750words Feb 2 2015 ~ The Chipmunk Dance

The chipmunk dance was first introduced at a ceremony celebrating the arrival of the new moon, that tiny crescent of light tilted in the night sky like a fragile scoop honed from honeyed sunshine and hung high on the wall of el noche.

Man noted the slim elegance of this moon’s presence above the horizon and coincidentally movements of a furred animal with thin stripes of white running parallel over its shoulders and along its spine. Man was happy under the moon and over the chipmunk because, indeed, he was over the chipmunk as his shadow–thrown from the light of leaping flames unfurling toward dark heaven–flooded and pooled about the equally happy creature. Thus, Man identified the shape of the shadow as the shape of himself and movements of the chipmunk as the movements within himself as if he, himself, were the shadow and the chipmunk was, indeed, within Man’s self.

And so it was that Man began to dance, incorporating the pawed chipmunk’s movements, twitching and switching directions within the shadow and within the man, both chipmunk and man looking skyward from time to time and finding the tiny crescent of moon tilted above them. Crickets, cicadas, whipporwills, owls, loons and mammoths provided the rhythm of night’s music while the chipmunk danced within Man’s shadow and Man gyrated within the slim moon’s light.

As the moon gradually crossed the starlit sky, Woman appeared. She was as natural to the landscape as the grass, yet Man had never before seen her (or any woman for that matter) and he lost a few beats of the rhythm, and stumbled forward into his shadow very nearly stepping on the chipmunk. To step on the chipmunk would’ve been like stepping on his own heart because, by then, chipmunk and Man were integrated into one, or at least they believed they were, and we all know how the beliefs of Man are sacrosanct (not certain what sacrosanct means exactly but it seems to the author to fit in this line and so she will leave it there for the moment).

When Man nearly stepped on the chipmunk, a small gasp escaped from Woman’s lips and Man noticed her mouth and how the slip of light from the fragile scoop of the moon seemed to make her lips glisten with dew and how her eyes seemed lit from within with tiny fires of broken blue, the blue broken by wheat-colored gold and new-hay green and the tiniest petals of lilac blooms–and he stumbled anew–and not just because of Woman’s eyes.

Something inexplicable was happening and he knew not how to control it–even if he had wanted to control it–which he didn’t. His shadow was growing. And within his shadow, the chipmunk (who, meanwhile, had continued with a frenzied chipmunk dance while dodging Man’s awkward footing and dangerous sways) was growing within Man’s shadow.

Woman made note of these alterations to Man, Man’s Shadow, the small furry creature who danced in Man’s shadow. She moistened her lips. She was a healer. She could help Man. And she did.

She embraced and nurtured him through the phases of the moon, from new and crescent to half and full and through all the waning to half and crescent and new—and vice versa—through many seasons. As she did so, the chipmunk chittered and danced and chittered some more. He wasn’t alone. Other chipmunks arrived. They drank acorn wine and imbibed in daisy-chain chipmunkallia. Saber-toothed squirrels arrived to see what all the noise was about. And unicorns. A whole herd of unicorns came—sources for some pointed arguments about which there seemed no resolutions. (Note: Contrary to myth and legend, unicorns are vicious hooved beasts who stick their sharpened two cents in everywhere without permission and with no sense of decorum. Their absence from the modern world is due primarily to these vile tendencies—well, that, and the ride they missed on the ark.)

Long story short: Man found himself with Woman, Woman with Man. Most men have forgotten the bonding between the first man and the chipmunk who danced in his shadow and within his being–but not all.

I, the anonymous author of this informative piece soon to be posted on Wikipedia, have met one such Man—a man who celebrates the chipmunk, who dances the dance, who heals and is healed by Woman. Unfortunately, names must remain hidden.

750words March 24 2015 ~ Punch Cards and Angels

Earlier today I read a blog post by Ken Decroo (Baja Moto Quest) about a dear friend Ken had lost to cancer and I started thinking about losses and the blanks those who go leave behind, like punched holes in a ticket or those cards stores hand out where there’s maybe twelve numbers and when all twelve are punched you get a free skein of yarn at the knitting store, or a free carton of smokes at the cigarette store, or a big discount on whatever at wherever.

Is my life like one of those cards? A thin, glossy rectangle imprinted with the colors of people who made me (genetically) and teachers who taught me (trained this brain) and friends who have held me and allowed me to hold them (song sharers, happy and sad). Is my life like that? And each time one goes, leaves this world behind … each time one dies, this small flat rectangular card of my life gets a hole punched?

Two years from now I’ll be seventy. The grandmas and grandpas are gone. Mom and dad are gone. Dozens of aunts and uncles are gone. Many cousins. too. And friends. And a husband. Plus teachers. Punched holes in my card have left a whole lot of blanks. There shouldn’t be much glossy space left to apply that hole puncher and squeeze down. Wrong.

Remember that movie from way back when, the 30s or 40s with Loretta Young, David Niven and Cary Grant. Cary was an angel. Loretta was the preacher’s wife. The preacher was Niven. There’s a scene in that movie with a bottle of wine which refills due to the angel’s presence. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not religious. I don’t follow scriptures. I don’t have the gift of “faith”—none of that. Yet, I like the idea of angels. I like to think the punched holes, the blanks, aren’t really blanks at all. I like to think they’re all still here/there—they’ve just gone transparent, see-through—if you know what I mean.

Beyond the idea of transparent angels, there’s the reality of other folks filling the gaps. New friends. New family as grandkids arrive in this world. New people to hold me and allow me to hold them. This punch card, for all the hits it takes, doesn’t get weaker, doesn’t become a tatter of once-shiny cardstock, doesn’t fold, doesn’t tear, doesn’t shred into bits.

To be sure—this life is a little dog-eared at the corners. I wouldn’t want it any other way. If I looked brand new, what would that say? Answer: The holder of this card hasn’t lived, hasn’t been hurt, hasn’t felt the sting of a bee nor watched a swarm of butterflies take over a thistle bush at the creek, hasn’t fallen off a go-cart and ripped a scar to her leg she still rubs with memories every now and again, hasn’t loved hard and been loved tenderly, hasn’t waltzed across Texas and into Arkansas, hasn’t been stepped on, hasn’t stubbed a toe—because she never made a move, never opened a gate or a door to find what might be on the other side. Yep. I’ll take dog-eared any day of the year. And I do.

If I line up my angels—pick them one by one from my brain as if picking up paper dots the hole punch has clipped from life—and interrogate each one as I examine its presence on my fingertip, what will they have to say?

Will Daddy break his shy silence? No. He’ll beam with that ruddy glow–his way of showing pleasure.

Will Mama turn her eyes away? She might. She never quite knew what to make of me, never quite understood what made me tick, yet, she was nonetheless sinfully proud of everything I did from first baby-step right on through to the end.

And Al? What of my late husband?

Each time I try to examine what my fingertip holds, his dot slips away. Honestly, I can’t explain it, can’t say if it’s me causing him to slip—or him—unwilling to be questioned. I could trouble myself about this, throw the blame of whatever it is going on in my thinking (or not going on as the case may be) over my shoulder like a sack of heavy laundry and tote it around throughout the day. Or I can let it go. No need to peel his dot from my finger. He’s already slipped away, silently, not skulking—just slipped away, shoulders straight, head high, what might be a smile about to happen, about to play in his eyes, curl the ends of his moustache, find his lips, change his unreadable face.

750words March 23 2015 ~ Sol y Mar = Sun and Sea

A few days ago I talked a neighbor into going over to the place where I’ll be living in about five weeks. The address is Sol y Mar #3001.

Sol y Mar = Sun and Sea. It’s all that.

The current tenant, floppy curls windblown every once in a while to dance over his eyes, was friendly enough as he answered questions and pushed gray-streaked ringlets away from his line of vision.

I asked about the path to the playa below the house. “You think a woman my age can handle it?”

A middle-aged surfer, he said, “Do this,” and lowered himself to squat, arms extended.

I was down in a heartbeat, arms extended.

“Yeah. You can handle it,” he said, turning toward the arched door separating his place and the neighbors on the south. Lucky for me—his quick turn away from my squatted response to his directive—because some serious wobbles took place as I stood to follow him through the gate. Rather than offering a hand, my neighbor smirked as I wobbled, then seemed a little surprised I made it up without using my hands to push off the flagstone.

“How’s surfing here?” I asked. I’d already mentioned kids and grandkids who surfed.

“For long boarders, it’s a little piece of heaven. K38 is probably better for short boards, guys who really know their stuff.”

Then we were through the gate, passing between the neighbor’s back patio area and the edge of the bluff above the ocean, stopping at a low fence built from wrought iron window-guard scraps and broken plywood. Maybe a bit over two feet tall, and lower on the bluff edge end—the fence was haphazard at best.

“There are two ways to cross. Some of us step over here—were the fence is low,” he said, standing at the edge of the bluff. He demonstrated. On that end the fence was only fourteen or fifteen inches high; between where he stood and a free-fall of a hundred feet or more (probably more) to the playa below—there wasn’t much room for error. A wobble, coupled with a toe tripped up by the fencing, would not be a good thing.

Maybe he noticed the tilt of my head, the doubtful squint of an examining eye, or the smile I wore—one of those smiles that said, “Not a bluebird’s chance in hell.” Whatever the cause, he moved away from the edge toward the opposite end of the fence and said, “Or, you can pull this open here, and wedge through.”

“Here” was nine or twelve feet away from the fence’s low end (and the precipice). “Here” pieces of ironwork and plywood leaned against a post and could be heaved away, allowing sideways (if not frontal) passage. We sidestepped through, walked on barren ground, and approached an outdoor “living” area replete with two easy chairs scavenged from the side of the road or left near a dumpster for anyone who might find them of continued value. Random surfers frequent this spot; one said “Hi, folks” from the open side doors of his van as we passed. He looked as if he’d been napping, sleeping bag hanging loose from the van’s cargo area to kiss the ground. I pictured him kicked back in one of the easy chairs, feet planted on an overturned bucket used as an ottoman, wood blazing in the makeshift fire pit, gazing toward the horizon, watching the sets come in from this high bluff at the edge of the sea.

From there, we stepped sideways down a slopping trail to steeper terrain with shallow steps cut into the earth, curved right and came to a drop where three steps had been chiseled from the shale, dropped to our fannies to reach footing on the highest cut-in step, and continued to the sandy bottom with the next two steps.

The tenant, already several yards ahead, said something along the lines of, “Little piece of heaven,” and I said something like, “Big piece of heaven if you ask me.” Looking north or south, I found nothing but beauty. Beautiful boulders, shimmering water, stretches of clean sand without a single footprint other than those left by the birds.

Cinnamon colored long-legged birds with long needle-like beaks high-stepped through low-tide shallows, seagulls soared air currents overhead, anemones lined the faces of tide pools, and sand-stone formations offered nature-sculpted places to sit and take it all in.

“From here,” the tenant said, “at low tide you can walk as far north as Las Gaviotas or south as far as Puerto Nuevo.”

I looked at my neighbor. “Las Gaviotas? That means I can walk to Rancho Santini by cutting up from the beach there. If low tide’s early enough, I can still walk to Jo’s for morning coffee!” He gave me the smile, the one that says, “Yeah, right. Like that’s gonna happen.”

I’m thinkin’ it will. I’m thinkin’ “Fooled you when I stood up without using my hands. That walk’s gonna happen.” All I have to do is get past those easy chairs up on the bluff before I sit myself down and put my feet up to take it all in …

750words March 20, 2015 ~ Words and Heroines

It’s been a good month for words and falling in love with the people they build—again. I forget how charming and willful, stubborn and ugly they sometimes tend to be, then they come knocking, rising up from the page one by one, dusting the dirt from their knees, and I think, Hey! I know you. You’re the gal I gave the same hairstyle as my friend Sooz.

I’m talking about Irene’s crew of family and friends. Irene is the title character of a first novel (by me) due out in July 2015. Irene’s grand-niece is the one I gave the hairstyle of my dear friend, Sooz; her nephew (Buddy) is the one I gave characteristics of another friend’s cousin; the elderly detective who failed, in 1930, to solve the mystery of Irene’s early demise owns all the curmudgeonly charm of my favorite uncle. This month I found them again, these characters wrought from the real world I occupy into the fictional story-scape of vaudeville, circus, farm and city. Like best buddies from grade school or cousins from out of state, folks I haven’t seen or talked to in years, possibly decades, they warm this old heart when I hear their voice on the line.

A laugh escapes across the miles of telephone line and, just like that, their face is before me, a smile remembered, a cheesecake shared on a bench under a tree outside Riverside’s Mission Inn, a hike from the end of the road to the river bottom and, crossing the Santa Ana, the abandoned Power House on the river’s far side, flats of cardboard used as sleds to slide the steep and long-dry concrete slipway, wild rides perched in the back of a rusting blue pick-up truck through corn fields … oh, and all the crawdads caught in the irrigation canals running the perimeter of pastures and alfalfa fields … It’s like that, this reconnect to ginger-haired Irene who bruised and healed and bruised again, yet stood her ground with undaunted willfulness.

Words built my Irene, gave her freckles and a family which, for the most part, didn’t know how to handle the girl, much less the woman. Words constructed her worlds. From the Williamsport, Pennsylvania farm and the platform she dove from to slice into Loyalsock Creek as a girl to the Poseidon Park, Coney Island stage where she climbed into a cannon to be shot over the heads of paying spectators below—words gave these venues walls and windows, fields, ponds, farm houses and brownstones, kitchens, wall-papered bedrooms, railroad tracks and circus trains.

Reading and revising The True Life Adventures of Irene in White Tights for (what promises to be) the final draft, I came to the end and found myself already missing these fictional folks I’d brought into the world the way I miss my children and grandchildren when they visit—here for five days or a week—and gone, as if they’d only just arrived and their stay was too short. As if there were more conversations to explore, more Valentines to build with white glue, paper and glitter, more places to investigate, secrets to share, friends to introduce them to and shells to collect from the ocean’s shore.

So it is with Irene and her crew. They’ve been such a long time coming, growing into their environment … give me a sec while I figure out how to explain changes that have occurred, characters gone missing, scenes/settings which, at one time, filled pages …

You know how it is when you live in a neighborhood and gradually make the acquaintance of those who live around you, perhaps sharing cuttings and starts from your garden or recipes or cocktails at the 4 o’clock hour or coffee in the morning? Maybe you get to know more than you want (or need) to know about the nephew of this neighbor or the ex-husband/wife of that one, or the comings and goings of the mailman or too much about the personal life of the pastor at your local church or the manager of the Little League team your son or granddaughter or whoever plays on.

It’s like that—Irene introduced me to too many neighboring characters. I couldn’t leave them alone.

Regardless of how far afield they might lead me or how little they had to offer “Irene”—I wanted more and more of their personal stories. I let the novel’s neighborhood chatter take over, left Irene in a wobbly lawn chair on the periphery of the patio! (For those of you who find it difficult to follow my writing style, the gist of this is: I had to shush! the crowd. When this didn’t work, I had to ask some to leave.)

Yesterday, reaching the end of Irene’s rewrites, I wondered, “Where’s Ricky? What happened to Ricky Towne?” I found him today—day-dreaming about the bicycle shop he’d have if the world would just give him an effin’ break. A character of pimply-faced wonder, Ricky Towne was found in an early chapter on a file buried within a flashdrive at the back of a seldom used desk drawer. What a mouth that young man had, “F” words all over the place, and a bad attitude for a chair pusher on Atlantic City’s boardwalk. No surprise Ricky never earned much by way of tips on the boardwalk, or found his way into The True Life Adventures of Irene in White Tights final draft.

[He may, however, find his way into a short story. I do hate to think Ricky’s dream of a bicycle shop ended on my account … but—he’ll have to clean up his language before he finds space on my page.]

750words March 14 2015 ~ Tequila and Transplanting Shock

Yesterday I wrote of whales and bricks. Today, while this two-story townhouse casts cooling shade over the backyard, I should be pruning pelagoniums, removing the once broad but now thrashed and wind-shriveled leaves on the banana tree Marcelo planted, soaking the ground to dig up dozens of cana shoots, reducing the spread of red apple—lush succulent that it is—with its fiery pink blooms so loved by the bees. Instead, I’m writing.

Thus far, with the exception of one day, I’ve maneuvered 750 words plus to the page. I blame tequila for the missed day. The thing with tequila is this: It makes a person mis-remember. Or not remember at all. The thing with the missed day is that I know I began my 750 and believed I’d completed them only to find, on the following day, I hadn’t. This lapse may have been age-related, but I choose to blame it on the tequila. Why? Because tequila intake is by choice; aging and memory loss due to aging—is not. By opting for tequila as cause, I avoid the unavoidable proof of a failing brain. Did I, in fact, have tequila on the third of March, the missing day in question? I haven’t a clue …

By May, I will be gone from here, moved to a different place. I will miss my garden: its sandy paths through the red apple groundcover; the palm trees Fernando planted when they were mere pups—barely a foot tall—not even close to the tall dogs they’re meant to become; yucca starts that took hold in this ground after Jennifer brought them to me; creamy white blooms of the calla lilies happily shaded beneath a wall of magenta bougainvillea; mounds and leafy galloping stems of white, purple and pink African daisies; vining tendrils of orange and yellow nasturtium … yes, I will miss all of this. This greening and growing. The chaos of it all. I’ll even miss the weeds.

There are things I can take, dig up and replant at the new place. The double-orange hibiscus must leave Rancho Santini with me just as it left Hacienda Villa de Floresta and the tiny casita where I lived when Jo Ann delivered it into my hands as a house-warming-bienvenidos-welcoming gift. For a time, that hibiscus and I lived at Terraznos in a big party house on the hill across from Calafia; for another spell, the hibiscus in its pot adorned the front porch of the pink house in Rosarito centro before moving with me to Plaza del Mar’s Los Arcos section into Doug and Anna’s charming cabana (which no longer exists). Another move—up the hill from the cabana—the hibiscus occupied an upstairs patio with a view of sea and dolphins at play while I occupied a studio apartment and enjoyed the comforts and friendship of my landlady, Ruth.

So many moves (five) in so few years (three) … it’s a wonder she’s survived. (I think of this particular hibiscus with its double-orange blossoms as female, representational of Judith Hollahan, a precious friend who lost a nasty battle with cancer before a sufficiency of tick-marks decorated her bucket list, a friend who loved “orange” in every possible way—from nail polish to crockery, lipstick to flowers—and is, very likely, the reason I signed the first lease on the tiny casita south of the border. Judith’s death, a few weeks before I traveled south to “visit” a friend, caused me to consider my own “bucket list.” Living in Mexico may not have been on the list when I arrived—but it was once I got here. End of story.)

For three and a half years, I’ve put down roots at Rancho Santini. The double-orange went into the ground here; she’s blossomed as never before, happy beside a deep-pink blooming sister I purchased in early 2014. I’ll take them when I go, dig a hole in new ground, nurture them with food and water, watch them grow, become lovely again after the shock of transplanting. I’ll do the same with the flax, with the blue agave (a gift from Fernando), with the calla lily and new starts of African daisies.

Hmm … all this “missing” business filling the screen … Am I suffering an early onset of the “shock of transplanting”? If so, let it be. Let it come. Bring me a shot of tequila as the sun sets. Let me grieve for what I’m leaving behind. And forget. There’s new ground waiting, a new place to settle into, take root, blossom as, perhaps, I haven’t yet done. I can become lovely again. I will. In time.

750words Apr 14, 2014 ~ Gone Astray. The Words.

Gone astray. The words. They were there in the middle of a pasture of green thoughts and when I looked off in search of one, all the others disappeared. If I had a boss, I don’t know what he might say. Might even fire me from this current position I hold. If he did, how he would go about advertising for a replacement?

Wanted: Reasonable speller although, with spellcheck as a back-up, reasonable may be asking more than is required. Must know the difference between “where” and “were.” Would also be to applicant’s advantage if the “to” “too” and “two” problem of which to choose is a known. Dress codes are not applicable for fieldwork during word herd tending. Must provide own imagination and arrive on time with details at the ready to fill stanchions placed here and there at the edge of the meadow. Employer prefers applicants experienced in word culling, a history of separating weaker members of the herd from the stronger. Sturdy yet comfortable shoes will be a plus as the words often stray out of sight and into surrounding woods. A stick is also advised as the beasts are sometimes stubborn, unwilling to move without a good poke or solid thwack of encouragement. Word counts at the end of each shift are a must. The herd will fluctuate in numbers—this is a side effect of good husbandry and expertise, as mentioned earlier, in culling methods. Noxious “thats” and articles (“the” and “a”) should be weeded from otherwise nutritious green swards of clever clover whenever possible. Articles are often difficult to see; applicant should have a good back for stooping low, knee pads for crawling and keeping his/her nose to the ground in search of these pesky interlopers. Pay is next to nothing and what is paid is offered not in cash but as barter. Applicant works the herd of words with applicant’s imagination and receives, in trade for hours and frustrations, permission to work.

I don’t have a boss. Other than me. So what’s all the above nonsense about? Finding a new me to shepherd the words? Yes. I think that’s exactly what it’s about. I’ve embarrassed myself. Vanity. Thinking what I write, how I herd the words and cull and cajole and spoil the words is better than it is. Thinking when I enter them at the State Fair I’ll be the one winning blue ribbons—not Best in Show—but blue, red or white ribbons to hang on the walls of imagination. Marks of success. Kudos from friends. Applause. Atta-girls. Ovations. Silly me.

I have comfortable sturdy shoes for chasing down and rounding up what’s gone missing. I also have stone bruises on both feet. And worn out knees from crawling through the lushness of what’s good to weed out what’s bad. Additionally, my vision’s gone. Not entirely, but very much depleted, very much dulled. If I can’t see the bad, how can I pull it out by the roots?

You can see my dilemma, can’t you? How difficult it is to lace-up the boots of brown writing and tie off the laces in neat double-knotted bows, to trudge into the valley where words huddle in groups hungry and waiting for stanchions to be filled with details I’ll haul there in buckets. They shouldn’t be so heavy, these details. They’re only airy images of places visited (Italy, Greece, Mexico, Brooklyn, Raleigh, Ann Arbor, Jamaica), houses lived in (on the ranch, above the college, behind Thrifty’s Drugs, near the creek, at ocean’s edge), emotions felt (rage, betrayal, pride, love, love, love), and scents–the perfumes and sweat worn by the living and dead. Yet when they stack upon one another for what seems eternity, they bring this writer to her knees (and not in search of worrying articles).

Foolish writer, me. Wanting a cheering section. What I need to do is imagine myself as a cross-country skier, alone, in the cold, exhilarated, clouds of moist air pushed from my lungs leading the way up a hill and down a slope on a path nonexistent before my skis made visible tracks. Alone, working hard. Managing the trail from station to station. From one cup of steaming hot story to the next.

Or a surfer. I could be on a board, feet dangled in the water, watching the horizon from a seated position. Watching the white caps if there’s wind. Watching gulls soar and swoop. Waiting for words to roll in swells. Words I can ride from the deep to shore.

750words Feb 12 2015 ~ Ellen Bass & Me & Two Odes

Because I’m stuck I’m writing words not mine to establish a pattern of sound and rhythm. The initial words belong to Ellen Bass, the poem is:

Ode to the God of Atheists

The god of atheists won’t burn you at the stake
or pry off your fingernails. Nor will it make you
bow or beg, rake your skin with thorns,
or buy gold leaf or stained-glass windows.
It won’t insist you fast or twist
the shape of your sexual hunger.
There are no wars fought for it, no women stoned for it.
You don’t have to veil your face for it
or bloody your knees.
You don’t have to sing.

The plums bloom extravagantly,
the dolphins stitch sky to sea.
Each pebble and fern, pond and fish
is yours whether or not you believe.

When fog is ripped away
just as a rust-red shadow slides across the moon,
the god of atheists isn’t rewarding you
for waking in the middle of the night
and shivering barefoot in the field.

This god is not moved by the musk
of incense or bowls of oranges,
the mask brushed with cochineal,
polished rib of the lion.
Eat the macerated leaves
of the sacred plant. Dance
till the stars blur to a spangly river.
Rain, if it comes, will come.
This god loves the virus as much as the child.

*

So, the above is the Ellen Bass poem. Now to come up with an appropriate subject other than the god of atheists … and not a god. I think I’ll run with a house. The house of (what?) … The house of love? The house of death? The house of loneliness? The house of happiness?

The House of Happiness

The house of happiness will make your face ache
and drum songs on your sternum. It’s not like the house
of sad, of lonely, of broken,
or wooded with coffins satin-lined.
It makes no promises nor expects
cartoon hearts to float from your eyes.
There are no window curtains, no locks on its doors.
You don’t have to knock your knuckles raw
or ring bloody bells.
You do need to step in.

The rooms are organza,
the decor is vanilla ice cream.
Each sofa and lamp, bed and bowl
is an apple or bon-bon treat.

When day becomes evening,
when lavender spokes wheel the dome of sky,
the house of happiness won’t begrudge you
for walking the shores of midnight, or returning
with sand-glittered feet.

This house welcomes what falls away,
the silica shine of journeys,
the nacre-blushed debris,
totems of chocolate.
Sleep the dreamed sleep
of lambs curled against ewes. Laugh
till stones burble songs down high mountains.
Tears, if they come, will spring.
This house welcomes you, welcomes every lost one.

*

Ok. It’s done. Unedited, but done for the moment–these words replacing a master poet’s words. Ellen Bass is fantastic. Not to be trifled with, not to be matched. Ode to the God of Atheists is a poem found in Like a Beggar — a book full of exquisite work. An apology seems in order:

Dear Ellen,
Forgive me for trespassing, wandering onto your property, taking the paths you’ve created and redecorating your lovely garden of words with different bouquets. Without permission or invitation, I’ve spent time with a blanket thrown down in your forest. Will it help if I mention Prayer, the poem gracing the back cover of Like a Beggar? The opening line: “Once I wore a dress liquid as vodka.” (Who can resist wanting more?) Will it help if I encourage every reader of this flimsy blog of mine to buy Like a Beggar? Such a feast, this book. Such a feast.

I have no excuse for my actions here, other than a desire to improve my skills as a wordsmith. Who better to follow than you? (Yes, Mary Oliver … but her books are not within reach at the moment.)

Respectfully, lynn

*

It’s a thing I do, this imitation of other writers. I’m never certain about the right or wrong of my efforts. I don’t want or mean to plagiarize. I try not to directly repeat the words of others. It’s the rhythm, the sounds, the abrupt change of directions, the use of similes and metaphors, adjectives, adverbs, etc. that I go for–or the absence of same. It’s the syllables, the beat, the simplicity or complexity of syntax, the story arc, the movement from A to B to C, the assonance, alliteration, the esses and efs and hisses, the magic of words a maestra has spellbound me with–and I just can’t seem to stop reaching for that.

750words Feb 11 2015 ~ The Dress Form

Once upon a time there was a dress form made of wandering leaves cut from tin and rigid iron which stood near the window and waited. Rusted bronze in color, the form wore a narrow belt of hammered tin and a pendant in the shape of a clock that opened and could hold a paper cutout heart or a picture of someone dear, or both, along with a lock of hair and a button from a favorite shirt.

The form was headless. Its bottom edge was where a woman’s legs ended once they went all the way up. Crossbars ran from one side of the bottom edge of the form to the other. Where the bars crossed, they rested upon a hollow iron column almost the size of a vacuum cleaner wand. The column supported the form and stood vertical and straight with four curvilinear legs which ended in curly-ques on the floor and kept the form from tilting or tipping over when the weight of the sun slapped it with day’s flat palm of light.

All day long the form waited, tin leaves never wilting, tin belt without a pucker or sag. Its shoulders kept very good posture through every disappointment, every new mote of dust that settled atop the rounded surfaces of rigid iron, plus all the tickling shifts of light as day walked up the sky and over the roof of the casa where the form was kept.

Because the form was headless, it could not sigh. Air was immobile, did not move outward or inward, was simply there, within the form, surrounding the form, and, because the form was skinless, it could be seen through from all sides—the leaves twining its back like a visible echo of the leaves twining its front. In essence, it was as empty as the clock-shaped pendant worn about its neck: a hollow chamber made of vertical spines held in line by the hammered belt and the absent hands of an artisan who once upon a time sculpted the form of an invisible woman.

The form’s patience was endless as it waited through the morning light, the afternoon shade, the deeper shades of evening, the dark balmy nights pin-pricked by stars and an indecisive moon which showed itself incrementally only to hide itself in the same manner. All the form wanted was to be used. To be useful. To carry the weight of a shawl or a shirt or a dress. A summer scarf woven of chiffon and light as a feather would have pleased the form. Was it asking so very much to sense such a scarf’s supple softness draping its posture-perfect shoulders, the drape of its length running the length of its meandering leaves, perhaps the finely rolled narrow hem of one end tossed casually around its headless neck? These, or any one of these sensations, would’ve brought comfort to the form.

But the form’s mistress, who once crafted sundry items the form could support, no longer busied herself with such things. Rather than a crafter of textiles, its mistress had given over such industry to become a crafter of words. The click of knitting needles had been replaced by the tickety-tick of the keyboard, the construction of syllables ricocheting about the room where the form waited, and the plumes of smoke rising from the numerous cigarettes the form’s mistress smoked during her frenzied attempts to shape words into stories.

If the form owned a head for worry and angst, for whining and winges about its plight of existence, it might have expressed by thought or a tilted angle of its stand the injustice of being left idle, the unfairness of words chained together which could not be worn, the waste of her mistress’s imagination on airy nothings. What were words, anyway? What made them so important? They couldn’t be fitted over the form, couldn’t be straight-pinned into pleasant and pleasing designs, couldn’t decorate the form’s elegant vining of tin leaves, the meandering ways of pressed metals. If the form owned a head capable of emotions, it would be vexed.

As it is, the form doesn’t own any such head. It doesn’t own legs—only a stiffly elegant four-footed stand. It can’t run away. Can’t show its displeasure in regard to being unused, ignored, left by a window to gather dust and sun in the morning, pinpricks of light by night. It might think, if it could, how fine it would be if stories and poems were semi-solid things—items woven from silk and wool, from bamboo fibers and flax—articles woven with structure and beauty, their endings evenly hemmed with perfectly spaced similes, their beginnings draped and tossed lightly about this waiting form’s headless neck.

750words Jan 31 2015 — I’m Pretty Sure It’s Not Art

When I think about all the things I’ve made (there must be hundreds, thousands), I go off course (as with that parenthetical, and this one) because I can’t settle on where to take this sentence, end this thought.

By “made” I mean constructed, built, brought into being via needle and thread, embroidery floss, hoop, yarn and hook, canvas and brush, oils, acrylics, watercolors, sanded paper and pastels, sewing machines, scissors, fabric, beads, looms, buttons, white glue, mortar, concrete, draw knives, logs, seeds and tubers and bulbs, saplings, cuttings, mulch, clay pots, broken china, this womb, classes and jobs and neighborhoods (where friendships bud and bloom), paper, pen, keyboard and words.

With words I’ve built poems, moments, emotions, scenes, stories, landscapes, towns, farms and congregations. I’ve built people from scratch, borrowing fragments from real lives (the broken-veined nose of an old farmer who drank too much, an eyelid that refuses to open from a George Carlin comedic routine, hands and forearms dusted with flower and the knobby knuckles of a grandmother, anger from an aunt’s husband, pathetic self-pity from myself), and patched them into singular beings. I’ve transplanted a beating heart into the breast of the ocean, given swells and breakers a pulse, drowned a dolphin with six-pack carrier plastic, and shared the imagined life of a rock.

With broken china I’ve built benches and bird baths, embedded horseshoes and bedsprings between concrete rubble and marble chessboards to create patios, sidewalks and planters. Gardens emerged from cuttings and mulch—red bud saplings bloomed cyrise through my Februarys, Aprils and Mays. Flags of iris waved, hollyhocks spired to the house eaves, pink roses fell in cascades from the Trees of Heavenly Light along the road to the creek while corkscrew willow curved paths skyward from the muck of the mosaic’d pond.

The sofa in Grandma Due’s Borger, Texas apartment is where I sat as she taught me to thread a needle, embroider the fur on a kitten and french-knot the centers of daisies. The sofa at Grandma Ivy’s is where she showed me how to loop yarn around a finger to cross my palm for tension and maneuver a metal hook in and out of a chain stitch with single, double, and triple crochets. The sofa in the first house Al and I shared is where I taught myself to knit from book.

Nine years later, he taught me how to straddle a log, lean out as far as arms could reach, snug a draw knife’s sharpened edge into bark at an angle—and pull. Long curls of bark peeled away. Callouses toughened my butt as I slid back along those logs. There were 800 of them. I didn’t work alone. His dad, his brothers, our nine year old son, neighbors—pitched in and peeled. Eventually, we hired help. Eventually, we started bolting logs together. Eventually, we had a lodgepole pine home two stories tall and heated with burning love.

From this womb, three babies had their beginnings. (Passive construction is the only way I know how to describe my part in their becoming. I provided fertile territory for seeds to take root and thrive.)

Friendships sprang up across the hills and valleys of this life.

How do I take credit for these? I can’t.

I can’t take credit for any creation listed above. Oh, I did become a tool, I suppose, for continuing with a craft. Maybe a bit more than a tool. Maybe a partner … and still a partner … with Grandmothers—Emma and Elsie—with Mama, Daddy, my children (and theirs), friends, lovers, lovers, friends. But the things—all the things—wouldn’t be, would not have become without the hands-on help and direction of others.

So many others.

My children wouldn’t be who they are if it weren’t for who they were to begin with, that mysterious spark of life, that mix of Al and me. My friends wouldn’t be my friends if they didn’t find some redeemable quality in me, if they didn’t have patience with my stubborn side and often moody disposition.

Even these words strewn across the screen wouldn’t amount to much if there weren’t a reader—a partner—taking them in. Like a teeter-totter needs counterweight for the ride to be real, for the rise and the fall to occur, story (or whatever you may want to call this) needs audience. Eyes and minds to decipher what in blue blazes the words may be intended to say. I use the word “may” because the meaning, the base material out of which this construct began, has frayed. Broken threads all over the place. Repairs and alterations are in order. Or not. It could be I’ve built something here. It could be … but … I’m pretty sure it’s not art.

750words Jan 29 2015 — Days like All Night Cantinas

The first month of 2015 is almost a done deal. Two days remain after this one closes its door at midnight. What if days aren’t what they seem and are, instead, like all-night cantinas—with swinging doors and no locks? Wind or a light breeze moves the doors, sets hinges in motion to squeak conversations and remind the folks anchored on chairs and bar stools that things are still in motion: tumbleweeds rolling from somewhere to somewhere else, prairie dogs tidying their underground rooms and possibly tunneling with thoughts of adding an east wing to their domiciles, caterpillars sleeping all cozy within their white cocoons while wings make their way into being and dreams of flight become real.

What if days didn’t end and the dark and light shades of a span of time were nothing more than shadows like the shadows trees along a highway through the forest cast across passengers in a car, across the car itself? Answer: This would still be Day One.

Instead, we move through time and notch its surface with dates by way of numbers and when the numbers reach a particular point—thirty-one for January—we restart the counting with a new governing name. February stands in line, waiting to carry its notches, while March cowers out there, collecting courage for its debut.

Imagination’s a wondrous tool! Depending upon where a mind wants to travel, it can reshape all manner of things. For instance, carving months into branches—each branch the governor (or mayor, if you will) of a town of leaves. The leaves into days, the trees into years, the hundred-branched trees into centuries. Forests, orchards, jungles—all those branches, trunks, roots, and leaves—living and dying, rotting and sprouting again through the course of a long, unending, singular day of light and shadow.

Think about it.

There would be chaos, of course. If time didn’t have markers, didn’t have clocks to chime minutes and hours, didn’t have calendars to X out the days and months and years—how would we know when we’d come of age to collect Social Security? Without a closing bell, how would the brokers know when to stop selling and buying? the bartender at the cantina know when to stop serving drinks? Without a buzzer of some sort, how would horses at the track know when to run? bees in the hive know when to fly out for honey? contestants on Jeopardy! know their time to offer a question was done? Plus all the schedules of subways, buses, submarines, hot air balloons, planes, trains, and space shuttles—where would they be without Stop and Go buttons?

Imagine the pile-up. All that singed silk from the hot air balloon draping a submarine’s coning tower on train tracks near Yellowstone where a buffalo paused to watch a United flight soar into a flock of Canadian honkers. Chaos? Oh yes indeed.

Of course the imaginative flow of my treatise on time has its flaws, is shot through with surrealistic bullets leaving holes an eighteen wheeler could drive through without a scrape. The one-long-and-continuous-day theory can’t hold up, not when the geese get in the way. And the buffalo. These creatures don’t name the incremental parts of time. Even if they could hold a knife in their talons or hooves and manage to score a notch in a metaphorical branch of time, they wouldn’t because what is and isn’t—is internalized. Doesn’t need names. And unnamed, needs no notches.

So what am I trying to say?

I guess it’s this: Sometimes I find myself where I don’t belong (like that damned submarine on a train track near Yellowstone) and can’t figure out how I landed there or how to get back to where I think (imagine) I belong. Other times I’m sure I’m exactly where I ought to be and, BAM! I get knocked right out of the sky. It doesn’t matter if we name time or not. It doesn’t matter if we trod upon a forest floor littered with fallen days or the simple leaves unable to hold onto (or be held by) a branch. The important thing is to be in it (the “it” being time) and drift with its current, whether that current be swift or slow. It’s all in a day’s journey. The rising up, the settling down. All I need do is listen, hear the squeak of this all-night cantina’s doors, dance when I can, continue to step inside this great woven basket with sand bags weighting the sides, watch the colorful stripes fill with hot air, the silk riffle out to sway, expand, carry me above the trees holding decades and eons of this singular day.