Running Away....

Today, I'm pretending. All day. I decided that before I fell asleep last night, so I wouldn't have to wonder about it at all this morning.

I woke up to bedhead hair that's now half way down my waist, make-believe dreadlocks the colors of a drip castle at sunrise. I stood up and stretched, slowly padded through the house, the old cold congoleum covered in cat hair, sudden beach sand on terraza floors. I smiled.

In a little while I'm gonna whip up Bloody Mary's, ice cold and freckled with black pepper and then on the little splintered deck, I'm going to the Tiki Bar...the tinny sound of Rolling Stones dribbling from the little amfm radio will fill the Air....Amps the size of Winnebagos will hang from the sky, and for a little while, there won't be anything at all but the music and the movement and the moment.

When the Sun reaches Noon thirty, blazing, I'll bop over the ring of the blow up pool and fall face first into the ocean....A giant salty tidal pool just my size. When I open my eyes underwater, the coquina will be six inches deep, thousands of teeny tiny shells....a treasure chest under the sea. My little pink float will be a peace kayak, and I'll paddle out of my puddle and down to the river where the water runs up, up, up and away....

At dusk, I'll drape my long flowy girly swirly hippie dress over my head and fall asleep on the hammock, barefeet dangling in the overgrown grass, that for just one night, will be wild sea oats tickling my toes.

I'll dream paisley colored thoughts until the light show in the sky nudges me awake...an electrical parade just for me....

Peace....sometimes we just have to make it happen.....

Hittin' the snooze....

The sheets are orange. 1970's orange. Burnt and frayed sunflowers. 300 count. Crinkled from being dried in the Saturday sun. Clean. I flop in crumpled, legs and arms landing in a random stack of comfy~cozy pick~up sticks. Pop the alarm. I'm out for the night. Exhausted.

He leans in. Voice husky and smokey, protecting his words with hand cusped, as if they might fly away in the noise, and whispers , near. I scooch in. Listen better. Stare at my knees. Nod in agreement. In cahoots. Never look into his eyes. Burn a hole in the leg of my jeans. He leans in closer and is suddenly quiet. Done. I look up, catching his eyes in a butterfly net. And he kisses me.

I wake up startled. His face just as surprised, freeze~framed in a dream. I crunk the sheets one more time, the pillows....and drift away again. It's a six hour night. I'm determined to sleep through it....

And he leans in again...

Deja Vue. In dreamland.

And again.

The alarm screams at me. Blasts fuzzy half music, half talk radio gib gab across the room and I stretch, lean, teeter off the bed to bop it. Good morning, real world.....

I'd rather be dreaming....

Counting....

I opened my back door on Sunday and could feel it. Smell it. Almost hear it over the weed-eater next door and the sirens. The beach.

We're counting days. Week-ends. Pennies. Nightmares. And then....

We're going!

Seven days and seven nights blurred together, smudged together, tethered together.....measured only by sunrises and sunsets.

And I ache for the peace.

The constant humming of the tilted window unit shuddering, puffing artic asthmatic breaths. Dripping onto the sidewalk, rusty little puddles I can splash my feet in....one good rinse before I plow into bed at midnight or morning.

The crisp white sheets, sandpapered with coquina and periwinkles, and cozy~comfy, sprayed with sea salt....littered with wet swim suits and towels....and beer bottle rings.

The three o'clock huddle, the housekeepers hunkered down, hiding behind my door, clinking beers and sneaking in ice.

The first sunrise. Kimbies in her long nightie, waiting at the seawall.... The second sunrise, Kimbies in her long nightie and five of our new best friends waiting at the seawall....

The Brotherhoods of Death. Another year older. Wiser. And still aching for their friend, their brother, embracing us on the seawall. Dipping, diving, dancing....Remembering...

The starfish with three legs. Still moving. A ballerina with only one shoe. "It aint over til the fat lady sings" we tell her, and whisk her back to sea....

Pots and pans and dishpan drains filled with shells. Treasures for the keeping.

Feral cats strutting in the moonshine, plucking crablegs from the garbage and bellowing 'Hallelujah"....

The sound of Skinny's car crunching gravel in the make-shift parking lot. 400 miles and 3500 smart cars dollars later.....

The yellow butterfly of San Marina.....

Drug Induced Dreams and Thank God I have a couch

I woke up. Just like that. 36 hours into la-la land, I decided that having psychedelic dreams and tingling, ewwwwwwey-ouweeeeey numbness, was kind of boring. I grabbed the RX bottle and tossed it into the cat litter bucket~makeshift coffee table~instant plastic garbage can that had followed me through the night. Everytime I woke up, the plastic Tidy Cat box was there. Cigarettes and ashtray, RX, and cell phone perched on it's lid. 36 hours later the cigarette pack was half empty, the ashtray half full and the cellphone dead. 38 hours later, my heartbeat was beating like Eminem on cheap speakers throughout my foot. I gritted my teeth, chugged down iced tea and swallowed two Advil. Cocooned myself in the blankets on the couch and started counting.

I always think there's a reason for everything. Some unknown, yet to be discovered reason lurking in the shadows. I rarely hunt for it anymore, I just know it's there, waiting to show it's "Are you watching me, now?" face.

I believe.

So I never questioned why jumping up and down in my sister's living room telling the fairytale story of the little magpie "pwincesses" at hippie daycare would find me splat! on the floor, broken and wailing. I mean, the whole scene did divert another crises, so hell, maybe I didn't have to be so dramatic, but it worked! It was just meant to be.....

And that's why, now that I'm straight (yeah, you aren't believing me, are you?) I'm just pondering, not questioning, just pondering, the meaning behind my most vivid drug induced dream. I keep watching it over and over again in technicolor memory, in slow speed....thinking I'm supposed to get something from it.....

I was on the ground, or below or under anyway, and I saw her way up above, toward the peak of the roof. She was just there suddenly, in silly Pippi Longstocking clothes, sneakers and socks and mismatched leggings and skirts and shirts and jackets...

and she was sliding down the shingles, bumpety bumpety bump and then flipping, twirling, skinny little arms flying and then bouncing, pouncing onto the roof below and then dune-rolling somersaulting cart-wheeling down to the next roof, rump bumping, knee knocking, crawling face first so fast her feet flipped over her head and she was spider walking in a back bend, faster and faster....
to the next roof
and the next roof
and I no longer stood below panicked
or gathering sheets for a fireman's net
or yelling for help
I was just watching in awe
as
her colors
my colors
flipped furiously
through the shingled sky
and from where
I stood
in spite of the road rash
the skint knees
the bonked up forehead
and
tangled hair
she
looked like she was having fun.

I can't wait to dance again......

At the barre......

I wanted to be a ballerina. I really did. "Seeesopewfect!" Mrs. DiMarco swooned, cigarette breath on red lips, into my face. My face started to blotch, to swell. I knew I was going to be tortured, jabbed with those long pointy fingernails, suffocated slowly. It was so hot in here. And my skint knee was bleeding through my pink tights, an abstract orange blossum spreading there. Why did I use all the bandaids to make book-binding for my soon to be best seller: "The Mystery of The Moving Pictures".......

I was five.

I wasn't the oldest and I wasn't the youngest. I was next to the thinnest. "It's never too late to start, dahling, you have the body of the swan at night......" she purred as she wrapped the sepia colored measuring tape around my neck, my chest, my 18 year old waist, my thighs, my shins, my ankles. Her teeth showed a little as I climbed up on the scales. Her teeth showed a lot three months later. And she hissed. And pounded that damn stick on the floor "One and two and one and two and one and two and three"......"Tuck your buttocks in, and suck your stomach in and point those damn toes!" I couldn't even pat my head and rub my tummy at the same time........

I was not quite 19.

There is safety in numbers. Three tuition bills. Three checks on the first of the month. Three late bloomers at the barre. They took our money. Kimbies was just there for the sport. She couldn't be bothered to be fitted for shoes, and wore pink Isotoner slippers instead. They let her. I hung from the barre. Stretched. Flew through the air. After class, we would stop in at the Oyster Bar next door, for raw ones on the half shells and a few cold brews, all balletesque in our leotards and cut-offs. It was wonderful. And then we got the bright idea, to meet at the Oyster Bar first. Before class. To loosen up. That was wonderful ,too. In our world.

We got kicked out.

I was 26.

He held me at the waist for just a moment. And twirled me around and around and around. A pretty plastic toy on the top of a blue velvet jewelry box. The band was banging out a remix of "Oh Suzie Q, I like the way you walk, I like the way you talk, I like the things you do"..... His eyes traveled back in time, to that year, to another girl, to another world. And I dreamed of being free.

It was just another Friday night at the bar. And he felt like he was 21 again.....

And I wanted to be a ballerina......

Tagged......

Lizard Princess tagged me a while ago, bless her heart, and patience…she said there was no time limit, and I think I made this part up, no rules! “Six weird things about me”….

Sweet Spado Man Meme’d me and now it’s in the bag.

That’s the tag, so here goes….

Because it’s me, I don’t really think it’s weird (or I wouldn’t do it), but maybe the neighbors do…..

1. I don’t open my mail. I don’t even bug-eye it. I barely even take it out of the mailbox. I wait until it’s totally stuffed full and the mailman, the nice mailman, starts flinging it on my screen porch and then I walk down the gravel drive-way and shimmy it out of it’s cocoon. I walk straight to the car and toss it on the passenger’s floorboard. I don’t ride on that side so it never gets in the way of my feet. I hate bills, letters from attorney’s, collection Agencies, and chain letters. I don’t throw it out because you never know when you’ll get pulled over and need something important and at least I can “act” like I’m digging for it…

2. I "tink". I believe in it.

3. I wear love beads. Don’t take ‘em off. Love beads and borrowed and found charms. Just keep adding to the leather love around my neck. Joe’s peace charm, a trinket lost and then found from Skinny’s wedding, a cross found in the sand, an Italian horn, blessed, and borrowed from a neighbor, the MOM charm my babies saved for……and the love beads Skinny and I made a million years ago. I don’t take ‘em off for weddings, funerals, work. I don’t take them off to match my costume. I wear them. Touch them. Feel them. Love them.

4. I fly in my sleep. Not casually. Really fly. Kind of like Jet Blue Naked.

5. I have rules. I make them up as I go along. Social rules, road rules, house rules, blogging rules, work rules, love rules, peace rules….. The “I’m never ever gonna do this again….” kinda rules. Or “from now on” this kinda rule. “That aint right” kinda rule….. All kinds of rules….

6. I break them.

Now I have to “tag” six other souls to this chain….hmmmmm……

It’s all good, There’s no time limit………

May the circle be unbroken....

I'd rather be flying.....

I used to fly. At night. Suspended in fast forward, out of control.

I would lay awake in bed. Praying for peace. For sleep. For respite. And I would fight sleep, the only real get-away. "Keep your eyes open" "Keep singing, humming, thinking, wiggling your toes". And then I would feel it. God, I hated to feel it. The falling. Asleep at your toes. As if a thousand wasps had stung you. It hurt so bad and it crawled. Filthy little winged things chewing up your legs. Numbness. Taking over your body. And when I was totally encased in the vibrating, tingling," oh my God I have to leave this body"feeling, the body would leave me.

And begin to fly.

To bat really.

To zoom over the furniture furiously. Frantically zipping through the house, slapping walls, just skating the ceiling. Searching, searing desparately for a way out. Sometimes I would just fly faster and faster in endless lopsided figure 8's, nearly cracking my head on the fireplace mantle, bouncing vases off the coffee table. And sometimes I would leave. Find an open window. Soar into the night. Free. Fast.

And I would fly so high there would be no oxygen. And my lungs would expand until they felt like a leaded x-ray tank embedded in my chest. When my hair would wire out with energy and be alive, crawling, flapping at the sky. And I would fly over roads, and memories, and yet-to-be's, sometimes diving, nearly crashing onto crowded highways, headlights blinding me.

And then I would come home.
And crawl into my body.
And say a prayer.
"Oh, I'm done. It's over for tonight." "I can rest now".

And the humming would start again...........................................

I haven't flown in years now. I later learned it was a syndrome. Psychotic actually. Symptom of those out of control. Dreams they called them. Those that didn't fly......

I awoke with eyes cutting, eyeballs wide open, but glass, there must be glass in my eyes. I can't read the clock. The open doorframe is casting a shadow. And it's a monster. I sit upright. In my yesterday's clothes, I forget to breathe. The dog is growling. At the shadow. "Oh my God, what if she dies from eating crackers and cheese for two days. I have to look that up on the internet. Is it safe to feed Georgia Triscuts and cheese?" I listen. She's growling. She's living. Deja pounces on my forehead, running circles in the dark. She has no claws, my only one, so I know I am not bleeding. She runs in circles. " I fed them right? The cats. They still had food. " I listen. "Isadora, Tallulah?"

It's so dark. It's three A.M. I wander down the hall. What is Georgia growling at? And I remember. It's the hauntings.
I haven't paid the
phone billl
the car insurance
the second mortgage
the attorney's fees....

I'm being sued. You were perfectly fine. But what would your husband say when he found out the 14 year old station wagon that ran perfectly fine until you got bumped would be totalled and they would only give you 750.00 for your BESSIE? He would say sue her. For your teeth that you never bumped, but should have been crowned 20 years ago if you could afford to go to the dentist. Sue her!

"I've loved you for a million years". The voice. The blue eyes. His. Hers. The funeral. The not funeral. The "I'm trying to tell you something, wake up! and listen to me" messages I KNOW they are sending. "I can't understand you, I can't see you. God, can't you just stand in the drive way smoking cigarettes, sit at the kitchen table and TALK TO ME ANYMORE?"

I bop the coffee cup in the microwave. Hit 2 by instinct.

I'm up for the day.