Things to Do When Your Toyota is Accelerating at 100 miles per hour

1. Check your hair in the mirror, so you look good on the evening news.

2. Open the glove compartment and try to find the Owner's Manual.

3. Swear a little, and rummage under the passenger seat for the Owner's Manual.

4. Call your insurance agent and tell him the check is in the mail.

5. Call your insurance agent back and ask him for the number for Toyota Customer Service.

6. Climb under the steering wheel and try to press the brake pedal with your hands.

7. Notice the sunglasses you thought were lost under the seat.

8. Put sunglasses on and check mirror again.

9. Finish lukewarm latte in cup holder.

10. Get the driver of the 18 wheeler you just passed to blow his horn by making one of those woo-woo gestures.

11. Relax because you know your gas tank is empty as usual.

One Voice

Several of the pieces on our blog, and the accompanying comments, remind me of a song that I used to know and sing every word of, and could probably remember if I put what's left of my mind to it, called Saucy Sailor, a Gaelic tune, performed by Steeleye Span.  Maddy Pryor belts it out:

 "I am frolicsome, I am easy, good tempered and free

And I don't give a single pin, me boys, what the world thinks of me." 

So, let's wear the short skirt, the low cut blouse, our daughter's jeans, color (or don't) our hair, and, if it comes to that, drink Diet Coke out of a paper bag.

Javi

(This is a true story, but the names, except for mine, have been changed.)


We all remember a special teacher we had growing up, but teachers are the lucky ones. We have these incredible kids, ones who put indelible marks on our souls- kids from whom we learn much more than we can ever teach them. Javi was one of those boys.


Though he’d be about 35 years old by now, Javi will always be stuck in time for me- a 13 year old dark haired, deeply intense eyed boy, sitting in my portable classroom before school each day of his eighth grade year- or at least for most of it. He was the second of the Vargas children with an older sister, Mari, who was also in my class that year and a sixth grade brother named Oscar.


He came to my room in the morning to have a quiet place where he could get his homework done for the day, and there’d always be some time for us to just talk. Throughout the year, I learned Javi wanted to play basketball, but his father wouldn’t allow it. You see, his mom was in prison for drug abuse; his dad had remarried a much younger woman, who had added three more children in quick succession to their family. Javi was needed at home to help. I learned from other kids that there often wasn’t enough food in the house, that the stepmother would feed her children first, leaving Javi, Mari and Oscar hungry. CPS was involved, but I’m not sure they ever made any impact- of course- until it was too late, but I digress.

Javi was one of those boys, well-loved by all, except for by the people who should have loved him the most. I never saw him angry, and he accepted his life as though it were completely normal. When he could, he’d sneak out and knock on neighbors’ doors, asking if they had any work he could do- yard work, kitchen work- it didn’t matter. With the little money he earned, he’d buy candy at the corner store, bring it to school and sell it for a small profit. Kids weren’t allowed to do this, but most of us looked the other way because we knew he used the money to buy food for his brother and sister. They received free lunch at school, but nights are long when you’re a growing teenager, and Javi did what he could to take care of his family.

At the end of each grading period, our principal held a drawing for all of the kids with perfect attendance. Javi won a stereo system-the top prize, and I’d never seen him so excited. The school secretary called his stepmother to come up to school to take it home--most of the kids, like Javi, walked. The mom didn’t have any transportation, so Javi asked if maybe he could leave the system in my classroom. I offered to take him and the stereo home instead, and he was beside himself with gratitude and joy. When we got to his house, he leaned over, kissing me on the cheek, “I wish you were my mom,” he said. I told him I’d be honored to be his mom. He laughed, grabbed Oscar who was just walking up to the house, and together, the two of them hauled the stereo to the front door- turned, and waved goodbye.

The next day was one of only two times I could tell Javi had been crying. When he got to my room, his eyes were swollen. It seems his father, upon seeing his brand new stereo, packed it up and took it out to sell. Javi told me it was okay- they needed the money more than they needed an “ole music box anyway.” My heart broke in two for this sweet young man.
It must have been the next week or very soon thereafter that Javi, Oscar, nor Mari came to school. The counselor, knowing of my close relationship with Javi came to speak to me.

“I have really bad news about the Vargases,” she said. “Their father was arrested for killing a cop. Yesterday, the kids got home to find their house empty. “ She spoke just like that- in short clipped sentences, and it seemed to take forever for her to get the entire story out.

Their stepmother had packed up the younger kids, whatever they had in the house, and left. CPS showed up later to find Javi, Mari, and Oscar huddled in the backyard- the house was locked. Javi and Oscar would be going to live with an aunt in Houston, and Mari to another aunt in San Antonio.

The next day, the kids came to school to turn in their books and clear out their lockers. About half way through the day, when I happened to be on my conference period, the attendance clerk called my room to tell me Javi and Oscar were getting ready to leave with their aunt who had just shown up, and Javi was asking to see me. I got there, and I told the aunt what great kids they were –that I was so sorry to see them go.

She said, “You want them- you can have them- I’ve got enough problems without adding two more.”

I was shocked, and it’s here that I wish I had done something differently. I said that I would take them in a heartbeat if I could, and I meant that, but I didn’t know how to make it happen. I wish I had said, “You know-let’s figure that out, and I will.” I wish I had known whom to call or what to do.

Javi came up to me then and wrapped his arms around my neck. He squeezed so hard I couldn’t breathe. He whispered in my ear, “I don’t want to go, Mrs. K. I love you so much.”

I told him I’d keep in touch- that I loved him too- and I’d always be here if he needed me.

That was the last time I saw Javi. I sent him letters and stamps, I bought him a yearbook that year and had all of the kids sign it, but I never heard from him.

It’s been over 20 years ago, and I still get teary thinking about this beautiful boy with so much potential and love in his heart despite his circumstances. I wonder, “Did he make it? Is he out there somewhere doing good in the world?”

God, I hope so.

If I Lived

If I lived in the house across the street the sun would come up over my breakfast room. There would be a gentle light inviting morning into the bedroom, just enough to overcome any trace of seasonal affective disorder, but the breakfast room would be bright and welcoming, and I would love getting out of bed to make coffee, just so that I could sit at the table and sip it while I read the morning news, surrounded by the rainbows created by crystal prisms that I’d hang in the windows. The light would be perfect for growing herbs just outside the window, and I would contemplate which of them would scent the room later in the day, perhaps the thyme infusing flavor into a roasting chicken, perhaps the Thai basil brightening a sizzling wok of glass noodles. With the right start in the day, I could move mountains; we would never run out of pesto and our April 15 would come and go without anxiety, our taxes having long since been filed.


If I lived in the house around the corner, the one with the rock garden and fountain in the shaded back yard, I would sit in that yard in a comfy chair with my laptop and a book by my side, inspired by the xeriscape I’d create, calmed by the sound of water, enchanted by the koi in the pond I’d build. I would write, and read, and occasionally re-fill my iced tea, freshen it with mint that I’d pinch from my plants in the rock garden, keeping them full and bushy, never letting them go to seed. There would always be fresh flowers indoors, artfully arranged in just the right vase, be it exquisite or funky depending on the flower inside, the season, the mood. Music would fill the house, and I’d easily access just the right tunes from my iPod, or perhaps Pandora.

If I lived in the house down the street, the small one-story, I’d clean out all my closets and finally get organized. I’d have nothing that I didn’t really use, use nothing that I didn’t really need. I’d finally give up the Kitchen Aid mixer, because I prefer mixing by hand anyway, and all those spare towels? They’d be given to Goodwill and put to use by people who really need them. I’d appreciate the things I have, and take better care of them. I would finally hem the skirt that’s too long, polish my shoes and repair the soles, fix the earring that broke, re-holster the chair that the cats ruined. I would always know where I’d put the cheese grater, which would double as a lemon zester, because I’d have eliminated anything redundant.

If I lived in that downtown condo I’d never be lonely, because I’d be up in the morning using the shared gym facilities while getting to know my interesting neighbors, with whom I’d hang out in the evenings on the rooftop terrace while we shared drinks and tapas and watched the sunset. I’d take walks down the river and people watch, chat with the locals walking their dogs. I’d get to know the old woman down the street, the tiny one with the white hair whose city trash cans in her front yard are as large as she is. She’d tell me the stories of the neighborhood before it became condos, and I’d feel a part of the revitalized community.

If I lived in that house downtown, it would always be clean. Dust wouldn’t settle in that beautiful stairwell, drips would not stain those gorgeous floors. The screened in porch would always be fresh and cool in the summer, and I wouldn’t leave it cluttered and strewn with shoes and the Sunday paper or piles of paperwork and receipts. Instead, I would learn to keep plants alive and be surrounded by lush, healthy flowers and exotic plants – maybe a bonsai. Toothpaste spatters would never mar the bathroom mirrors, and I’d teach the cats not to shed indoors. I would never leave laundry draped over the dining room chairs, and would always have freshly ironed linen napkins. I would write my book in the study overlooking the street corner, and illustrate it with the photographs I’d collected and preserved over the years. I would never step on crumbs in the kitchen, even though there would always be freshly baked bread. Kitchen knives would always be sharp; light bulbs immediately replaced. The small pantry would be ever stocked with delicious foods, easily prepared into a creative snack or light meal.

(Here's my problem, fellow friends and writers, I don't know where this is going or how to end it -- HELP!)

Elegy

I miss the days

sitting with my toes in the grass

the two of you

running after the dogs

with bare feet and time to spare.

Even the breeze blew slower,

the cars passed fewer

and I saw more of your smiles.

The butterfly on the Plumbago

sent you both dashing

for the bug book

and we'd take our time

in finding it, writing it.

The color, the name, the caterpillar.

I miss the days of misdirection

and time lost making lists.

That Place I Go

I was once the muse

on the wall

life-sized and daunting,

the tiny dancing girl

on the tiny square canvas,

the spinning image

through the lens

I was the muse

by the window

silent, still, listening to

the scratching pencil,

the toss of paper

left to fall over the easel

The muse

with the green skirt

spread across the grass,

squatting nude on the stretched black cloth,

running dirty and barefoot

in the torn wedding dress

I was an idea of me

captured,

held,

created

in pixels

and heavy oil paint

Friday Night

In the last decade I've gone from being, I think it's okay to say this, something of a firecracker, to a bit of soft ember. I used to be kind of mouthy and now I just appreciate someone else opening theirs. I used to be outwardly brave, now I'm asking what the bravest thing is thing I can do each day? Sometimes it's brushing my teeth.
I used to deliver babies and now I help them, once their life is crispy with time, to die. I used to eat, as I guy I once dated said, rocks and bark. Now I dine on moss and truffles, gourds and pinot. I used to laugh as a peacock, and now as a lark. I used to be brittle and now I am tender.

He She and Me

He She and Me
Sometime between childbirth and menopause a woman feels a certain confusion about her body and her feminine identity. It has to do with giving up the girl and embracing the woman. For some, clothing becomes a means to cover rather than reveal the insidious changes of aging -a thickening here, a jiggle there, some thing protruding, something sagging. Unfortunately, the result of ducking and covering can give the appearance of a prudish modesty. Like not knowing whether you’re shopping the men’s or women’s section in the L.L. Bean catalogue. (or caring). Some women are not shy about just letting it all hang out; others starve themselves thin only to realize that bony is never really sexy. Trying to stem the tide, choices which were once intuitive become grueling. Is the hot pink top “fun” or just garish? Will the low cut dress reveal cleavage or crepe? How short is too short?

It was this type of burning question that was flitting through my brain while running errands in my min-van, when I first glimpsed the he-she. Like a river of perdition, an old highway runs through the most exclusive neighborhood in town, dividing it from our still respectable, but not so tony neighborhood. Formerly a means of getting in or out of town in a hurry, it has a decaying “route 66” feel to it; sleazy motels and burger joints. The streetwalkers and transients who amble up and down have a kind of lazy ease as they do whatever it is they do, as if it were just easier to sit at the bus stop on a hot day and drink beer out of a paper bag. When I first saw the he she walking, there was a flash of recognition. He she looked familiar.

The next time I saw him her, I knew. He she was me. He she had curly hair cut in a bob like mine. His her outfit looked like it had come out of my closet. It was troubling. He she was strutting my stuff.

I became intrigued with seeing what he she was up to. He she was always spotted in the same three block area, always casual, never trampy. He she would pop up regularly, but randomly; now and then. It was like reading the latest fashion magazine in the grocery checkout. He she was wearing keds –retro -glance down, check. Capris long enough to cover the knee-wrinkles –check. His her hair was different – I was struggling with the dilemma of what to do about the gray hairs that seemed to be multiplying – yes! Why didn’t I think of that – highlights!

He she was my muse and I was his hers. Each sighting revealed a slight change; a nuanced response to the current season or style. Sunglasses would change size and shape, the shoes always matched the pocketbook, the pocketbook always restrained and tasteful. He she was more adventurous with his her hair than me – a reddish rinse, a blunt cut, bangs; once a bright scarf tied casually. He she was always feminine and stylish, yet tastefully subdued. Seeing him her pulling it all together gave me the confidence to trust my personal style and loosen up a little. I haven’t seen him her in a long time, and I kind of miss him her. In his her own way, he she made a statement about the particular beauty of an ordinary mom or housewife, and put it on a pedestal, or rather on the street. Whoever, whatever, and wherever you are, he she, I thank you for the complement.

my contribution to class tomorrow

MEMENTO VIVERE

There I was reading along in my book about two improbable people falling in love and trying to make a life together when I read the words “memento vivere”, remember to live. One of the characters was referencing something she had read while visiting Italy. It was barely integral to the story and the character referenced it quickly and in passing, yet my eyes stayed on the words and refused to move on.

Memento vivere. Words to live by. Remember to live. We remember so many things. We remember to pick up the kids after school. We remember to return library books and buy milk when we are at the store. We remember our mother’s birthday and the day our best friend died of cancer. We remember the dog we had that loved to eat watermelon. We remember to grab the umbrella on our way out the door because the paper said it was going to rain. Do we remember to live?

Those two Italian words took my breath away. My haunches clinched on to the chair and I leaned back to contemplate the full circumference of that advice. It clearly was not a literal admonition directed at our physical being. We don’t need to remind ourselves to breathe or swallow. Our bodies instinctively do that for us. Why don’t we instinctively remember to actually live? Our bodies take care of our physical survival, but what about our intellect and soul? What keeps us from instinctively breathing spiritually and intellectually? Why is it so easy to forget to live a life worth living? Why do long periods go by when we forget to live to our fullest, to be our best and to take advantage of each moment?

We say we will. Something bad happens and the first thing we say is “boy oh boy, each minute is precious”. And, then we move on and fill our minds with laundry and shopping lists and wonder who the next American Idol will be. Do we get so involved with the nuts, bolts and distractions of life that we forget to hit the on button and project ourselves into our own lives? Why do we allow ourselves to become buried by the minutia and the mundane? Is it just too awesome a goal and too unfathomable a responsibility to truly live each day as if it were our last? Because it could be, you know. It could be the last minute. The last second. As I write this, I could keel over. Poof and boom it could be all over. And have I remembered to live?

Sometimes. Some days, I really go for the gusto and realize the tremendous gift I have. The gift of life. There are periods where I appreciate the measure of each minute and breathe as much life into it as I can. But, mostly, I suck the air out of life. I forget. The days come. The days go.

I wonder if there is anyone on the planet who really lives by the creed “Memento Vivere”. If anyone does, it’s probably the Dali Lama. Sister Theresa probably did. Nelson Mandela, maybe. Oh, and I’ll bet Albert Einstein did. And, John Lennon, perhaps. So, what clues are there? What kind of person remembers to live? Do I have to be a genius or a saint to memento vivere? If I can’t paint or write music am I doomed to forget to live?

Surely, there must be average Joes and Janes out there who memento vivere. Every day people who don’t take life for granted. They may not have paintings hanging at the Guggenheim or work on world peace or clothe the naked or feed the hungry, but they are not trapped in day in day out survival mode. They remember to buy groceries and wash the car, but they also remember to read poetry and listen to music. They are inspired by the sheer miracle of a daffodil blooming while it snows. They notice when someone else is having a bad day and try to make it better for them. Those Joes and Janes have a million ways they drop in the bucket and make the world a better place. They do it instinctively. They don’t think about it. We all can. We just need to do it until it becomes habit. Imagine a world in which we all memento vivere.

That Hopey Changey Thing - adendum

Actually, Sarah
Hope and change won yesterday
Obstructionists lost
Write that on your hand, Missy

There You Are

No matter where you go
There you are

It’s easy, I know, to blame it on them
Or that place
Or the weather or what you just ate

But really,
The honest to God truth is
It is you

You are the reason, the cause and
The cure
For your discomfit, discomfort and discontent
Like Popeye
You are what you are

But

Unlike Popeye
You can change
You can grow

You can choose to take
A happy companion
Along on your journeys

Actually, Sarah

Actually, Sarah, now that you mention it I have not had enough of that “hopey changey thing” .
As you so shrewdly point out, it hasn’t really worked very well.
But then, has anyone really tried?
No, of course not. That would take courage, foresight, analysis and way too much time. All those icky skills and attributes that elite liberals value. Who needs that when all of our quick fixes have worked out so well for us?

Actually Sarah, it is my bet that you are the same mean girl that you were in third grade.
I recognize you.
You are the girl who made fun of retards and nerds who were so hopelessly unhip.
Next to your coolness and clever tongue
Who had a chance?
You knew then and still believe everyone wants to be like you. Geeky smart kids needed to be put in their place and laughed at.
Now you are all grown up and still relying on your cheap tricks.
You continue to confuse cleverness with intelligence.
You’ve joined the trend of people who prefer to spout rather than think.
Your game is quick and easy. Loose and fast. Shoot from the hip. You couldn’t care less.
Do you even know about the tortoise and the hare?
Or the quick nickel and the slow dime?
No doubt you’ll get rich.
In money anyway.
I also have no doubt that you are bankrupt in every other way and your deficiencies will only grow
Because
Of course
Only a dope would strive for change and hope.


Actually, Sarah, your anything for a buck and a yuk at someone else’s expense
Is why we are all teetering on the edge of the opposite of hope and change.
The world is a stage but it is not a glee club stage.
How long do you think you can get away with your contrived act?
How big does your bank account have to be before you go away?
Actually, Sarah, your insipid, perky, giggling mean streak is not nearly
Hopey or changey enough for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y02iZcTjHo

My Rabbit Hole

Unlike Alice’s surreal experience down the rabbit hole, mine is one in which I become the watcher-a sort of out of body time where I see my true-self, and I see others as they really are, each struggling to make sense of him/herself. I believe that Shakespeare was right when he said, “All the world’s a stage…” We are all actors, and it’s only when we enter the rabbit hole that we begin to realize we’re not the only ones putting on a show. Everyone else is doing it, too.

Some of us are better actors than others, but inside most of us is a lurking fear that we’re not good enough, not smart enough, not funny enough, not desirable enough, not-well, enough. We’re afraid that someone is going to discover us for the frauds we are.

In the rabbit hole, if we want to laugh at ourselves, we do. If we want to cry over a lost opportunity, we do. If our ambition in life is to just be, we can “be” without worrying about the “others” judging us. No gossip is allowed in my rabbit hole- I can love whomever I want, free of the strings society places on me. I don’t have to go out with people who I don’t enjoy being with just because someone else thinks I should. I don’t have to spend time with those whom live solely in the material world or who never delve below the surface.

I’ve spent too many years going along, letting the crowd take me with them. I don’t think I want to be a part of that anymore. I want to sit at the feet of prophets and soak in their wisdom. I want to be able to express my thoughts without worrying whether they’ll be accepted or laughed at. And I want honesty-no more acting. Just show me who you really are. Let’s enter the rabbit hole together and come out on the other side free.

The Rabbit Hole, That Place I Go - March prompt

When I leave the sanctity and safety of my home
And enter the real world
It can feel complicated, foreign and often frightening
I am Alice wandering into the rabbit hole

He is my brother,
And yet
When I am with him I feel as if I’ve taken a canoe with no paddles
down a wild canal
into the rabbit hole
called my family
They are blood
And yet
My family members can be strange and improbable to me

If I ponder too long the plight of humanity I can end up on a path
that winds itself into the rabbit hole filled with anger and despair
That inward portal so easy to find fading upon entry


We all have our rabbit holes
Each full of bewilderment and incomprehension
How do we find our way out of the warren
when once inside we are induced to mimic the narcoleptic dormouse
and nod in and out of consciousness

What do we do when our rabbit hole becomes reality
Or is the rabbit hole reality
And our lives outside an hallucination

Down The Rabbit Hole (our March Prompt)

Anyone can go down a rabbit hole; just ask Alice. The art is in the digging.


Finding a yielding spot in the earth, perhaps after a spring rain.

Digging deep, and then wondering what’s further down.

Widening the walls of the tunnel, until it’s become a cave, comfortable enough to stay awhile.

Burrowing sideways, a detour, where no one can find you.

Staying long enough that people forget to look.

Peeking out occasionally; remembering why you dug the hole in the first place.

Surfacing altogether, having become so rank that no one wants you around.

Besides, they know you’ll be back. You’ve always come back.

Always one more detour, always one more cave, until you can’t find your way back, even if you want to.

The soft spot in the earth where the hole began, filled in with shifting earth, mulch, now hardened by the southern summer.

There is no hole, there is only the cave.

Cheers!

To All of You (Us)

I read, and re-read, our posts, and I was inspired to Google Fleur Edcock, and when I did our Thursday Works blog came up!  THAT is very cool.  I love you all, and am so grateful for this group.  Janet

Kathi, what did you find out about Winesdale as a possible place for us to retreat together?

The last weekend of April (I think) there is going to be a weekend-long poetry festival in Round Top--with Ted Kooser, Naomi Nye, and several other noted poets. Check it out at Festival Hill online and let me know, Anybody, if you'd like to know more.

Deadline for Submissions

In the "Readers Write" section of THE SUN magazine, you can submit short nonfiction pieces for publication. If you are published, you will receive a year's subscription to the magazine.

This month's topic: Slowing Down. Deadline April 1st....

Mail to Readers Write, THE SUN, 107 North Roberson Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516

Next month: Teenagers; the following month, THE OFFICE

More "How To"s Re: Our Blog(s)

It's easy to follow any of our blogs -- click on the name of the contributor whose blog you want to read/follow, and it will take you to her profile, which includes her blogs as well as blogs she follows.  Click on the blog you're interested in, and there you are!  Then, if you identify yourself as a follower, it will give the writer the teeniest little boost which might motivate her to write some more instead of playing solitaire (again). 

How do we send pictures?

file:///Users/lindapritchett/Pictures/iPhoto%20Library/Originals/2009/Writing%20Retreat%20Yellow%20Rose/DSC_0773.JPG

This Face: Saturday Morning

Betty, my friend since kindergarten, still regards me as “the pretty one”--though it is she who has the better skin, flawless and unlined and smooth.

In the last decade, when we’ve traveled together, she always spends two hours getting ready, while I’m pacing the motel room, ready to get on the road and look at new places. “You could still be really pretty if you gave a damn,” she says, as she lines her eyes, her hair in rollers. “Wear some make-up, do lipstick, buy some mascara,” she advises.

Linda, my Canadian friend, always brings me creams and gels and other first aid products for the face and hair. “Don’t go to bed without washing and moisturizing your face,” she says in a big grown-up voice. While she’s here, I use them, following her moves in the bathroom like a child copying her mother. But when she leaves, I forget again. Attending to my face in the mirror is about as interesting as reading a financial prospectus. I’d rather be taking pictures of faces of strangers, looking through the camera lens at the colors of rust on old trucks, or just wandering down the streets of broken-down old towns, looking. I am the poster child for scopophilia, the love of looking at things.

The cracks and lines in my face announce my age: 61.

Rarely does its skin wear anything from a tube or bottle.

I am lazy about washing my face, considering it plenty clean after a bath.

Still, it carries something essentially Linda in its expressions--so I’m still recognizable as myself to anyone who knew me at six, at twenty-one, at forty. I know it from the inside, from behind the eyes, from the way its mouth sags when it feels sadness or relaxes when it feels joy. I know this face backwards, the way mirrors show us ourselves. And I know it from a collage of photographs in memory--Baby Girl, Adored, snuggling against her daddy; Birthday Party Candle-Blower, Seven; Homecoming Queen; Child Bride, Glowing but Clueless; Pregnant--with babies and projects and hopes; Deflated after Giving Birth; The Mother of the Bride....

It is the face of a woman who was adored as a child.

When I see my daddy’s eyes reflected back in my mirror, I always remember my friend Gary’s words on the morning of his funeral: “Your daddy gave you a gift of belovedness. Nothing can ever take that away.”

It is the face of a woman who married the wrong man too soon and stayed way too long, a man who left tracks in my face that are still there, under the surface.

I mean to attend to my face, Betty, I really do. But I forget. I simply wear it, like a pair of comfortable old jeans that fit. When I’m driving sometimes, alone, a face looks back at me from my mirror, and it is--best I can tell--me.

Prologue #2

But now that I am in love

with a place that doesn’t care

how I look and if I am happy,

happy is how I look and that’s all.

(Fleur Edcock)

This Face

First, the prologue:

Or shall I call it the soundtrack?

"This face is all I have, worn and lived in....

The lines below my eyes are like old friends...."

(Willie)

Regrouping

I just read my blog about being inept and it sounds like Kathi gave me bad directions. Not so. She gave perfect directions. I didn't see the aforementioned blue bar with words on the right, just as she said. Thanks Kathi. Now I'm having so much fun, I can't quit typing.

A Word For

There ought to be a word for describing the vacant hole in my head when no words are coming
or the wounded warp in my soul when words are sent my way that should have been left buried.
They are buried now - deep in that lonely place.
There ought to be a word that could respond to "I'm sorry, that's just the way it is," or "You're done - love has expired."
What wasn't my shelf life longer?

For Those Of Us Who Have More Yesterdays Than Tomorrows

I opened my spam folder today and there was my Thursday Works blog. Does that surprise anyone? I think the cyber ghost sent it there. Kathi emailed me written directions which I was unable to follow. When Janet offered up her phone number, I put pride aside and called. Yesterday I didn't know there was a dark blue line with words on it above the green border that says Thursday Works. Today I am a blogger.
I am going to take my timed writing piece out of the spam folder and blog it. Yea!

Resin of Grief

A couple days ago I was talking with a friend who was preparing to return to her home town to unveil the tombstone for her mother who died a few months ago. She described her sense of dread and profound sadness. Her mom died suddenly and because of Jewish tradition was buried quickly. Everything happened so fast that she didn’t have time to emotionally or intellectually process a critical life event. Just when she had finally come to terms with her loss and gently wrapped up her grief and stowed it away, she found herself unpacking her sorrow while she packed her suitcase for her trip home.

Grief created by loss is always just below the surface of our daily consciousness. The missing piece becomes as important to who we are as negative space is to sculpture. Just when we think we are safe from sorrow’s harm and it can no longer overcome us, something happens to draw us back into the helpless mire of misery.

As I looked through an old box of photos the other day trying to find suitable ones for a father’s day montage, I found pictures of dead people. Not old dead people, young dead people. When I picked up the first one and looked at their goofy antics and smiling face, I sighed and remembered. While I made my way through the pile and set aside the pictures of friends who have died my melancholy morphed into a breathless and weepy heartache. Their photos had been put away and my recollections and sense of loss had been placed beside them. Now, here they were again looking out to me and pulling me back into that time and space in our lives and forcing me to remember how much I cared and how much I missed them. Their addition to my life was meaningful but their subtraction was phenomenal.

Maybe it’s the heat or maybe it’s the way the world is right now that made me so vulnerable to this renewed assault of mourning. Sorrow is like fruit. The new fruit is green and often hard and bitter. We store it in the dark where it ripens and as it softens the juices and sweetness flow into our hearts. As the years pass our sadness congeals. When we least expect it, a phone call, photo, smell or smile causes us to poke at the resin of grief and the juices flow once again.

Wet Woods

This morning as I began to climb out of my deep cavern of sleep
I listened to the nearly silent sound of purring rain
The sound was so muffled, so soft that it barely existed
I lay there as still as possible wondering if what I heard was not just the rain falling,
But the sound of the trees and the earth soaking up the liquid as it fell from the sky
Could I actually hear the essence of the rain?
Could I hear the wetness?
Is wet only something we can see and feel? Is wet not allowed in the aural world of senses?
I think not.
This morning I heard the wet woods.

The Garden of the Last Days

THE GARDEN OF THE LAST DAYS

In the final days the blooms were bursting and bright
As each day ended the fragrance wafted into her room through the open window

Each breeze brought another scent and a reminder of regret
She wondered why the curtain was too heavy to flutter and yet the more magnificent weight in her heart created the opposite effect

As she got up to take one last look out the window she remembered why she came
When she gazed at the garden she remembered why it was time to leave

It wouldn’t be long until each flower genuflected to the power of the frost that was on the way
The cold nights ahead would be the end of this patch of garden

Then she would go
And plant again

Does This Cocktail Make Me Look Old?

After crying in my Cosmopolitan upon learning that, according to More magazine, it makes me look old, I sucked it up (actually quite tasty with the added salt) and shopped More for a suitably youthful cocktail to serve my (hip) friends before dinner last night.  Dinner was to be a Julia favorite, which called for a gin-based cocktail, so the choice was fairly easy -- I chose the prettiest one in the magazine.  It was called the Cougar Baitini, aka The Northern Bramble.  My friends first asked "why would a drink be named after a cat?", and after I forgave them their hip slip I explained what a More cougar was, and then confessed that when I read the name I heard it pronounced as buy-tini before my aha! moment -- cougar bait-ini -- get it?  Sigh. We all needed a more youthful drink, and fast. 

The drink is darned tasty -- decent gin (Boodles), fresh lemon juice and a little maple syrup shaken with ice and poured over crushed ice, then drizzled with enough cassis to make it look like a sunset -- garnished with blackberries and served with a fondue fork that can double as a swizzle stick and a blackberry fork.   We made the first round, and immediately mixed a second, agreeing that no one should have any down time -- shudder.  

Dinner, roast chicken on a bed of mixed greens, green beens with bacon, onions, and feta cheese, fresh baked bread, served with a red wine named "Low Hanging Fruit", was stellar.  There's almost nothing like enjoying a meal with people you love, who love food, who aren't shy about breaking off a chunk of bread and scooping up watercress drenched in sauce. 

The verdict on the cocktail, which we agreed should be forever known as the Northern Bramble?  A veritable fountain of youth. 

Well, I got in! Thanks for the help. This is so easy--and it's great to read your words on the blog. I hope we're all in the door now! More coming....Linda

Breaking Elmore Leonard's Rules

Note: Elmore Leonard has rules for fiction, so I decided to write a story in which I break all of them. See if you can figure out what his rules are through reading this- without looking them up, that is! :) I had great fun writing this:

Breaking all of Elmore Leonard’s Rules

Prologue

This is the story of a Texas family. Billy Bob met Florence when they both visited the sites in New York City. He was 20, and she was almost 16. They married shortly thereafter and moved to a small farm in Billy Bob’s home state where they began to raise their family together. It is now ten years and six children later.



Suddenly all hell broke loose as a twister appeared ominously in the sky above! Billy Bob yelled anxiously, “Everyone, quick, git in the barn!” “Y’all move it! Sally Mae, Precious Lou, Bobby Bill, Millie Jo, Farley Menard- all y’all, faster, faster! Inside the barn was an underground shelter Billy Bob had put in for this very reason. Tornadoes were not common occurrences, but the people in this small Texas town had enough experience with them to know the damage they could do, so they prepared.

The twister spun as if in slow motion toward them. Billy Bob’s wife, Flo, was from Maine and though she’d been in Texas going on ten years, this was her first tornado. She stood, as if in a trance, the baby still in her arms, looking up. The wind blew furiously, whipping her hair against her face. She could see the other children running, her husband coming toward her, but she couldn’t move. She looked over at the field, remembering the first time she’d seen it. It was beautiful. Flowers dotted the landscape: bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes. There were morning glories and yellow flowers she’d forgotten the names for. The grass was tall and willowy, and the trees were short and squatty but had a certain character about them. Children had long ago carefully built a tree house in the branches of one of them. Her own children would eventually take it over, and Flo worried constantly that one or another would suddenly fall through the floor one day.

When Flo married Billy Bob, she was only 16 and had a lovely innocent quality about her. Thin, with blonde hair flowing to her waist, she came to this rather barren land with high expectations and much excitement. But life and so many children had hardened her somewhat. Her hair began to gray, and she wore it in a tight chignon at the nape of her neck. She carried her weight in her belly and on her hips, but sometimes that old innocence still shone on her face like it did now.

The tornado roared toward them. Billy Bob was saying something, but she couldn’t hear him. She felt him take the baby from her, but still she didn’t move. Billy handed the baby off to Farley, instructing him to “Git to the barn,” and Farley took off.

“Come on, Flo-we gotta go now. Ya caint stay out here!”

He tried grabbing her arm and steering her toward the one safe place on the property, but she wouldn’t budge. A smile crossed her face and then laughter. She laughed until rivulets formed where tears and rain mixed together. Flo held out her arms and turned in circles, looking up at the sky.

“Whatsa matter witya, Flo? Ya gonna die…” he trailed off. Small bits of hail began pounding the ground around them, striking them as Billy Bob tried one more time to bring Flo to her senses. Flo laughed all the louder, refusing to budge.

He ran to the barn and into the shelter beneath it, yelling, “Come on Flo, come on, gal!”

Just as he closed the trapdoor, the twister dipped down, picking Flo up, it’s circles matching hers. It spun her up and around, taking her high above the tree tops. Billy Bob could swear he heard her still laughing as she spun off into the clouds.