At Sea

I've been wading....

britches pulled up passed my knees,

toes bristling in ice cold water...

the waves

slapping me

silly,

stupid,

straight again...

I'm not drowning yet...

but I've wandered further....

knee high,

neck high,

way over my head...

Sometimes when I look back,

I can't see shore....

God,

don't let me tire of treading water....

Drained....

Midnight in the kitchen.

The 99 cent bubbles
swirled,
twirled,
cascaded one
right after another down the drain,
each one another hopeful contestent for the Miss America Pageant...
savoring her moment of fame,
bottom lip quivering,
then disappearing forever...

Tiny little Hungry Man Dinner carrots
bobbed,
drowning,
but pretending for a moment to be orange buoys in a silver sea.

I turned the water on harder.
Hot and Cold.
Everything at once.

I splayed my fingertips under the spigot, water splattering, spraying, splashing everywhere.

I cried.

And then I saw them.


The butterfly wings.....

Peace, Love, and Passion, Please...

I like to drive slow....creep along and daydream, sing really loud, to Primal Scream and Led and Stones, chain smoke until the ashtray looks like a Blooming Onion, and flash two-fingered peace signs at the folks cussing me in silent screams as they zip past me.

I like to ride in fast cars. To pitch my contacts out the window in an act of littering defiance so the highway is a blur. To feel my hair madly tangling with every mile we fly, blonde speghetti in the wind.

I like to dance to make believe music. To dip low, and long, and pretend I'm a ballerina on top of a vinyl jewelry box. To dance in the street barefoot, under full moons and pouring rains and streetlamps sweltering in the heat. I like to dance really, really slow to fast music, and lightening fast to so~slow~it's~a~lulabye~music. I like to be asked to dance. And sometimes I like to say no.

I like to laugh until I cry, choke, cough, spew beer everywhere. Until I can't remember why I'm laughing and have to cross my legs so I don't accidently tinkle. Hell, I like to laugh so much, I don't really care if I wet my pants, send my gum richocheting into your lap, get the hiccups. I just like to laugh.

I like to Love. Hard and fateful. Ridiculously comitted to the moment. Wreckless and silly.

Forever can be a really, really short time...

You gotta make the most of it.

Urban Myths and Mich Lights

She told me dozens of times, the colored yarn twined between her fingers, crochet hook zipping up and down...."How you bring in the New Year is how you spend the year"....fingers flying, eyes down.

I laughed.

Smudged out another cigarette, and told more stories.

She meant it.

I brought it in upside down, sideways, sound asleep. I burned up the old year, sent it ashes to ashes into the wind in the middle of the tiny paved street. I buried it in the back yard, stuffed it in a suitcase and set it out for the garbage man. I danced to Stones. Danced with fossils. Danced by myself. I made resolutions, promises, threats to an empty sky. I cha-chinged it, cheered it, clinked it, feared it. I tried it everyway but right.

And then I put on my cowboy boots and that damned dress I had to have and sashayed it right in through the kitchen door...

Sometimes you've gotta put on your kickers to get that dust off of your petticoat....

Peace doesn't have to be a Fairytale

Little black cowboy boots, scuffed, the pink and blue embroidered flowers natty and dirty. Good. I didn't want flowers. Jesse James didn't wear bouquets on his toes and neither did this 4 year old. I wanted 'em dirty, and a little too big, so my toes could scrunch when I had to stop in a hurry. I wanted 'em pointy, like the school pencils the big kids carried to school on the first day. I need them that way so I could Kick harder, write my name in the sand in Giant Letters, and squash things on the ground, round and round, until they went splat.

Giant blue blow up pool, tilting just a little bit to the left, so there's a deep, deep end where the water is cooler and my imagination can dive, where I can fall off an innertube backwards and suddenly be scuba diving in a bottomless sea.... three feet and 6 inches under the surface of reality. I know how to pretend. To float. To dream. To make make~believe the best true story that ever happened.

We pile up on the couch and plug in a gazillion cords, punch all the buttons, bop the broken TV on the head a few times and laugh. Grrrrzzzzghaplumph! Dusty ole video rattles in the box below the set and a giant Warning flashes across the screen.....It's starting. The B rated movie at the dirty old, last one standing, Drive in. We scooch the coffee table really close to the couch, because there's really not a lot of floorboard in this old mustang. He lights the mosquito coil and tosses it in the ashtray. I balance the bucket of buttered pop corn on the make believe console and we laugh. Climb into the backseat and pop open the cooler. At intermission we throw popcorn out the window so everyone will look and see the Peace Signs I scribbled with my toes on the fogged up windshield. We laugh and hide under the blankets, 16 again.

"We're broke, but we've never been poor" she whispered, Kissing me on the forehead and handing me the whacked off above the knees vintage prom dress...and the blue suede heels two sizes too big. "Stuff kleenex in the toes, and have a good time tonight, you're Cinderella".

On our way out the door, she made us pose for pictures. She held the little Brownie camera up high, eye level to our smiles and clicked. Over and over again. It never flashed. The make-believe film didn't budge,

but our memories did.
Forever.

Standing outside....

I tried to squint. To just peek, to abandon peripheral vision and logic, and the hand~me~down wisdom I wear like tattered jeans.
To peep through pretend glasses, sprinkled with rhinestones, and tortouise shell rims.


To float.

To play driftwood again.


But in the wee hours of the night,
My eyes pop open
and the new words ticker tape by me,
bleached out confetti hung out to dry on the line...
Somewhere off in the distance,
the old words,
bouncing off a Drive-in movie screen,
silent now,
are bigger than life....


And I'm haunted.



By the laughter. The naked laughter of wreckless nights.

And
the skinned knees
of crashing...



Haunted...
by the accidental high
of wildness.


Ghosts never slam doors. They rattle chains, but they never slam doors.....

In the morning, I'm putting dead bolts on.

And tomorrow night,I'm dancing....

Through my lookin' glass....

He's crying. It's too much. 3 miles home on a dropped foot, a dragging, lagging, "Good-God, it's killin' me" foot. 6 foot shoulders, skinny now, slumped. He's whipped. Done.

And yeah, the truck blew up. Smack. Pop! Poof and it was gone.

I smile and say I'll fry the steaks.

In my world, his life was saved. Tomorrow we'll call a tow truck.

She dials my number 6 times in a row. Leaves a raspy, breathy message every time. I hear her gasp between beeps, between the canned voice reciting "You have 5,4,3,2 more new messages". I call her back and she collapses, homeless for the night, desperately driving in circles.

I smile and say I'll turn the porch light on.

"Not tonight, baby. You're not homeless tonight. And tomorrow the sun will rise and we'll figure it all out"

I fall and knock my teeth out. I cry. And laugh. Fall into the arms of my new best friend forever that I've never seen again. I rack up a phenomenal bill with my next best friend, the dentist next door.

I smile and don't drink koolaid.
Don't ride anything upside down.
Don't hang out in bars with black lights...
Kiss with the abandon that only comes with age and accidents and peace.

I go to bed with the big stuff rocking my world
and wake up
a thousand times spinning,
twirling,
hurling if I could....
And then the sun rises...

And I smile again...

Tomorrow is the gift of peace.

Slow Dancing to Fast Songs

At 17, I did it barefooted and braless, Pink Floyd pinging off the neon walls. Climbed right up on the coffee table and danced, dipped, ca-chinged to the sounds of the cash register clanking...

Bubble eyed gold fished swam in the bathtub, lost in the psychedelic world we painted on their clawfooted world. Christian smoked a fat one. Strangers came and went. And the music played on and on and on.

And we danced.

At 19, I wore neon green platforms and borrowed white painter paints. I rubbed elbow to elbow, knee to knee, through a sea of strangers drinking nickel beer and danced up the steps and down again, Making grand entrances over and over again.

We danced....

In and out of my twenties,
in and out of revolving bars
into raging oceans,
waist high in midnight currents....

At 30 I danced out of one life and in stilhetto heels and a drippy hippy satin dress, danced right into my next....
Tom Jones and the Art of Noise....
The Kiss....
Off the dance floor and into a sea green pool....
Navy blue fabric, and tea stained lace floating,
swirling.....
And we laughed...

Until we cried...

And in slow motion, a gazillion years passed and I watched black and white re-runs...
the music slurring, blurring, getting buried under dust bunnies...

Until I remembered...

And it wasn't exactly like riding a bike....
It didn't come back all at once...

Not until I closed my eyes....

And danced again...

The Kind of Rain...

Tonight.

A little Hurricane gone lazy. Toodling off treck. Wandering like a magpie faerie lost in the woods....

The rains are here.

Delicious. Loud. Plump.

And in this quiet house, the sound I hear is yesterday....

Plodding along in Million's van, bumpity bumpity pot hole jumping down the one lane road through the forest, clod hopping over tree roots and spent beer cans to the opening in the woods, where the bon fire burned endlessly, umbrelled by oak trees, and a blessing we didn't know we had, to Peace Creek......

Piled under layers and layers of musty quilts, hand tacked and sewn of old men's suits and tattered over-alls...9 years old at Mamaw's house. The rain, a mad xylophone on the tin roof, and the car lights, flying past, strobe lights through the clapboard walls...the sounds of tires swooshing.....

Stacked in the hallway, tiny feet, sweaty arms and legs, pretending to play Twister while the Eye of the Storm passed, once, twice, three times and shook our little house like red dice in a cup and spilled it out on the lawn.....the sound of the morning after rain, the safe rain....when we tip toed quietly through the dark out onto the wet earth that was our tomorrow...

Nineteen. Donned in yellow raincoats with hoodies. Rollerskating through Jacksonville in the pouring rain. Silly. In love with the moment. No reason to fear the lightening. Yet.

My wedding night. Yards of taffeta in the mud. I knew it would rain. It was supposed to...

Tonight....
Fat little tadpoles of luminescent rain falling from the sky.....

Perfect.

Rikkity Tikkity Tink!

It was cold and our laughter billowed out in whispy cartoon clouds, mixing with the tart aroma of candied applies and mustard slathered pretzels. My fingers were almost frozen and I kept tap-tap-tapping my boots on the wooden steps trying to keep warm.

Half way up.

We laughed harder. More on purpose. More out of silly make believe fear.

The wooden track wobbled, shook, seemed to tilt in the air, as if the faintest breeze would topple the entire roller coaster over on it's side, and spill it into the boardwalk, a mangled erector set, glowing in the dark. The music stopped , or maybe it didn't, and up ahead of us, the white faces of instant ghosts climbed from their seats, teetering for just a moment to gain their strength, to breath again, and then the tentative laughter of those surviving this trip began again as they descended the other stairs. Free and Alive.

"Next" he shouted, gruffly arming Kimbies and I into the first seat, alcohol breath tucking us in. He started at the back.... one, two, three, twelve, thirteen, running the wooden track, slamming the safety arms down into lock, lock, lock....his dirty fingers barely grazed us, and the little train began to climb. We gave the arm a little wiggle. It bounced straight up. We slammed it down. It bounced again. We screamed. And screamed again. And went higher and higher in tiny rickety bursts of strength. We rounded the highest corner and snapped to the left. And began free falling. The two of us, elbows locked, parachuting. Choking. Huge fists on our necks, faceless fingers twined into our clothes, our hair, holding onto us by Angel's breath. We hit the bottom and slammed hard to the right, left, and I forget now, if we were shaking from the inside or the out, but I remember dying. Just before the next climb.

That was 25 years ago.

The first of many, many "never again"s.....

I woke up this morning with cotton candy in my hair. Two tattered ticket stubs stuffed in the back pocket of the crumpled jeans on the floor.

I woke up smiling.

You gotta love the fair......

Nana

When I was 14, she was 66....
Blonde banana curls cascading down her back , dread locked ahead of her time. Skinny little legs and Blue Mascara. Patent leather pocket book exactly the color of The Yellow Submarine. My Nana. Skinny's Nana. Kimbies Nana. She was wild.

She laughed with no reserve, head tilted back, guzzling the wine of stolen moments from a long fluted glass.
She danced with the abandon of a Ballerina in red slippers, with the wind up wings of a Go-Go dancer, with the free spirit of a magpie faerie.
She told stories in a whispered language only those in cahoots would ever understand or remember in the morning.

She was tickled pink when women burned their bras, but believed in keeping the sexiest ones, the ones in ice cream colors and wicked lace, for the night time....
She rubbed elbows with everyone....catching their magic, and savoring it....
She Loved scary movies, patent leather boots, mini skirts, red lipstick, smokey bars, storytellers, rock and roll, Liberace, romance novels, and her handsome hubby....
She was wild....

She taught us secrets we'll pass on to our daughters and nieces....

I felt her,
heard her,
hugged her...
on Saturday night.....

And I know when she peeked down,
eyes sparkling,
head thrown back ready to laugh,
she was thrilled.

You taught me well, Nana.
I wore fishnets with the combat boots.....

The Red Cup...

Sometimes....the clink is so soft,
so quiet,
the ta!dah! of soft red plastic,
cold beer splashing,
spirits smiling....

that you only hear it in remembering....

And then it happens again...
a Spontaneous Celebration...
one arm up in peace and love
stretching to kiss the sky and
one hand
snuggling the splash,
in the very moment
that the sisterhood,
the brotherhood,
the love,
becomes a wave...

That's how we do it down here....

Sticks and Stones

For a moment,
a really really long moment,
I forgot....

What it was like to slide across my fake terraza floors, skating on the sand, under the heat lightning of a 1970's disco ball, a thousand strikes of a summer sky....

And dance...

My car stereo ate the last of Bob Dylan on a roadtrip through unamed cities, the computer spit out the Beatles with totally misplaced venom, and my Adobe crashed....hushing Mick Jagger forever from my playlist world....

And then...
I ordered 100 dollars worth of office sillies from a starving Office Supply Vendor, and they sent me the key....a little dime a dollar CD player with a thousand electrical cords dangling and a handy dandy remote player....

And I danced in a blues bar on an accidental night to accidental music...

And I remembered....

"You can't always get what you want,
but sometimes you get what you need"....

Even if it's the same old story....

Friday's are for dancing...

Cat Burglar

He steals in through the summer door,
walking lightfooted past my porch light,
and slinks onto her porch to lick his paws.

He's waiting for the lightbulb that was once on ,
a cartoon style halo over her head,
to go out again...

To flicker for just a moment...

So he can steal her blind again.

Happy Hour

Half way home.
Half way between high noon and sunset.
Half way between the listening and daydreaming.

That's when we did it.
Banged a 90 degree turn off the face of the earth and drove straight to the Ocean.

And without another word,
we walked straight out into the wild green sea,
clothes billowing up around us like abandoned parachutes,
cheap lighters and bubblegum wrappers floating upward,
confetti in reverse.
Deeper and Deeper and Deeper...

Until we were
halfway between the sand and eternity...

The waves were plump and
lazy,
cotton sheets blowing on the line...
and the water was Margarita Green...
crystal clear,
and frothed in salt.

I could see my toes...
and swirls of sand dancing with the current.

And for just a moment,
I thought that I had never seen life any clearer.
Or been more free.....

Peace, Love, and I'll have another beer, dear....

She Barbie-doll walks across the floor, Cinderella shoes clacking on the floor, Rhinestone Cowboys on her fingers, and smiles with painted lips and glow in the dark teeth. He's right behind her, fingertips on the small of her back, swishing this way, and her way. They run a tab and dance the night away...An Arthur Murray re-run. They're in love...

Just ask them, they'll tell you....

He straddles the barstool and scuffs his pointed shoes on the floors while she giggles and swirls and twirls around him....eyes flitting in disco circles to see if anyone is watching. The show gets better with an audience. They're in love...

Just ask them, they'll show you....

She caresses her glass, swishes the cheap shot in lazy waves, and then eyes it like an Owl on a telephone pole. One determined Gulp and she's got hair on her chest. Her left hand travels and she accidently touches her neighbor.

She's looking for Love....

He nudges her, and she falls....head over heels...for him...and onto the floor...

I swing my legs Pippi Longstocking style, balancing, I hope...
Just high enough and brave enough not to ever go there.

I'll have another beer, dear...


And if it's all the same to you,
I'll keep believing in peace and Love...

Close your eyes....

I can vividly remember the first night...

They sipped pink champagne in long fluted glasses and in between the vinyl grooves, they set their drinks on the mahongony table...

And it left rings in the morning....

She swirled and twirled to Ray Charles, Bobby Vinton, Louis Armstrong, Chubby Checkers, The Tijuana Brass....and just for fun...The Grasshoppers....He dipped, and spun....and laughed....

I sat on the couch and watched. Long gangly legs in a pink velvet dress and blonde bangs chopped off to match my Barbie Doll. Kimbies and I had to be very, very quiet, or we had to go to bed....

I barely breathed.

On the blue carpeted floor, they shimmied and watootsied and "Love potioned Number 9'd" each other.....

And then I grew up....

I went to first grade, and fifth, and senior prom. I fell in love and out of love. And got married. And divorced. I raised my babies. I danced on coffee tables, balconies....and beaches. I danced in empty bars, at concerts, in traffic, and in the kitchen....

But I never forgot...
they might have, but I didn't...

The magic of that night...

Of them closing their eyes and feeling the music....

I believe in Magic...

Hitchin' a ride....

I believe in Peace and Love...
Everything in between is just a roadtrip....

I would have sent postcards.
I swear.
But I didn't take stamps, and
after a while,
I was sure if I just whispered to the wind....
scribbled breadcrumbs on lonely dirt roads,
left love beads in unexpected places....

You'd know....


It feels good to be home again...

To unpack my imagination
and toss it wildly on the floor,
next to crumpled blue jeans and empty cigarette packs.
To wake up to it the next morning....

Yeah, It feels good to be home again....

Let the Peace and Love begin....