Just a short revisit to fear for a friend.

I read once, a memory is powered by remembrance. When we actively remember something over and over again we re-enforce the memory, establishing more neural connections, giving it more power over us; our character, personality, fears... and most of what we remember tends to be our traumas and failures. We relive those moments that hurt the most. Why do we willingly give up so much power to our pain?

I don't know that I want to completely forget the past; I'd like to think I've learned from it, like the time we sat through the 4 hour time share presentation, all day, just to get the free hibachi. There are however many places in my memory I don't live in anymore. I've burned pages to clear the monsters and ghosts that haunt. There was a time when the fire was blinding-consuming; my efforts to cleanse were so intense. I wanted to purge, throw everything out. I only helped strengthen those terrible fears that paralyzed my growth.

Like smoke from a campfire that clings, in my hair, clothes, skin; part of my essence, ghosts of my existence. I'm haunted by the impressions of my past if not the memories.

The way a man walks, will give a chill that crosses the street. I wonder what expression my face holds. Does he see the loathing that rises from some rotten core? The seeds of fear and hate that didn’t burn in my purge. All my senses betray me.

Cologne, a little too strong, and a fearful nauseous wave will leave me curled on the couch watching Perry Mason; soothing drone of black and white, good guy always wins; my savior if I could only find him. I could be happy to not leave the house again.

Short angry men frighten me. The smell of stale alcohol paired with clouded red veined eyes repulses me, and I dream of killing a stranger that breaks into my house. The baseball bat under the bed cracks his head and I'm finally free.

No real memory just primal responses to unseen fears, clouded figments, monsters without form.

The real fear is of me. What monster lives within? What am I capable of?

I’ve often thought of what I would do if faced with a violent attack. How many people do that? How many of us wonder what we’d do if we were being raped or burglarized, or what we’d do if someone molested our children? I’ve not only thought of it in my conscious mind but I’ve dreamt of horrifying experiences. Screaming and crying, no relief, just fear of what I could do if provoked. Does that monster live in me? Would I become that animal of fear and hate?

I might worry too much though. Most of the time I work very hard to be the person I want to be; good to everyone, hopeful of the future, generous, loyal, happy and kind, the kind of person that is “normal” by the definition of Perry Mason, Star Trek, and Leave it to Beaver. The point is I work at it. Everyday I can slip into that place of fear and everyday I face those haunts that make me who I am. Sometimes it’s easier than others but everyday I must look at who I am and choose to be who I want to be.

My Dark Night

Upstairs room
Past the fright
Tiptoe quiet on this hungry night
Three small heads find their way without light
Down to the kitchen
into the fridge
Black is bright
Bathed in light
Toddle as they do
They make do
Cherry pie tonight.


All of us tight,
bunk bed sized room
blocking the only window light
string pulled tooth for her tonight.
Will she come,
‘Fraid not, she won’t fit.
Shelf in the kitchen will have to be it.


Bedtime is at eight
on every school night.
Hum of the TV and its glowing light
call us from our dreams
quiet as we might,
to sleep in the hall
just out of sight.


In between the kitchen
the living room
the hall and the laundry room,
is the Dinning room corner.
I spent most of my 11th summer there.
I don’t remember why
but the choice was clear,
busted rear
or the dinning room corner.

I used to gaze out the back door
at the yard sunshine bright
glimpses of brothers running with delight.
So entranced I was by the heavenly sight,
I didn’t notice my kid sister, stage right.
Her mouth opened wide
and the sound that ensued
shattered dreams of tomorrows
joining the brood.


Brothers
I had two.
As 9 came they were gone.
First one - then the other.
The first went to friends.
They treated him like a guest.
The second went to strangers.
They treated him like he was.
Dispatched like the creatures they were.
Mourned by the only heart that cared.


Just kids,
To know what’s right.
I promise, not to fight.
I’ll be good
I can stay out of sight.
Don’t send me away
Into that dark night.


Tears are full
And my chest is tight.
I’m very old now
And not afraid of the night.
Sometimes I wish
I had gone too.
Then I might not miss
The both of you.

Laundry

How did we beat the rock
to rinse from our skins
the days toils
to hunt and stretch more skins,
wanderer of lands, hunters
of the means of existence
aside brother, mother, son, or not,
all family of survival?

How did we scrub the cloth that clothed us;
in tubs on boards,
stretched out on glowing days
to catch sweet breezes
kissed by lavender and rose,
the same day as our neighbor,
shared baskets of time and space,
gossip and companionship?

A lost hour and a half,
forced by comforters and blankets
to stand alone
in a crowded laundry mat.
Machines horded with
hampers standing sentinel,
ancient rituals forgotten
to our invisible bubbles
that never touch.

Private worlds crammed
into front loading washers,
slaves to necessity,
woolen grime of poverty,
heavy blankets of shame,
baked in glass ovens,
sanitizing autoclaves.

Eyes that never rise
above the turning worlds within
to see our world around.

Fall

So beautiful
are those distant hills,
washed red
and orange, pale patches of yellow, dark veins
of green, bristle

like a mans
unshaven face. Curves

softened by the damp
haze of clouds and mist, cool
air, quiet - the soft touch
of rain drops finding
the path to their very own
leaf; difficult in this crowd of arms
twisted together in knots,
older crowding out younger.
Young ones reaching thin bodies
higher to see the light, feel
the air, taste
the rain.

How many drops touch
my tongue
before I’m blinded
by the rain.

All I want to do is feel
the touch
on my face,
imagine each as a kiss, moist
lips follow a joyful tear,

But they’re cold,
And I’m old.
I can’t see those summer clouds anymore,
wonder about their softness.
what they’d feel like wrapped around my shoulders.

So I sit under an eve and ponder the hills.
Could I fit them between my breasts?

The Shave

“Relax.”

When they were first married,
she sat on the counter as he lathered,
and made faces in the mirror,

She watched -
curious,
interested, wanting
to be part of it. Watched
as he piled thick cream in his hand, spread
with fingertips down his jaw, across
his chin, as he buried the weekend’s passion
beneath the purity of white.

She watched –
As he folded
lips together; sensitive explorers that travel softly
over hills and valleys, backed by blades,
tenuous threats,
mounting tension.

She watched –
As he warmed his razor beneath the stream of hot
water. Mourned each whisker
as it washed down the drain, gently caressed
his face;
the smooth skin,
the occasional errant whisker,
stretched up to take in his clean scent
hand studied against his chest,

his soul drawn to the radiant warmth
spread
past the bonds of time, as he searches
her wondering eyes.
Resonance of remembrance reaches deep.

“It might be fun.”
Eyes closed,

Her warm hands test,
light touch fondles the stubble of growth,
gently massages the skin.
Her shadow circles his chair;
to be at her mercy,
the echo of her touch clings like a warm breeze.


“shhhhhh”, water in the sink; her breathy
whisper,
she holds a warm moist
cloth to his face,
cradling him between her hands,
As she has always held him;
between breaths.

he can feel the press of her legs
at his knees
and opens
to give her more room, breathes
in the moist
air with the scent of her hair -
so close.

his hands
pat nervously on his thighs
feeling their own mind, a strand of her hair
tickles his cheek as she leans in, her lips
soft and delicate, still holding his face.

His hands find themselves on the back of her thighs,
still reaching as she backs away.

“Relax”.

He shouldn’t have been there.

His dark haired body
stretched out on the folding counter,
languid against the fluorescent brightness,
reflecting off the glass the sightless
night; passed closing time.

His shirt was open
waiting for the dryer to finish;
I couldn’t take my eyes off the dark stripe of curly hair
that spread from the center across his relaxed belly.
He was watching me sweep
from under the arm resting across his forehead,
while I watched him.

I’d never seen hair there,
only heard the whispered giggles
of what was found at the end.

Curiosity, wondered the feeling of it,
the timid hand’s sensitive touch,
lightly discover the curled texture
and the sudden jump of surprised abs;
but he doesn’t move, only the breath
sounds change, faster with strained
control not to gasp.

I told him a secret,
whispered it in his ear, so close to his neck,
his scent mine for a moment,
listened to his groan at the hearing;
my fantasy his now.
Lips just touch his cheek as he leaves.

Power

A distant sun
with no one to see it rise.

The ocean has the power
to crush a ship,
throw a survivor on shore,
or burry him deep.

Do clouds have power?
Insubstantial wisps of white fluff
carried on a sigh,
but when they turn gray and dark
and crowd the sky fighting with flashes for space;
then we see their power.

Where do you keep your power?
It seems small and frail
tucked away deep
in a quiet space.

It’s been slapped down
too many times to come out aggressively
and claim what it wants,
so it is timid and unsure.
Waiting for certainty,
the slightest bit of encouragement
to stretch out just a little bit more.

But a scattering wind can blow out a storm
before it has a chance to gain its potential.
And so your power builds just a little,
testing the breeze,
wondering if this will be the moment.

My name is Uncertainty. (thoughts and a poem reprint)

At sixteen I went through the “ Who am I?” phase, smoking, drinking, sleeping around, trying to identify the life I would lead. When I met you I became the complement to you, enjoying those things that you enjoy, racing, shooting pool, drinking…

When our children came, I became the image of mom as close as I could come to perfect, a composite of yours and not mine and borrowed from the TV ideal; PTA, parks and play dates, coffee and shopping, making ends meet.

Today as the cloud of second hand smoke wafts by and I consider bumming one from the young man in shades, as he takes lengthy draws from the end, I realize I’m again in the “who am I?” phase. Twenty years from the last smoke of my own, waiting for class to start. The first time around I had an idea where my path would lead me. Now – I just don’t know.

At seventeen
No thought was clean,
So close to purity of thought.

At eighteen
stuck in between,
never understood what she had wrought.

At twenty-one
So much fun
Oh, he really is the one!

At twenty-three,
Does he love me?

At twenty five,
Again -
Does he love me?

At twenty-seven,
Does it matter?

At thirty-four,
Not any more.

At nearly forty,
What will I do?
So filled with doubt.
Uncertain – Fool!

I thought of you at lunch today.

Alone at my outdoor table for one,
Half in the sun,

The tangy flavor of the sun dried tomatoes
basil and mozzarella, on my burger,
red olive oil staining the grilled bread.

The sheen of buttered crumbs, dust my fingers
and beg to be licked;

too exotic and busy for your simple,
greasy spoon, hometown tastes.

Heat and vinegar of Tabasco firing the ketchup
For my salty fries.

Long given up

flavor, of a hard pear cider, crisp and dry,
with its lingering tartness

clinging to my lips.

Could be shared

Power failure

The source of all goodness and joy in my world of work and play is having serious technical difficulties. The AC adapter has a short. It always seemed to get hot after an hour or so, of intense concentration on what ever writing project I'd been working on, but today it spit at me. Flares of "fuck off" shot from some exposed wires just past the rectangular adapter, with no power reaching my poor computer. I've used the last of its battery power to pen this fearful note and to order the replacement adapter, which had better arrive on Monday! Tragically this means no Sunday Scribblings entry this weekend however I may figure out how to use this other, less complicated instrument I've found, pen and paper, to write out my entry and post on Monday!! Or maybe Tuesday.

While I wait I've picked up some light reading. "The Age Of Turbulence, Adventures in a New World", by Alan Greenspan.

Take your own test just for fun!

Benevolent Idealist

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How close is it for you!

Collection

The phone rang today. At the other end a woman asked if we handled any rental property. As a real estate office, we handle the purchase and sale of property, but not really rentals. Some of our agents own rental property. After explaining this I offered to take her information and pass it on. What are you looking for? Do you have any pets? How long have you lived where your at now? Why do you need to move? How much can you pay in rent? Do you need a certain school district?

She and her husband are both applying for disability benefits and her uncle gets social security. Their son is in the same middle school as mine. They need at least two bedrooms. They used to run an animal rescue but had to close down; they still have two large dogs that they rescued and a Chihuahua that they’d like to keep if they can, she explains tearfully. They were just told that the owners of their home of over four years, sold the house and now they have to move. They pay $550 a month but she thinks they can go as high as $700. Their combined income is about $2200.

I tell her that I know of a small three bedroom house across from the grade school just around the corner from the middle school that has just become vacant. The previous renter needed something a little bigger since the birth of her third child and moved to a more spacious apartment with a pool. She plans to home school the kids but is having trouble with providing for the social needs of her middle school son and second grade daughter. She used to volunteer at the grade school, making popcorn and served on the board of the local PTA.

I fight the urge to collect them all. To open my arms and comfort their collective pains, to spend my mental energy solving their problems and making them my own. It seems such a small thing, give someone a ride to the store, to listen to someone else talk about issues with their teenage son, to counsel an abused mom, to have a safe home for the kids to come to that they know what the rules are and what to expect. Seeing the green mucus run from the nose of my friend’s son and knowing it’s the unhealthy childcare environment; what harm is there to take care of him myself and save her the hundreds of dollars I know childcare costs.

So much of this world could be better if more of us did just a little more to help. The instinct is there but we all fight it for fear of getting hurt.

Once while driving through town, traffic seemed unusually heavy. A red pick-up truck with a loaded camper on the back has stalled and the driver is pushing it by himself down the street. There is no street parking on this highway through town and his push has to round the next bend and then, maybe travel another block up the side street to possibly find a parking space to stop and evaluate the cause of the stall. But this poor man is pushing by himself, and the side street has a slight incline. How is he going to make it? Around him, car after car passes without even a honk. Eyes see his pain, the exertion, the sweat dripping in his eyes, as his small daughter try’s to steer. How many pass – before finally someone jumps out of the still moving van his wife is driving, and begins to push. Then someone else does the same. The wife drives to the private parking lot just around the corner and begs the gate guard to please let these poor people park here. By the time the truck reaches the lot, four more people have jumped out to help. Combined, such a small effort; but it couldn’t have been done with out them.

I collect small differences, little “goods” of the world. All those small pieces of good that fill the world but so few claim for fear of the little effort it takes to bring it to life; those pieces that fill up the heart and fortify it, making it whole, light, free.

The End.

Fairy tales woe to happily ever after. --- And everyday after.
Splendid sunset of red streaking the sky. --- Blue glow of dawn.
Bright sliver of the waning moon. --- Sigh of the new moon waxing.
Exhausted three week vacation,
pulled up in front of the house. --- Unload
Bent over the last row touching
each seed to the ground. --- Sprout of spring
Paydays stretch to the next. --- Never ends
Fall --- Spring
Road --- Endless
Death --- Rebirth
Faded lilac blooms. --- Pruned for next years blossoms
Summer --- Spring
Childhood --- Over and over and over and over…
Good rubber on the tires. --- Every 10,000 miles
Rivers dance to the sea. --- So long as it rains.
Bears winters nap. --- Again after a hearty meal.
Winter --- Promise of Spring
Baby’s cry put to the breast. --- He’ll be hungry again.
Extinction ------
Jostled bus ride after work,
vacant stare out the window. --- Everyday for the rest of your
Life

Fuck off!!

------

The only true ending, extinction and Fuck off.
Ends Communication, cooperation, understanding, sympathy, empathy, interaction, consultation, collaboration, tolerance, comprehension, compassion, appreciation, consideration, support, acceptance, harmony, trust, and love.

Folly

Standing on the top of the ladder
shifting side to side, toes
gripping the rung,
reaching for the limb,
wondering "what the hell
am I doing,
is this really worth it",
the inevitable fall, snap
of the twig, the sudden jolt
as gravity reaches up to catch
my foolishness and pull me back to earth,
the reality of precarious existence.

the breeze is nice
scented with honeysuckle and lavender,
blue sky expanding above.
how far to the hills?
into the cool shaded pine air,
soft needles carpet the ground,

why the apple tree in the hard baked orchard?
What the hell does that snake know anyway?!

I get that sinking felling….

Sinking - like quicksand?
That slip into troubled darkness,
the ghost space of a haunted mind.
Pressure squeezing
out life until the empty vacuum waits.
Waiting for the last breath
that triggers the filling; what will come?
Expecting the bite and grit
of sand and water flooding mouth and lungs,
tearing a path around the heart –
to crush the last of love.

Wanting sweet relief of weightlessness
and air; clouds of peace.

It will come, no matter what.

Email I wish I could send to a friend.

Somehow I imagined that as we grow older, we redefine achievement and greatness and throw away the old measuring stick in favor of prospective on what is really important in life.

Eighteen seems very young to accept mediocrity, and how is that giving your best to life anyway? Realizing you’re not the best at something and deciding that it’s ok is the same as giving up. You don’t have to be the best at anything you just have to give your best to everything you do. Is that what you mean? The problem I have isn’t that I’m not the best but that I can’t give 100% to everything I do. I have too many things I want to do so nothing gets my best. My mediocrity isn’t for lack of effort or desires it is the dispersion of effort and desire to do everything. That is the fact of my decisions and my battle is how to come to terms with that. I’m not good enough to be the best at everything and I’m just barely getting everything done OK. So does that make me mediocre?

Could I be the best at just one thing or do I use this dispersion of effort as an excuse to not be the best at anything; a denial of average? What would happen if I focused all my energy to one effort and still only made it half way? Would that mean failure?

Something to think about a little more.

Dear Diary

Monday, April 20, 1987. - Dads been acting strange today. Something was off first thing this morning. I had come down to make breakfast for Melody. Stumbling down the stairs making more noise than I had planned, cringing at the cascade of a green and yellow toy with bells built-into the wheels; something more for a toddler to drive around on the carpet rather than my six year old sister to play with. Dad didn’t make a sound. As I passed by my parents room he was sitting on the edge of his bed (now it’s his) looking through a box of papers and pictures. He didn’t even look at me. I was braced for the hollering, the barking of orders for having disturbed him, but nothing, he didn’t even look up. Relief and worry washed over me as I got to work on breakfast. Melody was sitting at the table gazing absently out the dinning room window. Rain trailed the view through the pane. Mom’s car sat in the driveway waiting, the big maple tree across the street waving back at me; everything seemed paused, anticipating. They didn’t know there was nothing to anticipate. Breakfast was cold cereal and a banana. Mom always made us eat a banana with our cereal and there was a bunch of them browning on the counter. She must have gone shopping before….

Melody and I sat eating, heads bowed over bowls as if praying. I just wish it wasn’t so quiet. Dad came into the kitchen. He tossed mom’s car keys on the table, “Take her to school.” The keys splayed out on the table like a hand holding on to the smooth surface right in front of me. If this had been last Monday they would have been snatched up and Melody would have been rushed to finish and hurried off to school; today they just laid there, frozen to the table, my gut knotted, the picture of Melody and I smiling up at me; strangers. Her hands held those keys everyday. The hemp braid I made at camp when I was ten strayed off to one side out of alignment with the rest, an extra hair tie for Melody, mom always had handy to tame her mane of curls. The cereal floated in the bowl a thin banana slice resting on the spoon paused for the next bite. Melody’s eyes were locked on the keys, if I didn’t do something we’d be home for another day. I don’t think I could stand another day pressed in with all those memories. The house is so full of them there isn’t room for us. Looking through the drizzled window at the distorted view of mom’s car; it’s going to be a tight fit in there too.

Dad just stood there watching me; no yelling, “Well get moving boy!! Didn’t I just tell you to do something!!?” He just waited, his eyes searching me. I don’t know what he was thinking, he just wasn’t acting himself. He was wearing the same clothes he had on yesterday and now that I think about it the bed was made when I saw him earlier slouched at the edge; dad never made the bed. His eyes ringed with red but dry, he could have just come in from work, eyes irritated from the dust of the mill; only it was morning, mom was dead, the funeral had been yesterday, and we are dieing here slowly, instead of the aneurysm that exploded in her, ending everything so quickly.

They had been arguing, mom’s patient voice murmuring between his clear loud thunders; I can’t even remember what they had been arguing about. Just another of many. Then quiet. - - - “Jaaack!!” The anguish in his voice, I don’t remember how I got down the stairs. He was crumpled on the floor with her in his arms, rocking; she wasn’t moving, her mouth slightly open, her hand limp, her keys on the floor, splayed out like a hand.

Mom told me once that because I was first born and a son, that dad named me; mom named Melody. She’d laugh a little and smiled at me conspirator like, “but you’re more like me than you are him”. Then her face would change, her eyes looking at me so far away, “He really does love you, he’s just had a hard time of it and doesn’t know any other way”. “When you get older you two are going to go around, just remember he loves you.” “He wants to prepare you for the world out there that hurt him, but you’re more me than him, so the world you see is a lot prettier.” “Oh, there are monsters out there for sure; walking around looking like people, but inside each one there is a piece of a good soul just waiting for someone to call it out.” She leaned in and looked at me, straight in the eyes, so close to my face, all I could see was her eyes. “That - is what we’re good at.”

I looked in dads eyes, looking for that ‘piece of a good soul’ mom was talking about. His hard look intent on intimidation, looking for a fight, wavered around his eyes; the line of his jaw, muscles twitching with the tension of clenched teeth, proud shoulders pulled back to his military pose, heavy boots anchored to the floor balanced and ready to chase and fight, but his eyes. They looked so frail, tired. Is that what she saw; the man, tired of the fight, but doesn’t know any other way?

I put down the spoon and reached for the keys. They were warm, held by dad all night. I looked at Melody, her face set, like dads. “Maybe we should go to the coast today dad?”

His body shrank a little, off balance, his eyes trailed between his children. All that’s left of her. All that matters. He reached out and took back the keys. “Sounds like a good idea.”

Tough Decisions

When we are sick we go to the doctor, when we get "old" we retire to a comfortable living on our lifetime of investments. If we are career minded we work long hours while our children spend creative days with trained caregivers that enlighten with art, music, reading, and imagination all within the safety of criminal background checks; unless we’re like Sametta Heyward.

Without knowing the story behind the news article, Sametta Heyward was a single mom called in to work, when her sitter canceled on her. She drove her 1 year old and 4 year old to the group home she worked at, set them up with fans, food and drinks, leaving them in the car for her 3-11 swing shift. She has been charged with homicide by child abuse. The article from the Associated Press written by Bruce Smith, I read in the Sunday Register Guard (8/5/07), goes on to recount interviews with neighbors and co-workers describing Sametta as having gone through some difficult times but seemed like a “loving mom”.

I live in a community of poor and working poor. 96% of the kids, my kids go to school with, are on the free and reduced lunch program. I’m using this as an indicator because it means that they are at or below the poverty line set by the state for our county. What I’ve seen has gone by my eyes without much consideration. Over the years my own apathy has blinded me to what had always been a passion; children, their safety, enlightenment and empowerment.

My mother worked, sometimes two jobs,to keep the house going as the main bread winner in our family. My stepfather worked too but his was seasonal field work that slowed down in the winter after the plums were dried into prunes, and didn’t start back up again until early spring when the fields started planting. He worked hard long days and never made much money; so much of our survival was on mom.

We were very lucky for about two years. Really it was one summer and part of the preceding and following school year. We lived in a big house that had four bedrooms, a dinning room, an inside laundry room, and a big backyard that backed up to the neighbors house and a vacant field; no fences to bind us in and free access to blackberry vines, apple and cherry trees, a generous neighbor with a lush vegetable garden, and another with seven kids to play with. Our school was only blocks away and mom worked across the street at the health department. Life was very good then. It was still a financial struggle but we could get by.

My little sister had just started kindergarten and had to go home alone. She was scared alone in the house and would call mom at work everyday because she heard ghosts in the house. My responsibility as the oldest child, was to go straight home after school and take care of my brothers and sister, make dinner and clean the house.

This was one of the best most comfortable times in my families struggle to survive in this world. Everything was as good as it could get; mom and dad working, home close to work and school, fresh fruit and vegi’s to supplement the meager resources available to our budget. Still we were home alone for hours until mom got off work and my sister even longer. My mother had little choice. To not work meant welfare and food stamps, we’d done it before, but she had gotten this job through a program putting women back to work funded by the Carter administration. It was meant to be a future without government assistance. She was excited about it, talking everyday about what she was learning, how much she liked the people she was working with. To her it was a chance at a career that had a future.

Before the end of the next school year, the government administration changed, priorities shifted, and the program she was being paid from lost it’s funding. The shoe string department tried to get other funding to keep her but in the end she lost her job. By the next summer we were living in a motel a mile outside of a desert town in California, the six of us sharing two rooms watching tumble weeds roll by.

As I read the paper this morning and observe the priorities of the current administration I wonder about how little has changed. Children are still not a priority, and families still have to face the decision of what to do with their kids when work is how you feed and house them, but it also takes you away from them. How desperate must a mom be to do what she did? What would I do without the friends, family, and husband that I have? I have been blessed but what about the others. What should I do, what can I do to help? Do I let the vastness of the problem blind me with apathy or is there something I can do?

Spheres

Mother, father, me, two brothers, sister,
Grandma, grandpa, three aunts, four uncles, thirteen cousins,
husband, four sons, daughter never had,
father in-law, mother in-law, three brother and four sisters in-law,
six nephews, four nieces by marriage and blood, two god-daughters, and a god-son,
best friend, best friends husband, three sons and a daughter,
best friends mother and father, sister and two brothers,
good friend, good friends wife, and mother, daughter and niece,
friends husband with a drug problem,
friend that sends her sons to Texas for two months
to see the father that never calls,
laid back friend, husband, son wana be hacker, daughter growing up too fast,
friend across the street, life mate, son, daughter, two sisters, niece, and another on the way,
kids school teachers over seven years, principal, school cooks, and custodians,
kids best friend, kids best friends mother, brother,
school secretary whose husband has Alzheimer’s and lives in a home.
boss and his wife, owner, owners wife, and daughter,
office mate, her disabled husband, and two sons,
coworker that loves horses, her husband, son, and daughter,
and thirty others that work side by side, and over one hundred more
at the other two branches, the seven women and two men that check groceries
at the store, and the four others that run them to the car, and Rose that sells roses,
the young man at the gas station, the other four at the car wash one in college,
and the young lady
looking for a cheap apartment that punches the car wash ticket,
the aloha girls that sell Bad Ass coffee hot or cold for Lui,
the “Is there anything else I can get for you today, Ooook” lady at Jack-in-the-box,
the woman at the Dairy mart whose brother wants a cheap foreclosure to fix up and sell,
and two more of her co-workers, that guy holding the sign selling pizza next to the woman asking for change, PBS and NPR, the marine charged with conspiracy to commit murder for hauling a man out in front of his neighbors to “teach them a lesson” and shooting him, serving 43 days losing one rank and going back to work knowing it was OK, saying he’d do it again.

circles

How narrow our world has become
that we see and hear our stomachs turn
and souls burn,
from the touch of evil brushing the edges
of our sphere as it touches
the next that circled the next that
encircled the eyes
of those who see the horror
and we do nothing,
it isn’t in our world.
It isn’t us. Yet.

Respect and Humanity

My family and I went on a little vacation to Odell Lake. We stayed the six of us, in a one bedroom cabin with my in-laws; mother, father, and sister, a total of nine souls. Four fine days and three nights; so many people in one small space made for just a few tense moments, but the weather was wonderful and between the lodge, lake, playground, woods, and cabin we all had enough space most of the day.

One of the memorable moments for me was a discussion I had with my father in-law; a very fine man with a joyous sense of humor (a balance of clean and dirty jokes depending on the company). I have so much respect for this man that even after 20 years married to his son, I still can’t bring myself to call him by his given name. He is Papa, as the kids call him, or Sir. He noticed this and made mention of it only once, several years ago, and accepted my explanation of why. I just didn’t and still don’t feel comfortable. I’d like to think it’s because I respect him so much and I very much respect his achievements and honors. He has worked hard for the company he retired from 18 years ago, working his way up the ladder to management and retiring at 55. His investments and financial planning has allowed for a comfortable living for him and my mother in-law, and he has helped us over the years when we needed it, even helping with the down payment for our house. I owe a great deal to him and to his example of service to his community and family. So you can imagine that when we somehow ended up on the opposite sides of a debate, I felt some caution. To offend this man would cause me pain but at the same time it isn’t in me to back from a debate about something I believe in, so debate we did.

We discussed Mexican immigration in the US. Not something that we can solve in an afternoon discussion over the dinning table and in the end he and I came to one conclusion we could agree on; if we were faced with watching our children go hungry, and we knew we could find a way to support them by traveling to another country, quite simply, we would.

Hundreds die every year crossing the border; men, women, children. We have criminalized seeking a better life.

Our country is founded on the belief of working hard to make a better life for ourselves and our children and most of us can trace back to an immigrant.

Separating families through deportation is wrong.

Denying education to children that have lived most of their lives in this country just because their parents brought them here when they were too small to make the decision themselves is wrong.

These are mostly moral opinions, however if you could imagine yourself in any of these situations the right and wrong of it would become very apparent.

As for the rest of our discussion, we agree spending billions on a fence is a waste. The Berlin Wall came down and so eventually would anything we would build.

And their will always be those that only see color and culture and will never understand because they don’t want to. They want to believe that these people come to hurt them and take from them their birth-rite, US citizen. When all most want is a job and a home to raise their family in.

When we start seeing the people, when we listen to their story, when we see the desperate eyes, and feel their heart beat in our own chest and know the desire of each of us to achieve and provide for our own, then we will solve. Until then we are only reacting like frightened animals, posturing and blustering, puffing up and trying to frighten back what we won’t really understand. And people keep suffering and dieing.

Phenomenon - Jack

When David’s friend, Jack, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer we knew he was going to die. There is no cure and the longest one can expect to live is a year.

David’s first response was to pull away. Jack had been his best friend since he was a teen just starting out at the phone company. They worked together for years and socialized regularly even after David moved to other jobs. Leaning over a pool table they vented to each other all the things you can’t say to your wife or workmates. Their lives were separate, and at one point separated by miles when Jack moved to Texas, but they knew that with just a phone call they would have an ear with no judgment; a friend to laugh with and remind you what is really important in life. In Jack, David had a friend that knew who he was - so he could relax and be who he is. So, his first response to the thought of losing his friend was to pull away. Avoid the pain, but the trade off would have been the loss of the short time left with his friend.

After Jack died, we sat against each other in the house we had visited often in that year, drawing on each others strength. Remembering the trip to Vegas in the spring, the many games of pool played at the nearby pub, introducing him to our new born son, the time spent taking him to that place in his mind where there is no pain, just memories of life. We wrapped ourselves in our own thoughts of loss and what we will miss, the weight of Jacks life heavy without him to carry it.

When his wife came into the room with his pool case, the one he carried all the time, that he’d owned for the fifteen years I’d known him, made of soft beige leather with tiny Indian beading near the top; - it was like Jack had just stepped into the room. For just one brief elating moment he was there with us. It was just seconds. The weight lifted, hovered above us, and then more gently covered us again, like a fresh sheet on the bed.

His cue and case were buried with him the next day, placed in the casket with his empty body. We already had what we could keep of Jack.

My Moon

Tell me to go jump in a lake somewhere off Iceland. I’ m not the beat around the bush kind of person. Just the facts. Do you hear me? You’re the anchor that gives me heading; keeping my mind in this world of deeper understanding. Giving perspective to the images that float at the edge of my mind, turning them into something other than ghosts to be shoved down; into stories. Stories that can end, change, be different, not me.

Where are you? Do I need you? Do I want you? Want what I can’t have. Have what I can’t have.

You don’t want depth. Light meaningless interaction that never gets messy. I understand so very very much. Calm, ordinary, untroubled existence, a placid sea, or a clear sky. To bad the world is so bumpy, a geode of people and places that goes on forever in endless laps. So the world is messy and so the mind is the world within. Just as messy with its wounded pieces clinging to the edges looking for someone to hang on to. Wanting to trust enough to let go, knowing the empty space is so deep and so hard to climb out of.

Hanging on and pushing away are so close.

Standing at the edge the water is black, a tremor ripples the memories. The shore slips toward the frigid glass shattering calm. Descending into numb thoughts, cold fog clings to the edge, wounded pieces looking for someone to hang on to, waiting to let go, knowing the depth. Smooth walls of water pull into the black depths, movement, life below the surface, surviving unknown, silent, surface eddies from far beneath. Panic, thrashing, searching,

Where are you? Do I need you? Do I want you? Want what I can’t have. Have what I can’t have.

The sea holds tight what it wants, weight crushing pressure squeeze, collapses the last bit, orbs of life showing the way. Eyes follow. Stars float with the waves, the moon reaches out to touch the surface smooth again, spreading his palm flat, calming the waves. Floating on the surface listening to the deep, reaching for the moon, a drop falls a slow decent past closed eyes kissing the moons radiant face, Tears fall, wind whispers

Wicked Cook

My mother fancied herself as a good cook. Her specialty was goulash; all the leftover’s from the frig added to the same pot, seasoned with apathy and poverty, heated to a temperature that was certain to kill off any bacteria that may have started to multiply, served in a heaping pile in bowls or on plates, depending on what was clean, while her and dad ate fluffy white rice with their steaks and canned peas; mothers favorite that turned to mush in my mouth.


Dreaming of government cheese,
large ample hunks of salty fulfillment
eaten with bread and milk
while running up mountains with Hiedi
to golden green meadows,
delicate and colorful wild flowers brushing through my fingers,
scattering micro insects
threshing through waist high grasses,
surrounded by hillside after hillside and endless blue sky,
rocky outcrops, high waist dresses, goats for company
and the breeze for a best friend.


We lived in a complex once designed for family living. Fresh idea when built fifty years before my life but run down with neglect and poverty living for me. All the units faced a large central yard with four massive trees, eons old, that reached past the roof tops and kept the ground level apartments and the yard cool. Those trees were an oasis in the Mojave Desert; step outside the shade of the yard and, golden velvet hills rolled on forever ringing the flat hot desert of sage brush and jackrabbits. Depending on the time of year the wind would turn us into a ghost town of tumble weeds and blowing sand storms that hazed out the sun. In the spring, the only time anything felt new, there was this small yellow flower that grew close to the ground. It had the most intoxicating fragrance I’d ever smelled or since. Like perfume. I’d pick fists full to take home to my mothers allergies and complaints of “are you trying to kill me?” to have them thrown out.

The sun turned my skin dark brown and my black hair into a helmet of fire.

The neighbors next door had two daughters, my playmates. I used to sit in their mothers kitchen and watch. It was a small kitchen with a small four chair table pushed up to the wall so only three could sit. The stove was always hot even in this thousand degree desert heat, pots of rice and beans cooked all day, ready for any hunger that might come home. The back door was always open begging for a breeze, glowing daylight. Never any fat lazy flies hovering around, her pots were always covered and the dishes clean and in cupboards waiting for eaters. She didn’t talk much just the musical sounds of her voice telling her girls things I didn’t understand, her soft gentle directions and the girls’ compliant responses. She combed oil into their hair, first coating her hands and smoothing them through then combing sleek shining lengths down there backs, and braiding them into ropes of perfect. Those same hands made tortillas all day long every day. Fresh and soft, she’d feed them to me with beans I watched her cook, poured whole from one boiling pot into the hot sizzle of oil in the black frying pan that always sat on the stove after a good wipe. When the men came home they would pat the girls on the tops of gleaming heads turned up with smiles and arms ready for hugs. The table pulled out from the wall surrounded by men laughing loud and eating the menudo, beans and rice with those fresh tortillas she had cooked all day. They all were like mirrors of me, Alice and wonderland mirrors, I could only watch. Before dark, I would run home, to a box of mac and cheese and a can of peas, never asked where I’d been.

Fishing

One distant lonely sailboat on placid waters,
heat waves flutter the sails.
star dazed eyes against the deep blue.
Constellations of thought,
mind adrift, slave to wind and water.
Faint breezy whispers - - so hard to hear,


me: It must be a bore always having to placate this silly woman.

I’m baiting you, please don’t agree.

you: I love you.

Why do you hide behind those words?

me: I love you too.


The thin line struggles in its battle
with the depths; pole bent,
smooth water barely stirred by the line.
What will break the surface; Gaping mouth
of a smooth gray bass, tender white flesh;
rainbows of trout, sweet flavor;
toss back too small?
hairy black catfish with lungs that never die,
instincts to live that walks it back to water.


Dads bucket full fills the sink.
Tip toes peer in at dark bodies
sucking air with sharp gills,
vacant black eyes staring at moms back,
hammer high, crack, crack, crack! I hate
these fucking prehistoric beasts!!
To no one.
Red gore, and still – movement,
gills and eyes, never die.


I hold sunlight in my palm,
penetrating warmth. Just air. –
Thinking of holding your hand,
reassuring warmth of flesh, presence.

Do you care?

The swelling of summer.

Lengthening days of bright summer heat.
Tight buds to flowers
The fullness of trees;
leaves, nuts, fruit, birds and song.


Long as the winters night,
lovers wrapped in the others
sweet warmth.
Whispers of dark wind stir bare branches,
dance moonlit shadows on the walls, winds
breathy moans of delight.


Beautiful round bellies, full blown flowers
Proud, confident, assured. Three
Each their own direction, cross
From their own corner.
Not the same lover, but the same love,
To warm their winter nights.

They tell you in those birthing classes to breathe.

Relax and breathe,
deep cleansing breath,
slow in and out deep,
relax.
Focus your mind
on something pleasant,
loving and calm;
music, husband, childhood toy
you’ll pass to her.

Precious gem, child of your love,
small perfect hands
with the circles of her life
already imprinted in the tips
when she takes her first breath.

Remember

Two worlds, inside and out.

Bach plays background
for Shakespeare’s mid summers night and last nights movie.
He says “Ok, so you get to pick the movies more often”.
Chosen for a story of inspiration;
How one artist may have been inspired.

No guns or violence; fuel scented,
metal twisting, broken body bloody,
fiery crashes,

just a maybe story of what could have happened
in one woman’s journey within
to find her talent, her unedited self.

Those that take the journey
see it for what it is; a waking dream,
a wandering through dim rooms,
when something opens a door or window;
illumination, awakening, inspiration, a muse.

That piece is born real out of clouds.
Transformed from wisps of fleeting thoughts
so hard to hold made solid by pen, paper, paint, canvas.
Music for eyes, ears, mind;
fuel for the outside world.

I feel so dizzy,
an ache at the temples and down the jaw.

Waiting for a call or visit to define my worth at work.

Listening to Bach to relax and inspirer.
A conduit of learning ,
develop those synapses that reach
into the folds of my storehouse
to deposit more or extract some.

Reviewing algebra,
preparing for a crushing crash of calculus,
10 weeks of Hell crammed into 4.

What have I done?!

Thinking of Shakespeare,
dreaming of a mid summers night – Wanting to get lost in it.

Writing instead.

Satire

Mostly Tiana.

This is the first time in days I’ve been able to stop and write. Today a friend broke up with her boyfriend, David and I talked about whether the kids are ready for squirt guns, and the big picture affects of not letting the kids watch Mr. Rogers. We took a drive that started Friday at noon and didn’t end until Saturday at 11pm. We visited family, friends, and the ocean view, dreamed of a farm of our own (the romantic type) and did what little we could for friends with so little.


About eleven years ago a little girl came into my life. She of course brought her mother with her, but for all intents she was mine. I ran a registered family childcare group; fancy way of saying I took care of kids that were not my own and the state approved. Little Tiana was just two years old. This was 1996 and my own boys were 1 and 3. Her mother was interviewing for a childcare provider and brought this lovely little angel into my life. She had beautiful brown eyes and deep brown ringlet curls down her back. That day she wore a sweet little white cotton dress with matching sandals. My own boys ran the house in diapers and nothing more.

Now the living room of my home was right next to the playroom, a converted dinning room, decorated with alphabet letters, plastic play structures for both preschool age and toddlers. Books and toys littered the room and the air was fragrant with muffins. My goal in life has always been to be kid friendly with the décor, and to this day nothing fragile is placed under 4’.

Mom and I sat on the sofa and talked. We were getting along so well that she didn’t notice Tiana had left her lap and gone off to the playroom. An ear splitting squeal stopped all conversation as panicked mother jumped to investigate. Tiana, Sam, and Thomas beamed giant smiles as they ran around the playroom like found siblings. Tiana had torn off her dress and matched the boys. Since then she has been part of the family. My four sons call her sister and we always get those quizzical looks that wonder if I had been married before.

Every summer since then she has come to stay with us usually for a month, only less with a protest, and sometimes more if I can sneak the time, and since her mothers’ marriage, we now get her older sister and younger brother. So now my house swells from 4 to 7 kids that sleep in 3 bedrooms and cram my mini van beyond legal limits, and I love it!

This family has fallen on hard times. They lost their home to a crooked mortgage broker that didn’t explain anything about the loan they signed for, and threatened them with a law suit at closing if they didn’t sign. No one was looking out for them and they didn’t call. I cry inside when I think of the suffering. A broken man unable to provide, a mother trying to keep her kids safe, and kids doing what they do best, rolling with it. They have no power and no water. That means drinking water bottles and soda, eating out of the same cans that stored the food because no water to wash anything and never being home because it isn’t home anymore, just a place to sleep.

He starts working again this week and they’ll find somewhere to live after his first paycheck. Until then, they will just squat in the home that was their dream, and wait for someone to tell them to leave. I’ll get the kids after the hay harvest, the end of July, and keep them until school starts.

What a fucked up summer!

Could I?

Sometimes,
I just want to write down the eroticisms
that I feel.
Tame them to paper, bound by that white sheet.
Out of me.

If we meet on the street,

Could I hug you,
feel your arms surround
me, the brief press of
exhilarating warmth?

In France a kiss
to each cheek is very ordinary.

Could I kiss you,
leisurely; one for each lip?

In business, a hand
shake seals the deal.

Could I trace the lines of your hand,
breathe in your palm,
let your fingers trace down my neck?

When children tell each other secrets,
they hold their heads close and whisper.

Could I feel the tickle
of your whiskers against
my cheek and whisper my secrets
soft breath in your ear?

A friends’ comforting arm
feels reassuring across the shoulders.

Could I run my hands
along your shoulders,
feel the tightening tautness and
rest there?

Flowers have beauty
but we always lean
in to take in their fragrance.

Could I lean in, head to chest,
take in your scent and
dream?

When I walk through a garden I
close my eyes and feel
the leaves and flowers soft
sensuous textures.

Could I close my eyes and explore?

I know this is last sundays but I just wasn't sure if I wanted to post it.

What’s your sign? Well mine is Taurus. Bull headed is what my mother always called me and now agents opposite me call me a bulldog. Not sure if that is meant to be a compliment. I never want to give up on a deal and have saved a couple from extinction. I’ve also hung on to one that cost me over $1,100. Ow! So I’m working on it. (Need to learn when to let go.)

Lately I’ve been contemplative about my life, leading to much uncertainty. I suppose (hope) everyone looks back at some point and wonders what it all means and “where am I going”. I never had any doubts about my direction; I’d just check for the wind and fly where it took me. My path has always seemed to be right in front of me.

At 17, when I moved to Connecticut, it was to a job as a nanny and some distance from my family (mother). My move home to Salem was to my fiancé and another adventure. Together we moved to Portland and Portland State was my next challenge. Then kids and back to Salem following his educational needs. Now we’re here in Springfield. The kids are a little older and we have a little more freedom. I’m back to school hoping to finish what I started 19 years ago. My mind is in a much more receptive state than it was all those years ago and I would guess, has something to do with this contemplative place I’m in.

I was telling a friend about my first car. It was a very “beautiful” Brown Ford Pinto. I was 16 and working full time as a dishwasher at a nursing home in Dallas, OR; about 10 miles west of Salem where I lived. I convinced a family friend and car lot owner that I was a good risk and he sold me the car after a friend over 18 signed the contract too. (Needed to cover himself and all) What prompted the purchase was the job. My mother had been taking me to work everyday that my boss and neighbor didn’t. When my boss was fired, my mother refused to take me to work anymore. I didn’t care much for her logic, this was just her pattern. Do what she wanted until she was tired of doing it. She gave me no reasons, she was just tired of having to get up in the morning and drive me in. Now rather than give in to higher powers, (the authority of my mother which seemed arbitrary and unfair) I decided that I just needed to get a car, never mind that I didn’t have a license. (I didn’t drive by the way. My 18 year old friend drove me to and from in exchange for use of the car until I got my license.)

This just patterns out my look at life; full of choices, obstacles, and paths…I don’t see walls or barriers, just something to work on.

So what does it mean to be a Taurus? To charge through life with your head down and then when you lift up to see how far you’ve gone, you get dizzy and fall down. Still waiting to see how long it takes me to get back up again.

Laughter, kisses

She smelled rain today.
Heavy sweet air.
She just wants to sit and breathe it in,
let it fill all her empty spaces.
Anticipation
hidden in those gray clouds,
the leaves shiver, wind dances around her with delight
pulling at her.
Then a deep breath and the air
sighs; relief.
Small drops - teasing kisses, tickle her leaves.
I can hear her laughter.

Son

Halfway stopped
by the chair
his door hangs loose on hinges.
Used to swing
across castle moats,
crocodile rivers,
whatever he imagines.

Treasures
In the closet crowded with whims,
Where his clothes
ought to be,

Sculptures carved
in walls,
Painted his favorite hues
Red. Greens, and blues,

On the floor,
yesterdays underwear,
this mornings towel
Today’s T-shirt & jeans,
No shoes to be seen.
Piles of discarded days,

Inked bed frame
proclaim words forbidden,

On the window sill
his latest Lego creation
next to dishes of crumbs not allowed.

Moonlight shadows
soften her mood.

On his bed
with blankets bunched
Softly sleeping,
his tousled head askew.
No sign of his mischievous might,
small hand, a tender touch,

Oh, how much he’s grown.

This son holds his mothers heart.
Something she’s always known.

Your eyes

Tell me the name of those clouds,
the thin rippled wrinkled ones, a thinking
man’s forehead. Threaded dreams
surrounding pale blue; soft - irresistible depths
of blue, bound only by the horizon.
A labyrinth world,
blue washed through sun baked eyes,
glassy reflective waters of unknown depths.
Surprising waves, wakes from past
Explorers, stroke the banks,
Shifting the sands,
Again and again.

Dreamy day on the docks,
one boy fishing with his homemade pole
the other reading,
both on their bellies, one nose
searching the depths, the other
searching the depths,
sun darkened bodies together,
companionable.

Vent

In the quiet moment before I sleep as the body goes limp giving up the day’s efforts both mental and physical; I finish an argument with you.

No, I am not special or unique. I have been deluding myself for the last 30 years believing that I saw more beauty in the world than most. Than my mother and sister, neighbors I grew up with, you. Then I realize you are just like them.

I write and you mock me “Dear diary”. I read and try to share an interesting story of the famous rope walker Phillip Petit, something that if you’d seen it on TV you would have thought it fascinating, but I try to tell you and you don’t look at me, and just walk away, “petite, must be a small guy”. And I’m six again racing home to share the day’s new knowledge with Mommy, just to be barked at “Don’t lecture me” as she turns her familiar pinched eye brows and turned down mouth back to the day time soaps, more real to her than the depressing life she lived.

For you it’s hiding upstairs playing video games. Our children talk about “Need for speed most wanted” more than the books I know they read. To see this, recognize this, but not know what to do about it, fills me with frustration. I know you can see it. So when you comment that your futile search for a phone number via internet for our God daughter is “just to placate” me and I respond in the only language that seems to reach you; “Fuck off”, do you understand then? I am not 17 anymore!! You can not speak to me as if I have no brains. I want our children to grow up with more in their heads than violence, cartoons, and video games. Either help me or get the hell out of my way!

Now I can sleep.

Doubts

Everything is working out beautifully today! Much of what I do is facilitate. I get people together with mortgage brokers, homes, inspectors; I work hard to make the deal happen by coordinating people and transactions. Today I put together a buyer and two different mortgage brokers so he'd have choices. The brokers agreed to meet at my office so my buyer wouldn't have to drive from office to office over several days. Very important to a busy small business owner. Here is the beautiful part. Everyone showed up; and on time too! Why should I doubt? They of course don't know that I do. I just do.

Drive home from the lake

I feel like a split personality sometimes. Today I drove the kids to the lake and spent the afternoon lounging in the sun reading. The kids played together like they can only do at the lake. No arguing, fighting, or pressing for space. They could swim when they wanted to, eat when they wanted to, relax on a towel dripping from their last swim, chase each other with oars in a mock ninja battle, race each other to the giant orange floats that delineate the swimming area, and walk on the black tubes that frame the marina. We all got to enjoy ourselves. When it was time to go everyone was tired and ready. Packed up, I cranked up the radio.

Loud and pulsing, the freedom of the drive took me back to me as a teenager driving my first car; the ugliest brown ford pinto, which took me away from the dismal reality of my mother’s apartment and her latest boyfriend. The curve of the road rocked with the music and my hand draped out the window caught the currents of air alternating cool and warm as we flew in and out of shade. I could feel my hair blown across my face and when I caught a look at myself in the rear view mirror the looped strands framed a content and relaxed face with a soft smile. For just a moment I didn’t recognize the person looking back. Were did she come from? Trees and hills rolled by, houses, yards, someone on a bike. Paul (my 3 year old) fell asleep in his seat and the other six kids in the car talked under the music, calm, pleasant, content. I just wanted to keep driving, not let this moment end.

A couple of speed zones later and we’d reached civilization. First a neighborhood, then a school, people out for an afternoon walk, and at each milestone I reached over and turned down the radio just a little more. By the time we reached the first stop light the decibels had been turned down to a respectable level. Life’s restrictive hand slowly wrapped around me again. I dropped off the extra kids and ran into a client. Visited about her new baby and how they have been having trouble getting the financing together for a house. I told her to call me so I could help her find a good mortgage broker. When we got home the kids unloaded the van and put away the food and I went to work. Pulled out my laptop and emailed a contract to a lender, made a couple of calls to confirm a meeting for tomorrow morning, and spent some time writing this.

Am I a free spirited teen, mom, working woman, writer, sometimes all of the above. Today helps me feel like maybe I can be all of the above and not loose who I am.

Lunch

A BLT and a diet coke; Lunch was so good. The cold coke stung on the way down, very satisfying. Soft slightly gummy white bread; not my first choice for bread but it was all we had. I like bacon cooked right between crisp and under done, just a little chewy. These slices were perfect. Fresh tomato and lettuce, out of miracle whip so just a little horseradish mustard. This sandwich hit all the right spots at 2:30 this afternoon breakfast and lunch all at once.

Balance

I’ve calmed my mind and quieted my heart. There’s security in knowing “it’s all in your head”.

My grandmother told me that age was “all in your head”, “your only as old as you feel”. I never wanted to grow up. To be bitterness, pain, pessimism, to suffer with heartache and loss. To fight with a lover and beat my children and work two jobs and still have nothing. To be surrounded by poverty and the pain of others. To scheme and fight and cheat, to step on others to move up lifes ladder.

I wanted peace in my world. To have security and a home, happy children and friends, a supportive husband that would give me the freedom to be a mom first. I prayed for this; and god gave me everything I asked for. And part of me knows that I should be grateful for his beautiful gifts. I’m surrounded by people with less and still I’m dissatisfied with all that I have.

What I didn’t know to ask for was something else. Intimacy. Trust. I’m not talking about fidelity. It is the intimacy of sharing without fear. I’ve never told all my secrets to anyone. I locked them up so I could be this peaceful person. The only problem is they haven’t stayed locked up. I used to call them ghosts. Mostly childhood memories of abuse and neglect. I’d wake up from a nightmare and my strong, safe, loving husband would hold me until I slept again. I would press my face to his chest and breathe in his scent and I could feel the nightmare fade and the memory soundly locked away again. After a few years it happened less often, now nearly not at all.

The ghost that haunts me today is the old me; or younger me, how ever you want to look at it. The passionate, boundless person that lived in the moment and didn’t know any other way. What part of me have I traded to be the "peaceful" person I try to be today? Is it really peaceful to hide behind a mask.

This "me" is so close to the surface now I feel transparent, as if someone looking at me can see that I might be different. The mask has slipped. The person I see in the mirror is more creative, calm, satisfied with what I'm doing. I'm discoverying how to balance but sometimes the weight is a little shifted.

Body Song Unsung (revised)

Why does music heat my blood?
Inside my head the throb of bass
rhythms vibrate to essence.
Speaks screams to each heightened nerve.
Body responds with movement
no thought.
Wildness shudders awake,
pulls againts restraints.

Why does this body want to do its
primal dance?
Under control, wrapped tight in duty.
So easy it is to fall,
back to primordial roots,
strong is the pull of pasts
passions.

Flesh tuned to the rhythm
Feeling the sweet pulse of finger tips
To cheek – neck – shoulder – heart, tracing
Songs traveling within,
hidden under skin,
stirred embers
that once was flame.

What fuel is swelling this desire
of mind
of body
stirs of memory,
Sweat, muscle, arms, thighs
Ache - Waiting – Anticipating –
(so missed),
Charged and blind to disapproving eyes.

Firm heavy hands on my shoulders;
could be yours.

Weight of life.

Open your eyes.


Music’s over

Today is my Anniversary!

We've been together for 20 years now.

When I first saw him, he was just another guy in a world full of them. I've never had much hope for the male of our species and I won't go into why just yet. Hubby was different. He didn't look at me like I'd go well on a platter. He has this magnificent smile that poured into me like cool water on a hot day and I was just coming out of the desert. I drank in the sight of him.

He worked at the neighborhood gas station on a stretch of road not more than a wayside, hemmed in by the highway off ramp at one end and an on ramp at the other running parallel to this same highway. The 25 mile speed limit drove you past the bar on the corner to the left, the fruit cannery took up a couple of blocks on the right, an office building and a vet clinic back on the left, small mom and pop businesses lead up to the gas station on the right. Further down was the health clinic and finally the grocery store then your back on the highway on your way to the coast. His job as a mechanic and gas jocky, made him accessible to random observation and the more I saw the more I wanted him. I loved his friendly easy going nature, he smiled at everyone, and when he laughed I could see it all in his eyes. It didn't feel like he could hide anything. That's what I wanted; no lies. And I suppose it didn't hurt that he rode a motorcycle, had sun bleached shagy blond hair just over his ears, and beautiful blue eyes.

Now I was bold, but not enough to ask him out. I was only 17. So instead I just made myself available. I got gas everyday for weeks. .20 cents here, .43 cents there, very rarely over a dollar. He must have been locked away inside himself to take so long to notice. The day it dawned on him, he apparently had been goaded into asking me out by his boss. I pulled up in my brown ford pinto, hopped out and leaned against the door. He smiled that tingly smile of his and took the small change from my hand. He didn't stand close or look me up and down, just looked in my eyes. His glance toward the garage could have been him looking for fortification or an audience. His boss, a slight man with grease embedded in his creases, just stood there smiling, absently working a rag over his hands.

I still don't know what hubby thought of the whole thing.

Years before kids and my life, I worked at a laundry. Taking in others laundry, dry cleaning, pressing...people flowed in and out of my days, none more memorable than another. There is one memory that clings, well, maybe two, but we'll talk about just the one now.

I smiled a lot then. Everyone got one free of charge. Now this may sound cheap, with no feeling behind it but that isn't so. I had the blissful ignorance of youth and serenity of a satisfied spirit. Work is all the joy I needed. Work offered itself as food to feed my spirit and I ate it up, working long hot hours over steam presses, breathing in the fumes of solvent, and earning the respect of my bosses. Money and clothes passed back and forth across the counter. Looking back, the distance between me, and those on the other side was cavernous. I don't know that I ever thought that, and if I had, what that might have meant to my future. For now I'm grateful for the blessed ignorance.

One bright day, I was working at the register. You might say I was glowing. I'd just finished wiping down all the washers and sweeping the floors; everything gleamed. The floor to ceiling windows filled two walls of the building and the sunlight glossed the floor. All the dry-cleaning machines were running, and everything that needed pressing was done. I just had to wait for the reclaimer (basically a large dryer) to finish so I could press again.

A shadow approached the door and my youthful eagerness bounced me to the register to take care of another customer. A young man came in of course to pick up some dry cleaning. Now, his face escapes the memory and all other things about the process were ordinary; I got his name and collected his things, check the ticket to be sure nothing was missed, hung the clothes on the hook, and rang up his costs. He handed his money over to pay the ticket and then I handed back his change. In the brief moment that our fingers touched, I felt a charge. I know he felt the same tingle because he looked up at me just as suddenly as I looked at him. We both stared uncomfortaby for a moment longer shy and looking down and away, then he was gone.

Now at the time I was living with my now husband. That brief encounter gave me pause but nothing more and why it still stays in my mind has never bothered me before.

Work

OOOHHHH HOW I HATE TO LOSE!!

Knowing that about myself I'm driven. I have something of a competitive job. Today I spent most of the afternoon pulling the financing together for a client to make this deal work just to find out it may not be a done. Tonight at nine I will know if all my hard work pays off but until then I have to decide why it is that making this or any deal work is so important. My boss might say that I get to emotionally involved. I work with people - families - dreams. How can one not get 'emotionally involved'! I try to make it fun but, at least to me, it comes off manic. The 'Deal' gets me going. My creative thinking kicks in and I will do any ethical thing to make it happen. Ethics being very important to me.

I really love what I do.

Feeling a bit quivery right now. Uncertain as to how I should feel about someone. Wanting to reach out but not sure what it is all about. Just want to find out more. Is reaching out the same as running away?

First there is some sort of beating brawl on TV, so I go into my room to read and check email. Next thing I know, He's upstairs hiding out with the boys. I don't want to watch men describe the intense need to make another man bleed, the thrill of knocking another man out, so I go to the bedroom. Now I hear "Dirty Jobs" is on and the sounds of Video games upstairs.

I am then overcome with the desire to seek out another individual that may talk to me. Someone I know. He is not interested in getting to know me. I know it sounds pathetic. To want to get to know someone that, now that classes are over, is satisfied to just move on. I have no right to expect anything more but I'm disappointed. I had hoped for time. Time to get to know him better. I suppose I'm a bit of a parasite. When I find characteristics in someone that I find distinct and desirable I try to take them into myself, make them part of me. There is much about this man I find attractive. He seems deeply moved by - well everything; literature, poetry, nature, his passion for teaching, simple pieces of life. He's also involved in theatre so I'm probably deluding myself. I thought I'd finally found someone that could still see the world the way I always did. He's helped me regain contact with this more open part of me.

Today

She did it, the summer sun shinning
Behind her back, smiling conspirator.

Daddies eyes shinning approval today.
Sun, dust, sweat, heavy, clinging to her skin.
Counted hours and dreams of payday
Lost in the mindless drone of hard machines.

Today she did it.
Cheek to cheek, the feel of his whiskers
Against her skin fast and fleeting, then gone.
No big house. Just the sun to see the day.

17-40


At seventeen
No thought was clean,
So close to purity of thought.

At eighteen
stuck in between,
never understood what she had wrought.

At twenty-one
So much fun
Oh, he really is the one!

At twenty-three,
Does he love me?

At twenty five,
Again -
Does he love me?

At twenty-seven,
Does it matter?

At thirty-four,
Not any more.

At nearly forty,
What will I do?
So filled with doubt.
Uncertain – Fool!

Me


With my baby’s small body snuggled to me,
last night, just before sleep, the house silent
and dark. Wandering through today, days gone,
days to come - dreams, never and forever.

Sixteen is days gone. Getting high with Prince.
Dancing above dark rivers, his moon smile
shines rhythmically to the stars over me.

Sitting atop jagged boulders, moist breeze
of salted spray, the sent of sea, pure -
cleansing, my mind wrapped in a cocoon of
sweet chaos.
The rhythm of the sea, my heart pounding,
surrounded by the open expanse of
sky and sea.
This is freedom. If only I can hold

time. -- My mans study breath, my baby
snuggled next to me safe, his secrets waiting.