Say the words of prayer and grief, lament the price of life’s cruel thief
Close the coffin, light the pyre,
forty-nine dead, when will we tire
Of violence, untimely loss,
naming names and counting costs?
After Columbine, Aurora, Newtown?
San Bernadino, Orlando, Charleston?
Too many times, too many lives,
close the coffin, on sons and wives.
Daughters and fathers laid to rest
a clueless nation fails the test.
I am the tuning fork, a shimmering frisson of vibration calling the heart to harmony
I am also the rock, though, throwing ripples concentrically across once calmed waters
Peace and chaos vie for my soul, my meditation song pulled from the place of light
Spilling haphardly across the courtyard where I tend tightly ordered rows of flowers
Regimental form forced on blood red roses contrary to their petals’ better nature,
Never certain which will win the day, tranquility or turmoil, I toil with hope and a smidgen of fear.
When I get bored I start thinking about making something. Unfortunately, I’m not very adept at making anything other than a mess.
For example a couple of summers ago I decided that I could paint. These resulted from my delusions:
I call the first one “A Brace of Fairies” while the second one is called “Pinterest Fail.”
I do have them on display at Doright Manor. There’s no charge for viewing them. By that I mean I won’t pay you for your waste of time should you happen to stop by.
One summer I found a jewelry making kit at a yard sale, and for six weeks I made the ugliest jewelry imaginable: Earrings that didn’t dangle evenly, anemic looking bracelets, necklaces that appeared capable of attracting the evil eye.
Another summer, at the urging of our daughter, I decided to create family scrapbooks. After several weeks of sorting through stacks and stacks of pictures I created one page. At least one batch of photos got organized for a brief time as a result.
Yesterday I told Studly I was thinking of creating something artistic. He told the cats to hide and he’s secluded himself in a guest bedroom. I think he might have heard me say I was going to attempt nude drawings next. Good thing he didn’t notice my fresh stash of glitter.
Peace, people!
My first pair of blue jeans, begged for and purchased in my 14th year of life, came with a double pronged tongue lashing from my mom:
1) Those #%*!@ jeans will have to be ironed, and
2) She wouldn’t be doing the #%*!@ ironing.
Apparently Mom had been traumatized after being forced to iron her elder brother’s jeans during their own teenaged years.
I didn’t care. Never mind that in 1969 the only jeans I could find that fit me were made for boys. Although Levi’s for women were marketed as early as the 1940’s, the handful of stores in my little town didn’t seem to carry them in string bean size–I was all legs, no hips, and so out of luck unless I shopped in the young men’s department.
But the moment I broke in that first pair of jeans–sitting in a bathtub filled with icy cold water while the pants shrunk to fit me–I fell in love. There was simply no going back.
For the very first time in my young life I was making a statement about who I was and what I wanted to wear, rather than what my mother thought about such things. Jeans equalled independence and freedom, well as much freedom as a 14-year-old girl in a one horse town could have.
And I never ironed the darned things, having found that an extra tumble in the dryer with a wet towel smoothed out the worst of the wrinkles. That made me feel immeasurably better at solving problems than my teenaged mother had been. You see, I didn’t realize that the clothes dryer of her youth was a line strung between two poles.
Now in the last year of my fifties I find myself still in a mad love affair with denim. I own three nearly identical pairs of cropped denim pants from Chico’s and my only clothing dilemma is which tshirt to pair with them on any given day.
Thanks to modern fabric blends, these jeans don’t even need an extra tumble in the dryer, or if they do, I have a steam setting to de-wrinkle them. We have come a mighty long way since then, and most of it was in jeans.
Ode to Blue Jeans
Faded blue or indigo
Cuffed or frayed or pressed
Even with a rip or two
My jeans remain the best.
At break of day I slip them on
To wander hither and yon
I’ve napped in them and swum
In them in someone’s backyard pond.
Take away my beer and wine
Confiscate my magazines
But keep your damned hands off
My ever-loving jeans.
Once the sun sets over Lake Yvette the sky takes on a subdued tint, filtered through a green
Glass, vintage Coke bottle. Stillness supersedes movement in the magic time between
Day and night. No leaves rustle. No animals stir. Deep silence permeates until broken
By the trill of a lone bird. Here I am, he calls. I rule the evening. Hear my plea, oh Lord.
I try to answer him, but we speak different dialects of the same language. Hear me, I cry. Nothing more.
Impervious to curious stares and half-hidden giggles, I waded into the flowers in front of Chuy’s Tex-Mex restaurant in Tallahassee to snap photos after lunch today.
I had to crawl over a barrier to get to these pretty blossoms. Yes, I’m a rule breaker.
Sheepishly I shrugged my shoulders at a watchful employee, “They’re so pretty,” I explained.
He just grinned. Thankfully no one called the petal patrol to take me into custody.
Peace, people!
Lunch today was at a counter spot in the mall. Normally, I opt for a table, but none of them were open, so I settled for a stool between a young couple and a group of ten-year-olds.
The children were a diverse group. The ones closest to me were, and I kid you not, one African American, one Asian, one Latino, and one white. Three boys and one girl, respectively.
They were having such fun. Seated several spaces away from their adult sponsor they were being silly. One child was pouring Sprite into another child’s ice cream while the other two giggled.
“Drink! Drink!” They urged. The child drank to the simulated gags of his companions.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Are you all best friends?” I asked.
“Yes ma’am!” One little boy said. “We do everything together.”
I got a little misty eyed thinking about their innocent friendship. Our future leaders won’t think about race or gender differences if we just leave them alone. Power to the kids.
Peace, people!
Mind your own womb. Good advice.
What a beautiful story of change and acceptance.
It didn’t take long for my father to develop an email style. His very first email carried what would become his signature farewell. TIE. Take it easy. Sometimes he added SIT. Stay in touch.
His emails were short, very factual, reporting on his bowling score or his search for an even cheaper internet provider. He ended up going to Walmart for their $8.99 a month deal after changing providers three or four times in the eighteen months he owned a computer, the time between the death of my mother and his own death. It amazed me that he’d buy anything from Walmart after the years of being a small dime store owner always trying to outsmart the ‘big guys.’ In our house, a whole dinner would be spent discussing how to beat K-Mart’s price on Aqua Net, the essential ingredient in the 60’s elaborate beehive hair-dos.
“You just have to…
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Carefully he tucked the snowflake patterned flannel sheets up around her chin.
His flattened palm against her forehead confirmed his worst fears.
As he explained where he was bound she concentrated on a spot above and to the
Right of his head where a piece of molding had torn loose and dangled listlessly.
Her wandering gaze concerned him, but he dared not turn his face from hers
As she wondered how long the house had been in such a state of disrepair.
Days? Months? Years, perhaps? Why did it matter now that he was leaving?
In spite of his reassurances, she knew she’d be gone before he returned.
“Coward,” she thought and continued contemplating the plaster.
Any time I’m sick I imagine this horrible scenario in which I’m left alone to die. Thank you, Stephen King for planting this morbid idea in my head.
Praying for Eyebrowz 