Kiss the sky at Midnight

New Years....

I’ve tried it everyway. As a child, we hooped and hollered, twirled Nana’s noisemakers in the air! Teetered on the top of the bamboo barstools, feet dangling, arms flailing Wheeeeeee! It’s New Years! Along the way, we started sneaking down to the basement, having James whip us up Suicides….coke and rum and vodka…. Gag me with a spoon! But it left us breathless, and sitting in circles, watching midnight grab the sky, singing…Sha Na..Na…Na…Na… Hey…Hey. …Hey…
holding hands, and sometimes upchucking heads. I ache now. We are not all here now. Those were the New Years we should have hugged each other harder and left the toilets to their own.

And then we were legally “grown up”. And we hung from Balconies and French kissed at midnight. It was still good. Even the year Greg Fishowitz overdosed and sentenced himself to a life pacing in an antiseptic aquarium plugged into IV’s for eternity. It was still going to be a good year. That was the year Christian came out of the closet, called off his engagement to Juliet, and rocked his parent’s world. We applauded him. The year that Kimbies got suspended for smoking in the bathroom and the year that my boyfriend, in a death defying act of jealousy , flipped the camaro upside down and I LIVED! It’s all good.

And then we were on our own, and dateless, and all piled up in a “too expensive” “too cramped for comfort” apartment and “What the hell?” they were having a Champagne and Caviar Party at the clubhouse…… So we tooled our size six fannies over and swallowed fish eggs and pink bubbles and left with the first three cars that fled the scene….

And we married our rides….. (Some of us for better or for worse, one of us just for the ride)

Time flies when you’re having a good time, and we must have because it’s a blur that I really don’t remember…. And suddenly….

Its another life and
I’m at the airport and I’m watching as my soldier lumbers down the ramp and it’s late, far too late to bring in the New Year, and I’m thrilled….
He’s alive and He’s home and I’m in love and jet lag is an urban myth….
We set the clocks back four and a half hours and embrace the New Year just before the sun comes up. On our own make-believe time.

Years pass.

They bring their blessings and their curses and we survive it all.

I’ve cheered New Years and blessed it out. I’ve welcomed the New and buried, literally, the old. Dug mammoth holes in the flower beds and put the crap to rest. . I’ve burned it. And run out into the street and tossed it’s ugly karma to the sky…ashes floating aimlessly, landing on the curbs. I’ve kissed the sky and wished on stars, I’ve gone to bed……

Two years ago, we started this Resolution thing again…. The time had come. A million things to resolve to, to amend to, to agree to, to give in to. But we picked only three. Kimbies and Butch and I. We must have known then. WE CHOSE PEACE. WE WANTED PEACE. And, oh yeah, they would get a dog and I would get a boyfriend. We just sort of threw that in. We just wanted peace.

“Sometimes you get what you want, sometimes if you try, you get what you need” MJ and the Rolling Stones.

On New Years Eve, we made reservations. Resolutions. Wore hand me down dresses pinched a little here and a little there to fit just so. Kimbies was mannequin beautiful in her hippie bandana with her priceless husband at her side. We cheered. We cried. We danced with strangers. Had exactly one too many drinks. We hugged. We all held hands at some point and fell to our knees on the dirty little floor and thanked God for the noise of rock and roll, and the healing, and the Angels that brought us there. At midnight, we turned and kissed.

I’m so glad even resolutions give you second chances.

I’m doing it all over again this year. And this one is a keeper.

Peace.

Now I Lay me down to sleep....

I remember when it arrived. Trucked down from Tallahassee. My Great-Grandmother's bed. My Mom tucked it into the "poker room" and started stripping the blackened mahogany stain, grape jelly, off it's grain. I was enchanted with the wood grain that emerged. Patterns, telling stories, in the old plank. The headboard and the footboard are each one slice of mahogany, not pieced together, one slice of greatness. The Mother Tree. And it was mine.

Handed down from one eldest daughter to the next, to the next, to the next, to me.......I touched it and remembered my Nana under the cotton sheets telling me stories....."When Monk and I eloped...." I felt the magic then, of her barefeet peeling out from under the crisp sun-ironed covers, the heavy blanket tossed back breathlessly, and her panic, at the sound the sunday~suit~quilt thudding on the hand tied mattress might of made. He was at the window. Two floors up. Waving the diamond ring he had just won in a poker game. She left in her flannels.

My Mother. At Jacksonville beach. On the second floor with the lights out and the four mahogony legs centered in gallon cans of water. So the rats couldn't crawl up. Sleeping on the salt flavoured sheets with the ocean spraying kisses through the windows. The third generation of blonde haired girls to sleep here.

And now it was mine. I slept on it, in it, for years. Lounged backwards with the phone cord twined between my fingers painting my toenails up against the headboard. Stuck wads of gum on the siderails. Dreamed here.

When I inherited my blonde haired 7 year old daughter, we bought a waterbed with satin sheets, and moved it into her first bedroom. Draped the windows and it's soul in white eyelit and puffalumps and she grew up here. When she moved out and said " I want a queen sized bed" I understood. It was the same year, her Father and I divorced and we traded.

I sleep here again. One day, this ageless hammock will go to Kyle, my precious blonde haired grandaughter. Until then, she's mine again.

I prop my cast~footed leg up on two pillows piled at the footboard. Georgia takes the right side. She huffs and puffs and chases her tail in circles until she's just~so comfy and then settles in. Deja tiptoes on the pillows. Around my head. Kneading in my hair. The moon peeks in under the window shades. Casts shadows on my chest. Rising. Falling.

Ahhh, the stories this wooden princess could tell......

The Emporer's New Clothes....

"Levi's are fine
with holes in their knees,

Faded old fannies

with no zipper keys.

When the Emperor got dressed

in the Emperor's new clothes...

He probably had on Levi's

and was wearing the holes....."

My daughter's favorite nursey rhyme.... Yeah, I wasn't exactly Mother Goose.....

My life story, told in blue....

I was wearing the peaknuckle pair when we went to The Tampa Fest and ended up on the 11:00 news, 16 and dancing in the broken water main.....

Gary Long's 501 blues when I hitchhiked to Peace Creek...

The no-name-brand with the silver belt and the rhinestone butterfly at the David Bowie concert....

His new pair the morning of the hurricane...

The ones I have on for the last three lives....

And then you wear them for years and years....

They're supposed to hang around. Until they're tattered and torn, with holes in the knees, until the legs fall off, too tired to keep going, until they accidently become cut-offs with holes in the rumps. Then you scribble on the pockets, patch the seams, trim the fringe from the bottoms....
until they disappear in the washing machine, nothing left but the tags.....

We're desperate. I'm down to one pair of "I can wear these out in public" cut-offs. And this is Florida. Skinny's still running around in a pair Kimbies bought in high school, held together with an embroidered guitar strap. She's wearing a ghost of threads.

So here's the deal, guys. Dig through your closets, empty your stash. If you've got jeans you're not wearing, send them south.

These girls gotta have cut-offs!

Singleton and Skinny

c/o Justgivemepeace

269 Market Place Boulevard

#115

Cartersville, GA 30121

We'll even trade ya. Painted beer bottle caps or something!

The Highway Man

“Are you a transient?” I asked, leaning in…..laughing…..

“No, no, I just moved here…” the words spilled out of his Saturday night smile.

I asked to see his driver’s license. You never know. “Hmmmmmmm….” I toyed with it for a moment, scanning the picture for tattle-tales…. “Yeah., it looks like you”….smiling at the obvious tourist, with his polished deck shoes and button down shirt. I slid the laminated ID, face down, into his hand…..and he casually tucked it into his wallet, next to the pictures of his other world. Upside down.

That was a zillion years ago.....

Peace~love, baby.


Everything in between is a roadtrip......

Little black spell....

She flew into the driveway, aiming for her spot, wreckless, and not at all caring if someone else might be parked there. It belonged to her, of course. That gravely, patchy grassed, dusty piece of drive way. She irrrrrkkkkked the brakes just shy of slamming down the pink park benches, threw open the crinkled driver’s door and screamed…… “I’m home!” I looked out the kitchen window in time to see her fanny and feet only, the rest of her lunged face first into the back seat, her tiny hands flipping Samsonite and garbage bags blindly out behind her! Thunk! Plunk! “Oh, this is just junk!” Make-up bag hurled over her shoulder. “Mom! I’m home” she screams a little louder, with her “Are we losing this damn game?” cheerleading voice. “I’m right here, baby girl, you just clobbered me with a ghetto blaster”…..

We hugged and
lugged
It all up the drive-way.

Home for the summer.

Giant Tupperware tins with leftovers and graduation gifts line my hallway. “Why do you keep hauling this stuff back and forth?” I asked her with my best garage sale smile on. “It’s sentimental, Mom” “…‘kay” I mutter, the one who taught her memories are priceless.

An hour later, she’s unpacking and rearranging her room. Lining little perfume bottles and mascara samples up on the vanity. Choreographing her private world. Shoving “please don’t tell me this is you” pictures into the frame around the mirror. Yet another summer, I’ll have to ban her grandparents from her room.

An hour and a half later, I stand in the hallway…pacing. Waiting on the ice cream truck. And then she starts. A halter flies out the door and lands at my feet. A pink bra, three socks, a fake diamond ring. Two hot curlers, a pair of size 0 jeans, an Ohio State sweatshirt. A little black dress with the tags on it. Two plastic champagne cups and a bag of aquarium marbles.

“Is that it?” I offer, my toes stretching to lift the pink bra up and drop it in the black garbage bag. “Yeah”
“So you don’t know who this stuff belongs to?” “Nah” “So we don’t need to save it?” “No, Mom, I’ve told you that before. It’s not mine. And I don’t know who it belongs to so I can’t return it”

This is a ritual. The cleansing.

The pitching of the “it accidentally ended up in my room” stuff.

I lift the heavy bag of marbles up and shove them in the hall closet. Skinny just got two new goldfish. Christmas is only seven months away.

I kick the little black dress. Cat hair swirls in a current and latches on for safekeeping . I reach down and pick it up, the tags jingle a little. Size 3.

I hold it up in front of the bathroom mirror. Dust it off. Traipse barefooted into my room and grab a hanger.

I can’t wait for Friday.

Sticks and Stones and all that magic.....or in other words......

Out first house was imminent. We had saved for the down payment , trading Smirnoff for ABC brand vodka on Friday nights and buying ground chuck instead of sirloin. Clink! We cheered! “We’ll buy a house” “With two cats in the yard” “And a garden” “And a fireplace for marshmellow roasts” Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah! About three week-ends into house-shopping we were fighting. What I though was adorable, he thought was a money pit. What I thought was water front, he thought was built on a retention pond… God, the man had no imagination!

So, it was perfect! The week-end of our anniversary he went boating and Kimbies and I went house shopping. Actually, we just looked at one house. Through kaleidoscope eyes. We were in awe at the designer refrigerator in the matching pantry. The “French windows throughout” were so romantic….. 13 giant oak trees danced in the sky, their petticoats shading the double lot. “This is it!”

He pulled the boat in just after dusk. His neck and cheeks red with the twelve-pack flush and a little sun! He was smiling. Better be. It was our anniversary! “Baby Cakes, I’m sorry we’re so late….there was a barge on the river and……” “Just sign here, We found the house, the perfect house, you are so gonna love it!”

And he did.

Drinking on your anniversary does strange things to you. Anything to make her happy.

The designer fridge was a rust bucket covered in wood grain contact paper. It hummed and churned and belched for a few months and then croaked. The fireplace draped in the vintage mantel was our only source of heat that winter and the “French windows throughout”, that depended on 80 year old rope pullies to move up and down, our only source of air conditioning that summer. The floors dipped, the walls creaked, the oak trees tossed 10,000 wet leaves on the tar paper roof. We had parties there, babies there, love there.

And then one day, it was over.

My second house was perfect. The Stepford Wife thing. Only there was no Stepford Husband. Skinny and I and the babies made love beads there, and peace sign wreaths out of stolen grapevines. Jonah threw up on the perfect Berber carpet, we scorched the ceiling of the perfect screened room grilling hotdogs at midnight, we packed the perfect garage full of hot wheels and seashells, driftwood and trash from the neighbor’s garbage…. "surely, we can use this for something”, we used the perfect dishwasher for our bar, stacking martini and shot glasses on the top rack, Nana’s vintage stirrers and straws in the silverware bucket, and bottles on the bottom rack, we used the perfect disposal to shred love letters and rant letters to less than perfect lovers…We hated it…..

We fertilized the yard and mowed it twice a week. Planted bulbs in the spring time. From the road, we were happy campers……..

My third house was an accident. Waiting to happen. Waiting a zillion years for just the right person, just the right vibes, just the right karma. Waiting for me.

Sometimes, when you least expect it, in places you’ve never looked before…..you find that you’ve wandered aimlessly forever…

and simply fall into the arms you’ve known all along…..

Home……



Tree fort courtesy of unknown Magpie Fairies.....
Discovered on the perfect Sunday.....

KEEPER

A heart shaped shell, tumbled in a thousand tides, grainey and wrinkled, tossed at my barefeet...a keeper

An abondoned birdsnest, delicately woven, lined with glad-bag trash and the neighbor's Christmas tree tinsel...a keeper. I pruned the tree and left one branch up and three branches down, a tribute to peace, and a Mother's determination. Even empty nests bring comfort.

Marbles, twirled and swirled, blown glass spun in a circle...pocketed by little boys, rolled on wooden floors....found 23 years later buried in Georgia clay... a sister's keeper.

Silver shoes, 3 inches high, scuffed just at the toe... glitter faded, straps stretched out....toe prints on their soles...Keepers

Pisces man with a wrinkled face, and a wrinkled smile and a Coors light in his hand....reaching over, diving in, embracing his "you still look 21 to me" gorgeous wife collapsing at his side....and saying "WE CAN DO THIS. IT's OK. I LOVE YOU".... Keeper

Christmas card with a Magpie poem ....Keeper

Wedding album, mildewed and tossed, pages eaten by hungary moths and uninvited roaches, chocked full of random papers, the key to your past...A keeper....meant to be lost for 20 years and found on a rainy Friday..to be wrapped up in Christmas paper and bows and passed onto my child with so many questions.....I apologize if i haven't told the stories right...memories are sometimes made-up as you go, but I love you, and unedited, this book, stuffed with the truth is a keeper....

Beer bottle caps. Damp from the chill. Tossed in a painted gourd. Collected year round, from Friday nights out, Sunday night cries....And later touched by the pen or the brush of a Magpie...reincarnated into jewels and sillies and ornaments...tossed amongst loved ones like fairy dust...keepers

Tattoos....You're stuck with them. Love it. Because you damn sure can't leave it. A permanent salute to the moment....keeper.
(And I am at this moment contemplating a yellow butterfly...come Paigey, and Kimbies, and Corinne, Linda, and Judy and Curty and Haley and Noah and Christine and Anna and Amber and Arianna Olivia and Peyton and Alana and Kyle and Stone and Tami and Dad-O and Grand-C and Chancellor and Scott and Annie and Nadine and Stan and JR and Jimmy Mac and Peggie and Badri and Sheila Anne and Tim and Papa and Nicky and Rumors and Joe and RCK and Vicci and Anne and Orhan and San Marino and everyone and everything that makes the butterfly effect so very very yellow...)

Keepers...May the New Year be Blessed with all we cherish....
and all we've yet to discover.................

On Borrowed wings....

On a borrowed computer, on swiped internet...from the porch....
I miss you guys! Miss Vicci, can't wait to see Kim's beautiful smile when she is gifted with your treasures...Anne, I can't begin to tell you....SLB, can't wait to see you, I mean CAN'T WAIT!.....C, Hope you and family have a beautiful Christmas blessed with peace, love you girls!... Orhan...God, i miss your posts....Everybody, wishing you peace, love, and a blessed New Year!


RESOLUTIONS....

I've tried it everyway. New Year's, that is. As a child, we hooped and hollered, twirled Nana's noisemakers in the air! "It's New Years!" Along the way, we started sneaking down to the basement, having James whip us up Suicides....coke and rum and vodke, pepsi and OJ swirled in iced tea glasses....gag me with a spoon! But it left us breathless, and sitting in circles, watching midnight grab the sky, singing...."Sha Na Na Na...Hey...Hey...Hey...Good-bye... holding hands, and sometimes upchucking heads. I ache now. We are not all here now. Those were the New Years we should have hugged each other harder and left the toilets to their own.

And then we were legally "grow-up". And we hung from balconies and french kissed at midnight. It was still good. Even the year Gary Fishowitz overdosed and sentenced himself to a life pacing in an antiseptic aquarium plugged into IVs for eternity. It was still going to be a good year. That was the year Christian came out of the closet, called off his engagement to Juliet, and rocked his parent's world. We applauded him. The year that Kimbies got suspended for smoking in the bathroom and the year that my boyfriend, in a a death defying act, flipped the camaro upside down and I LIVED! It's all good.

And then we were on our own. and dateless, and all piled up in a "too expensive" "too cramped for comfort" apartment and "What the hell?" they were having a Champagne and Caviar Party at the clubhouse...So we tooled our size six fannies over and swallowed fish eggs and pink bubbles and left with the first three cars that fled the scene...

And we married our rides....(Some of us for better, some for worse, and one just for the ride)

Time flies when you're having a really good time, and we must have because it's a blue that I really don't remember....and suddenly....

It's another life and

I'm at the airport and I'm watching as my soldier lumbers down the ramp and it's late, far too late to bring in the New Year, and I'm thrilled...
He's alive and He's home and I'm in loe and jet lag is an urban myth...

We set the clocks back four and a half hours and embrace the New Year just before the sun comes up....on our own make-believe time.

Years pass.
they bring their blessings and their curses.

I've cheered New Years and blessed it out. I've welcomed the New and buried, literally, the old...dug mammoth holes in the flower beds, and put the crap to rest. I've burned it. And run out into the street and tossed it's ugly karma to the sky...ashes floating aimlessly, landing on the curbs. i've kissed the sky and wished on stars...I've given up and gone to bed....

Last year, we started this "Resolution" thing again...The time had come. A million things to resolve to, to amend to, to agree to, to give in to. But we picked only three. kimbies and Butch and I. We must have known then. WE CHOSE PEACE. WE WANTED PEACE. And oh yeah, they would get a dog and I would get a boyfriend, We just sort of threw that in. We just wanted peace.

"Sometimes you get what you want, sometimes if you try, you get what you need" MJ and the Rolling Stones.

So we buried our friends, and Kimbies has cancer, and the first boyfriend in 14 years didn't work out.

On New Years Eve, we have reservations. Resolutions. Dresses. And a limo. Kimbies will be mannequin beautiful in her hippie bandana with her priceless husband at her side. We'll leave little Nay-Nay, the Chihuahua, in her pink tutu at home. We'll cheer. Probably cry. We'll dance. We'll have exactly one too many drinks. We'll hug. We'll all hold hands at some point and maybe fall on our knees on the dirty litle floor and thank God for the noise of rock and roll, and the healing, and the Angels that brought us here. And at midnight, we'll turn and kiss...

I'm so glad even resolutions give us second chances. This one is a keeper.

Peace