IN MEMORY OF... me

Memorial Day weekend.   It's a time for remembering war and how lucky we are not to know it well, if we don't, which I don't.   And it's a time for thinking about those who partook in it, of it.  I can only recall the Persian Gulf Conflict myself.  Before that I wasn't paying attention and since then I have purposely avoided news, except the weather.  But that conflict, I was mesmerized by it, could be found literally glued to the TV.  When not glued, I was listening to news radio.    Obsessed would not be an understatement.  Intrigued utterly, so much so that I wrote a novel about it.  Really!  No sh_t.  I wrote a whole, pretty lousy book based on a theory I developed in my head, about the former dictator of Iraq.  Yea.  Who'd a thunk it?  Apparently I thunk it.  

You're not missing a thing if you're missing my point. 

My point is probably that I can't recall war and I don't want to.   I appreciate the hell out of those who fight for our rights.  I wish they didn't have to.  But this weekend instead of considering war or anything about it, I'd like to take the opportunity Memorial Day presents to remember ... me.  Maybe if I look hard at myself, really hard, I won't make the same mistakes twice (or three times, for those I've already doubled up on).  Maybe.  I have said, done, happened on, fallen into, looked for and accomplished more error than any one human being ought to have and I'm probably only half way done with my life.  Hopefully.  I'm not kidding about the mistake business.  I say this with certainty as well as a certain amount of self-directed disgust and also some small bit of loving forgiveness for old me.  I have often been at war with myself during my lifetime it seems.  Perhaps I fight internally so that I can get along with everyone on the outside, which I tend to do.   I only like to beat myself up and I don't even like to do that  much, though I'm very darn good at it.  

This weekend, I'm going to try to remember the good junk I've done.  Gonna try to remember the things I'm proud of; like having sweet kids and somewhat decently mannered pets, how I love my parents and accept my siblings for who they are.  Think about the fact that I admire my friends and about maybe thanking God or Allah or whomever is the boss of life for all that I have, despite the mistakes I've made. I will remember me and maybe forget what I've done wrong, but not so much so that I do it again.  

Say Hello Dali

Why did I buy it? 

 My head was on fire.  Why was I so nervous?  Someday somebody is gonna ask you a question that you should say yes to, once in your life...

"I love the horse's ass".   Hanging above my fireplace is a painting.   I glance at it and observe it a while.   Though I see something different every time I stare at it, I always think about that perfect equine end.  Maybe I should have been a unicorn? 
I acquired (this is a word you might use to describe something you came to own which you should not have afforded - perhaps) the painting by Salvador Dali quite by accident.   What accident?   Good question and I have a good answer.  I thought it was Chagal.   I made a rapid fire decision to purchase it while my girlfriend, who'd come to visit me from New Jersey, while I attended a conference for beginning writers in San Francisco, blubbered over Picaso.  We'd been on a boat on the rocky harbor, you see... and then drunk champagne, you see... and then it rained, you see... and so we hid in a gallery and ended up buying things that might have been out of our league.  You see?    
Because of the city by the bay 
and then the boat on the bay 
and the champagne after the boat
the rain and that there gallery
I have a Dali above my fireplace
... And I never can figure out how it came to be mine, but it is, for now anyhow. 
You see?
Neither do I.
Here is a question I can't answer. 
Why do I have this painting in my house?


Unanswerable question.  I love those.

Somebody's Mother

Tomorrow is Mother's Day.  Its kind of a goofy feeling to be inadvertently involved in a national holiday.  To be the recipient/ partial cause of celebration is not at all something I'm comfortable with.  Yet, being a mother is as natural to me as breathing and as necessary to me as eating, often the direct cause of my need for sleeping and sometimes leads to drinking.

I look back at my life, the one I led before; its like watching a film of someone I knew extremely well, but never truly was.  I can't recall doing those things I did and with whom I did them, yet I have them all, all those deeds are deeply imprinted on my brain, stapled to my memories, live footage runs through me bringing back waves of sounds, sights, scents, tastes, moving me always.  But it's smeared and foggy even it's familiarity.  The only thing fresh inside my mind are the days I've lived with these two people I gave birth to.  The ones who grew in me and came from me have somehow managed to actually create me.

My own existence seems to begin with theirs.

Through them all things are made real and I am real, just now, in my maternal state.

I'm mom; above and before, more then and beyond anything else that I am, and I am many things, but most of all, I'm mommy.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers of the world.  To all of us who were, but never really existed until they came, welcome to your national holiday.

To you, my two little, very worthy causes for celebration; so aptly titled and just now dedicated from me to you, with all my love..., 

Less and more

When I was a kid, after church on Sundays, my Dad would take us out to a place where he could pick up the paper.   All the kids in my family would each be allowed to choose a candy.   The newspaper shop was so tiny and narrow and packed to maximum capacity.  My brothers, sisters and I would file in and out, one or two at a time.   The walls of the place were covered with thin shelves, each filled with items such as; aspirin, cigarettes and tobacco, magazines, bits of office supplies, mints, shoe polish.  The whole place reeked of paper and ink.  It smelled, in fact, just like the news.  
When it was my turn, I'd labor over which candy to choose.   Bite my nails, anxiously scan the rows of candy, racking my brain, looking for the perfect find.  It was always hard for me to pick which one was going to fit all my needs.  I'd become a nervous wreck with the impatient calls of my siblings barking at me, rushing me to make a decision so that they could squeeze in and grab their prize.  
It shocks me to look back and realize how often I selected something I didn't even like; Necco wafers.  Don't get me wrong, they are a lovely candy.   Absolutely nothing wrong with them, except that I don't actually like em.  Even still, I pretty much took them 3 out of 4 Sundays a month.  You see there's a whole lot of them in a package.  You get a bunch in a roll and you can make them last for a long time.  Throw in the fact that I didn't enjoy eating them and they'd be around the whole darn day.  
A chocolate bar, well that would be gone in 2 minutes because I liked it so much.  Then what would I have?  
Has it really taken me what amounts to half of my life to understand that sometimes more is less and vice versa?  
I guess it has taken me quite a long while to figure that one out.  

Today I revel in the knowledge that less is often more; more or less.