the door....
that man could really walk on the moon....
if he wanted to.....

It was here that we were free.....
That we lived our Pippi Longstocking childhoods......
riding bikes down hallways,
depositing each other, clinging,
down the laundrey shoot....one story, two, three into a mountain of dirty clothes.....
swimming in Mom's leftover calgoned bathwater until it was tepid and filthy....
Coloring on walls, higher than we could reach and down halls that led to eternity....
flying in cardboard box race cars down spiral staircases....bumpity bumpity bump until I broke my nose and
a big toe
and somebody had to stop us,
playing bartender with this wine and that and some soda to make it all fizzle,
building forts in the flower beds
and tree houses with mattresses, seventeen strong kids in a line to lift it,
digging tunnels to nowhere
and China
and downtown....

And here in this house,
Kimbies slept with goldfish and hermit crabs
in a pink princess bed with a pink princess phone
and
I slept with ghosts at the end of the hall....

When we caravaned out in the middle of the night,
took flight
with empty suitcases
to our next adventure
we didn't know to say the words....

"Thank you, house"......

you hippie, gypsy, haunted little house.....