my passenger

Like a game of Tetras.  
You take these little cartons of this and that; containers of gravy, stuffing, vegetables, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and then there is the Godforsaken turkey itself.    Was it really this big when I cooked it?
Smoosh it in.   
Find ways to make it fit.
Press the door shut, but it won't and so... shift it all around, shift it some more, close the door.

I lean on the refrigerator door and look around the room.  It's different here then it usually is or... maybe that usual is gone and maybe then it should from now on be called how it usually was and that means of course that this is how it usually will be.

nope


And this, this abundance of food is how I show my love  -  today.  
Unwittingly inspired to make a turkey dinner a week before Thanks Giving.  (What exactly was I thinking?   And yes days from now, when and if they finish this humungous meal, they won't be remotely interested in turkey anything on the holiday itself.)   
My intentions were good and so is the gravy, this time around.

As I drive home and leave my father, not well - and his wife,  laid up with a broken bone, I am deflated and sort of lost.   I like it better when I am not well and I have the broken bone, because they are awfully good at taking care of me.  I on the other hand prepare a large turkey....

I look across the low hills toward the Pacific and I slow my car to a reasonable 75 mph, because the sun is sitting gingerly just above the sea and it's all pink on the glistening water and all orange in the sherbet sky and everything around is gold and it's amazing and it makes me want to cry.  I lower the radio and tell the kids to look at it so they can see the pink, orange, gold amazingness and maybe cry too.

Turn up the music again.  Van Morrison plays softly and fills my head.  

I think about my new, little old lake house and about how I painted there this weekend.  How I loved rolling the paint on my future weekend bedroom walls.  I stayed until the light was completely gone.   Think about how I drove down the mountain and saw a scarlet red sky over the distant ocean far below.   How I wished then that I could have shared it with someone, anyone.   How I wanted so very badly to reach over to the passenger seat, put my hand on someone/anyone's knee and without speaking, tell them to look at that sky with me.    I wanted a man beside me and I want that man again today.   I want my father.   I realize that, more then anything, I want him to ride with me, up the hills, round the bends, through the tall trees and down into the town, along the lakeside then up the tiny road and into the driveway of the dove grey lake house.  I want him to see it, because it will make him feel better if he does.  It will.  
It will make him feel better then 12 lbs of perfectly cooked turkey with all the trimmings, expertly crammed into his fridge.

Together we will go into the mystic...

too late to stop now

Great Un-expectations

Captive audience seemed interested and so I continued to spill the beans.

I spun the yarn in the yard decorated with gauze webs, jack-o-lanterns and little skull lights strung with care along fence rails and from auspicious tree branches above.   Candy dishes still overflowed and a to-die-for dessert table off to the right was heavily stacked with sugary treats, but my story kept their attention still.  Even the bar was not a more tempting distraction.  
Is it me?  Or is the way I tell it or is it both?   OR am I just really rude and overbearing?   Maybe all of the afore mentioned.  I don't know why, but sometimes when I tell the story, which I realize has become "my story", I can captivate and it baffles me.
What I realize is, that sometimes in the repetition of things over time, we reveal, even to ourselves, details that went unnoticed or were too obscured with minutia, or maybe those realities beneath the surface of the story were too painful in the past to look at, listen to, even for us, the teller of the tale.

I've come to understand that there are a few monumental moments in one's lifetime that literally define us and we have no control over what they are and when they happen or why.   Much as we may seek to create these life changing events, select the time and situation which shall mark us to ourselves and to others, to establish us as who we are and how we will be known or seen, it's simply not that way.   
Catching the ball, making the play, wearing the red dress, breaking the silence, socking the bully, delivering the eulogy, throwing the drink in the face and sauntering away - these things may make you memorable, but they do not make you.   They will not alter you irrevocably internally.   They will not be your story.

Your story chooses you.   Your story happens, occurs, presents itself when it's meant to and not as we mean it to.  It is not often what we'd script and I'm pretty sure that if possible, most of us would select something more appealing or less restrictive or well, just anything but what is simply put upon us by fate or God or whomever is in charge of the universe, but that is not how it goes.   

Last night, for no real reason, I repeated one of the two stories of my life, there are only two that I can recognize as life changes at this time, but maybe there are more hidden in the things I do not look to.  Last night, in the telling, I heard something new.  I had a reality about it, about the changing thing and about me, the changed person and although both of those things, the story and the stor-ee seemed rather unlovable to me, I felt a love for them (myself and my situation) that made me more sympathetic and a bit stronger, more respectful to myself for having dealt with, grown accustomed to, accepted, and I'd go so far as to say, having embraced what is my life due to my unchosen story.

I woke this morning thinking about the second story, what I know for sure was one of those unexpected, undeniable, monumental events that seemingly, randomly took place and changed my life irrevocably.  I thought of it as pure luck, one of the loveliest possible, freakishly good,  most perfect happenings that could ever befall a person, but in many ways it has proven more painful and hindering then the un-ignorable true wreckage of my first life changer.    I realize though, that we cannot judge a book by it's cover, nor a life changing event on the day it took place and still we cannot judge it/label it and it's effects even on this day, the one we are currently placed in.  We never know how these things, these events, these changers and changes will come to aid us or slay us over time.   We simply can't tell how our story will go, none of us can, not until we reach the end of the book, the book that is the story of our life. 

Long, long and interesting may your tale be.

lost in text-lation

No, I can't and won't completely discount the medium for communicating... however,  try as I might, I cannot locate even one single message, not in my mind or on my phone, not-a-one that actually spoke directly to me, touched me, relayed it's genuine intention.
There's a lot of guess work in texting for me.  

Oh wait, F me, here it is, the best of em all.   Found a noteworthy note after all; a simple "I L Y", code for, "I love you".  Other then that, well, there isn't much clarity in texting, not to me anyway. 
I mean, how unimportant must you be to require just like 15 seconds of phone digit pushage only.  As a matter of fact, I honestly feel that unless two people are completely in tune, totally connected mentally, linguistically, socially, emotionally, spiritually and possibly even so far as sexually, there is a whole lot of room for misinterpretation in a text.  
If you don't know what time I got up this morning and what I did the day before, we aren't close enough to be texting, unless I owe you money.


I can't tell most of the time if the texter is happy, sad, mad, mushy, gushy, pushy, drunk, dumb, horny, lost, serious, curious and unless I know how someone is feeling, what they're doing, how they think these old days then I won't know anything from a simple line or two, unless you happen to be  E.E. CUMMINGS.
I don't want relationships with people I care for to be conveyed by telegraph (aka text) this is why that lovely Bell fellow invented the phone and made his Ma so proud. 
What's next?  Pony express? 
Directness via text seems cold, the LOLs aren't funny and for no good reason that abbreviation simply annoys me.  I refuse to submit to using it.  I'd rather write, "I am currently laughing out loud", even if it puts me over the text character limitations and busts itself up into two separate messages.
Texting is for phone numbers and for pointing out a great sale to a dear close friend whom you'll call soonish or for telling your lover that the recent sex was fabulous or for yelling at your realtor, for reminding someone of a dental appointment and when stretched they aren't an awful way to say hello to someone who crossed your mind but whom you'd rather not speak to, but you want to remind them that you still exist solely and thats it.  
Yea, yea, yea, the booty call.  Text is probably a great way to not talk to someone you don't want to talk to but whom you are bored enough to shag with, I suppose. 
Unless you're so close that you can understand the subtext of someone's text well then - - - - - -
It ain't no way to talk to a friend.
It ain't no way to stay in close touch and...
it ain't no way to treat a lady. 

coming clean

Like pulling petals from a Daisy, he loves me, he loves me not; but if I'm really good or successful or smart or quiet, if I marry well, if I don't break a bone, if I can skate...
Trepidation...
I feel it.  
It impedes me.

There are people in my life whom I love without limits and there are limits in my life who are people I love.


If I were to tell the truth, there isn't anyone who has furthered my current existence more then my father has. 
Do I love him?
Yea, I do.
Does he know it?
Yes, he does.
Does he know how much?
I'm not sure that even I do and so, who can say what he knows and what is yet to be known.

No matter how old I get, I never seem to outgrow the inclination for my parents adoration, my need for it.

In this life, someone, some person has to know when to say when and sometimes saying "when" means you get loved less, but not really.  
I have no idea how deep it goes when it comes to how I feel about my parents. 
I only know that with each passing year, 
they become more dear

My daughter asked me today what I want to be for Halloween.
A Mom, I thought, but then I went a little further -
I'd like to be Wonder Woman and with my golden lasso I'd circle up all the people I love best; starting with Hayl and J, Soot n Buck, Marvin n Jack, Mom, Daddy, Daiser and on a good day my Taters, you and her and him, them and then there is me...

half way

In the thick of it,

Half way through

At the center, up come the many whats in all the what to do

It seems that no matter whom I speak to, my peers and I are all in some form of quandary, not just for ourselves but for all whom we care for and are there for. 
No one is falling down, but there are many times when we seem to feel like just lying down.  
Life is apparently hardest once you reach the half way mark.  
Boo hoo for  our collective  "midlife cry-sis".

It's practically epidemic, the woes, worries, loads and lessons.
Like crossing a tightrope, once at the center, you're most vulnerable.
And hey, shouldn't we be more practiced by now with all the tightroping, now that we've reached the mid mark of this journey cross our lives?   
Perhaps it makes sense that we're typically less burdened at the start and at our end?
Maybe we're better at this life/work/stuff then we realize...
They say that we are never given more then we can handle and if thats so, then I'm likely to become one hell of a juggler.
Life sounds more and more like a circus.  
I'd like a bear on a motorcycle in that case.

And there are parts of this grown-up bracket/racket that I do like.   Its not all stress and strife.   I can see the greatness in all of it, even when I pretend that I can't.  Sometimes it's sweeter for the trouble it takes to get past the hard candy shell and to the softer center.  Kinda like an Oreo, crusty and dark on the exterior, but not at all terrible or bad really and then the good goo in between, well it's just the best part.  Midlife is not all milk and Oreo dunking though, in fact it rarely is, which is quite possibly also good, considering my physical middle and how I have to work on that area more then ever just to maintain.

I wouldn't trade away a day of my one and only life, not even trying middle days.  I am, however, awfully comforted to find that I'm not alone.  
Luckily I'm stuck in the midlife with you...

falling

Trapped in NYC, luckily someone she knew, a nice, young buyer from the small world of fashion in which she worked, was kind enough to offer her a place to sleep.  After all, there was a second bed in his hotel room.   She located and purchased a pair pantyhose at a quickie mart.  In the dimly lit, unusually still city night,  she eventually came upon a restaurant with open doors.  All they had to offer was one meal.   They served spaghetti with tomato sauce to everyone.  The TV was on, quiet talk ensued, shock marred the patrons solum faces.  When our President appeared and spoke on the news, all of New York fell silent.  
This was my first account, the true tale of my very close friend who survived the World Trade Center attack on September 11th years ago.

"Did that really happen Mom?"

What do I say to them?   Do I tell my children who ask me to explain what I know about the catastrophe of 9/11, which happened only miles from where I lived most of my life, "Heck no, the Wickersham brother's took the speck from Horton and held it over the boiling pot, threatening to drop it in, but the people of Whoville, called out louder, "We are here, We are here!".

It really happened.
I'm really telling the truth; the whole, sad, unreal, fantastical truth.

When it happened, I remember how I found out, precisely what time it was and how I felt and what exactly I did I after I learned about it, but it wasn't until I read notes from the folks I knew who survived it and how heroically they behaved, how those who were less fortunate had fallen and how their families were left to pick up the shards of what remained and how they dealt with the fragments of their once intact lives, that it became real to me.

Growing up outside of New York City, one of the hardest things I faced in my youth was choosing the Yankee's over the Mets and Giants over the Jets.  Sneaking into Discotheques long before I was legal drinking age and becoming a willing slave to fashion were natural side effects from living too close to the center of the world.  Never did I imagine it would all come crashing down.   Oh how the mighty had fallen.

I love New York and there's no place like it...
(that slogan from the 80's meant to remind people to visit the Big Apple, still rings true for me today.)

In memory of 9/11 and of those I knew and loved or liked and some of whom I kissed.

For you - "Lets roll"...  Let us roll forward for you.

frequent flyer...

In dreams I could fly.
I always dreamt that I could.
Did you?  Do you?
Is that unique to me?  I doubt it.

My daughter asked me today what I would do if I could only do one thing, just by myself -
and without so much as a single thought, I said, "I'd fly".

Looking at photographs of my kids learning to surf this summer,
as they actually surfed without learning, as children apparently can do, unless they are told they can't...
Arms spread, legs firmly planted, concentration marring their typically soft faces,
How quickly they stood, set off, free from earth...
Coasting on nothing of substance
Soaring above the ground --
They flew.

This summer,  away at the lake I love
I suspended myself between earth and sky.
Akimbo, on the surface of water in the very center of the lake, I floated
Earth way below
Only sky above
It felt like flying
And I was happy and free, utterly free and happy

Music played in my mental stereo and things that weighed heavy on my mind evaporated.
The lake cooled me to my core and the sky gave me warmth that felt like love.  
Time stood still, but my body levitated.


I was onto something, long ago, when I first admitted that I wanted to fly...