The long hot hippie summer.....

Plunk! It's almost daybreak and I toss the disco light into the lazy round river. The colors "pink on one", "green on three", "blue on two" play imaginary twister on the vinyl bottom. I'm sure the neighbors won't mind if I crank a little Rollin' Stones to greet the day.
.

It's pool party week-end..... Three Saturdays and three Sundays left before we run away to the beach. Three week-ends to fill with countdowns and count~me~in's and "don't count the beers". I reach over and nudge the yellow duck over the river's edge. Free, she floats away immediately, happy to be at home again....Tomorrow she'll be the gala host of the party.....toting watermelon slices and Michelobs.... Today, she'll just float.... a vinyl mermaid
basking in the sun....
.

It's summertime again.... towels are draped over the deck, damp from the evening dew, lazy and stretched, waiting to be kissed dry by the Friday sun. Georgia runs in crazy round-de-rounds, circle eights around the pool and the Make believe Ming Tree. I clink my coffee cup and smile....
.

Fridays are for dancin'.....
.

And summer's are for love.....

When Pixies Party.....

Sometimes, Sunday's are perfect. The sun rises and smiles, hovers low in the sky, a wild helium balloon in swirls of pink and red....The oak trees dance, dripping in silver jewels, whistling in the wind. Yup, sometimes Sunday's are perfect.

This one was.....

And so we danced at the river.....

Ballet, Bellies, and Disco in the Kitchen. We belted out Ray, crooned to Janis, and swooned to Johnny Cash. We clinked! Tinked! and tattle~telled! We traipsed barefoot through the crunchy, "Oh My god, is that poisen ivey?" underbrush and went exploring. We barbequed ribs and ribs and ribs and ribs, and feasted on tons of southern love.

We cinched the circle in a little tighter....

Feel the love.....

Happy "It's not my Birthday" birthday Kimbies, Don, and Dale!

The Butterfly Bar....

I'm the welcome wagon. The Go~Go girl. The cheerleader. I laugh, sway, twirl, spin...and never miss a beat. A face. A voice. Oh, I might trip sometimes, go splat on the floor, but I never miss a beat.....

And so I noticed them right away. Seven and a half weeks ago. Elbows on the bar. Boy's night out. And I watched them. They leaned in and tipped Roxanne. She smiled. And that's a good sign. From my side of the bar I knew they weren't being obnoctious, weren't spilling silly pick~me~up lines at the beautiful soul filling shot glasses and popping corks. Miss Macey settled down next to them, stirred her steaming coffee cup, luring the good stuff up from the bottom. She gave them her "One eyebrow up, one down" cursory "I'm watchin' everything you do, boys" glance. And she watched them well. Listened. Smiled. Smiled with them. And then I knew it was O.K. to make my move.

O.K. to walk over and meet my two new best friends.

They laughed at my peddler's bag of bottle caps and bought the next round. We've been no~touch dancing ever since. We've been to the ocean and the river and barbequed at 2:00 in the morning. We spent Saturday night at Kimbies, clanging cymbals, canastas and spoons. We've serenaded the sky, raspy voices and guitar strings wooing the stars....We've traded secrets, and dime store dreams, and happy ever afters. We've played follow the leader, catch me if you can, and "let's dance like Joe Cocker".....

And now we're an army. Of angels.

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

And the butterfly effect......

When I was wild....

I sprained my wrist once. Bad. Bent it every which way but backwards. Running. Laughing. Racing down railroad tracks giggling. It hurt. But, it was just as funny in the morning.

I tripped, almost splat, skipping over the river rocks in a disco dress at sunset, racing to meet him in the driveway. Surprise him. And he laughed. Because he knew I was gawky. Clumsy. Accident prone. And he thought it was sexy as hell. Silly love.

I've been careful lately. Watching where I walk. Wearing Converse sneakers without laces. Sitting like a lady. Playing fair. Floating.

Now I'm ready to dance again.....

Image courtesy of the www, Tweeten Fibre Co

All nighters

One phone call and Kimbies and I were camped out on the curb flagging the Barbie Doll car into the finish line. Snap! Snap! The papparazi at work! The first sound she made was a groan, a deep gutteral, "how on earth did these people end up to be my family?" groan.....

Eleven hours later, he's here.....Baby Boy Landon. Fair haired and perfect. I touch his cheeks and melt. Scroll my fingers through his irredescent hair....pink, yellow, orange, white....the color of the sunrise yawning....and fall in love all over again.

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...."

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....

Barefoot in the Backyard....

We met in the kitchen. Half moon eyes. Hungry. " Coffee please".

The slumber party winding to a gentle close. Sunday morning nudgin' us back into real time. A pretend week at the beach, sunrise to sunset, 7 days and 7 nights. A make~believe marathon. In just under 24 hours. "Yeah, baby, we had a good time...."

"Boy~O, Boy~O, Boy~O!"

I'm fidgeting. Thinking of maybe biting my nails again. Kicking up cathair. I did 3 tummy crunches and then hung the clothes up on the night~time line. Turned on the babbly blah~blah~blah~babbly TV.....and smoked another cigarette. Checked the mail. Thumbed through it all and pitched it into the overflowing garbage can. Grabbed a black bag and went out on the deck, chopped the night blooming jasmine back into a crewcut.... and drenched the neighborhood in white perfume. Checked my emails. Checked the phone for voice mail, text messages. Checked to make sure I get bars in the living room, the kitchen. Checked to make sure the charger was working. And now I'm fidgeting. Again.

Hours to go. Maybe days. "Anytime" he said. "Rest up" he told her. I watch the clock.

Waiting on Baby Boy Love. Four weeks early and "anytime" he said....

You can't make me.....

We caravaned. Met up in the Valet parking lot, squishing in between the "reserved-for VIPs"....and flip flopped up the deck to The Crab House. Oh, Man, what a beautiful day for Peace Out, coconut shrimp, french dip, and ice cold beer in a bucket. Me and three of my new best friends. I know, I know, I know, you've heard it before.....

But there we were. Instant friends. Old friends. With very short pasts. And a lotta catchin' up to do. 99 beers on the wall later, we had laughed ourselves silly, solved world hunger and been on a peace march. We had confessed, professed, dared, bribed, danced,harmonized throughHello Dolly in our best Joe Cocker voices, and scooched in closer for the punch line...

"But what if"?

"What if you won, fell into, stumbled on a gazillion dollars?"

Skipping the lengthy four-fold conversation we had about charity, clarity, responsibility and all that hoo~hah ....what it all boiled down to was this...

"But isn't it all relative? Wouldn't a blue lagoon with cascading fountains and towering palms be the same to you as a millionaire as your little vinyl pool was to you last summer?"

"Ummmm. No."

I chewed on a piece of celery. Dipped it and swirled it in bleu cheese. Chewed again.

Behind their Foster Grants I could sense their eyes rollin'......

"Lemme tell you about my little blue pool......"














When we caravaned out of the parking lot,
sunkissed and dreamy,
beerbattered and fed,
there were four make-believe millionaires dreaming about blow up pools.....

and smiling......

No touching

I wasn't going to go. Friday's are for dancing and Saturdays are for wild oats. But, they called. I made every excuse, but a fitting one, and then jumped in the shower and threw on a pair of jeans. If you skip Friday, they come lookin' for you on Saturday....


The Saturday faces are different. Piranhas and barracudas. Nothing like the manatees, tattooed and grey, comfortable in the warm blue waters of Friday nights...I wasn't at home, but I wasn't far from it....


In the murky, jerky waters.... I tipped my Michelob to the mirror and the faces lined up watching me watching them..... the elbows on the counter, stray dollar bills in "I fold" concession, laugh lines and frown lines sagging like a Salvadore Dali painting. And I ached for them. These strangers on the other side of the bar.


The band played everything except Rolling Stones and I sat out the set. Fidgeted. Smoked. Told stories.Twirled my love beads. Friday's are for hippies. This wasn't feelin' like a Friday.

"Do you wanna dance?" he said, inching closer, breathing canned beer on me, three lines into the slow song. "No touching" I whispered and he vanished, poof! and he was gone....until the next one. "No touching" I whispered and he laughed, took a hand from the crowd and disappeared.

"Now?" my friend asked, nodding to the dance floor, questoning, comfortable, but not sure, and I threw my head back and said "yes, but no touching".....

"I don't know how" faded into the lyrics, the music, the rhythm, the rhyme, the move me, the this way, the that way, the "I've never done this before"....and I "mmmmmmmm,hhhmmmmmed" him as we danced eyes closed, around the couples, between them, into the music.....close, but never touching. Driftwood in the waves

"She won't let you touch her?" beer~breath bellowed over the band, into our peace. I never opened my eyes. Moving. Swirling. Psychelic circles, paisley foot steps. "No, she wont let me" Lucas whispered, barely aware he was talking. "Then take her back where she came from!", BB belched from his four square podium, arms draped around his mortified prize, feet shuffling, rough red cheeks touching hers.....chest puffed out like a plaster rooster on a kitchen wall....

We gave him two fingers and kept dancing.....


Into 1976 at The Saloon. Into Christian's living room, fluorescent light's glowing, mermaid goldish growing in a bathub. Into yesterday. Tomorrow. Down the dirt road to Peace Creek. Through a midnight sand dune. Over a rickity tickity wooden bridge. We just kept dancing, no touching....just feeling. The music.

The guy with the canned breath and canned lines stopped, mid mindless step, and watched.

And then he surrendered.


"Peace......"
was the last thing I heard him mutter as he left the floor.....

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.....

You dirty rat....

We were talking. Like sisters do. About silly things like why they call blondes blonde , about Mexican food tasting better in dives, googling the meaning of the word “occlude” and bantering the definitions.. Verizon to Verizon. It’s free, so we kept yacking. Wandered past the “did you know?”s to the “remember when”s and settled on the story of meeting soul mates from behind a shower curtain. I’m not gonna tell you the story because neither he nor he was a soul mate, but it happened nonetheless. It wasn’t until we got around to the “palmetto bug and rats” reminiscing that I started to get the heebie jeebies. Started to feel that familiar “something’s crawling up my leg” phobia.

Skinny is spooked by roaches. With wings. And rightfully so. She was only six when they invaded her space, laced up her legs like fishnet stockings and started giving her nightmares.

I’m haunted by Ben.

David Bowie was spinning for the last go round, the whisk~me~away, the nighty~night, and I prayed I would fall asleep before the needle hit the spot where it stuck forever, carving grooves into Diamond Dogs with it’s diamond tip. I piled into bed, crumpled under the hand-me-down quilts from Mamaw’s house and rolled on my side. My face fell into the down pillow like yesterday, like everyday before this one, and I snuggled in. Buttons pawed at my shoulder. Scratched for her space. I groaned and made room. “Jesus, could somebody cut her nails” I thought….as I hmmmmpppphhhhed and readjusted for her comfort. She pawed again.

Clawed actually.

I turned in the dark to give her the “settle down or sleep somewhere else” eyes and she glared at me…..beady eyes balanced between a pointy nose ….brillo pad hair glowing in the dark. I flung the covers off, flailing, leaping…..and it hit the wall.

Smack!

Yelping!

F'n Rat! In my bed!
On my body!
Breathing my breath!

For three weeks, I hauled Mamaws quilt and my first down pillow into the Jack and Jill bathroom and slept in the tub. Convinced I could hear him scurrying across the green and pink tile, crawling up the porcelain. See him in the full length mirror before he rounded the corner. Convinced I would know ....before he got to me.

For thirty five years I’ve known better.

You never see ‘em coming….

Traffic

I left the office early. Mad Monday rain slamming the pavement. My little red toyota fogging up instantly....contacts doing the same. I grimaced, just a little, smiled a little more. Beating the clock.....

One more light to go and I'm suddenly the hump in a caterpillers back.....a little red lego in the spine of a plastic snake.....parked on a four line highway. Steam spiraled from the pavement, and I air drummed Smoke on the Water with my right hand, twirled my golden by-the-grace-of-a-bottle-in-mid-winter locks with my left hand. Cracked the window. It was gettin' steamy in there.

If I hadn't of left the office early, I would have never seen them. Across one more north lane, the suicide lane, and two south lanes....

They were jaunting at a good little pace. I could almost hear his green Converse sneakers slapping the puddles. Splash! And she'd go ouch! And they'd laugh. She stopped on a dime, and for a few long legged steps he didn't notice. I watched as she fished a cigarette pack out of her back pocket and struggled in the wet wind to light it. Her hair playing Chicken with the struggling flame. I imagine it was the silence of her echoed footsteps that stopped him. And he spun. Backtracked, caught up to her on the sidewalk, face to face now, and cupped his hands, hiding her little flame from the wind, the rain, the roar of southbound traffic. And then he stopped.

Moved his hands onto her cheeks. Kissed her hard, there on the sidewalk. She dropped the cigarette, a wet tobacco boat set free, drifting slow and muddied, in the southbound lane. The light turned green for the third time, and I shifted gears....Watched them in my five o'clock rearview mirror....not moving.....kissing.....

And I remembered....

The Circle....

I don't know where we got it from or how it started. The peace~love thing. I don't remember a beginning and I hope I don't live long enough to know an end. There are 12 long years, a borrowed make-shift umbilical cord stretched to the max, between us. My brothers and sisters and Me.

The five of us...straight from the pages of The Glass Castle....digging for peace in the damndest of places.....

Chanty boy, my charge from early on.....riding the hump of Million's green van (Long before car seat laws, my friend), rocking out to Deep Purple and Led on the eight track.....unable to speak the King's English then or even now...."How old are you, Chanty?" and at five or six or seven, he would splay two chubby fingers and cheer! ......and we would chorus "Yes! Two! You are peace, sweet Baby!" His china doll face fixed forever in a crooked smile, drooling, sometimes croaking.....His mere presence in a society that still held hospitals for babies of his like, startling. And the beginning of change.

Skinny with her flowers....knocking on doors....."The little angel" they used to call her....the neighborhood shut-ins, the eccentrics, and ghosts..... She'd borrow from the best groomed lawns and the roadway median....bundles of finely pruned roses and wild catch~me~if~you~can's....and pass them out like summer showers.....sudden and welcome. Love. Full of spit and fire.

Kimbies, with her open arms....always, anything, everything. Tadpoles and Mama Frogs, hermit crabs and puppies with patches, conch shells and bait fish. She'd fetch them all home, scooch them into the circle.....Love them until their wings were mended. Or until we buried them rightly in the backyard, popsicle stick tombstones and all.....At thirteen, she started fetching home people.....
And the door is still open.....
Screen door banging in the wind....Crabcakes and cupcakes on the barbeque grill......
Willie Nelson and the Beatles on the hi-fi, blowing in the breeze....

Curty Boy with his big brown eyes, humming. Smiling. Toting luggage ten times his size. Teaching us, if not the world, that "it is what it is". And sometimes you just have to live with it. Be brave. And strong. And fearless. "Peace~love for you" .....his only salutation, his signature devotion.


Peace~love

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

Get out Free.....

I got the summons in August. I honestly wouldn't have opened it, but I was propped up on the couch, zoned out on meds.....And my neighbor dragged it in. Jury Duty. I was granted a reprieve. The courthouse is old and the stairways climb four stories high before you reach the top. They believed me when I said I wouldn't make it that far on crutches toting that concrete block. And I was telling the truth.

And then they rainchecked me. No "get outa Dodge" ticket this time lady. Your turn at the wheel.

I'm home now. And JSYK, I've been on trial all day. My life. My dirty laundrey aired in front of 16 peers, a defendent, three attorneys, a judge, and an audience. Every nightmare I've lived through, drudged back up, regurgitated in public. "Yes, but still....." "But certainly you would...." "But, don't you believe...."....."But what if....." "But that was just one police officer...." "But, couldn't you?...."

Needles in my eyeballs. Needles in my heart.

"No sir, No ma'am, No your honor".....

I believe in peace and love. That there's three sides to every story. That I can't judge less I be judged.

I believe if they had made me sit in that courtroom another moment, another day, poking me, I would have lost my mind....

Soul Food.....

Friday couldn't have come quick enough, the clocks, the calendar, working in tandem, holding the promised day hostage at the end of their broken pendulum. "Not yet" the nights whispered to me. "Not today" the morning crooned.....And then she was here. Friday's are for dancin'......

And I couldn't soak it up fast enough, breathe it in deep enough, the music, the salty smell of strangers and friends elbow to elbow....the dark courtliness of the walls, smoke stained and autographed, another day older. My barstool casually parked on her tip toes, waiting....a yellow yard dog behind the picket fence.....

Finally, the clock slowing, counted out in rhythmatic noise, in the wave of arms, legs, hips.....the sandy sound of softshoes on the dancefloor, the clinkity tink of bottles on the bartop, silverware clanking in a tincan diner....

He drums.
Bangs the heart.
Slams
the song into
sign language,
lost language,
close~your~eyes language.

He growls.
Spits the words out,
drags them through the house,
steak bones for a stud,
a rabid rat,
a hungry cat....
He drums.....
And in the shadows,
the secrets they'll never tell,
he's
the
fix....
the accidental addiction...
the story
with the
hand~me~down ending....

He drums....
And I'm listening....

"I know who you are and I saw what you did"

"Little white lies" she would call them. Perfectly blatant out and out lies dipped in confectioner's sugar..... "Divinity for the devil", I thought. She whipped 'em up for every occassion...."It makes him feel better" "What she doesn't know won't hurt her", and on and on and on...... And she smiled with crocodile teeth, bleached until they were stained a liar's shade of white.....And I wondered....."Whoever are you fooling?"

I'm a tattle~tale. That's what I do. I tell. I spill. I blab. I spit it all out in giant bursts of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah " and then" blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. ... I'm afraid of secrets and little white lies. They always come back, a Mini-Pin after my ankles, snapping when you least expect it. And then they haunt you.....reincarnated on instant replay....tearing at your pants legs, your heart strings, the truth......

I'm fifty now. "It is what it is"......

I watched Shannon put her lipstick on. Peel it out of the twenty dollar cellophane package and roll it across her lips. The color bored me. And then she was bee stung. Her lips began to puff and swell. She lip-linered them for effect. Ready now. For Friday night.

To woo and coo,
to raspy voice them in.
Sexalicious.
At fifty.
Chapstick in the morning.

And that lipstick on his collar.....



nettleweed.......