The Twisted Trip to here......

We tripped over tree roots....Their sprawling, snaking, climbing age old fingers pointing into  the woods...
and stumbled one step, two steps deeper into the peace...
Just the sound of water bubbling, running, falling...
and sticks breaking under our steps....


I breathe differently now....deep...and slow and on purpose....

Because every moment matters....

And in the midst of insane chaos....
my body a war field...
my mind on fire....

I feel the presence of the reason.... I can't name it, touch it, explain it....but I know somehow, I was meant to come here...
to fall,...
to tumble....
blindly
into this crazy 
wrecking ball...

It must be the butterflies....

"blessings, healing prayers.. may the next fall be in love ~s."

I remember vividly...
the night I believed...

Rounding the lake...
the fluorescent lights swarming with blind mosquitos
and the Ghosts...
fog bouncing off the bows of lonely fishing boats...
dancing on the water,


And the Martini Moon...
there...
Above me...
The perfect cusp of glass raised to the sky,
Clinking! with the Stars...

And so it was,
that on that night...
under the tipping brim of an accidental moon...

I fell again...

Head over heels,
face first
into an even more
Accidental Love...

It's been a long time
since
I've laughed that hard.

Felt that hard.

Fell that hard.

Tonight,
the words tumbled from a keyboard,
splattered into my in~box...
from a friend...

are the same fiery color as that long ago Moon...

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.....

Butterflies and other True Stories...

She was a plain jane. Faded yellow with raggedy little wings, windswept,sidewalk scuffed, Cinderellish. But Oh God, could she dance....swirly twirls in the air, and head first dip~dives straight from the sky, barely missing her nose on the upturn. And she's lived to be a 100 years old or more....in Storyland...

The yellow butterfly of San Marino...

with her dirty little feet and freckled petticoat....
she's a gypsy.....
in her husky morning after voice,
she's a sunrise....

Counting days until we travel to her homeland again...
until she lands, teetering on wobbly show~girl legs, on the lip of my Michelob....
until she barrels in, Mardis Gras style, right before Santa Claus...
until she tickles my nose,
or my toes,
or my fancy...

And reminds me to laugh,
to live,
to dance at the very,very edge of the ocean...

I still believe in butterflies...

and peace
and love
and all that
hoo~hah....

99 bottles of beer and a Butterfly, too!

I rolled out of five o'clock traffic, Stones blaring, and scooched into the faded little parking lot. No beer in the fridge and two cigarettes to my name. Stopping on my way home to stock up on a little peace and my everyday addictions. I thought about leaving my sunglasses on. Not to hide my identity, but because I looked so bad. Old. Tired. It happened overnight.

Instead, I followed the construction worker with the beautiful blue bandana on his head through the double doors and smiled as we clinked cooler doors together. He nodded. Five thirty etiquette at the corner store.

I was third in line. Right behind the man with the baseball cap. And the blue eyes.

He turned. We've met here before. In pajamas. I groaned. And laughed. Couldn't look any worse than the first time. He laughed, too, and then inched his way closer to being "next " in line.

He paid for my beer. Kissed me on the cheek and walked out the double doors.

The six people in line behind me and the girl behind the counter watched as he never looked back.

"A carton of Winston Ultra Light 100's, please" I asked as I balanced my Michs on the popsicle cooler. "Your neighbor?" she asks, pointing her head and every squiggly hair on her noggin' towards the door. "Nah".....

A murmer began behind me. And I smiled.

When I walked through the double doors, I smiled at the sunset. Seven people touched by the butterfly. Everyone making up different stories. Talking out loud....

"Her ex" the hippie in the blue bandana grumbled.

"Dude, wanna buy my beer?" the kid behind him asked.....

"I don't think she knows him" Leyla replied.....ringing up the hippie's beer....

And then I was out the door.....I didn't hear the telephone tag that passed through the line, but I smiled even bigger at the sunset.

The man who thinks he doesn't make a difference, doesn't have a clue. Seven people went home with a story. All different. All painted to match their imagination.

And imaginations grow....

Blue Vinyl Sea.....

It was $218.00 three summers ago. Chey and I lugged it, rolled it over end to end, pushed it, shoved it. We lifted it onto the truckbed by the grace of strangers and once back at the little pink house, we started the ritual in reverse....lug, roll, push, shove. The vinyl dream was home.

As we grow old, we recant our childhoods in memories....time stamped by little houses and crooked sidewalks, by schools and the color of bicycles. In my new life, the rubber date stamp is a blow~up pool.... The first to arrive was just eight feet wide and a foot and a half deep. My grandbabies and I spent 7 days and 7 nights camped on the deck, rolling in the mammoth make believe waves.....dripping grape popsicles down our chins....and sun~ining our hair. We made boats from bars of Ivory soap and bathed in the pool, shampooed in the pool, and then ran in circles splashing.....kicking up foamy waves. They learned to hold their breath and let go of their noses. To float belly up without their bottoms sinking. Stone went home a week later, a "surfer dude" and Kyle, a bikini clad blonde bombshell. They had snorkel mask tans and swimmer's ear. We had the summer of love......



I finished off the last of the lazy months plopped up on the blow up ring, water dancing belly button high, reading favorite books with crumpled pages, dreaming......



And the next summer, Chey and I hauled home the Mother of all blow~up pools.



The lazy river.
The blue lagoon.
The vinyl sea.



Two summers kissed by dreams come true.....


Sleeping toe to toe....
Treasure diving.....
"Party in the middle of the pool!"....
Candlelight waves....
"Just how many people can fit in a blow up pool?"
Juicey bottle water wars.....
The marathon float.....Daytona 500 and two coolers of beer....
The courtship of the neighbors.....
Bottled margaritas.....
A real live pool boy....
Accidental Love.....
Hippie hammocks......
A bouquet of tiki torches....
A broken foot
and
Rollin' Stones on the stereo......



There was always gonna be another. From the moment, the blue lady sighed, curtsied to the sky and took her last breath, spilling 3800 gallons of blessed water cascading, there's was always gonna be another. I said it. Meant it. Believed.

But there wasn't. $218.00 grew. And this year, it would be a million dollar dream. The dusty space between my back door and Little House became the laundrey field..... tattered white clothesline swinging over last summer's shoreline. Towels and T-shirts, sails from shipwrecked stories of another time.

And then, the butterfly effect....

A giant blue box on my porch.

Tonight, she's three inches deep and rising. The grandlady of all blow up pools. And suddenly, I'm a millionaire.

"Let's hear it for the boys...."

Pajama Day!

It's raining. That thick, delicious, syrupy kind of rain. The world, as far as I can see, has been draped in one giant cottonelle sheet. For a moment, I think I'm a bird, and the giant hand of God has tossed a towel over the cage to slow us all down. I'm listenin' to the man. Staying in my pajamas all day.

I open all the windows and the morning wetness settles in, a free spirited ghost drifting through the windows. I like it. There is no sign of the Saturday morning sun. The moon has been showing her up lately.....the eclipse a strip tease act that left us breathless in the streets....and last night, the glowing, all knowing mischievious face in the sky.....the full moon rising. And now this, the sun hiding, sleeping in late, staying in her pajamas all day.

I'm rewriting my life today. Starting where I left off, except someone hit the rewind button, and things are all happening in deja vue. The same lines. The same stories. The same meant to be's playing over again in slow motion, only this time I get to pick which ending I like. The butterfly effect. Clink!

The butterfly effect.....

It started with the coffee pot. $21.95 at Winn Dixie. I don't even like brewed coffee. I like mine strong, one cup at a time in the microwave, or so hot they could-sue-you at McDonalds, but I was there in the check out line....and it was on display....and the freeze dried bag of beans on display next to it, smelled so good....

I plugged it in, and stuffed the basket with coffee, filled the retainer with water and stared at it. When would I hit the button? 8 cups of coffee registered on the little resovoir reading. Good to go.... In case I ever needed to make coffee for an army....

It was that night, that we hit send. In the kitchen, Chey and the stranger I'd known forever, laughing. That night that it percolated, gurgled, giggled, french toasted us....that night the silly coffee pot and three cups left in the sink told our fortunes....one empty.....two half full.....

It died in November. The countertop brewery that I never wanted in the first place...spit water on the counter and choked on it's own coffee grinds. And I cried. I know it's silly, but I thought in it's going, it was symbolic. I paced. Pined for the taste of my good ole instant Maxwell House. And paced.

Walgreens is open 24 hours. I came home with the only little baby I could afford, a four cup (two at my house) miniature model of all before it.....

Tomorrow I'm throwing it out.

I don't drink alone....

Rickety Tickety Tock

It's an old door. Crooked from birth. And the hinges wail....whine....shriek, if taken by surprise. The inside frame is notched from an endless parade of hook-n-eyes screwed in at every level, in a futile attempt to keep her tethered, and later lost to wayward windstorms, escaping dogs, and hissy fits.

She's a great door. Her melodic night time creaking, whispers to me when there's company. Her rusty morning yawn, the tell-tell sign it's time for coffee with the neighbors. Her "enough is enough" random slamming....my wooden meterologist.

The handle is way up high. Hippie Mom's answer to the baby gate way back then....I look at it now and wonder what I was thinking.....Boogie men and seven year olds could never enter without bellowing at the gate first?

She's old. And tired. And sitting in the Sunday grass with the neighbors, I wondered at her longevity. How long can a screen door last? Blowing in the wind, knocking about in storms, opened and closed a thousand times, covered in a lifetime of fingerprints.....arms wide open.....

Tonight when I came traipsing in through the dark and yanked, she didn't budge. I panicked. Yanked again. A little harder. Ka-bump! She gave way. I scooched onto the porch and she slammed. Yeah, just like her. But something felt funny. The way she resisted. Scrunched her toes into the sandy floor and wouldn't budge. I turned around and pushed her. Nothing. Pushed a little harder. Nothing. Shoved her! KA-BUMP!, I went flying back out into the blackened driveway
head first into my neighbor's smile.....

"We put magnet's on her!"

I married once...

He kept asking. Over pink champagne at New Years. Slurping raw oysters and leaning over pool tables. Doing the helicopter dance on Friday nights. He just kept asking. And one night, over steaks and an HBO re-run, I said OK and we picked a date.

Of course, it was a catastrophe. The pony-tailed redneck and I, but what the hell, we loved to dance, he was a great cook, I was a starving artist and....

he had her...."Baby Dumplin'".....And I fell in love with her hopelessly, and forever, and instantly. My first born daughter, seven, blonde hair ~long and tangled, cheese curl toes, and green eyes.

In the third grade, she had to draw a family tree for art class. The teacher called me. I still have it tucked away, it's roots wild and scattered, it's limbs heavy and old, and names hanging everywhere, like wild laundrey whisped from it's line.....the intricate scribblings of a child....connecting the dots between the people she was born to, and those she was fated to.

Tonight, I dug it out, and saw what she saw....the endless constellation of dots...

What is and what is meant to be....