Hi, writers,
It was such a privilege for me to hear your pieces tonight. Thank you so much for sharing your talent. You have enriched my life. When I grow up, I'm going to be a writer, too. I admire you all so much.
Dawn and Lynn, I do hope that you will post your pieces. I'm really looking forward to reading both of them.
Warmly,
Kathie
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Not Quite Layla by Becky R.
It was 1966, a regular day at school on the Air Force Base in Seoul Korea. I had stopped by the base Teen Center on the way home from school. Open to middle school and high school students, it was the gathering spot for base kids. The intent was to keep us out of trouble. We shot pool, ate greasy French fries, listened to loud rock and roll, and watched mating rituals of the older kids. We even made feeble attempts of our own. In the Teen Center bathroom I hid in a stall to put on my bra before I walked home for dinner. At the start of the school year Mom came to me privately to proclaim that I needed to start wearing one. She handed me a stretchy slightly quilted contraption called a Training Bra. What, exactly does this train breasts to do? She gave me a disgusted look, turned and left the room. “Just wear it,” she told me over her retreating shoulder. In my bathroom mirror my buds of breasts looked like barely noticeable mounds of fat. A bra just seemed to call unwarranted attention to them. Last summer I had noticed that the boys of our neighborhood gang seemed to treat me differently. At our almost nightly street soccer games, they didn’t block me quite as hard as I was used to. When I caught an elbow to the chest, I’d get an averted-eye apology. I hadn’t made the connection. I still wasn't convinced there was one.
So every morning I walked to school dutifully wearing my training bra. As soon as I got there, I went into the bathroom, took it off, and stuffed it in the bottom of my locker under my gym clothes. My secret was significantly secured since the day, a few weeks before, that I had caught my younger sister sneaking a bra into her purse before she left for school. She was a year and a half younger than me, and flat as a pancake. But she recognized the social status of wearing a bra. So at the same time that I snuck to school and took mine off, she snuck to school and put hers on. That pretty much summed up the differences in our personalities.
Like any other regular day, I got home changed out of my school clothes, and stacked my record player with 45’s of Beatles, Kinks, and The Who. I laid on my bed, and stared at the walls of my half of the room I shared with my younger sister. My walls were covered with Beatles bubble gum cards. They were taped individually with scotch tape in a way that placed pictures with George Harrison in them closest to the head of my bed. Paul was too cute; silly really. John thought he was too smart. He was just conceited. And Ringo was, well, Ringo. George was The Quiet One, not classically good looking, but wise and compassionate. We are kindred spirits. He is eleven years older than me: no problem. Lots of couples have large age differences, and I am mature for my age. He lived on another continent: no problem. He toured a lot, and we moved a lot. It was only a matter of time before we would bump into each other. He was a famous musician, and I was, well, not. No problem. He just hadn’t met me yet. When we meet, he will recognize me as the love of his life, and we’ll tour happily together for the rest of our lives.
That night after dinner, our family watched the evening news. “It was reported today that Beatles member George Harrison married model Patti Boyd in a private ceremony.” What? This can’t be right! I barely kept my composure to get back to my bedroom. News from the U.S. travels slowly to Korea. The T.V. shows are weeks behind. The news must be wrong. I pulled out my transistor radio and listened for confirmation. When it came, I sobbed into my pillow for hours. How could he do this? She doesn’t love him like I do. She just wants his fame and fortune. She’s a hussy. If he’d only waited another year, or two, he’d have met me, somehow.
The next morning my walls had blank 2” X 3” rectangles, missing chips of paint at the tops. My trash can was full of finely torn bits of cardboard. I moped through school and soccer games for weeks. I didn’t even bother to take off my training bra when I got to school. My heart broke, not only for the loss of the love of my life, but for the loss of a fantasy world that was more comforting to me than true life. It wasn’t the only fantasy life I would have. Before I outgrew adolescence I would be a sidekick of Davy Crockett’s, a renowned mountain scout, Pippy Longstocking’s best friend, and have at least one other fantasy boyfriend. But I wasn’t a total idiot. Davy Crockett had been dead for one hundred years. Pippy Longstocking was a fictional character. I was born at least one hundred years after there was a need for mountain scouts, and I was fully aware that my fantasy boyfriend was a way to “try on” having a boyfriend without the risk of actually having one. I may not have been a total idiot, but I was close: Somehow I had convinced myself that marriage to George Harrison was potentially real. I’m still humiliated about it.
Recently I saw that Patti Boyd wrote a book about her life with George Harrison and Eric Clapton. She’s still trying to cash in on his fame, I see. I knew she was a hussy. If only George had med me first.
So every morning I walked to school dutifully wearing my training bra. As soon as I got there, I went into the bathroom, took it off, and stuffed it in the bottom of my locker under my gym clothes. My secret was significantly secured since the day, a few weeks before, that I had caught my younger sister sneaking a bra into her purse before she left for school. She was a year and a half younger than me, and flat as a pancake. But she recognized the social status of wearing a bra. So at the same time that I snuck to school and took mine off, she snuck to school and put hers on. That pretty much summed up the differences in our personalities.
Like any other regular day, I got home changed out of my school clothes, and stacked my record player with 45’s of Beatles, Kinks, and The Who. I laid on my bed, and stared at the walls of my half of the room I shared with my younger sister. My walls were covered with Beatles bubble gum cards. They were taped individually with scotch tape in a way that placed pictures with George Harrison in them closest to the head of my bed. Paul was too cute; silly really. John thought he was too smart. He was just conceited. And Ringo was, well, Ringo. George was The Quiet One, not classically good looking, but wise and compassionate. We are kindred spirits. He is eleven years older than me: no problem. Lots of couples have large age differences, and I am mature for my age. He lived on another continent: no problem. He toured a lot, and we moved a lot. It was only a matter of time before we would bump into each other. He was a famous musician, and I was, well, not. No problem. He just hadn’t met me yet. When we meet, he will recognize me as the love of his life, and we’ll tour happily together for the rest of our lives.
That night after dinner, our family watched the evening news. “It was reported today that Beatles member George Harrison married model Patti Boyd in a private ceremony.” What? This can’t be right! I barely kept my composure to get back to my bedroom. News from the U.S. travels slowly to Korea. The T.V. shows are weeks behind. The news must be wrong. I pulled out my transistor radio and listened for confirmation. When it came, I sobbed into my pillow for hours. How could he do this? She doesn’t love him like I do. She just wants his fame and fortune. She’s a hussy. If he’d only waited another year, or two, he’d have met me, somehow.
The next morning my walls had blank 2” X 3” rectangles, missing chips of paint at the tops. My trash can was full of finely torn bits of cardboard. I moped through school and soccer games for weeks. I didn’t even bother to take off my training bra when I got to school. My heart broke, not only for the loss of the love of my life, but for the loss of a fantasy world that was more comforting to me than true life. It wasn’t the only fantasy life I would have. Before I outgrew adolescence I would be a sidekick of Davy Crockett’s, a renowned mountain scout, Pippy Longstocking’s best friend, and have at least one other fantasy boyfriend. But I wasn’t a total idiot. Davy Crockett had been dead for one hundred years. Pippy Longstocking was a fictional character. I was born at least one hundred years after there was a need for mountain scouts, and I was fully aware that my fantasy boyfriend was a way to “try on” having a boyfriend without the risk of actually having one. I may not have been a total idiot, but I was close: Somehow I had convinced myself that marriage to George Harrison was potentially real. I’m still humiliated about it.
Recently I saw that Patti Boyd wrote a book about her life with George Harrison and Eric Clapton. She’s still trying to cash in on his fame, I see. I knew she was a hussy. If only George had med me first.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Buttonhole
I'm learning this all over again: knitting.
My mother taught me, at ten? eleven?, the over-the-left-hand carry of the yarn for which I've been forever grateful: economy and grace of movement.
To make a wound in your knitting you need to know the yo (the yarn over). The reason for such a wound might well be the buttonhole. A place, a possibility for something else to appear later.
And so: I learned the yo again after forty years just today, making this sweater. Bring the yarn between the needles. Pass it behind. Knit = one new stitch. And a space ready for something else to come.
If only, if only writing and speaking what I meant were so simple.
Dawn
My mother taught me, at ten? eleven?, the over-the-left-hand carry of the yarn for which I've been forever grateful: economy and grace of movement.
To make a wound in your knitting you need to know the yo (the yarn over). The reason for such a wound might well be the buttonhole. A place, a possibility for something else to appear later.
And so: I learned the yo again after forty years just today, making this sweater. Bring the yarn between the needles. Pass it behind. Knit = one new stitch. And a space ready for something else to come.
If only, if only writing and speaking what I meant were so simple.
Dawn
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
When I’m Dead and Gone
Becky R.
Come on in. The front door is rarely locked. Luna and Merlin are all bark. You will have lifelong friends if you pet Merlin for about an hour, and throw a toy for Luna for twice that long. Yes, the mantel in the entry is gorgeous. It is Birds Eye maple, shipped from the east coast to Honey Grove Texas in the middle 1800’s. It surrounded one of four large fireplaces in the plantation home my grandparents lived in before they built the brick home next to it, where they lived as long as I knew them.
Art will be in his command center, busying himself with god-knows-what on the computer. He will say he is doing okay, but don’t you believe it. Stop by often to get him outside.
You’re going upstairs? I’m not sure I’m ready for that. Oh well, go ahead. Might as well get it over with. What is it about bathroom drawers that attract snoopers so? Yes, that’s make-up: foundation, a few lip glosses that are basically the same color, even a palette of eye shadows – neutral colors, of course. I can admit it now. I fell for the delusions of younger looking skin, concealing wrinkles, and brightening ageing eyelids – all to no avail. For one thing, applying all that stuff takes time; morning time that I would rather spend looking out a window, or sleeping. It also requires skills I never learned. One eyelid always ended up with a fat, crooked glob of eyeliner. Overcorrecting on the other eye left a barely discernable fine line. Then they both got washed off. Even my minimalist routine of foundation and mascara made me feel garish and self-conscious. I imagined people hiding their stunned reactions.
Bored? Look around the bedroom bookcase. Oh yeah, I forgot about that carved little box. I think I got it at a street fair in Santa Barbara the summer I graduated high school. My first road trip without a parent, it spawned a lifelong habit. Solo road trips cured my craving for that feeling of flight – like an explorer from ancient eras. Santa Barbara was still a small lazy beach city then.
You found the gifts of jewelry I was given: a broad silver band bracelette, a birthday gift from my best girlfriend; the gold chain necklace – one of the first gifts Art gave me. That narrow silver ring with little diamonds is Mom’s wedding ring. She gave it to me long before I got married, when she could no longer slide it over her knuckles. My knuckles got too big, too, many years ago.
Oh, the lavaliere necklace that I stole back from my niece. It is an heirloom given to my grandmother by her mother, to my mother by her mother, and then to me. It passed down to each of us on our eleventh birthdays. Mom explained that it went to second daughters. In my case, it would go to my sister’s daughter. When the designated birthday approached, I dutifully prepared a letter relating the story, had the necklace cleaned, and grudgingly sent it to my niece. The designated niece was a brat. I knew she would not care the least bit about its history, much less take responsibility for continuing the tradition. Her older sister was much more worthy, but ineligible due to circumstances of birth. After my niece’s birthday, Mom confessed that the true story of the necklace was that it should go to the middle child, thereby making the worthy niece the rightful heir. She said she had told me “the second daughter” version when I was eleven because she thought I might think there was something wrong with being a middle child that warranted some special compensation. Crap!
My sister discovered the necklace on a pile of junk in a drawer in her daughter’s room while packing to move after divorcing her husband. My sister took it, and told me about it. Her ex-husband bought the votes of their children to live with him, and they had already moved out. She told me she wouldn’t tell her daughter she had it. Six years later my sister was dead. Her now grown children told me to take anything I wanted from her house. The necklace and a few favorite photos were all I took. I told them I took the photos. I didn’t tell them I took the necklace. Now what will happen to it? I better send my mother a sign.
That broken child’s ring with a painted metal goat on it had a complementary charm bracelette with a lamb, a duckling, a chicken, and a pony on it. I kept the ring because I found it odd that someone would design a ring with a billy goat on it, and because I found it touching that when I was a child, someone in my family thought of me when they saw it, and bought it for me.
Busted. A tiny butterfly carved of faux ivory with an equally tiny spoon at the end. A remnant of my college days, where I learned the value of having a close friend with an uncut source. The only narcotic I liked – a lot. Better move on.
Don’t open those! My journals. God, my grandmother was barely buried when my mother told me she’d found her journals and started reading them. It took me years to be able to write freely in my journals again. I always meant to put a note on their covers, “Do not open until at least ten years after my death.” The absence of that note appears to be a default invitation, “Read me now”. If you read them now, you will likely learn things that you did not know. If you read them now, you risk being disappointed, hurt, or offended by what you don’t know. If you read them now, the differences between the person you knew and the person you read will seem huge. You miss the person you knew. That is the person you want to spend time with again. If you wait, one day you can spend time with the person you miss. If you wait, you will think everything in my journals sounds just like me.
Becky R.
Come on in. The front door is rarely locked. Luna and Merlin are all bark. You will have lifelong friends if you pet Merlin for about an hour, and throw a toy for Luna for twice that long. Yes, the mantel in the entry is gorgeous. It is Birds Eye maple, shipped from the east coast to Honey Grove Texas in the middle 1800’s. It surrounded one of four large fireplaces in the plantation home my grandparents lived in before they built the brick home next to it, where they lived as long as I knew them.
Art will be in his command center, busying himself with god-knows-what on the computer. He will say he is doing okay, but don’t you believe it. Stop by often to get him outside.
You’re going upstairs? I’m not sure I’m ready for that. Oh well, go ahead. Might as well get it over with. What is it about bathroom drawers that attract snoopers so? Yes, that’s make-up: foundation, a few lip glosses that are basically the same color, even a palette of eye shadows – neutral colors, of course. I can admit it now. I fell for the delusions of younger looking skin, concealing wrinkles, and brightening ageing eyelids – all to no avail. For one thing, applying all that stuff takes time; morning time that I would rather spend looking out a window, or sleeping. It also requires skills I never learned. One eyelid always ended up with a fat, crooked glob of eyeliner. Overcorrecting on the other eye left a barely discernable fine line. Then they both got washed off. Even my minimalist routine of foundation and mascara made me feel garish and self-conscious. I imagined people hiding their stunned reactions.
Bored? Look around the bedroom bookcase. Oh yeah, I forgot about that carved little box. I think I got it at a street fair in Santa Barbara the summer I graduated high school. My first road trip without a parent, it spawned a lifelong habit. Solo road trips cured my craving for that feeling of flight – like an explorer from ancient eras. Santa Barbara was still a small lazy beach city then.
You found the gifts of jewelry I was given: a broad silver band bracelette, a birthday gift from my best girlfriend; the gold chain necklace – one of the first gifts Art gave me. That narrow silver ring with little diamonds is Mom’s wedding ring. She gave it to me long before I got married, when she could no longer slide it over her knuckles. My knuckles got too big, too, many years ago.
Oh, the lavaliere necklace that I stole back from my niece. It is an heirloom given to my grandmother by her mother, to my mother by her mother, and then to me. It passed down to each of us on our eleventh birthdays. Mom explained that it went to second daughters. In my case, it would go to my sister’s daughter. When the designated birthday approached, I dutifully prepared a letter relating the story, had the necklace cleaned, and grudgingly sent it to my niece. The designated niece was a brat. I knew she would not care the least bit about its history, much less take responsibility for continuing the tradition. Her older sister was much more worthy, but ineligible due to circumstances of birth. After my niece’s birthday, Mom confessed that the true story of the necklace was that it should go to the middle child, thereby making the worthy niece the rightful heir. She said she had told me “the second daughter” version when I was eleven because she thought I might think there was something wrong with being a middle child that warranted some special compensation. Crap!
My sister discovered the necklace on a pile of junk in a drawer in her daughter’s room while packing to move after divorcing her husband. My sister took it, and told me about it. Her ex-husband bought the votes of their children to live with him, and they had already moved out. She told me she wouldn’t tell her daughter she had it. Six years later my sister was dead. Her now grown children told me to take anything I wanted from her house. The necklace and a few favorite photos were all I took. I told them I took the photos. I didn’t tell them I took the necklace. Now what will happen to it? I better send my mother a sign.
That broken child’s ring with a painted metal goat on it had a complementary charm bracelette with a lamb, a duckling, a chicken, and a pony on it. I kept the ring because I found it odd that someone would design a ring with a billy goat on it, and because I found it touching that when I was a child, someone in my family thought of me when they saw it, and bought it for me.
Busted. A tiny butterfly carved of faux ivory with an equally tiny spoon at the end. A remnant of my college days, where I learned the value of having a close friend with an uncut source. The only narcotic I liked – a lot. Better move on.
Don’t open those! My journals. God, my grandmother was barely buried when my mother told me she’d found her journals and started reading them. It took me years to be able to write freely in my journals again. I always meant to put a note on their covers, “Do not open until at least ten years after my death.” The absence of that note appears to be a default invitation, “Read me now”. If you read them now, you will likely learn things that you did not know. If you read them now, you risk being disappointed, hurt, or offended by what you don’t know. If you read them now, the differences between the person you knew and the person you read will seem huge. You miss the person you knew. That is the person you want to spend time with again. If you wait, one day you can spend time with the person you miss. If you wait, you will think everything in my journals sounds just like me.
I’d Like to Start a New Conversation
Becky R.
Everyday it’s the same. A quarter cup of this. A half a teaspoon of that. Who’s husband will eat anything put in front of him. Who likes to add red pepper flakes to spice things up. Ten minutes have gone by talking about recipes for chicken “parmeeseean”. Yesterday it was broccoli soup. How many ways can there be?
“I used the office copy machine to run-off copies of my recipe for everybody!” announces one of the chefs. I can’t not take one. My smile feels like a lie detector needle.
Jeeze Louise! What leap led to reciting the names of everyone seen at church last week? Then come the accompanying entire family trees. I try to imagine the mnemonic that could work for such memory tasks. Wait, aren’t these the same people that were at church the week before last? First husbands of second cousins are critiqued. Fingers tic off the names of the children, in birth order, of each set of parents at the church. Psychoanalysis ensues of the boyfriends and girlfriends of each of the children of each set of parents at the church. Predictions of which relationships will last and which will fail are made for each of the children of each set of parents at the church. Each day this is the longest thirty minutes of my life.
At my recent performance review, the Principal sang praises to my expertise as a teacher, my relationships with students, my positive interactions with parents, my creativity and vision. My records are always up to date. My team of classroom aides is motivated and well organized.
“But you’re not seen as a team player by the other teachers here. They perceive you as being too aloof. You need to make an effort to connect with them. You need to take your lunches in the faculty lunchroom instead of at the student tables outside.”
I almost laughed. She wasn’t joking. Here I sit in a room the size of a kitchenette. Twelve women are talking at the same time. One other woman is silent, like me. I look directly at her. She returns a furtive glance. Is she afraid of getting caught? All appetite for lunch is long gone. Why don’t the men teachers have to be in here being team players?
Bunions? That must be awful. I’m so glad you persevered through the idiot shoe sales clerks at Dillard’s, Penney’s, Macy’s, Redwing, Nordstrom’s and Payless until you found shoes that fit. A tube of Crimson Coral lipstick passes from mouth to mouth at the table behind me. Yes, that is your color! The clock battery must be dead.
Holy mother of …. Not another story of someone’s darling grandbaby.
You’ve got to be kidding me. Five minutes of taking turns describing the blouses that were almost worn today? I think I know how to get detainees at Guantanamo to talk. Please, please, please can we start a new conversation? I force my mouth shut a split second too late:
“A group of my students came up with a great project for Disability Awareness month. They are putting together a proposal to take to the school board. They want disability issues included as formal components of the social studies core curriculum in middle schools and high schools. I am extremely impressed with them.”
Silent gaping goldfish mouths surround me for several seconds. The fog horn bell signals the end of break.
“Get a life!” I hear them think.
Becky R.
Everyday it’s the same. A quarter cup of this. A half a teaspoon of that. Who’s husband will eat anything put in front of him. Who likes to add red pepper flakes to spice things up. Ten minutes have gone by talking about recipes for chicken “parmeeseean”. Yesterday it was broccoli soup. How many ways can there be?
“I used the office copy machine to run-off copies of my recipe for everybody!” announces one of the chefs. I can’t not take one. My smile feels like a lie detector needle.
Jeeze Louise! What leap led to reciting the names of everyone seen at church last week? Then come the accompanying entire family trees. I try to imagine the mnemonic that could work for such memory tasks. Wait, aren’t these the same people that were at church the week before last? First husbands of second cousins are critiqued. Fingers tic off the names of the children, in birth order, of each set of parents at the church. Psychoanalysis ensues of the boyfriends and girlfriends of each of the children of each set of parents at the church. Predictions of which relationships will last and which will fail are made for each of the children of each set of parents at the church. Each day this is the longest thirty minutes of my life.
At my recent performance review, the Principal sang praises to my expertise as a teacher, my relationships with students, my positive interactions with parents, my creativity and vision. My records are always up to date. My team of classroom aides is motivated and well organized.
“But you’re not seen as a team player by the other teachers here. They perceive you as being too aloof. You need to make an effort to connect with them. You need to take your lunches in the faculty lunchroom instead of at the student tables outside.”
I almost laughed. She wasn’t joking. Here I sit in a room the size of a kitchenette. Twelve women are talking at the same time. One other woman is silent, like me. I look directly at her. She returns a furtive glance. Is she afraid of getting caught? All appetite for lunch is long gone. Why don’t the men teachers have to be in here being team players?
Bunions? That must be awful. I’m so glad you persevered through the idiot shoe sales clerks at Dillard’s, Penney’s, Macy’s, Redwing, Nordstrom’s and Payless until you found shoes that fit. A tube of Crimson Coral lipstick passes from mouth to mouth at the table behind me. Yes, that is your color! The clock battery must be dead.
Holy mother of …. Not another story of someone’s darling grandbaby.
You’ve got to be kidding me. Five minutes of taking turns describing the blouses that were almost worn today? I think I know how to get detainees at Guantanamo to talk. Please, please, please can we start a new conversation? I force my mouth shut a split second too late:
“A group of my students came up with a great project for Disability Awareness month. They are putting together a proposal to take to the school board. They want disability issues included as formal components of the social studies core curriculum in middle schools and high schools. I am extremely impressed with them.”
Silent gaping goldfish mouths surround me for several seconds. The fog horn bell signals the end of break.
“Get a life!” I hear them think.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
hi writers,
On our kitchen table stand an antique glass bottle. A drug company out of Baltimore, bromo seltzer, in raised letters gives the wide mouth blu glass an imtimate quality. The bottle stands the height of a mouse on its hind legs. Inside the bottle the stem brings water to the flowers and the four-star blossoms have opened and the first scent of lilac moves throughout the kitchen. When i let out a long exhale and then bring the power of lilac to my nostrils i am reminded of memories that are sweet. I am reminded how the things that are beautiful can be so temporary, a recognitioin that beauty is fleeting but like a river always arriving. I saw the seasons first dragonfly. He landed on a cemet drive way and I am reminded that soaring season is only a couple of weeks away. Amy moves about in a new pair of wedges. I have seen turquoise on her chest, i have never seen the same deep glow of blue and green on her feet. We move to madonna and I'm don't care how life is suppose to look.
i have had a scare. A fear large enough to envoke thoughts I have never considered before; the viewing my own funeral, becoming pissed mostly at all the things I wanted to do but my time was cut short. And without going into detail, after four months of wondering if this is what the end of the road is like, because I have been shown the inevitable, what death might look like, I have taken a step closer to understanding the mind and body that tires of the fight because the fight never goes away and well, you just grow tired and letting go seems like the best solution. I have shared a walk with the very old, I am closer to understanding the minds who have little time to think of all thing sweet because the pain doesn't go away like it used to. I know what a full life that has come to its end feels like. I think the old and sick would settle for a long hug and be given permission to let go as to be granted another year of struggle.
As it turns out, my condition isn't terminal. As it turns out, what i have experienced is a mock trial-run of facing the inevitable, death. Who am i when when I am faced with the possiblity of not being strong enough to endure? I lean over and embrace another hit of fresh lilac. Amy has been this kind of promise to me, this kind of sweetness. She has been blooming yet worried, neither too extreme in worry or too glossed in denial. She has shown me that love doesn't always need to know the answers. She has shown me that love is larger than fear. She has given me the space to be a jerk because i don't feel well. Would I be as patient? I don't think I know how.
With the recent rains, and with life sprouting from the land, I have turned a corner. I am being reintroduced to what energy feels like. The water has soaked into earth and a fire of all things has ignited. From the depths of uncertainty rises a phoenix. A gem-fired flame of gratitude. A renewal to what I remember, sweetness of beauty is fleeting yet always is alway arriving, beauty, once again, striving to make a difference...
i will miss you all this Thursday. My thoughts will drift throughout your conversation. I will be the dragonfly you are not able to see yet like the scent of lilac on currents, you will sense the flutter of my wings.
love,
ken
On our kitchen table stand an antique glass bottle. A drug company out of Baltimore, bromo seltzer, in raised letters gives the wide mouth blu glass an imtimate quality. The bottle stands the height of a mouse on its hind legs. Inside the bottle the stem brings water to the flowers and the four-star blossoms have opened and the first scent of lilac moves throughout the kitchen. When i let out a long exhale and then bring the power of lilac to my nostrils i am reminded of memories that are sweet. I am reminded how the things that are beautiful can be so temporary, a recognitioin that beauty is fleeting but like a river always arriving. I saw the seasons first dragonfly. He landed on a cemet drive way and I am reminded that soaring season is only a couple of weeks away. Amy moves about in a new pair of wedges. I have seen turquoise on her chest, i have never seen the same deep glow of blue and green on her feet. We move to madonna and I'm don't care how life is suppose to look.
i have had a scare. A fear large enough to envoke thoughts I have never considered before; the viewing my own funeral, becoming pissed mostly at all the things I wanted to do but my time was cut short. And without going into detail, after four months of wondering if this is what the end of the road is like, because I have been shown the inevitable, what death might look like, I have taken a step closer to understanding the mind and body that tires of the fight because the fight never goes away and well, you just grow tired and letting go seems like the best solution. I have shared a walk with the very old, I am closer to understanding the minds who have little time to think of all thing sweet because the pain doesn't go away like it used to. I know what a full life that has come to its end feels like. I think the old and sick would settle for a long hug and be given permission to let go as to be granted another year of struggle.
As it turns out, my condition isn't terminal. As it turns out, what i have experienced is a mock trial-run of facing the inevitable, death. Who am i when when I am faced with the possiblity of not being strong enough to endure? I lean over and embrace another hit of fresh lilac. Amy has been this kind of promise to me, this kind of sweetness. She has been blooming yet worried, neither too extreme in worry or too glossed in denial. She has shown me that love doesn't always need to know the answers. She has shown me that love is larger than fear. She has given me the space to be a jerk because i don't feel well. Would I be as patient? I don't think I know how.
With the recent rains, and with life sprouting from the land, I have turned a corner. I am being reintroduced to what energy feels like. The water has soaked into earth and a fire of all things has ignited. From the depths of uncertainty rises a phoenix. A gem-fired flame of gratitude. A renewal to what I remember, sweetness of beauty is fleeting yet always is alway arriving, beauty, once again, striving to make a difference...
i will miss you all this Thursday. My thoughts will drift throughout your conversation. I will be the dragonfly you are not able to see yet like the scent of lilac on currents, you will sense the flutter of my wings.
love,
ken
Monday, April 20, 2009
About that Worm
Or maybe it's a virus. Hard to say.
My husband spent all evening Friday and all day Saturday trying to kill it. It wouldn't be killed. By Sunday he had to admit that some fiend on the other side of the disease was smarter (or at least more devious) than he was. Thank god--for the more devious part.
Now, right now: my laptop is being wiped clean of its infirmaties and much of its memory. Not unlike what the psychiatrist probably hoped for when he ordered that electroshock therapy for my mother back in '59.
Clear. Hit it. Erase.
There, now: no more depression. No more disturbance. Adjustment.
Well. That didn't work.
But computers aren't brains, however often certain professionals insist on the analogy. Brains are connected to souls somehow, I think. And her soul refused to let go of its memory of infection.
Dawn Marano
My husband spent all evening Friday and all day Saturday trying to kill it. It wouldn't be killed. By Sunday he had to admit that some fiend on the other side of the disease was smarter (or at least more devious) than he was. Thank god--for the more devious part.
Now, right now: my laptop is being wiped clean of its infirmaties and much of its memory. Not unlike what the psychiatrist probably hoped for when he ordered that electroshock therapy for my mother back in '59.
Clear. Hit it. Erase.
There, now: no more depression. No more disturbance. Adjustment.
Well. That didn't work.
But computers aren't brains, however often certain professionals insist on the analogy. Brains are connected to souls somehow, I think. And her soul refused to let go of its memory of infection.
Dawn Marano
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