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....

I wish you peace.....

Plopped on the couch for days like a skinny little jelly fished washed a shore, I've had a lot of quiet time to myself. The incessant hum of the TV lugged into the living room for the occassion, lullabyes me back to sleep, again and again. I don't watch TV, but the parade of Angels tip-toeing in and out of my kitchen door, find comfort, I think, in flipping it on, tilting the screen toward the couch. I have no idea how to work the remote, so it's warm humming, a swarm of purring bees, rocks me back to sleep.
And I keep waking up with revelations.

Perhaps because Orhan reminded me how blessed I am by guardian spirits, I awoke today drenched with gratitude, and the overwhelming desire to write thank-you notes to the random angels in my life. The one's that don't get to see me smile, the ones I've never hugged or will never get to hug again, the one's I've been blessed with by chance..... The folks who have stepped both in and out of my life so quickly, and changed the butterfly effect forever.... I clink! you all, and thank you......

I start with these.....

Sweet Mothers of my daughters.....There are no words big enough to thank you for your trust, for gifting into my arms, your first born children. I see you everyday in their faces, their toes, the way one throws her head back when she laughs....the way they both think in black and white, siblings by chance, sisters by fate. I pray you know we love you, that we hope you believe in me, in us, in them, and know by trust, or faith, or visions from above that they are beautiful, headstrong, independent, and as in love with you as any Mother's child. I thank you often, but not often enough. And I just pray you know it. I can't send postcards to heaven, and I can't send them by first-name-only through general mail delivery. You were brave. You were strong. You loved your children so very, very much that you gave them emerald wings and they became my children....my dreams come true...my first born children, my precious daughters. There are no words big enough to wrap you in, to thank you with.....

Father of my children, Dad, Daddy.....We'll never sit next across from each other having heart-to-hearts, we don't speak the same language. And so I can't tell you this. And you would never understand. But I thank you for being there, the butterfly effect, so our family could be gathered. And I thank you just as much, for straying, for wandering, for our differences.... for pushing me to the bridge when it needed to be crossed. I thank you for leaving when I asked you to and trusting me to do right....to raise them, to love them and teach them to love you. I thank you for our freedom. For our wings......The girls are flying and free and Jonah keeps trying them on for size. One day, he'll find his fit and soar.....

Our lives have been rocky. And roller-coasterish. And wonderful. We've been broke and sometimes even poor. We've been afraid and sometimes terrified. We've been weak and sometimes broken. And we've been soldiers. Surrounded by an army of Angels. And that has made us rich, and sometimes generous. Brave and sometimes daring. Stronger than we ever imagined.

I wish you all peace and love,
and thank you....
endlessly

In the beginning.....

She was just a shed. 48 hours later she takes slow learning-how-to-breaths. Her old skin, the one riddled with hooks and nails and plywood shelves has been peeled away, tossed in a giant heatwave to the side

An army came. The tiniest little feel-good soldier 4 years old, digging, painting, sweating. The oldest, 73, hauling, carrying, digging in the dirt and digging in his pockets. We had hippies and hippies, redneck loves, 3 piece suits in blue jeans, a nursing Mom, three generations of Chey's family. We had wayward sons, daughters home from college, neighbors, and friends from the bar. And they never stopped.

I watched for a moment, an orchestra in the Saturday heat:

One on a ladder pulling wires, hanging boxes...

two toting drywall again and again, another piece, appearing from nowhere,

One pouring concrete,

One hanging a door,

Three digging ditches,

Two cutting out new doorways and window spaces,

One right behind them framing.

Two on the barbeque grill.....jerk chicken juice mixing with sawdust in the wind....

Night came hard and fast. Just like the beer. At dusk we partied and told stories and the sweat turned to sweet dust, powdering our skin. We wrote in the concrete. Because we could. The children colored there. Because we let them.

And we all watched. The little shed slowly coming to life.

"You should name her" Eric said....."Gimme Peace".....and I smiled. This morning with my coffee, I sat on the deck and she smiled back at me through her new window to the world. Her walls are insulated and her cieling hung. 12 sheets of drywall are up, only 4 left to go. Her new doorway is waiting on visitors to knock and her old doorway, waiting for it's new face. Outlets are ready for Christmas trees and microwaves. Water is just inches away.

On Monday, Ronnie starts his next round of treatments. The pink stuff. The bad stuff. Hopefully the good stuff here will make it all a little better. And he'll have a place to hang his cowboy hat.

Thanks to all you all for cheering, clinking, sending good thoughts our way. We're tired soldiers today.....

Ask...

I was devastated. I believe in what is meant to be, and what never was, and if something doesn't happen, something else will. But I was devastated. "Are you kidding me?" "A thousand dollars to just spruce up the juice to the wanna be studio so we can make a condo out of a boys-night-out?" "Well, yeah, if you want it to be safe, and good, and to work right".....

I was devastated. We had recruited an army of willing arms to swing hammers and dig trenches. To barbeque chicken. To run ice. To hang drywall and pour concrete. We had scavenged the streets for donations, asking for the world, and being gifted over and over again. And, then, "are you kidding me?" we couldn't make it safe.....

Strong enough to power the air conditioning in triple digit heat, the coffee pot balanced on the makeshift counter top.....
the oxygen machine when it came.....

"Are you kidding me?"

Today, we shifted gears.

We started asking strangers.

Peace~love

Tomorrow everything we need to wire up the sound will be neatly packed in the back of Chey's pick-up truck. Friday night we'll pow-wow. On Saturday we'll tear the walls down. On Sunday we'll put them up again.

May the circle be unbroken.

Sometime soon,
I'll have a friend in the backyard....

And he will
have
an
army of new friends...
clinking!
Praying for the healing.....

13 all over again....

She's....... back!
Friday the 13th!
Yeah baby!

You don't scare me spooky little day. With all your hype and legendary Hollywood hoo-hah! I don't have Triskaidekaphobia, or paraskavedekatriphobia, or friggatriskaidekaphobia! Hell I don't even have Friday-what-if-I-don't-get-paidaphobia!

So in honor of this horrid little day, when the perfect thing to do would be to pile into a really big Belair and head to the drive-ins with a cooler of beer, and watch B-rated flicks, but we can't....because they closed them all down and turned them into creepy little Walmarts.....

I say, let's just party!

Oh yeah, and remember the ghost of Friday the 13th past.....
May she rest in peace, that wild-headed child!

You put your right foot in.....

When you wake up and you are five and the sun is shining through the dirty venetian blinds in little exacto-knife slivers of light across your bedsheets, it's morning time. A new day, long as ever. The sun shines for half your life.

Your eyes pop open, a wide mouthed bottle slurping down the morning. The cereal bowl is good and cold, no matter what the flavor, and then the bowl is empty and you're and out the door, calico dress and bare feet flying.

Pedal the pink spider bike with the fluorescent streamers and poker carded spokes ninety to nothing down the hill. Dig in the dirt. Scratch your name in a tree. Scoop tadpoles from the birdbath. Hide in the trees and wallop "falling stuff " at passing cars. Catch a firefly with a hangover and poke him in a mayonaisse jar. Play so hard you forget to go tinkle and have to ride home, perched like a lady, cross legged, on the pink spider bike..... ninety to nothin'.....

When you are five, you live hard. You chase boys around the trees until your lungs are a boom-box and the breath choo-chooing from your mouth is cold. You forget to brush your velvet teeth. You wear knots in your hair. You have dirty feet. You clean up good in the morning.

When you are five, you are free.

And the price you pay for freedom is bed-time.


Thank you justme, for the title!

Chicken F'N Noodle Soup

My mind races and the words get all mixed up like cold alphabet soup, …

I twirl the spoon and it spells….
nothing….


You don’t get it. I have to say it out loud for you to get it. Mispronounce the words and talk in etch-a-sketch language.

I pause.
Try to put them in order.

Take the spoon and plop the soggy “I’ve said this before” words up like little soldiers on the edge of the bowl.

It makes you crazy.

The pausing.
The waiting.
“What the hell are you gonna say next?”

I don’t know….
Right now, the soup is cold…..

Midnight in the garden of good and " I can't believe I'm doing this....."

I have rules. Not very many. I’m bendy when it comes to rules, but still, I do have them. And I break them. Change my mind and tighten the ropes every now and then. Change my will and skip over a few, Chinese jump rope for the soul. Change my direction, without notice, and do back flips.

Now I’ve broken all of them. Wadded them up like 3 hour old Bazooka gum, spit them into a crumpled napkin, and tossed them out the window (Minimum $500 fine for littering and I don’t give a damn!)

I’m not inclined to be wreckless. I’m a scaredy cat. I’ll toy with trouble, put my big toe in and shiver from the icy cold, laugh, and pull it out again. Do The Hokie-Pokie and do it all again. But wreckless…..

This is a little new to me….

Still, this is the year of the slinky snake. Shedding skin that didn’t fit in the first place, replacing it with psychedelic colored rings that go round and round. This is the year I’m alive. This is the year of change. The year of peace and love in neon letters stolen from the corner store. The year of the moment. When collusion is birthed from chaos.

Catch me if you can…..

The long, long week-end

"Ooooooh.......ice..........cream...... " the chic in black leather purred from the table. Her eyes steadied, locked with ours, as we ambled by. We nodded hello's, southern style, and raised our beers. Clink! She didn't blink. She purred. Stretched her legs out, siamese cat style, from under the shadow of the umbrella...

"She likes you, baby" ...I laughed

"She likes you, baby".... he laughed.


Two more steps and we were lost in a sea of bikers. Beer and leather everywhere. No Tequila Sunrises , Bloody Marys, Gin and Tonics.....just a sea of leather boots, stub-nosed, at the best....bottled beers ....and tainted tattoos.

I swam in it. Bask in their Cher and Sam Elliott ambience. They stared at us. Him with his groomed "he's such a nice boy" looks and me, hippiesque and smiling. But there was something Woodstocky here. The way they all bonded together, swayed together, drank together, clanking empty bottles. The way they smiled. The way their laughter rose like smoke rings over the orchestra of revving engines. I liked it.

Hours later we wandered back through the blue-jeaned, black booted crowd, hugging our last beers. She stretched her leg out one more time on our way back..... " ice cream" she whispered.


Pinching my belt loops and leaning in...his words brushed my Sunday afternoon cheek..... "I'm your ice cream man, baby"...


It's Friday.



I'm standing in the drive-way, rolling the crumpled dollar....listening for the rinky dink music..... waiting on the ice cream truck...

Trainwrecks and other truths....

Two likened souls in the last place on earth you'd ever go....

I leaned in.

And then fell.

Suspended, for a moment in laughter...tumbling face first into... "Nice to meet you's"....

And it seems like a million years ago that we first met, flirting with fate...
Daring Mother Nature, the world at large, and our own demons to stop us. No one did.

We've driven thousands of wreckless miles chasing a fickle sun. Danced in the kitchen, on the sidewalks, in darkened corners, and under neon lights. Laughed until we were snot-nosed and wet faced and laughed again. We've traded dirty little stories for "I've never told anyone this before" secrets....the recanting tumbling out in a language perhaps only we understand. We've dreamed and pretended and smacked each other around with the truth.

We've been to the Fair and back.

Riding rickety roller coasters with broken tracks, the clickety clack of the wooden climb, an atom bomb tick-tocking at our backs. And made it to the top, again and again..
free to fall fast,
eyes closed,
into the crash.
Laughing.

Rocking the flimsy ferris wheel chariot, long arms and legs dangling mid-sky.
Rattling the safety-bar.
Laughing.

Chugging mid-way beers with the carnies, the locals, the drifters, the tourists.
Our kind of people.
All kinds of people.
Laughing

Falling through mirrors.
Laughing.


It's been a helluva ride...

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.

Half way

“That’s the way it used to be, motels on the beach. Now, It’s high-rises, parking garages, shadows” “Florida, the way it used to be, is gone”

Silly tourist….

“Take my hand and come with me…..”

I’m off on a road trip. Around the corner. To a fairytale. To layers of peeling aqua and pink paint. To a cement pool with dolphins furiously painted on her bumpity finish. To a Tiki-Bar with a one -armed, one- man band. To the smell of rotting oyster shells and French fry oil. To Michelob’s and Bud Lights on Ice. To stray cats feeding on the left-overs, never tame, but always game. To a window unit blowing icy air on my face, dripping on my feet. To a midnight moon smiling, winking, as we wade past, ankle deep in the salt water, skipping over jelly fish glowing in the dark. To the broken shells, forgotten by the tide. To salty towels draped over rusty lawn chairs. To McDonalds in the morning, “a large coffee with cream and sugar, please…”. To late check-outs….

I’m off on a road trip…..

Peace, love, and everything in-between……
is just a fairytale…..

Welcome to my world…….

Dear John....

Once upon a time….

I lived another life. I dressed up and paraded around in pointy toed high heels and wore perfumed matching pantsuits and pretended to be an Administrator. And then I woke up one day, hacking and coughing from the Channel #5, with bunions on my toes, and pulled my T-shirts out of the closet and my love beads out of my bra…and said “This is Me…”

He didn’t fire me.

He cringed a little. Grimaced, maybe. Feigned annoyance in my direction. Held his breath and prayed it would pass.

It didn’t.


Once upon a time…
You lived another life.
That was then and now is now.

Cringe a little. Grimace. Feign a little annoyance in my direction. Hold your breath and pray it will pass.

It won’t.

You’ve danced in the kitchen…..

Tink me once, Tink me twice.....

Tink. The art of touching someone, drenching them actually, by thinking of them. O.K., I made up the word, but I checked. Webster hasn’t gotten there yet. Tink.

Angels do it all the time. Lovers do it often. Twins invented it. I believe in it.

A cigar smell that creeps into the hallway without explanation and suddenly you’re 7 years old and riding in a Thunderbird, pushing the Bobby Vinton tape into the 8 track. Dad-O reaches over and says” You wanna drive , don’t you?” And you leap off of the garnet plethora seat and into his lap to guide the steering wheel toward the Pak-n-Sac. No seat belts, no rules. Just the dotted lined highway and the cigar simmering in the ashtray.
40 years later. Tink. You’re Daddy’s thinking’ about you…..

The sound of the magnolia leaves rustling. Wet. Night rain dripping off their fat paper-plate shaped selves. I heard them Saturday and knew. I was 10 and had just climbed up the seven 2 x 4 wooden levers to the heart of the tree. We were monkeys. You had to stretch your arms, and lank your legs to make it in seven steps. Adults would’ve needed 23 resting spots. My bare feet cradled the soggy soul of the old tree. Dark leaves lined her heart like a bird’s nest, drenched in May rain. My skinny little arms jiggled out into the open air, standing on tip toes, waiting for the swing to fly high enough to catch. Brad swung it once, I reached and teetered, its wooden seat and hemp rope teasing me. He swung it hard this time. The rope swooped and then danced in front of me, I curled and lunged, almost fell, but couldn’t’ catch it, soft wet bark scraping my shins. The third time, I snatched it, and Brad backed away. “She’s flying now” ……

I’ve never parachuted or sky-dived, but God, I’ve jumped from that tree. You plummet to the dirty earth, FAST! The silly frayed rope saving you at the last minute, a make-shift bungy cord, and you bounce for just a second. And then you swing. So high your underpants show. And all you can feel and all you can see is the magnolia leaves rustling. In Nana’s backyard.

43 years later…It’s spring now. And I’m explaining love bugs on a sun-peeled deck, in the middle of an “It’s so HOT” day, in the middle of an “I’ve loved you forever” conversation and I hear that sound. The magnolia leaves rustling. Nana. Tink. She’s nudging me.

I grab the rope and jump.


To be continued…..

Don't pack lighters in your Suitcase....

Chey has a lot of luggage. She has stories and nightmares, family trees with hanging moss and empty nests, credit cards in other names….She has a lot of luggage. She smiles easily and hugs heartily. Welcomes you into her world and as you take that first tenuous step onto the other side, you trip…..everyone does. Dozens of half empty suitcases are scattered everywhere, their Samsonite security codes busted wide open, their latches pried apart. Contents of a chaotic life flung haphazardly across her living room floor. And still she smiles. Throws a few beloved trinkets in an overnight bag and faces another day….

Amazing woman….What you don't know won't hurt you...

We all tote our weight. Histories we’d rather not share. Blood lines we can’t trace. Moments we can’t forget, and those we can’t remember that haunt us in the night.

It makes us who we are. And why.

It’s how laugh lines are painted on our faces, and scrowls scribbled on our foreheads. Why we develop silly little ticks like hair twirling, foot tapping, gum chomping. Why we smoke so much, drink so much, stutter once in a while. Sometimes, why we smile....

Why some of us choose our paths, and some fall fatefully forward…

Suitcases. Secrets. We all have them. Stuffed full of all we are and all we’ve been.

Some are neatly packed briefcases, organized and alphabetized, bar-coded for a rainy day or a funeral parade. Some are rancid garbage cans left out in the sun for the neighbors to puke over and stray dogs to rummage through. Some are designer labeled, lined with potpourri…..all haughty-taughtied up. Some are nothing more than a tattered levi pocket, it’s contents so comfortable and at home, a pencil rubbing on our back hip…

There are really really big suitcases and really really little ones. But we all tote ‘em.

I just stuffed a lifetime in a really really tiny one.

I can take it anywhere…




to be continued...

Fairytales always end....

With the same two words... The End.

Funny , isn’t it? That after hundreds of years no one has come up with a better line. Oh Yeah, sometimes it is preceded by the infamous silly little line… “and they all lived happily thereafter:” Abruptly followed by “The End”.


Good thing I’m not a fairytale writer, a Harlequin novelest….

I might have changed history....


To be continued……..

Just passing through my world......

I saw her this morning. Fluttering…dancing….doing figure 8’s in the morning sun. Free. She tickled by my Sunday morning winter window. Reminding me. Yes, Butterflies are really free. For everything else, there’s Mastercard….

On Borrowed Wings

There she is. The Angel blessing my house. She moved in first. When the walls were still sepia smoke stained plaster. When the shag carpet crawled up your ankles and made you feel like you needed to shave your legs AGAIN with every barefoot step you took. She moved into the curtainless house and lived here for weeks by her self. From the street, she was a billboard. "Stay tuned". And the neighbors did. They watched. Actually they peeked. They walked their lap dogs, made obsessive trips to their mailboxes. Waiting. Eventually we did move in. Hauled our haphazard lives into the living room in cardboard boxes, and started to unpack the past. We marked our territory like a chihuahua with "little man" syndrome. This is "our" house. This is home. Over the years, it has been called a lot of names.... "Clown house" when the little ones were in kindergarten...."House of Nudes" when my pubescent son and his friends actually noticed the tattooed mannequins.... "California hippie house"...when I applied for a second mortgage.... but really, it is just "our house" and we landed here on borrowed wings.