When I run away....

When I run away....I want to live by the sea....

In a salty little shanty....with the night air blowing through the rusty screens. Where the terazza floors are etched by the sands of time and gritty under my feet. Where sandspurs grow in the yard and probably nothing else, but terazza pots of potpourri and spices are lined up like little soldiers, crooked little soldiers, in the window sills....

Where the wind howls at night and wraps her loving arms a thousand times around "my house", threatening to whisp us off into the oceans, but really.....just playing with my mind. Where the sun is tempermental and scorching and she spits her rays onto the rooftop like laughter .....and the tar between the shingles simmers and smokes at noon.

I want to run barefoot to the mailbox.....playing hot potatoe on the driveway....collecting postcards from loved one from the rusty ole box, flag up to the skies....

I want to dive onto clean white sheets at night, too small for the double bed, and too thin to hide the mattress seams, stretched to their limit and fresh from hanging on the line, soaking up the salty air....

I want to walk , heels first, toes scrunching, in the early morning sand.....the moon falling with the tide and the sun peeking her little pink nose over the waves, playing hide and go seek.....

I want to dance under the endless sky. Drinking up laughter and wishing on random stars. I want a rusty ole fridge in the carport, chucked full of Michelob light and watermelons I thumped at the produce stand.

I want to pop jiffy pop late at night and watch black and white re-runs, static and all....feed the neighborhood cats out the back door....

Until then.....
I live here.
In my house.
My little love.

And every now and then I drive to Blakely
and pretend
I'm gonna move to the middle of nowhere
and
sit on the porch
and drink beer
and wave
at
friendly passers-by....

Just give me peace......

Just give me peace....

We used to toss pennies and nickels and the occasional dime in the Park Avenue fountain. Plop! We’d roll up our jeans and dangle our bare feet in the often green water, making swirly twirl currents with our toes. We’d stretch and piddly wink someone else’s wish with a big toe, send it plunking across the dirty fountain floor. There! We wished for you again! Feel the love. Your dime, our time….

Sometimes, if we were really desperate, we’d borrow a wish or two, you know, gathering loose change for a pack of Salems. But we’d always come back. Toss a random penny, a cherished quarter, over the shoulder, kiss the sky, and send a stranger’s secret wish back where it belonged.

Mama’s in velveteen jogging suits pushing velveteen strollers would scurry past. Shielding their velveteen babies from catching a glimpse of the hippies wading in the fountain. Men in three piece suits with James Bond Attaché’ cases would stride by, their long legs skipping steps, (“Don’t want to break my mother’s back”) approaching fast and sprinting out of sight. Their eyes always straight ahead. A beer-riddled bum, hair matted to one side, curled embrio-onically on the bench. Always. His feet pigeoned under him, his spine weeping forward, his smile stuck to his apricot-seed face with kindergarten glue. He watched us. He never borrowed from the wishing pond.

And then we got cars. We rarely traipsed to the haughty-taughty garden anymore. Bothering their world with ours. But we still wished. We wished on one-eyed cars and first stars. Turkey bones. Pennies in the street. Yellow butterflies and ladybugs. Red birds out the kitchen window. Blue skies. Red skies. Hummingbirds. Blooms on the Bird of Paradise. Sunrises. Sunsets. Full Moons, new moons, martini moons…..

I found a driftwood wish bone yesterday. It’s gray barnacle covered skin old, and worn. It weighed nothing. And in a second , between my salty fingers, the knotted driftwood Y was limp, snapped, broken. It’s sandy soul scattered in the wind.

I found this yesterday too. Buried. Deep under the coquina at the waters edge. Deep. Where the sand is cold and the earth is wet. Where pieces of ships and dreams and conch shells and reefs and coral are churned into confetti….

Silly heart shaped rock.

“I wish I may, I wish I might……”


To be continued….