The Moon in My Arms

I've seen this moon only once before...

in a lifetime...

http://thehippieparade.blogspot.com/search?q=martini+moon

I remember the exact moment...

where I was,

where I was coming from and where I was going....

And then tonight...

there she was again...

The Martini Moon.....

with the glimmering olive on the rim....

And I remembered....

Yeah, baby....

Friday's are for dancin'....

Rock my Peace

She was so excited. Her chubby little 10 year old cheeks exploding in the "Mimi" grin...



Tiny chicklet "I'm gonna need braces" teeth on parade...
She was smiling....
This was what she picked out...
wrapped in newspaper....
A rusty ole word...

Peace....

She couldn't have been prouder....

And her smile was infectious. And I knew then what peace was. My blonde haired grandaughter with the hippie soul....whispering in my cobwebbed hair....."It's for you, Mimi! Peace......"

On the day after New Year's I came home to the front door wide open. The door we haven't opened in 17 years. Strangers ring that bell.

And the rusty little letters on my porch... splayed in half...

"Must have been the wind" they told me....

But I knew....

It's the year of ghosts....
And they've barged right in....
rocking my peace and rearranging it....

Sometimes we have to remember,
even in chaos....

Peace is spelled the same....

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....

Letters from Where We Left Off....

I remember as if it were yesterday, those fateful blue eyes.

Standing in my Sunday pajamas in the cold February wind....I slid the credit card through the "fill her up at the pump" slot. Nothing happened. I turned the card upside down and tried again. Nothing. I imagined the "E" glowing brighter on the dashboard. "Damn"!

I looked once. Both ways. No one else was in the parking lot or at the pumps. I bolted for the double doors. This is a really small town. Please God don't let anyone see me in my pajamas, with my "I've been up all night" face on! I'm not vain, but I had a hangover and it had been a long and sad 36 hours leading up to this moment....this I can't even coast home on hope moment.

Kimbies and Papa and I had spent the day before cleaning out Nadine's house. Selling a lifetime of love at a garage sale to benefit her children. Smiling at strangers while our hearts broke. And then we went out drinking. Big time. We laughed. We cried. We made new best friends. We kissed the nicotine stained Sky. Waved at Nadine up there! Over us, watching. And now it was the morning after.....

And I just wanted to go home.

I didn't see him bop through the side door. Full of himself, and Sunday Spirit. But I felt those eyes, those fateful blue eyes from heaven.....rap,tap,tapping on my new day. And so I turned just in time to catch his smile. His Mick Jagger smile.

And I laughed.

For the first time in forever.

And it wasn't long before I danced. For the first time in forever.

And lived. For the first time in forever.

Endings are sometimes beginnings. Beginnings are sometimes endings.

And sometimes the circle goes on and on and on.....

I should have known if I was going to be late for work this morning, I was going to be really late.

I felt that rap,tap,tapping on my new day....
Just before I saw those fateful blue eyes again.....

Pinnochio and other tell~tale stories

I was fat. A dumpling with cold black hair and an indian nose. I was a girl. Samalama Singleton. And my Father adored me.

He nub~nubbined my head, and pinched my nose, threw me in the air and caught me football style, just before I kissed the ground.

At four, my hair was blonde and he had squeezed my nose so many times, it had almost disappeared....

At ten, I ran face first into a concrete wall, sprinting out from under a Christmas tree....and set that nose straight again....broad and bumped...

And then I was 32. Exhausted. Sacked out on an empty living room floor. Two toddler loves waddling in circles around my head, little feet knotting my hair up in piles of angel speghetti on the Berber carpet. I closed my eyes. "Here we go round the merry go round, the merry go round, the merry go round".......

"Mama!" he said. A three year old's world breaking the rhyme. I opened my eyes just in time to see the bottom of his size four pretend Nike's leap in the air. I closed them right before all 38 pounds of Boy jumped in the air and landed on my face.

Broader and bumped again.

My nose grew and grew and grew.....

When my soldier left for war, I bit my bottom lip . I couldn't let him see me cry. Not out the airplane window. I waved and smiled. Turned. Ran.

I kissed the door head on. Knocked myself out silly.

Six months later, the black eyes faded....and the bump was all but gone. I had the most perfectly straight broken nose anyone had ever seen.

When I tell the story, sometimes people think I'm fibbing.....
But I'm not....
It's broken, always has been.

Only now I can crinkle it.
Wrinkle it.
Screw it up in a magical "I dream of Jeannie" spell....

If you don't believe me, ask Skinny....

I saw you ten years from now....

I was laughing. Fluffing ten layers of petticoats back into place and scooching my cowboy boots out of the way. Making way for the casual passer~by. We were being silly. All dressed up with no place to go.

And the night rolled on....

I pointed my toes and grafittied "Make Love not War" on the waiting wall with the chalky tips of my boots. I did shots. Lemon drops. And clinked Skinny and Curty Boy in tandem.

I sashayed out onto the floor for Rolling Stones in my bouffant dress and pretended I was having a blast.....

And I did. All dressed up in my make~believe world.

And then I saw you. Ten years from now. Hair a little thinner. Arms a little skinnier and silly little six pack tummy, a little plumper. There, over there, in the shadows, sipping bud lights and staring at the band. I stopped mid sentence, mid Pink Cadillac. But you didn't see me. I smiled, but like 99 cent a bottle bubbles, the magic was gone before it reached you.... And your eyes passed right through me, dreamy and lost on the shadows behind me.

I watched you in slow black and white motion...crooked smile growing each time the double doors opened. You're head tilting back, waiting to laugh ....Remembering....

I watched you until you stopped watching the door. Until the buxom brunette grabbed your hand and whisked you out on the dancefloor. Until you gave in, and just called it another Friday night at a lonely bar.

You didn't see me, head thrown back, laughing at yesterday. Skinny legs tucked into dusty kick~your~butt boots. You didn't notice me, next to you, eyes closed, dancing to the music not the crowds. You didn't hear me when I said good night, and left.....

Life is short.

And I was only visiting....

"You can't preach peace...."

he said. Pacing across my living floor. Soft shoes padding over the dirty leopard skin rug.

Arms up, he did a 180 and turned, sighing, Counselor at law, giving up on his client.... Muttering under his breath...

"and live like this?"

Arms waving now, casting a shadow over my world....

Cats on the bartop, disco light flickering, chewed up flip flops on the floor.....

Cellphone chiming....1-800 messages waiting...

Dirty clothes spilling out of the bathroom closet, the sunshine only shines when I'm not home....

And then he rested his case with Perry Mason words...

"Chaos is not a peaceful place"......





"Choose your peace, friend" I whispered to his shadow.....

I was only Dreaming

I rolled over....Kicked the paisley orange sheets off the bed, wiggled my toes and stretched. The sun tickled my nose. Morning. Nudging me forward. I stood up and moaned. A little jooking pain in my right foot made me pause barefooted on the fake wood floor. "Shake it off" I murmered in morning breaths.

I added 3 scoops of new coffee to the 5 scoops of left over coffee and waited for magic.

And then it happened.

The Awakening.....

The Jolt....

No wonder I'm tired. I'm old. And I must have been dreaming. I missed the part where everything changed. Catnapped through the shift in gears. Eraser smudged the difference between 16 and 46. Swirled and twirled the years into a grapevine wreath, an endless circle....

And then these damned contacts brought it all home again.

Don't mix coffee and mirrors unless you want to face the truth....

On Friday, I'm leaving my eyes at home....
and
Dancing like there's no tomorrow.....

The Wrecking Ball

The windows were painted in reverse. Too many fingerprints had touched them and they bled with sunlight. The coffee table was covered in beer rings and cigarette burns and the occasional "I can't believe you just did that" carved grafitti...

It was Christian's house....

The psychedelic tub was 3/4 full of tepid water, and we all pretended the fish were still alive. Yeah, a pump would have been helpful....

We drank beer through Deep Purple, dangled skinny legs over the balcony and sang to the moon with Joni Mitchell scratching on the eight track. And then it began. The last dance. David Bowie....

I climbed on the coffee table. Barefooted and bell bottomed and one beer, or five, too many... but I knew the words... And he hummed them.

And swayed.

And I danced....

He grabbed me. Unexpectedly. But not.

And we were there again, the same music, the same shadowed faces, the same Friday night on re~run, but I was full of it. The hissy fit. The "not now", "not again"...

And he held me tighter. ..

You don't always get a second chance...

Dance.....

The Wrath of Love....

It's five o'clock. Midgit cars zig~zag through the traffic train, dodging 18 wheelers. A mid~life crisis hovers next to me, engine idling, vinyl topped dream come true, naked to the sky. He winks when I notice him. A southern pick~up truck revs his engine. Any minute he's gonna climb over my hatch~back and ride right over me. I know it.

I turn the radio up. Dig to the bottom of my purse and find the last piece of gum. Smack it. Smoke another cigarette. Hang my left arm out the window and pretend I'm a seagull.....
flying.....

And there, in the pretend sky, I fall to my knees. I should have scooped him up. The dragonfly on the sidewalk. I touched him. And he hummed. Fluttered his wings....just a little. I scooched him. Just a little. And he hummed in pain. I fetched a paper towel and a red cup and tried to pick him up, and I swear he sang to me....in sad operatic wails. And then I left him there. Wings fluttering in the breeze. Smack in the middle of the sidewalk where some busybody in the morning will kick him with their "I'm late, I'm late for a very important date" high heels. Left him there, with his wings fluttering from the "It's a cold snap" breeze. Because I didn't have the nerve to cause him anymore pain. To move him to the safety of the nondescript cool mulch where he could have died in peace.

And now,
frozen in the five o'clock gridlock,
I realize....
I should have just stayed with him....
Plopped down on the sidewalk and listened to the heartbeat of his wings...
Because
even if he wouldn't let me touch him...

He touched me....

The Purple Stapler

I woke up almost late. Not quite. But not early enough to lounge in my jammies. Have two cups of coffee and daydream.

And so I rebelled.

I camped out on the porch smoking cigarettes and sipping one cup of coffee, coloring tiny matchbook size scraps of paper, watching the sun rise. From where I parked my fanny I couldn't see the only clock in the house on the near~right time. I could only kinda tell the time by the world around me...The footsteps of the lanky 9 year old across the street, running, book bag heavy, chasing the dotted lines on the street. The tires of the bus grinding to an unexpected halt. "Yeah, he made it Dad!" Three little birds dumpster diving in my garbage cans, splashing in the unexpected puddle on the lids. The cats, stretching, raking their little paws on the screens....fingernails on a chalkboard Monday through Friday, but ahhhh, if it's Saturday, we're just stretching....

And then....

I raced....

Jumped in the shower...

Left with wet hair.

Rat packed into the city...did the nine to five plus some...and played bumper car home.

I yanked open the screen door and there on the worn out carpet ,tossed carelessly, lay the teeny weeny little matchbook size scribbles of the morning. I stepped over the color and went to fetch the stapler. All I needed was the little purple stapler and walah! somethin' out of an accidental nothin'... a teeny weeny notebook....

But it wasn't where it was supposed to be. It wasn't in the kitchen cabinets. Under the couch. It wasn't in the bathroom. The pass the trash Christmas Closet. It wasn't in my underwear drawer or the guest bedroom. It wasn't in little house or the laundrey room. It wasn't with the pots and pans or the kitty litter. It wasn't anywhere.

I pulled out the flashlight and looked in corners, emptied drawers, tumped out boxes....

But it wasn't anywhere...

And I cried.

I could go without making my house payment, skip breakfast and dinner, wear clothes still wet from the line...
but I needed that little purple stapler....

to make
something
outa
nothing....

Funny, but it was the laughter I remember....
And I miss that.....

"It is what it is...."

And it's hot. Steamy. Not the romantic, sizzling, bacon kinda steamy. The "Oh my God, I'm so f'n hot", dripping, melting, Florida kinda hot. I jump up every 15 minutes or so and wander down the hall to slam the thermostat down another notch.

And then I remember.

It went out with a boom.

The AC.

Nadah.

I twirl my hair up and shove a pencil into my crown, crossways. 1950's style. "How long until winter?" I wonder. Dreading those gray days as I utter the words. I love the heat. The sun blistering my cheeks. Ice cold beer melting, daring you to drink it before it warms in your hands. But I don't wanna be hot at night. I don't like to camp out.....

I'm whining. Pop open the windows and a cold beer. And then I smell it. The faint reminder of 1976. Wild honeysuckle on a fence, my jeans tearing as I clear the pickets. Lights flashing. Giggling. And then 1977, gagging, fumes intoxicating us. "Open the damned window!" And three of us falling into a heap on the floor....the newly painted claw footed psychedelic aquarium air drying.....home to stray fish for twenty something years after....As we gasped for fresh air ....giggling even in death.... with the honeysuckle winding her way through the dirty screen, saving us from certain tragedy....

And now....

Drenched in Monday night sweat. Waiting on winter.

Accidental perfume.

The perfect gift.....

She wore french braids....

I was four. The only child. Skinny and bruise kneed. Blonde. She was born with auburn curls. Lipstick. Beautiful. I crawled into her crib and slept next to her. Once. I wasn't allowed to do it again. She was a baby. But I was mesmerized....

By the time I was seven, she was as tall as me. Mama dressed us alike. Me with my Mia Farrow "I just cut my hair in the bathroom" hair doo, and her with her french braids. We swirled and twirled in matching green polka dot tent dresses, her in baby dolls and me in platforms. I listened to the Beatles, scratchy lyrics, grinding on my stereo into the wee hours, and she slept with her pink princess phone in her pink canopy bed. We were opposites. A zillion years apart. Night and day.

And then we went on the bike ride. Two spider bikes from the sheriffs sale, spray painted pink for the princess and purple for the "I'm gonna be a hippie when I grow up". We raced down the sidewalks, through the dirt alleys, over the tunnel the boys built in the park. We tulled past the Mayor's son with his three speed smiling, and huffed and puffed to keep up with Zanne and her ten speed. Nicky clacketed past us with blue and white poker cards clothespinned to his spokes.

That did us in.

We flew like the wind, standing on the pedals, home to top their "brag". We plowed through the laundrey room hunting anything we could tie to, tassle to, dangle from our handlebars. We grabbed the crayons and Mom's oil paints to decorate our seats and the fenders. I buried my head face first in the library trunk, the place that all the "gotta save" "important" "memory" stuff was kept...and dug up the Motherload....a pile of Playboy magazines...

Kimbies grinned from ear to ear. And we caught on quick to where the centerfold was. One. Two. Three. Twelve. Taped together, three pages long. Times six. The ultimate handlebar twizzler. And we flew...

Naked ladies following us. Butterflies in the wind....

Of course we got in trouble. The neighbors were apalled. Their children not allowed to play with us. And still, we rode. Faces fast to the wind. Unified....

Saturday we went out for drinks. 40 something years later...

"How cool are those old ladies?" the "probably not yet 21 year old" belted to the DJ.....

and we danced on.....

Fortune Tellers....

We went to Cassadaga. Held hands and tripped over broken sidewalks, stepping hugely over every crack, laughing....that "Oh my God, I'm gonna fall right outa this roller coaster" laugh. They saw us. Knew us.

Instinctively, for 50 bucks, they could predict the future. See it in a crystal ball.

And so we ran.....

Ketchup Soup

She stood in the kitchen, fuzzy slippers blackened at the toes, nubby slip~proof soles, worn thin. Her bottom lip sucker kissed her top lip over and over again. She was chewing.....

Chanty boy sat wedged in the high chair, a wadded up dish towel to his left, a rolled up T~shirt to his right. In case he teetered. We were hungry. I sat barefooted across from Chance at the kitchen table, toes stretching to tap, tap, tap him on his chubby thighs...make him smile. Robbie was makin' him cream of wheat and until it was ready, I had to keep him entertained. .

When she scuffed across the kitchen floor, blowing 'backy smoke on the bowl of grits, I kited past her, snapped the fridge open and stared ..... "Ugggggh"..... Milk, ketchup, mustard with crust on the cap, leftover po~cakes, a bottle of insulin, and 3 cans of Lite Beer. I slammed the olive green door shut and twirled in the kitchen, opened the pantry door. "Aint nothin' there" she murmered, never taking her eyes off the rubber spoon, off the baby she was feeding....

"Ugggghhhh"! I flopped back into the bentwood chair and without another word began knawing on my fingernails. "What the hell?" I mumbled and she never answered me. It was OK to cuss around Robbie, she did it all the time, and she wouldn't tell...
.

She swirled the spoon around the plastic bowl one last time, and Chanty had his encore bite....full and happy now, his heavy little head nodding, falling into the high chair tray. Fat and content, he would sleep well... She made sure of that....

She wiped her hands on the dirty green apron, walked to the kitchen door and spit....the kind of spit meant for contests between 9 year old boys. I watched it in slow motion, rising, hurling, flying....past the steps, over the monkey grass, into the blue blue sky..... And then she scuttled back into the kitchen. No words now. She opened the fridge and did the stare down. Eyes squinting. Nose scrunching. Then she hauled a big ole pot out from under the counter and made us all Ketchup soup. I stood behind her, falling in love. Noodles boiling, tumbling, rising, falling, plumpened in the rew. I put my face as close as I could to the gurgling pot, a steam bath of magic kissed me....
.
Four of us sat at the kitchen table, skinny legs dangling, tapping the floor, shoveling hot ketchup soup down our souls. Thanksgiving dinner would never be this good. Skinny beamed at me across the table, front toothless, and upper lip kool-aid stained. Curty boy slurped in silence. His tummy filling. Kimbies yummed out loud.....
.
We've tried to make it a dozen times since then. In poor times, silly times, late at night. It's never been the same. We've added gourmet spices, arty shaped noodles, food coloring, and bits of bacon... It's never been the same....
.
The magic is in the moment....
and
the
love....

Love Letter

It was storming. Lightening flashed through the little hand painted curtains in the breakfast nook and I picked up another one of Nana's cheese straws, crunched down hard, and spyed intently over her shoulder. She had the winning hand. She scooped up the pennies, nickels, dimes with her knotty oak tree hands and slid them to the tables edge. "Penelope" she beamed. I scribbled it on the yellow legal pad under her name. She was winning. Penelope was right behind Prudence. We were naming a baby.....

And then she was here. I wore patent leather shoes and was in charge of Kimbies in the lobby. Curty Boy was with Nana at home....waiting. Every magazine had a Norman Rockwell picture on the back. Kimbies stood with her face pressed against the glass of the dirty aquarium. She stood on her tip toes, stretched, wanted to put her fingers in the green water and "pet" the fish. I wouldn't let her. I knew that she would scoop one up and bring it home to sleep with her in the pink princess bed and in the morning Robbie would flush it down the toilet. I let her stare while I did whirly twirls on the hospital terazza, scuffing up their buff job and my patent leathers. They didn't let us see her....but the nurse with the cardboard cap came out and told us we had a sister and that our Mommy said "I've had this baby before"..... We jumped up and hooped and hollered, spun in tired circles....having no idea whatsoever what that meant....

"She looks just like you" Mom whispered to me on the phone, the eldest, in charge of getting the hoo~hah, and I beamed. When they brought her home five days later, I stared. Chinese eyes, wild black hair with static electricity.....fists punching the air, feet kicking. At night I would do my homework, scribble on my notebook, brush my teeth, say my prayers, and then sneak down the hall to stare at her......"the baby just like me, so different....I've had this baby before"....

There were ten years between us. She cooed, I said "cool". She crawled, I scrambled on my Sting Ray bike. She tried vienna sausages, I tried raw oysters. She pitched fits, I pitched girlscout tents....

And then it became a blur.....
My teenage years, Kimbies, Curts, hers....Chanty's
Our lives pretzeled, circled, quilted...

And we grew up.

Peace~love
"I've had this baby before" she whispered....

The Old Man is Snoring.....

This is what it was like in the beginning. The morning after Tropical Storm Faye arrived. Before the rains never went away. Before they had to send out boats. Before there were fish in the streets, snakes in houses, baby pictures wilted and wet, floating like yesterday's garage sale signs....

.

This is Kimbies front yard rolling like a river.....And then the batteries in Olivias camera went dead and the view out the window went to sea...

.

But this time....On the seventh day, the river's yet to crest. Everyday more and more homes are gobbled up by mad water, racing, running, trying to escape, but with no where left to go but up.....

.

up the living room walls,

down the halls,

under the swingsets,

down the slides....

under doorways,

into mailboxes,

into the backseat of cars not moved soon enough.....

.

Everyday another Detour sign goes up, and another home is wrapped in yellow crime scene tape, an obscene picket fence for the news cameras...

.

My friend Shimmerings said it best,

"if only we could click our heels"......

.

There's no place like home.....

.

Pray for the sun....

I don't like hot beer