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

Ballad to Bobby Brown....

I saw you there. Inside out and backwards. 17 or 21, ID flicked, flipped, flashed.... you were a natural. I've imagined a million times what you would look like, walk like, talk like ten years, twenty, a lifetime from now. And then I saw you. In yesterday.

Toothy grin, crooked and upward, my favorite "I just had a shot" smile...Skinny legs, jeans too short, but frayed, worn, loved..."In case I meet a hippie".....Mind racing, writing Country Top 10 songs on legal pads, eyes dancing....rock and roll and punk...strobe lights flashing.....And that f'n grin....that gun it grin...race, tumble, roll....Gun it, grin...

I don't dream about you anymore. Wonder what you're doing. Tink you. But I miss you. And I saw you in yesterday. 20 years younger. Before you were you. And just so you know, I laughed....And danced ....

And when I came home,
jeans crumpled in a pile,
key in the door,
memories plopped on the kitchen counter,
I slept....
and thanked God I wasn't there in the beginning....

but was there for the end....

Deja Vue...

Hello Tomorrow

My legs were crossed, all lady like, and my right sneakered foot was just~a~swingin' in tandem with hers, crossed at the knee. We were keeping mad time together. Pacing in place. The lobby was full... Broken lives hooked to IV poles, held up by other's... faces blank, tired, scared, old~schooled. Hugs and how~to~do's were quietly passed in "shhhhhhhh.....we're in church now" fashion. I flipped through the pages of the Reader's Digest so fast and hard, it sounded like I was shufflin' poker cards, and I concentrated on making that same sound over and over again.
.
And then they called her name. For a moment I wasn't sure I could walk without having my legs crossed, right one swinging. What other nervous tic could I develop that would be socially acceptable? And hide my fear..... What other nervous tic could I invent that could pass off for strength? How was I going to catch her when she collapsed? And who would catch me?
.
He smiled. That handsome Doctor smile. Babyesque brown eyes, old already. Lips curled just enough to make you wonder who his Dentist was, and why on earth he chose to practice this type of medicine. Why on earth he didn't want to be a Soap Opera Star....
.
She had been summoned here. To this room at this time with these people. For the news. We waited. He talked. Drew pictures. Circled foreign words on endless reports. Nodded his head up and down as if we understood. And then we did. Sweet Jesus! Remission! Gone! Poof! Not there! Unremarkable scans. Nothing here, there, over there, in that.....crawling, corrupting, eroding. Nothing!


.
We stood in the parking lot, in the rain, and cried. Laughed. Hallelujahed the sky! Tried to dial numbers. Skinny's. Papa's. The kids. The boys. And then we decided to party.....
.
.\And we know how to party.....
.
Thursday night, Friday night....into the wee, wee hours. At 4'oclock this morning, I fell into bed. Kimbies curled up like a rolly poly on my little living room couch. Her dancin' boots in a heap, her little blue bandana

still on her noggin'.....
.
And I slept like I've never ever slept before....
.
In peace.
.
With Stevie Ray Vaughan there in the shadows, whispering lullabyes for the soul......
.
And Tomorrow, just outside the window....
Smiling...

Spooky little night....

I heard it from the living room. Over the dog panting in whispers from the leather chair. Over the air humming, rattling the vents. Over the funny sky, winteresque at 90 degrees, churning outside the windows. The ticking. The tocking. The incessent heartbeat of time. Just before the storm broke loose, I paraded into the kitchen to stare the clock in the face and bellow...."I hear you!"


And then I saw it....

The second hand chirping at seven. Over and over again. The minute hand frozen. Rickety tickety tock. Time stuck in a rut, wearing a groove pattern in the plastic face of yesterday/tomorrow/now. I stood barefooted and stared. Willed the hands to move. Lightening flashed from behind the fiesta ware. Thunder clapped. Rickety tickety tock. The second hand quivered, lingered, shuttered, slammed back into the 7th house. Just beyond midnight.


A friend called and said he had seen a ghost. Felt it. The second hand shimmied.

Every call I took or made was disconnected. My end. Their end. Disconnected.


Spooky little night....
By the time I wake up in the morning, the batteries should finally be dead. Time will have stopped and finally I'll recharge. Set the hands where I want them

and

start all over again....


At the beginning.....


the middle....


or the end....


Wherever the music plays...

"Will you be my friend?"

I layed belly to the sky, toes draped lazily over the edge of the yellow vinyl raft, fingers air drumming in the water....drifting....in circles. I never opened my eyes, pretending to know when the clouds passed and exactly how they were shaped by the heat on my eyelids.....rubber stamps of sunshine in the cool negative shape of angels, elephants on their hind legs, horses with wings.....

I listened to the wind. To the trinkets in the sky. The natty faded towels on the clothesline; a sudden parade of American Flags....exactly the same size, the same color, as my kindegarten year.....hand over my heart ....the fabric billowing, the chain clanking hauntingly against the pole. Squirrels, or rats maybe, I don't know, ratatatted back and forth across the crooked fence line, racing madly to nowhere. There was traffic in the distance, and then close. Boom boxes rattling. Gears shifting. A siren. Still, I didn't open my eyes. This was my peace. And I was gonna live it.....

I don't remember dreaming. I don't remember the 45 minutes I disappeared from earth forever.

But I remembered how I got there. Comfy cozy in the lazy round river. Waiting on the boys. Floating round and round and round....saying thank you......

Peace where you can find it....

I'm too many people. Our dictationist, Sweet Sunny Anne, had a stroke in January, and I hauled her little machine home and took over where she left off. Everyday she goes to Rehab and every night I type on and on and on.... She's learning to walk again and talk again....and maybe one day, live again.... Until then I'm typing....

My right arm, Emily, is finally on the kidney transplant list. It's her turn now. We watch the clock and wait for the beep.... "It's your turn now"..... and I pray it won't be long. She's irreplaceable, so when she retired at the early age of "I have to", I didn't even try.

Chey got offered the moon and the stars on some crazy undiscovered planet, and after 17 years, flew the coop, feathers flying. I miss her. The good Doctor misses her. The patient's miss her. And if I didn't have straight blonde hair, I could pass for her...

I wake up kicking, tossing, flinging, flailing. remembering everything I forgot to do the day before. I grit my teeth. Make endless lists that I forget to read and plop them on the empty refrigerator.

Today, my part~time help quit. She was an angel. She wants to live her life. Not spend it clockin' in..... counting change....X-ing off days on the calender for being free. She wants to be free now.

I smiled. She cried and told me it was OK to cuss her. I hugged her.

Tonight I came home and pulled out the markers, the pencils, the pens..... and colored. For the first time since hell broke out at my house , a mermaid the color of a 1000 tadpoles surfaced on the bent pages of my notebook. Her peace sign, tethered to her neck, floating up.... up....up....free....

And I remembered,
in the end peace wins....

You gotta live it, to know it....

Overflow......

It's an old house and I'm an old woman. Things are bound to fall apart. And so it goes....

I turn the blue and silver cap slowly, a delicate twist of my wrist, less the bottle neck shatter into a thousand pieces.....
And then, I chug good and hard....

It's beer time, baby.....

The shower gurgles up into the toilet and the toilet runs until the pump gets hot. When the pump gets hot the cold water stops flowing and I've scalded myself silly three 5 minute showers in a row. It's OK. I don't need to rinse off, the wayward boys took off with the soap and the shampoo and I swim with tadpoles, remember?

They disconnected my internet for non payment and I promptly took care of the problem and they politely turned me back on Thirty minutesbefore lightening struck the telephone pole, scampered down the cable and knocked the whole system out. There's a post~it note on the screen now,
It says "don't you dare".....

My broken foot is broken,
and tomorrow I'm wearing combat boots to work,
My key got stuck in the broken kitchen door and I had to break the plywood to crawl through the already broken glass to let Georgia out the broken back door.....
and there's a post-it note there too....
it says "Lock the broken door or the cats will get out"......

I pulled my clothes from the washer and hung them on the line and it rained. Thank God the sky is broken. The rust from the washer was smeared all over my new "I am free" T-shirt and I'm hoping the heavens will rinse it out.

The house is 3 inches deep in cat hair and dog hair and the confetti of my life. The vacuum makes loud noises and spits at my shins.

It's dark here, every 1000 hour light bulb blew out at once and I used all my candles for the hurricanes 3 years ago. I have to keep typing or the screen saver comes on and I can't see a damn thing in the living room.....



Everything is broken,
but the circle.....

Rest in Peace.....

In the beginning, we were newbies. I remember where we sat and what I wore. The songs the band played. The wig Ms. Betsy had on. I smiled. Tapped my tennis shoed foot on the floor and finally, solo-d it on the dance floor. Kevin joined me. He couldn't hear the music and he couldn't introduce himself. We had to scooch really close to the drums before he smiled. He had to write his name on a napkin before I smiled. He couldn't hear. He couldn't speak. But, by God, he could feel it....

52 Fridays times two plus some have passed. I've barreled through the doors in cowboy boots, combat boots, barefooted. I've hugged people, kissed people, and just once.....slapped a wayward soul. I've slow danced, low danced, fast danced, no~touch danced.....held my lighter to the sky, my bottle to the heavens, and held my breath. I've fallen in love, met angels and demons, and family here. I've come through the painted door high on martini moons, wild from full moons, and tiptoed through no moons. I've been free here.

On Friday I knew.....

Ran my fingers down the painted front door and scrunched my nose up to the make believe speak easy.....

And made my entrance fit for an exit.....

Rumors.....

You never know what to believe.....

Fireworks

I dated a nice boy. Once. He opened car doors and brought me donuts on Saturday. He wore khaki pants and golf shirts. Had a retirement plan and took good care of his parents. When he kissed me the first time, I almost fainted. From boredom. And then he sweet talked me. In baby talk.

"Why can't you just find a nice guy and settle down?" She said to me, slurping her McCoffee.....

"Lemme tell you why" I giggled . Remembering.

I like to have fun. I like to laugh til I cry and cry til I laugh. I like to dance. Low and fast. Touching and no touching. In the streets and in the rain. I like to dress up and dress down. I like to be shocked and to be rocked. I like to be IN LOVE and I love to be liked.

I believe in butterflies.....

Choose Peace

I can see him clearly through my early morning windshield, love bugs and pollen peppering my view. He faces me in traffic, unshaven and brusque in his little fleet truck. We are at a stand still. I can't budge an inch and he wants to snake through traffic, dart actually, to get his morning coffee. He sneers. Lifts his hands from the steering wheel and abruptly motions me to get the hell out of his way. I smile. This aint no helicopter, baby. He flips me off. I smile again and the light turns green. Peace. He guns past me. I thank him for the 30 second delay it took me to welcome him through traffic. You never know when the butterfly effect begins....

She fidgets with the credit card machine. Slides my card through it again and again, upside down and backwards. Wiggles the cord. Checks for a dial tone. Clears the register. The lady behind me in the three inch heels clicks her feet on the terazza floor. Clickity clickety click. "I'm already late!" she pecks into the air, a skinny little bird waiting on worms to fall from the sky. I smile. The cashier tries it again, apologizes, and it takes. I thank her, and on turning, wish the high heeled haughty behind me a better morning....."Once you're late, you're late..... enjoy the ride..."

Tiny little rhinestones keep fallin' off my favorite shirt, the peace sign slowly crumbling , disappearing. I touch the remaining few. This tye-dyed comfy cozy gift from my oldest grandaughter..... from my heart, is fading. I cross the parking lot and a raspy six year old voice follows me in the wind. "Mommy, look, I found a diamond, a diamond! Mommmy, Look!" His face lights up, glows up, beams..... and his chubby little fingers coddle the treasure. Climbing into the car, I smile.....

The butterfly effect......

Choose peace, people.....

It's priceless.....